Tag Archives: j f c fuller

The Pathworkings of Aleister Crowley

Randall Bowyer reviews The Pathworkings of Aleister Crowley: The Treasure House of Images by J F C Fuller, with Aleister Crowley, David Cherubim, Lon Milo DuQuette, Christopher S Hyatt, and Nancy Wasserman; in the archive of Bkwyrm’s Occult Book Reviews.

Fuller The Pathworkings of Aleister Crowley

This book contains 2 1/2 pages by Crowley, no pathworkings at all, and 57 pages of Really Basic Introductory Stuff – typical New Falcon pabulum. The main text is The Treasure-House of Images, being 90 pages of dreadful poetry by J.F.C. Fuller (who, you may notice, gets no credit on the title-page).

Like other books from these guys, this one seems to be written for either intermediate students or total beginners, depending on what page you read. If you’re advanced enough to create your own pathworkings but have not yet learned the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, then this book is for you!

Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers

Randall Bowyer reviews Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers: The Equinox (Equinox, Vol 4, No 1) by Aleister Crowley Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, J. F. C. Fuller, and Charles Stansfeld Jones in the Bkwyrm archive.

Such proofreading! Such artwork! Such a spiffy cover! And hey, the contents are even interesting. This number of The Equinox does for the A∴ A∴ what vol. III no. 10 did for the O.T.O., collecting in one book a variety of articles which students of the A∴ A∴ system will find very useful and informative. Even if you’re not interested in the modern manifestations of A∴ A∴ , you may enjoy the previously-unpublished material, especially Crowley’s “illuminated MS” text of Liber DCLXXI vel Pyramidos.

Just as The Equinox vol. III no. 10 served as an important propaganda tool in establishing the legitimacy of our “Caliphate” O.T.O., the new number supports (though not as overtly) one of the several “lineages” of A∴ A∴ . The book opens with an anonymous Praemonstrance impugning some of the competitors; while no names are mentioned, it’s fairly obvious which faces are being slapped.

The big disappointment of the book is that it ignores the old editorial plan of The Equinox. Crowley only abandoned the original mixture of occultism with literature of all sorts (and those saucy book reviews!) when he ran out of money. I was very pleased when vol. III no. 10 returned to the original recipe, and I had hoped the trend would continue.

Find it at Amazon, Abebooks, or Powell’s.

Unheard-of Curiosities at Alexander Library, Rutgers through July 3rd, 2014

Unheard-of Curiosities: An Exhibition of Rare Books on the Occult and Esoteric Sciences is an exhibition at Alexander Library, Rutgers University, through July 3rd, 2014 and may be of interest, especially as it includes two of Hermetic Library figure J F C Fuller‘s paintings.

“The Rutgers University Libraries invite members of the Rutgers community and the general public to view “Unheard-of Curiosities”: An Exhibition of Rare Books on the Occult and Esoteric Sciences, the new exhibition in Alexander Library. The exhibition will showcase rare books from Special Collections and University Archives that illuminate the enduring popular interest in a diverse constellation of “occult” topics from the sixteenth century to the present day.

Many of the books in the exhibition were collected by the late Rutgers Professor of English, Clement W. Fairweather, Jr and predominantly focus on astrology and early astronomy from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries including works ranging from Arati Solensis Phaenomena et Prognostica (1569) to William Lilly’s Starry Messenger (1645) to the colorful Astrologer of the 19th Century and intriguing Raphael’s Witch!! Other titles featured explore topics such as prediction and prophecy, demons and the devil, witchcraft and magic, and the mysteries of ancient Egypt. The exhibition also highlights the exquisite illustrations of the tablet of Isis in the Mensa Isaica (1671), the whimsical The Magic Mirror of Nostradamus, and Book Four (1911), the work of the infamous Aleister Crowley.”

Apparently there was also a colloquium, on Jun 23rd, on “The Soldier and the Seer: J.F.C. Fuller, Aleister Crowley, and the British Occult Revival” with Henrik Bogdan, Christian Guidice, Gordan Djurdjevic, Richard Kaczynski and Robert Stein; and that probably would have been of great interest, as it relates to both J F C Fuller and Hermetic Library figure Aleister Crowley and their interrelationship, if I’d been able to post about it before it was too late to attend.

Richard Kaczynski at Atlantis Bookshop on May 19th, 2014

Richard Kaczynski will be presenting “Two Agnostics: Victor Neuburg and J. F. C. Fuller, B.C. (Before Crowley), During, and After”, a talk about his research around three Hermetic Library figures: Aleister Crowley, Victor Benjamin Neuburg and John Frederick Charles Fuller, at Atlantis Bookshop in London, on May 19th, 2014 starting at 7pm, £10, and they have requested that you RSVP to book a place.

“We are very pleased to welcome Richard Kaczynski back to The Atlantis Bookshop on a flying visit and for one night only, to talk about his current research on Victor Neuberg and JFC Fuller, both heavily influenced by Aleister Crowley.” [via]

Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers

Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers (Equinox), containing commentaries on the Class A libri by Aleister Crowley and other papers, including work by H P Blavatsky, J F C fuller and Charles Stansfeld Jones (Frater Achad), is part of the collection at the Reading Room. This is both a paperback and hardcover published as Equinox IV 1 by Weiser.

Aleister Crowley and others in Commentaries on the Holy Books also called Equinox IV 1 from Weiser

 

 

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.

The Fuller Memorandum

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Fuller Memorandum (A Laundry Files Novel) by Charles Stross, from Ace:

Charles Stross' The Fuller Memorandum from Ace

 

In his third Laundry novel, Charles Stross performs an interesting piece of magic. He provides enough clues to allow the reader to accurately guess coming surprises about five-to-ten pages in advance, repeatedly throughout a 300-page book. When the actual details are revealed, it is done gracefully enough that a lazy reader won’t feel too stupid for not figuring it out. But it’s impressive how well the author caters to an attentive reader’s enjoyment of “figuring it out” before the protagonist did, even if the protagonist is also the narrator with informed hindsight (thus justifying the presence and noticeability of the clues). I’m not a routine reader of mystery novels, but it seems to me that this book should be satisfying for those who are—if they can stomach the elements of other genres, that is.

The other genres are Lovecraftian weird fiction, cyberpunk sf, “rational fantasy,” and espionage thriller. The hero “Bob Howard” (not his real name, of course) is a sort of glamorized “everygeek” working in Her Majesty’s Occult Service. In the course of this book, we get his usual droll assessments of civil service and managerial culture. We also get to seem him buy a new iPhone and tangle with cannibalistic death-cultists.

The two earlier Laundry books were each homages to a luminary of the espionage fiction genre: The Atrocity Archives to Len Deighton, and The Jennifer Morgue to Ian Fleming. They also included essays by Stross in which he discussed some literary underpinnings of “Bob’s” latest adventures. I was a little disappointed that this book has no such essay. It’s also just a single novel, without an additional novella or short story, as was the case for the earlier volumes. (The Wikipedia entry suggests that The Fuller Memorandum is a riff on Anthony Price’s Dr David Audley/Colonel Jack Butler series, while another reviewer indicates Adam Hall’s Quiller books. Having read neither of these, I don’t have an opinion on the matter.)

MINOR BUT IRRESISTABLE PLOT SPOILER: For the well-read Thelemites and historians of twentieth-century occultism out there, the “Fuller” of the title is that Fuller, as revealed in pages 87-90. And since he’s in the title, you know he’s significant to the story. I read this book pretty hot on the heels of Spence’s Secret Agent 666, and Stross’s imaginative fiction meshes just fine with Spence’s speculative fact. [via]

 

 

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.

Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics

You may be interested in Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics (via Amzn) an apparently still upcoming book by Marco Pasi. According to the publisher’s page for the book, this was scheduled for June 2012, but is also listed there as not yet published. Amazon lists the publication date as December 31, 2011.

The figure of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) is one of the most important authors in the history of modern western esotericism. A prolific and eclectic author, he wrote novels, poetry, essays, and, above all, developed in his many writings his personal magico-religious doctrine. During his life he had the opportunity to meet, and at times to influence, a considerable number of figures in the most various milieus. This volume contains a study of Crowley’s relationship with the politics of his times, a crucial issue in order to understand the importance and the influence of his work.

Crowley, educated in the late Victorian age, shows many of the contradictions of this period. The search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings lead him to elaborate his own vision of political and social radical change. He announced a new era echoing the ideal of a “new man” proposed by the totalitarian regimes and the radical politics of his times, and at the same time anticipated some ideas made fashionable today by the “New Age” spirituality. The book follows the steps of Crowley’s intellectual development on the basis of the enormous corpus of published writings, but also through the analysis of numerous unpublished documents.

According to the publisher the contents include a biographical sketch; Magical Politics, including Between mysticism and religion, The Liber Legis, Political radicalism and totalitarian regimes & Magic; Dangerous liaisons, including J.F.C. Fuller, Tom Driberg, Walter Duranty, Gerald Hamilton & Maxwell Knight; The Mouth of Hell & Fernando Pessoa’s political mysticism; Counter-initiation and conspiracy.

The publisher also offers a short bio of the the author you may be curious to read:

“Marco Pasi is Assistant Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. He earned his PhD in 2004 at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne with a thesis on the idea of magic in English occultism. He is the book review editor of Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism and a member of the editorial board of Politica Hermetica.”

Certainly seems like an interesting lens through which to examine the life and work of Aleister Crowley, but the typically exorbitant fee for a scholarly work is daunting at $85 US. Anyone want to buy a copy for the Hermetic Library to review?