“Liber AL vel Legis, Chapter 1” is a collborative track from Sekhet-Maat in Portland, OR added by Frater M.P.D. in the Hermetic Library audio pool.
Group reading by Sekhet-Maat Lodge. Project conceived and recorded by Soror Theodora. Music and production by Frater M.P.D.
This Third Day of the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law Poster is helpful propaganda from the Hermetic Library Office of the Ministry of Information … for this Thelemic Holy Day in Anno V0. This is the anniversary of the day on which Chapter III of Liber XXXI, the manuscript of what would become Liber AL vel Legis, Book of the Law, was received in a magical working by Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly in 1904 EV.
This Second Day of the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law Poster is helpful propaganda from the Hermetic Library Office of the Ministry of Information … for this Thelemic Holy Day in Anno V0. This is the anniversary of the day on which Chapter II of Liber XXXI, the manuscript of what would become Liber AL vel Legis, Book of the Law, was received in a magical working by Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly in 1904 EV.
This First Day of the Three Days of the Writing of the Book of the Law Poster is helpful propaganda from the Hermetic Library Office of the Ministry of Information … for this Thelemic Holy Day in Anno V0. This is the anniversary of the day on which Chapter I of Liber XXXI, the manuscript of what would become Liber AL vel Legis, Book of the Law, was received in a magical working by Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly in 1904 EV.
Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar is a crowdfunding effort from Knights Templar, a local body of O.T.O. in the Valley of Salem, MA, which may be of interest.
The campaign will “raise the money needed to print and sell a full-size ‘Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar’ showcasing Thelemic artists; filled with the Holy Days, the Feast Days for the Gnostic Saints, etc., as well as the Moon Signs and Phases.” The calendar itself is designed to run from March 2014 – March 2015 so it is particularly timely right now. The art is by a number of artists you may recognize including frequent Hermetic Library visual pool contributor Marjan Ŝetar as well as Kat Lunoe and the late John “Snakedaddy” Hanley, to mention only a few.
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
For three years now I have wanted to create a professionally printed, full-size, ultimate “Thelemic Seasonal Holy Day Wall Calendar”, filled with the specifically listed Liber AL Holy Days, the Solstices and Equinoxes, the Cross-quarter days, the Feast Days for the Gnostic Saints, etc., as well as providing the always useful Moon Sign and Phase information.
Furthermore, my goal has been to showcase Thelemic artists (preferably Sisters and Brothers of the O.T.O.) by complementing each of the 13 months (from March to March, Aries to Aries) with beautiful Thelemic art appropriate to its Holy Days.
It is my belief and hope that this publishing project can and will be a significant contribution to Thelemic culture. Everyone who has looked at it seems to agree.
I have thus far received approval from all of the artists whose work I selected for the calendar, including:
· Sister Cathryn Orchard (now Crane) of Ouarda Arts in the UK
· Brother Nathan Hopkins and Brother Mitchell Nolte of the Collective 777 Art Guild in Australia
· Marjan Ŝetar in Slovenia
· Kat Lunoe, John “Snakedaddy” Hanley, Michele Witchipoo, Nick “The Barbarian” Kelley, and others here in the US
They have all given permission, and each one indicated their excitement and enthusiasm for the potential of this project.
Apart from a little final editing, the design phase of the project is complete, it can be ready to go to the printers in a week or less. What we need now is the funds to make it happen! Our goal of $500 will ensure a 50-print run, so we can begin getting this out into the Thelemic community.
I am now very optimistic that, with your assistance, we can have this project completed and made available to the larger O.T.O. and Thelemic community in time for the Equinox!
My true goal here personally is to get this calendar out to as much of the larger O.T.O. and Thelemic community as possible, and then to turn around and focus on doing a bigger and better job at producing the next year’s calendar. But whatever money we make over and above production costs will go into the Knights Templar Oasis treasury, where it is desperately needed!
So check out the Gallery above, and give what you can! $25 gets you your own copy of the Calendar! Thank you all SO much for your support!
Love is the law, love under will.
— Frater A Ka Dua”
You may be interested in Weiser Antiquarian Books Catalogue #117 Aleister Crowley and Circle. A Miscellany of Used and Rare Books and Ephemera.
“The catalogue is divided into three sections, the first of which is devoted to the magnificent Frieda Lady Harris / Aleister Crowley Thoth Tarot Calendar that was published for the year 1987. The calendars are huge (16.5″ x 10.5″) and each has 12 full-colour large size reproductions of different Thoth tarot designs. Serendipitously the alignment of days / dates in 2015 will be exactly the same as it was in 1987, so those who want to actually use the calendar will be able to do so next year! We have only a very small number of original new copies — recently discovered in England — and originals are rare, as many owners disassembled them and framed each of the images individually (we have one such set on the walls at Weiser Antiquarian).
The second section is devoted to books and ephemera by Aleister Crowley. It includes a good selection of First Editions of Crowley’s works, including the first separate British and US editions of The Book of the Law (1938 & 1942 respectively), a good selection of First Editions of the first series of The Equinox, including one of the rare white buckram issues of which there were only 50 copies, and a handsomely bound copy of The Equinox, Vol. III, No. 1. (‘The Blue Equinox‘ — 1919) from the library of Ray G. Burlingame (1893–1965) ‘Frater Aquarius,’ a IX degree member of the Agape Lodge of the O.T.O., with his stylised ownership inscription. Other First Editions include a superb set of the first issue of Magick In Theory and Practice (1929) in four parts, with the rare, 4 page prospectus and the single-sheet Subscription Form; The Sword of Song. Called by Christians The Book of the Beast (1904), two different variants of The Tale of Archais. A Romance in Verse (1898), a handsomely rebound copy of Oracles: The Biography of an Art (1905) and first separate editions of The City of God (1943) and The Fun of the Fair (1942), including a copy of the latter with the two additional poems that were left out of most copies because of wartime censorship regulations. Posthumous editions include a highly unusual Thelema publications re-issue of The Vision and The Voice (1952 / 1980), the sought-after John Symonds and Kenneth Grant edited Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Book of the Law (1974) and a lovely copy of the Karl Germer edition of Liber Aleph (1962) with the extremely unusual original single-sided prospectus loosely inserted. There is also some fascinating ephemera, including a proof copy of Liber LXXVII. [Liber Oz] with holograph notes by Crowley on the verso; an autograph letter, signed, from Crowley to his physician urgently requesting a replacement prescription for heroin, and a holograph draft of a letter from Crowley to Frieda Lady Harris, along with a typed letter signed to Crowley from his lawyers, who had evidently vetted the contents of the letter on Crowley’s behalf!
The third and final section of the catalogue comprises works which in one way or another relate to Aleister Crowley. These include a copy of the rare first edition of Betty May’s Tiger-Woman (1929) — which famously includes a chapter on her stay at Cefalu, and a delightful early edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses (1926), a book which Crowley greatly admired, but which was banned in the UK at the time and comes with a home-made “modesty shield” so that it can sit undetected on the shelves. Both books are from the library of Edward Noel Fitzgerald (1908-1958), Frater Agape, a IX degree member of the O.T.O., long-time friend of Aleister Crowley’s, and briefly Karl Germer’s representative in the U.K., with his posthumous bookplate. Other curiosities include Liber Vel Oviz 93 Sub Figura LXXVI as Delivered By Oviz to Przoval 8 = 3 (1981) an unusual privately printed work that appears to present itself as a ‘sequel’ to or extension of “The Book of the Law,” S. Ivor Stephen’s, Neutrality: the Crucifixion of Public Opinion From the American Point of View (1916), a well-reasoned argument for keeping the USA out of the First World War, which includes a number of references to the views on the subject of the “great English writer and poet” Crowley and his circle; and a typed letter, signed, from Dennis Wheatley to Crowley, discussing publication possibilities for Crowley’s memoirs (1934)
Weiser Antiquarian Books has posted a number of new arrivals, including a Book of the Law privately issued by O.T.O. in London from 1938, as well as other items of interest such as A E Koetting’s The Book of Azazel, Alexander Winfield Dray’s Nox Infernus and Liber Obsidian Obscura, Sabbatica compiled by Edgar Kerval, Liber Nigri Solis edited by Victor Voronov, Michael Cecchetelli’s Crossed Keys, Nigel Pennick’s The Toadman, and a number of Aleister Crowley, Israel Regardie, Jack Parsons, Kenneth Grant, Austin Osman Spare, and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn related works as well as others of probable interest.
“Saksaksalim (25th Tunnel of Set)” is a track added by y3mk in the Hermetic Library audio pool.
“Saksaksalim is the eighth stage in a personal quest through the Tunnels of Set, involving several kinds of consciousness alteration mechanisms.
Saksaksalim deals with becoming one with all perception, but it could be better described as the opposite: destroying the identification with a body as a partial object of perception. Therefore, it might be more of a dis-identification than an identification of the self with everything.
The lyrics in the beginning come from the Book of the Law by Aleister Crowley, and are performed by Loli-chan in her ‘hysterical reading’ of said book. Audio is used with her permission for this track.”
Overthrowing the Old Gods: Aleister Crowley and the Book of the Law by Don Webb, the 2013 paperback from Inner Traditions, which includes a commentary on Liber AL vel Legis by Michael A Aquino, and includes, as part II, the collection of essays once available in the old Rûna-Raven Press book Aleister Crowley: The Fire and the Force as well, is part of the collection at the Reading Room courtesy of the publisher.
“Received by Aleister Crowley in April 1904 in Cairo, Egypt, The Book of the Law is the most provocative record of magical working in several hundred years, affecting not only organizations directly associated with Crowley such as the Ordo Templi Orientis but also Wicca, Chaos Magic, and the Temple of Set.
Boldly defying Crowley’s warning not to comment on The Book of the Law, Ipsissimus Don Web provides in-depth interpretation from both Black and White Magickal perspectives, including commentary from Michael A. Aquino, Ph.D., who served as High Priest of the Temple of Set from 1975 to 1996. Webb examines each line of the Book in the light of modern psychology, Egyptology, existentialism, and competing occult systems such as teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff and contemporary Left-Hand Path thought. Discarding the common image of Crowley formulated in a spiritually unsophisticated time when the devotee of the Left-Hand Path was dismissed as a selfish evildoer, Webb unveils a new side of Crowley based on his adoption of the Loki archetype and his aim to become a vessel of love for all humanity. In so doing, he shows how The Book of the Law is connected to both Right- and Left-Hand Paths and reveals how Crowley’s magickal path of mastery over the self and Cosmos overthrew the gods of old religion, which had kept humanity asleep to dream the nightmare of history.
Providing in-depth analysis of Crowley’s sources and Webb’s own self-identification with the First Beast of Revelation from a profound esoteric perspective, Webb takes his views out of the Golden Dawn matrix within which he received The Book of the Law and radically recasts the Cairo Working as a text of personal sovereignty and a relevant tool for personal transformation.” — back cover
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.
A little while back I posted about the copy of The Commentaries of AL, Volume V No 1 of what is sometimes called the Red Equinox, by Aleister Crowley and another (Marcelo Ramos Motta), the 1975 first edition hardcover from Weiser Books, that is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
In that post I mentioned that mine was without the dust cover and asked if anyone with a physical copy of this that still has the dust cover would let me know what the inside flap for this book has to say, if anything, about itself. Clifford B recently sent me scans of the dust cover from his copy of this book so I could take a gander. The inside back cover dust copy is an ad for Weiser’s edition of The Equinox, Vol I Nos 1–10, and for The Equinox, Vol 3 No 1, but the inside front dust copy and back cover speak about this volume.
“The Commentaries of AL
by Aleister Crowley and Marcelo Motta
The Commentaries of AL introduces a new series of The Equinox as Volume 5 Number 1, released under the auspices of Marcel Motta, the current Praemonstrator of the A∴A∴ It is the first book to bear the Imprimatur of the Order since the publication of Liber Aleph in 1962.
Liber AL vel Legis—The Book of the Law—is an Initiated text whose doctrine is propounded in 220 verses that are to be the guiding principles of makind for the next 2000 years. It was communicated in 1904 through Aleister Crowley, who continually sought to elucidate the mystery of this Book in all his subsequent works. His major effort, the New Comment, was written in the 1920’s.
Crowley’s supremely modern point of view in the New Comment has been heightened by Marcelo Motta’s editing, which seeks to eliminate matter of non-magickal value, and other material easily consulted in the published writings of the A∴A∴, now more readily available than in Crowley’s own lifetime. He has himself written an extensive commentary (carefully distinguished by typestyle) that weaves in and through Crowley’s writing with an artistry both provoking and illuminating.
He or she who seeks to penetrate these pages with honesty and courage will be brought to a deeper understanding of the significance of Liber AL, whose law was given for every man and every woman.” — inside front dust copy
“. . . 26. These slay, naming your enemies; & they shall fall before you.
Serious students will understand that ‘they shall fall before you’ does not necessarily mean that you shall slay them. Also, unserious students had better beware of trying to employ this magickal formula: ‘thou hast no right by to do thy will.’
Perhaps the following apologue will be of help:
A profane lew a beetle before Ra-Hoor-Khuit, naming a person he considered his enemy; and soon after, the profane went mad.
An Initiate slew a beetle before Ra-Hoor-Khuit, naming the person he considered his worst enemy, that is, himself; and soon after, he became a Master of the Temple.
AUGMN.” — Commentaries of AL, Chapter 3, Verse 26, as appears on the back cover
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.