Saturday, 12 October 2013

Aleister Crowley Works.

Some of his most influential books include:
He also edited and produced a series of publications in book form called The Equinox (subtitled "The Review of Scientific Illuminism"), which served as the voice of his magical order, the A∴A∴. Although the entire set is influential and remains one of the definitive works on occultism, some of the more notable issues are:
  • III:1, "The Blue Equinox" (largely regarding the structure of OTO)
  • III:2, The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw and other papers (proof copy only)
  • III:3, The Equinox of the Gods (covering the events leading up to the writing of Liber Legis)
  • III:4, Eight Lectures on Yoga
  • III:5, The Book of Thoth (a full treatise on his Thoth Tarot)
  • III:6, Liber Aleph (An extended and elaborate commentary on Liber Legis in the form of short letters)
  • III:7, The Shih I (allegedly. An unfinished/published translation of the I Ching)
  • III:8, The Tao Te Ching (a translation of the Chinese classic)
  • III:9, The Holy Books of Thelema (the "received" works of Crowley)
  • III:10, An issue with mostly O.T.O constitutional papers
  • IV:1, Commentary on the Holy Books, and other papers (mainly Liber 65 and Madame Blavatsky's The Voice of the Silence)
  • IV:2, The Vision and the Voice with Commentary and other papers
Crowley also wrote fiction, including plays and later novels, most of which have not received significant notice outside of occult circles. Some of these fictional works include:
Crowley also had a peculiar sense of humour, which he often utilised as a teaching instrument. He wrote a polemic arguing against George Bernard Shaw's interpretation of the Gospels in his preface toAndrocles and the Lion, which was edited by Francis King and published as Crowley on Christ. In his Magick, Book 4 he includes a chapter purporting to illuminate the Qabalistic significance of Mother Goose nursery rhymesIn re Humpty Dumpty, for instance, he recommends the occult authority "Ludovicus Carolus" -- better known as Lewis Carroll. In a footnote to the chapter he admits that he had invented the alleged meanings, to show that one can find occult "Truth" in everything. His "8 Lectures On Yoga" are written under the name Guru Sri Pramahansa Shivaji (which translates into something along the lines of "Great Exalted Guru of Shiva") and are divided into "Yoga for Yahoos" and "Yoga for Yellowbellies". In The Book of Lies, the title to chapter 69 is given as "The Way to Succeed - and the Way to Suck Eggs!" a pun, as the chapter concerns the 69 sex position as a mystical act.
Crowley was rated a good poet by G.K. Chesterton to whom Crowley later dedicated in a part a book. He wrote the 1929 Hymn to Pan,[90] perhaps his most widely read and anthologised poem.Template:Fact Three pieces by Crowley, "The Quest",[91] "The Neophyte",[92] and "The Rose and the Cross",[93] appear in the 1917 collection The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Crowley's unusual sense of humour is on display in White Stains,[94] an 1898 collection of pornographic verse pretended to be "the literary remains of George Archibald Bishop, a neuropath of the Second Empire;" the volume is prefaced with a notice that says that " The Editor hopes that Mental Pathologists, for whose eyes alone this treatise is destined, will spare no precaution to prevent it falling into other hands."
Some of his published poetry includes:
  • White Stains (1898).
  • Alice, an Adultery (1903).
  • The Sword of Song (1904).
  • The Star and the Garter. (1904).
  • Orpheus, a Lyrical Legend (two volumes, 1905).
  • Snowdrops From a Curate’s Garden. (1904).
  • Clouds without Water ("by the Reverend C. Verey", 1909)
  • Amphora (Hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Burns & Oates, 1909)
  • The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz. ( "translated by Major Lutiy", 1910).
  • Aha ! (1910)
  • Ambergris: the Selected Poems of Aleister Crowley (1910)
  • The Winged Beetle. (1912).
  • Olla, an Anthology of Sixty years of Song (1946, his last published work)
The Greek scholar Dionysios Psilopoulos has written on Crowley as a poet (Ph.D., Edinburgh).

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.