Israel Regardie (1907-85) was secretary, pupil and sometimes friend of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Gerald Suster (1951-2001) was pupil, friend and ultimately memoirist of Israel Regardie. Regardie broke with Crowley before World War II and after the war qualified as a doctor of psychology and licenced chiropractor, settling in the USA. Suster visited him there as a very young man and stayed with him in California and Arizona on many occasions.
This memoir therefore, is one notorious occultist (Suster got money out of News International when they defamed him in one of their scandal rags) writing about another. Regardie had become notorious during the height of Crowley's time as self-described Wickedest Man in the World, and had been banned from entering England even though, like Suster, he was born in London.
In occult circles Regardie was praised and despised in equal measure because he was the one who wrote it all down and made the secret rituals of the Golden Dawn available and comprehensible to outsiders. It was his writing, of course, that initially attracted Suster.
Crowley's Apprentice is interesting in many ways. For the generalist it offers valuable insights into the rebirth of magic around 1900 and leads to other sources.
