Black cloth binding with gilt title and decoration on the spine and front board.

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• Note: This book carries a £5.00 discount to those that subscribe to the F.B.A. mailing list

The Aleister Crowley Collection includes Crowley’s seminal works: The Book of the Law, and The Book of Lies, as well as his esoteric, entertaining drug memoir, Diary of a Drug Fiend.

Reviews:

• Each and every one of these books is very powerful in their own way from the time they were written. Some things were tricky for me to understand all of the reread them later, but there’s a lot of things tied into each of these novels that are hidden. I believe there are magic spells put into these books. In a subtle mysterious way, what do you expect from Aleister Crowley? I’ll have to go hunting and find his magic ritual books and learn from those as well. My dad was a big follower of this man. He had all of those books and burned them before he died. I believe he did that so me and whoever else wouldn’t obtain such a power and knowledge that’s a pretty mean move. I like the Thelema phrase. Do what thou wilt 🔥 it’s all in the love.

• This is a beautifully presented collection of five essential works of Aleister Crowley (essential that is, to those of us who are interested in such esoteric matters!). So why only 3 stars and not 5? because inside each book is a warning about language and sentiments being of a time, etc. etc. It also states that in ‘extreme cases’…’words have been censored or changed’. Personally, I find such censorship totally unnecessary, utterly abhorrent and inexcusable, tantamount to airbrushing history and I would have preferred to know about the possibility before buying the set. We are not children and do not need publishers, (or anybody else) to take it upon themselves to protect us from the ‘attitudes and usage’ of previous eras. So, two stars off!

Aleister Crowley (born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. As a prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life. Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents’ fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an interest in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attention upon mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British intelligence agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial magic by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Allan Bennett. He went mountaineering in Mexico with Oscar Eckenstein, before studying Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. In 1904, he married Rose Edith Kelly, and they honeymooned in Cairo, Egypt, where Crowley wrote down The Book of the Law—a sacred text that serves as the basis for Thelema, which he said had been dictated to him by a supernatural entity named Aiwass. The Book announced the start of the Æon of Horus and declared that its followers should “Do what thou wilt”: seek to align themselves with their True Will via the practice of ceremonial magic. After the unsuccessful 1905 Kanchenjunga expedition and a visit to India and China, Crowley returned to Britain, where he attracted attention as a prolific author of poetry, novels, and occult literature. In 1907, he and George Cecil Jones co-founded an esoteric order—the A∴A∴, through which they propagated Thelema. After spending time in Algeria, in 1912 he was initiated into another esoteric order, the German-based Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.); he rose to become the leader of its British branch, which he reformulated in accordance with Thelema. Through O.T.O., Thelemite groups were established in Britain, Australia, and North America. Crowley spent the First World War in the United States, where he took up painting, and campaigned for the German war effort against Britain. His biographers later revealed that he had infiltrated the pro-German movement to assist the British intelligence services. In 1920, he established the Abbey of Thelema, a religious commune in Cefalù, Sicily, where he lived with various followers. His libertine lifestyle led to denunciations in the British press, and the Italian government evicted him in 1923. He divided the following two decades between France, Germany, and England, and continued to promote Thelema until his death. Crowley gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, being a drug user, a bisexual, and an individualist social critic. Crowley has remained a highly influential figure over western esotericism and the counterculture of the 1960s, and he continues to be considered a prophet in Thelema. He is the subject of various biographies and academic studies.