I think you're misunderstanding me. Of course I know who Aleister Crowley is, and in fact I know a lot about spiritualism and occult history and thinking. I can't tell what everyone's big problem with this is - it's a book by a former Blondie member, which is (I'm SURE) why it was mentioned here, and I looked at the amazon listing and found the following:

Synopsis
The occult was a crucial influence on the Renaissance, and it obsessed thinkers like Isaac Newton. Works of brilliance, sometimes even of genius were produced under the influence of occultism. Yet, not too infrequently, it also opened the door on a peculiar kind of madness. The Dedalus Book of the Occult celebrates the influence of occult thought and sensibility on some of the central poets and writers of the last two centuries, beginning with the Enlightenment obsession with occult politics, through the Romantic explosion, the paradoxically decadent and futuristic occultism of the fin de siecle, and the deep occult roots of the modernist movement. Swedenborg, Baudelaire, Huysmans and Strindberg are only some of the names to feature in this hidden history of western thought.

I see many reasons why James might have thought that this might be of interest to other fans of Richard Hell, or, indeed, that other fans might have read it or had a thought about it.

I hope I am finally clear. I still think it sounds like an interesting piece of literature worth at least taking a look at IF you are interested IN, for example, Baudelaire or Huysmans OR the history of scientific thinking etc. I would think the detractor of such a book would be that it is scholarly or somewhat academic, in the lit/crit or historical vein, and therefore that lots of people categorically wouldn't have time for it.