Tag Archives: teitan press

The Magic Seal of Dr John Dee

The Magic Seal of Dr. John Dee. The Sigillum Dei Aemeth by Hermetic Library fellow Colin Campbell, the 2009 hardcover limited to 777 copies from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“The Magic Seal of John Dee comprises a detailed examination of the history and structure of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth of the Elizabethan scholar and Magus, Dr. John Dee, as well as a study of its use in the practice of ritual magic. The appendixes include a new transcription and translation of Dee’s Liber Mysteriorum Secundus, and an important new translation of the section of the famous grimoire, The Sworn Book of Honorius, that gives details of what is clearly a precursor of the Sigillum Dei. From the standpoint of a practicing magician, the work has two clear aims: to demonstrate the importance of the pattern established by Dee’s Sigillum Dei as opposed to its implementation, and to bring the Sigillum Dei out of the limited confines of the Enochian temple and into its role as a powerful magickal system in its own right. The recognition of the patterns established in the construction of the Sigillum Dei allow us to view the seal in a new light, not as a static framework decided once and for all hundreds of years ago in the study of a Renaissance magician, but as one that can be reconstituted in the light of modern interpretation. Furthermore, the seal is, in essence, a system of evocation — the very same method of communication used by Dee & Kelley in its reception. This book explains the nature and method of this approach and how the practicing magician is able to use the Sigillum Dei in the manner in which it was truly intended — as a powerful system of planetary magick.” [via]

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The Kabbalah, Magick, and Thelema

The Kabbalah, Magick, and Thelema (Selected Writings, 2) [also] by Phyllis Seckler (Soror Meral), edited by Dr David Shoemaker et al., the 2012 hardcover limited edition of 666 from College of Thelema of Northern California (now the International College of Thelema) and Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“Phyllis Seckler (‘Soror Meral:’ 1917–2004) was introduced to the teachings of Aleister Crowley in the late 1930s and became a regular participant in the activities of Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis in California, and rose to become a Ninth Degree member of the ‘Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis,’ and an Adeptus Minor of the A∴ A∴ The Kabbalah, Magick, and Thelema is the second volume of writings by Phyllis Seckler to be published by the College of Thelema of Northern California in association with The Teitan Press. Like the first volume, The Thoth Tarot, Astrology & Other Selected Writings, this collection is edited and introduced by three of Seckler’s former students: Rorac Johnson, Gregory Peters, and David Shoemaker, but this second volume additionally includes a short Foreword by one of her best-known early A∴ A∴ students, Lon Milo DuQuette.

In common with Crowley, Seckler found short, pithy essays, written in the form of ‘letters,’ to be an excellent and powerful teaching method, and the main body of this work comprises a series of these letters, covering diverse topics from kabbalah and the practice of ritual magic, through philosophy and spiritual enquiry to commentary on the Thelemic culture of the time. Originally published in Seckler’s journal In the Continuum, they are here presented for the first time in book form, accompanied by redrawn and corrected diagrams.

The book also reproduces a number of important letters that passed between Seckler and other significant figures in the history of post-Crowleyan Thelema, including Karl Germer, Israel Regardie, Grady McMurtry, Gerald Yorke, and Marcelo Motta. These letters, which cover matters as varied as the leadership succession of the O.T.O. and the thefts at Karl Germer’s library, are published here for the first time, as are a number of related photographs. ” [via]

The Progradior Correspondence

The Progradior Correspondence, Letters by Aleister Crowley, C. S. Jones, & Others, edited and introduced by Keith Richmond, the 2009 hardcover edition from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“The Progradior Correspondence comprises the text of ninety letters and other documents that were exchanged between “Frater Progradior” (that is Aleister Crowley’s Lancashire-born follower Frank Bennett), and members of “the Beast’s” inner circle, including Crowley himself, Charles Stansfeld Jones, Leila Waddell, Leah Hirsig and others.

The correspondence began in 1910 when Bennett wrote to Crowley seeking his advice on the performance of “The Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage.” It continued through the years of The Equinox, through Crowley’s residence in the United States during the First World War, and on past the heydays of the Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu in the early 1920s. The exchange finally drew to a close in 1926, by which time Crowley had dropped or otherwise lost contact with most of his associates of the preceding decade and a half.

A third of the letters were written by Aleister Crowley. Like the rest of the correspondence, these focus largely on the efforts that he and his followers were making to promote his occult fraternities, the A∴ A∴ and the O.T.O. As such they offer valuable first-hand accounts of the development of Crowley’s creed of Thelema during this important period. The letters are highly revealing on a personal level as well, and provide considerable insight into Crowley’s character and the influence that he had on the people around him. In broader terms they give a fascinating impression of the lives and activities of all those involved.

The Progradior Correspondence is edited by Frank Bennett’s biographer, Keith Richmond, who has also contributed a short Introduction and added footnotes to elucidate some of the more obscure names, words and passages in the letters.” [via]

Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley

Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley. A Correspondence between Aleister Crowley and David Curwen, edited with introduction by Henrik Bogdan, preface by Tony Matthews, the 2010 hardcover from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“In September 1944, a fifty-one year old Londoner named David Curwen wrote to Aleister Crowley, initiating a correspondence that would last several years. While Curwen approached Crowley with deference, the relationship that evolved between them was a complex one that defied the accepted parameters of the student-teacher nexus. For David Curwen was no newcomer to the study of the occult, and Crowley soon discovered that the flow of knowledge would not be simply one way. In particular Crowley was tantalized by the deep understanding of the principals of tantra that Curwen had acquired during the course of many years study under a mysterious guru.

At Crowley’s urging Curwen joined the O.T.O., but he remained skeptical of many of “the Beast’s” claims, and the two ultimately parted company on strained terms. However, Curwen retained his interest in the occult, and in later life he devoted himself to the study of alchemy, publishing the results of his researches pseudonymously in the book In Pursuit of Gold, a work that many believe to be the most significant study ever published of practical alchemy.

In addition to reproducing all of the surviving correspondence between the pair, Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley includes an important biographical Foreword by David Curwen’s grandson, Tony Matthews. The letters themselves have been edited and annotated by the scholar of Crowley and Western esotericism, Henrik Bogdan, who has also contributed an illuminating Introduction that gives context to the relationship between Crowley and Curwen, as well as exploring the history of their interest in sexual occultism and tantra, and the influence that they had in Kenneth Grant.” [via]

Lunar and Sex Worship

Lunar and Sex Worship [also] by Ida Craddock, edited and with an introduction by Vere Chappell, the 2010 hardcover limited edition of 650 from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“Philadelphia-born Ida Craddock (1857–1902) was a forceful public exponent of women’s rights and sexual freedom whose interest in Theosophy and Spiritualism led her into a profound involvement with the occult. Attacked by conservatives as promoting obscenity and immorality on account of her reforming activities, Craddock became the focus of an organised campaign of persecution. Facing a lengthy prison sentence that she did not expect to survive, she instead took her own life, at age forty-five.

After her death, Craddock’s work on sexuality and occultism attracted the interest of a small number of well-known figures, including Aleister Crowley, who wrote that she possessed ‘…initiated knowledge of extraordinary depth. She seems to have had access to certain most concealed sanctuaries… She has put down statements in plain English which are positively staggering.”

Amongst her papers, Craddock left two manuscripts, ‘Lunar and Sex Worship’ and ‘Sex Worship (Continued)’ that had been commissioned by her patron, the Spiritualist W. T. Stead. They are effectively studies of sexuality in religion and mythology, as viewed through the prism of Craddock’s own experiences and beliefs.

This Teitan Press edition of Lunar and Sex Worship is the first ever publication of ‘Lunar and Sex Worship’ and ‘Sex Worship (Continued).”‘ It comprises the complete text of both works, edited and introduced by Vere Chappell, an expert on the life and work of Craddock.” [via]

The Unknown God

The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites by Martin P Starr, from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“The first documentary study of Aleister Crowley’s contemporary followers in North America, told through the life of their de facto leader, Wilfred Talbot Smith (1885-1957). Smith, the unacknowledged offspring of a prominent English family, emigrated to Canada where he met Charles Stansfeld Jones and through him, the works of Aleister Crowley. Although Crowley and Smith met only once, their twenty year correspondence proved to be a major link to the few and the faithful attracted to Crowley’s work in the United States and Canada. Smith’s spiritual life centered first on the initiatic structure of the Order of the A∴A∴, complemented by the emerging fraternal and social schemes of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Smith followed Jones into a few long-forgotten movements like the Universal Brotherhood and the Psychomagian Society, but he declined membership in C.F. Russell’s Choronzon Club.

To promulgate the Crowleyan teachings, in 1934 Smith incorporated his own ‘Church of Thelema’—known to Los Angeles newspaper readers as the ‘Purple Cult.’ The following year he initiated OTO activity in Los Angeles which attracted its own cast of occult characters. Smith’s life reached a strange conclusion when Crowley, taking a page from Louis Bromfield’s novel, THE STRANGE CASE OF MISS ANNIE SPRAGG, which explored ‘the twin mysteries of love and religion and the confusion that lies between’ and combining it with a reading of Smith’s natal chart, sent him off on a retreat to determine which God he was incarnating. It was a journey from which Frater 132 never returned …

THE UNKNOWN GOD is a fascinating and complex human story, intimately interwoven with the lives of most of Crowley’s disciples in the United States including C.F. Russell, Jane Wolfe, Max R. Schneider, Jack Parsons, Louis T. Culling, Frederic Mellinger and Grady L. McMurtry as well as occult teachers like H. Spencer Lewis (AMORC) Paul Foster Case (BOTA), and Wayne Walker (OM), Hollywood actors such as John Carradine and even the founder of the Mattachine Society, Harry Hay. Students of 19th and 20th century esoteric movements, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society and the Crowley-derived organizations, will find THE UNKNOWN GOD worth reading.”

Golden Twigs

Golden Twigs by Aleister Crowley, the 1988 collected edition from Teitan Press, edited and introduced by Martin P Starr, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

This is a collection of short stories written by Crowley in the Summer of 1916, during his “Great Magical Retirement” on the shores of “Lake Pasquaney” (Newfound Lake, New Hampshire) in a cabin owned by Evangeline Adams. Of the eight tales, all inspired by themes from Sir James George Frazer’s The Golden Bough, six appeared in the pages of George Sylvester Viereck’s The International, but two were previously unpublished, in spite of several efforts, until this volume.

The True and Perfect Preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, by the Brotherhood of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross

The True and Perfect Preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, by the Brotherhood of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross Wherein the Materia for this Mystery is named by its name, also the Preparation is shown from the Beginning to the End, with all Manipulations by Sigmund Richter (Sincerus Renatus) is a new release published by Teitan Press available from Weiser Antiquarian Books.

“The first English language publication of The True and Perfect Preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone, by the Brotherhood of the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross, an Alchemical / Rosicrucian work by Sigmund Richter that was originally published in Breslau in 1710. In appearance the work is very much that of an alchemical textbook, describing (in the symbolic / chemical terminology of the spagyrical adept) a series of operations which culminate in the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone and “all that is necessary to the Work Ordinis Minoris and Majoris.” As described by the editor, Dr. R. A. Gilbert, “The book has two distinct but related concerns. First, it sets out the stages by which the Brothers of the [Roscicrucian] Order can succeed in preparing, making and applying the Philosopher’s Stone, but at the same time it presents a sub-text that guides the brethren into a realisation that there is a more subtle purpose to the text. It is also a guide to a parallel, spiritual change that takes place within the practitioner as he progresses with his task: material transmutation is accompanied by spiritual regeneration.” The translation was probably made between 1950 and 1960 for J.W. Hamilton-Jones (1887-1965), one of a small circle of Rosicrucian enthusiasts who had founded a very private “Order of Rose +”, and editor of two alchemical works – “The Epistles of Ali Puli” (1951) and Bacstrom’s “Alchemical Anthology” (1960) and publisher of a translation of Dr. Dee’s “Hieroglyphic Monad” (1947). Includes an appendix “Laws of the Brotherhood” as published by Sincerus Renatus, and a seven page historical Introduction by Dr. R.A. Gilbert. ” [via]

A Book of Sketches

A Book of Sketches by Aleister Crowley is a new release published by Teitan Press available from Weiser Antiquarian Books.

“A Book of Sketches reproduces in full a series of colour and black and white sketches, mostly of women, from a sketchbook utilised by Aleister Crowley from the late 1930s through the early 1940s that is now preserved in the Yorke collection in London. While the 45 plates include a number of finished drawings, most are unpolished designs, possibly “roughs” for later more detailed compositions. Although hardly examples of “high art,” they offer a fascinating glimpse of Crowley’s process of imagining his art, and the varied styles with which he experimented. Several of the portraits are identifiable as known lovers of Crowley’s, notably Catherine Falconer and “Alice” (probably Alice Sutherland – his mistress for more than three years), whilst at least one other appears to be a representation of his ill-fated wife, Maria (“Marie”) Teresa de Miramar. With a five page Introduction by Crowley art aficionados David Tibet and Keith Richmond.” [via]

Approaching the Kabbalah of Maat

Approaching the Kabbalah of Maat by Don Karr, with a foreword by Colin Low, published by Black Jackal Press (an “offshoot” of Teitan Press), is now available from Weiser Antiquarian Books. For launch week, this first edition hardcover, limited to 416 numbered copies, is available at a discount, and comes with a bookplate signed by the author.

“Maine: Black Jackal Press, 2013. First Edition Hardcover. 8vo. (9 x 6 inches / 228 x 152 mm), xxii + 334pp. Black cloth with spine lettered in silver-gilt, and silver-gilt device on front board. Full color dustjacket. Printed on acid free paper. Sewn. Black and white frontispiece. Numerous black and white illustrations, diagrams and tables in text.

Approaching the Kabbalah of Maat explores three radical expressions of modern goddess-inclusive occult theory and practice that evolved in the late twentieth century. Drawing from the same broad esoteric lineage that produced Aleister Crowley, Frater Achad, and Kenneth Grant, Maat magicians and theosophists such as Nema, Aion, 416 and others, developed new concepts of personal and cultural evolution, weaving æonic theory and kabbalah into revolutionary tenets and practices. The text is supplemented by transcriptions of original documents, diagrams and artwork by individuals and groups involved in Maatian practice, including a significant collection of material from the Thelemically-inclined occult order, the OAI. The book also offers a well-researched history of the esoteric streams that gave rise to the progressive/subversive methods of Maat magick, and the broader cultural movements and upheavals which also contributed to them.

The author, Don Karr, is a well-known scholar of the hermetic arts. He is the co-author of two books in the acclaimed Sourceworks of Ceremonial Magic Series (with Stephen Skinner) and is also the author of numerous articles on Jewish mysticism and its influence on the Western esoteric tradition. New book thus Fine in Fine Dust Jacket.” [via]

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