The book by Martin Booth, a famous American publicist, is the first objective biography of Aleister Crowley, the notorious writer, magician and public figure, based on facts and archival documents. Crowley left behind so many myths and false rumors, created by the press and himself, that only the calm, sober eye of a biographer can recognize the "real" Crowley as the "Great Beast 666", a drug addict, bisexual, libertine and egomaniac who considered himself a prophet who had risen on the same level with God, who believed that he was sent by the Secret Teachers to teach humanity the law of the true will: “Do what you want - that’s the whole law.” For more than half a century, the name of Aleister Crowley has been exalted, ridiculed, he arouses both pity and envy, vilified by the yellow press as “the most terrible man in the world” and “the king of sin.” Who really was this climber, poet and essayist, author of The Book of the Law, founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis and the Abbey of Thelema, whose main passions all his life were magic and himself?