The Vice of Kings

Book excerpt: In today's "post-truth" world, we are becoming inundated with fantasy fictions, "alternate news," and grossly oversimplified (and wildly exaggerated) conspiracy theories that identify cryptocratic power structures ruling our fates. But suppose the truth is both stranger than any fiction and more nuanced and disturbing than any theory? Suppose it is not conspiracy but complicity that creates our world?Beginning as an investigation into the author's childhood inside a closet aristocracy of "progressive" British entrepreneurs, The Vice of Kings uncovers a history both disturbingly personal and shockingly universal. By juxtaposing disc jockey Jimmy Savile's secret cultural, criminal, and political affiliations in the second half of the 20th century with the life and teachings of Aleister Crowley in the first, it uncovers an alarming body of evidence that organized child abuse is not only the dark side of occultism, but the shadowy secret at the heart of culture, both ancient and modern.