Cuchulain Oasis remains the only chartered official O.T.O. body in the island of Ireland at this time.

Current Khephra Oasis officer email addresses will remain valid during the changeover period. New officer email addresses will be announced shortly.

We will be performing initiations into the Minerval Degree on Saturday June 15th at our Dublin location. All initiate members of O.T.O. are welcome to attend and assist us in initiating our new Brethren into our Holy Order. We should have received all applications for initiation on this date already, so if you would like to also be considered for initiation at this time, please contact us at khephra.secretary@oto-ie.org as soon as possible.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The reading “fill me” in Liber Legis III:37 has long been known to conflict with the text it was meant to quote, i.e., Crowley’s Paraphrase of the hieroglyphs of the Stèle of Revealing, which has the reading “kill me.”

Our best source for what happened during the writing of this section of Liber Legis is chapter 7 of The Equinox of the Gods (a section written in 1921, published 1936):

“Verse 35 states simply that section one of this chapter is completed.

“I seem to have become enthusiastic, for there is a kind of interlude reported by Aiwaz of my song of adoration translated from the Stèle; the incident parallels that of chapter I, verse 26, etc.

“It is to be noted that the translations from the Stèle in verses 37–38 were no more than instantaneous thoughts to be inserted afterwards.

“Verse 38 begins with my address to the God in the first sentence, while in the second is his reply to me. He then refers to the hieroglyphs of the Stèle, and bids me quote my paraphrases. This order was given by a species of wordless gesture, not visible or audible, but sensible in some occult manner.”

The last two sentences are the key to understanding what happened, in my opinion. The operative words are “order” and “quote.” It does not explain the discrepancy in his pencilled aide-memoire note in the MS. of Liber AL.

From Crowley’s conversations recorded in 1924 by Norman Mudd, we know that a typescript was prepared in Cairo, and that three copies were made:

“Three typed copies made in Cairo. One used by publishers of Zaehnsdorf edition (Chiswick Press) previous to rediscovery of MSS. Errors in vellum books due to the fact that this typescript not properly checked from MSS.”

(Crowley, Conversations with Norman Mudd, quoted in the Preface to The Holy Books of Thelema (1983), p. xiii; the full conversations were published, slightly abridged, as Norman Mudd, “Conversations with Crowley,” The Magical Link I(10) Feb./March 1988, p. 89.

In this quotation, “vellum books” refer to the three-volume issue of Thelema (1909)—the few copies bound in one volume have the same textual problems.

There is good evidence that Crowley was not the typist, and that he hired someone in Cairo. While no copy of the original Cairo typescript is known to have survived, the typesetting in Thelema (1909) was based on this typescript, and it has misreadings that were the result of someone having trouble reading Crowley’s handwriting. For example, it has “unalterable” for “unutterable in I:58, “triumph” for “trample” in II:24 and “Before!” for “Beware!” in III:2. Crowley would not have misread these words in his own handwriting.

Exactly how the “fill” reading in the quotation from the separate Paraphrase got into III:37 in the Cairo typescript is not known. It is safe to assume that both the vellum notebook with the Paraphrase and the MS. of Liber Legis were on hand when the Cairo typescript was made. Perhaps the typist turned from typing the MS. to the vellum notebook to insert the Paraphrase from the vellum book, and then on returning to the MS, saw the “fill” reading in Crowley’s pencil note, and assumed “fill” was the intended reading. This would not likely have been caught since, as Crowley told Mudd, the typescript was never proofread. It is unlikely that we will ever know precisely what happened.

By 1907 Crowley had his Cairo typescript of Liber Legis with what I once thought was the cover-page to the MS. of Liber Legis, but now (based on its physical size, provenance and timing factors) believe to be the original cover-page to his copy of the Cairo typescript (this was first published in Liber ABA, Magick, p. xl). Crowley had Liber Legis typeset for a planned appendix to vol. 3 of his Collected Works in 1907 (the appendix never appeared, though vol. 3 did). These proofs, dated September 24, 1907 in what may be Crowley’s hand, are uncorrected except for a few markings of irregular column margins. J.F.C. Fuller preserved these proofs along with the original French translation of the Stèle hieroglyphs and the Liber Legis typescript title-page. The proofs have a few MS. notes in Fuller’s hand, but it is likely that these were added later (one note is datable as late as 1938 or after).

The Collected Works proofs for Liber Legis were made from the Cairo typescript—a footnote even refers to the manuscript as having been lost—and it agrees closely with the later setting for Thelema (1909). These proofs also reproduce a ritual entitled “The Great Invocation” that probably dates from the Cairo Working; its original MS. is now lost, but interestingly, it reproduces some stanzas from Crowley’s Paraphrase of the Stèle, giving the reading “kill me”—thus being an independent attestation of the original reading believed to be in the MS. of the Paraphrase in the now-lost vellum notebook. The Collected Works proofs are thus the earliest evidence showing the textual discrepancy between the Paraphrase (as quoted in “The Great Invocation”) and the typescript of Liber Legis. Interestingly, Crowley seems to have been at pains to reproduce what he had at hand in 1907 of the Cairo Working textual material. That the Paraphrase of the Stèle itself is omitted in this planned appendix—where Crowley is clearly interested in reproducing his works connected with the Cairo Working—suggests that the vellum notebook containing the Paraphrase was with the MS. of Liber Legis, and unavailable in 1907. It is not like Crowley to willingly omit poetry like his Stèle Paraphrase in that sort of editorial context.

This brings us to the first publication of Liber CCXX in the first edition of the Holy Books in three volumes, Thelema. This book is undated internally, but proofs of some sections (including Liber CCXX) survive, dated October 20, 1908. These were proofread by Crowley, but it was not what is called a “copy” proofreading, comparing the source to the new setting; his few markings are concerned with bad margins and dropped punctuation at the margins, i.e., typical letterpress typesetting problems of a technical nature. We know from Crowley’s 1924 e.v. conversations recorded by Norman Mudd, quoted above, that the MS. was not used to prepare Thelema—it was still missing when Thelema was being typeset and proofed in 1908. According to Crowley in The Equinox of the Gods (end of chap. 6), Thelema was published in 1909. There is however a diary entry from April 8, 1924 that dates Thelema to An. Ovi (spring 1910–spring 1911 e.v.), but Crowley was uncertain, writing “AL private edition?” Almost all copies of Thelema are in three volumes in cream vellum boards. Crowley made up a few in one volume, printed on animal vellum with a gilt Morocco binding by Zaehnsdorf. This fine binder may well have taken their time with the commission for the special copies, which may mean that Crowley did not receive his personal copy of Thelema until a little later than 1909.

Crowley found the MS. of Liber Legis in his attic at Boleskine House in the summer of 1909—too late for checking Thelema, even had it occurred to him to do so. I think it likely that he found the vellum book containing the Stèle Paraphrase along with the MS, as I believe they had been kept together.

Crowley gave the MS. its first publication in a very reduced photofacsimile in The Equinox I(7) in spring 1912, along with a facsimile plate of the Stèle of Revealing and his Paraphrase of the Hieroglyphs from the Stèle of Revealing (the title of which was misspelled “Revelling”). I believe that this editorial work made him aware of the “kill”/“fill” discrepancy between the Stèle Paraphrase (“kill”) and his pencil MS. note about its insertion into Liber CCXX (“fill”). It is reasonable to assume that he would have consulted the MS. of Liber Legis as well as the original vellum notebook with the Paraphrase on such an important question. I therefore think that it is likely that Crowley made the correction to his 1909 Thelema in 1912. To summarize what I believed happened, Crowley clearly identified and studied the problem with the right source materials at hand, made a decision, and made the correction in the most official of official copies at that time. It is my opinion that, in all likelihood, he promptly forgot about the issue, and may not have given it another thought. Crowley had a remarkable ability to “get on to the next thing”—it is one of the keys to his creativity and prodigious output. But it does not make him the most meticulous caretaker of his own past output—something that is amply documented in his surviving papers.

Crowley did pay more attention to the MS. the following year with the typesetting of Liber CCXX for The Equinox I(10)—or at least, he had his editorial staff do so. This was its second typeset publication, and it appeared in the fall of 1913, probably in middle or late fall, as the issue ran late.

Crowley had two personal copies of The Equinox I(10) 1913, but these tell us very little about the handling of Liber Legis. One (now in the Yorke Collection) was the basis for the 1936 setting of The Equinox of the Gods, according to Yorke, who notes: “Alterations in the hand of A.C. for the printers in preparing The Equinox of the Gods.” Only one correction was made, to III:34 (“The tomb” > “the tomb”), and only one minor marginal annotation. The second annotated copy of The Equinox I(10) is in a private collection, and there the text of Liber CCXX shows no signs of later proofreading; there are periodic marginal copyist’s marks that suggest that it may have been used as the source copy for a later retyping or resetting.

Now, to return to the 1909 Thelema, and in particular, the Crowley-Windram copy of Thelema recently given to the O.T.O. Archives by Bro. Windram’s son. This was originally Crowley’s copy in which he made his earliest notes and corrections. It was thus, at the time, the primary printed codex for the Holy Books including Liber CCXX—Crowley’s master copy, if you will.

Around the fall equinox of 1913 Crowley gave his copy of Thelema to James Thomas Windram, who was visiting London from South Africa. We know when this happened with some precision from Crowley’s manuscript inscription.

Fratri Carissime fidem servanti hunc librum d[...]

N.E.M.O.

[Sol] in [Libra] An IX

This dates the gift to Sept. 23–Oct. 24, 1913; we may someday be able to trace Windram’s departure date from England to date this more precisely. The last word or words of the inscription are cut off by termite damage—the book having been stored in rural South Africa for over seventy years. But with that caveat, I think it says:

To the dearest brother, who holds his word [or, to the servant of faith], I give this book.

N.E.M.O.

Crowley’s Thelema has fifteen marginal comments scattered throughout the book, in addition to dozens of notes to “Liber XXVII” (“Trigrammaton”)—basically his earliest versions of his English letter-attributions to its verses. All of the notes are in Crowley’s hand, and none are in Windram’s hand. Windram’s handwriting is clear and distinctive, and easily distinguishable from Crowley’s.

The Crowley-Windram Thelema has the following marked corrections: Liber CCXX II:54 (“Now” > “Nor”), III:37 (“to stir me or to still me” > “to stir me or still me”), III:37 (“Aum! let it fill me!” > Aum! let it kill me!”), “Liber LXV” V:8 (“thou has prostrated” > “thou hast prostrated”) and “Liber VII” IV:3 (“even into the finger-tips” > “even unto the finger-tips”). Three of the four corrections to Liber CCXX were made in The Equinox I(10) (1913), and the correction to “Liber LXV” was made in The Equinox III(1) (1919). (“Liber VII” was never republished in Crowley’s lifetime, so he had no opportunity to publish that correction, which remains unpublished to this day.) One correction to Liber CCXX (the change from “fill” to “kill” in III:37) was not made in The Equinox I(10).

I proofread Liber Legis as it appears in Thelema (1909) against its appearance in The Equinox I(10) (1913), and Thelema is an editorial train wreck, with no less than seventeen wrong words, five missing words, two extra words, one word transposition and a great many capitalization changes, extra, missing or changed punctuation, wrong accents, and the consistent use of “and” wherever the MS. has an ampersand.

It seems clear that the proofreading for the 1913 setting was done by an Equinox editor, or editors, possibly with Crowley participating, using the Paraphrase as published in 1912 (possibly the actual notebook as well), and the MS. of Liber Legis.

Crowley returned to London from Russia on August 30, and wrote the sub-editor, Victor B. Neuburg on September 1:

“I was delayed a fortnight coming from Moscow which makes the pressure on me at the moment tremendous. No. X will have nearly 600 pp. in it as far as I can make out and I am particularly anxious to have a second eye to go over the proofs. If you could manage to come up for one day or two, if possible Wednesday, I think it would be got through. I sent you the proofs as I have to go through Liber Legis with the [holograph manuscript?] which is as you remember on a book [? big?] roll, and I am anxious to obey the injunction ‘not so much as the style of a letter.’ The final proofs I could send you, but they will not be in for a fortnight I suppose. It looks as though we were [sic] going to be a month late now.”

(Transcriptions of shorthand letter book, July and September 1913, Yorke Collection.)

Assuming that Neuburg (who had the first proofs and apparently the MS.) and Crowley met as proposed, they would have read the first proofs on September 3. But there is a telltale slip in the proofreading for II:21, where “ecstasy” was mistakenly changed to “ecstacy”, suggesting that the then-editor of The Equinox, Mary Desti, may have read (or helped to read) the proofs. An American was more likely to use “ecstacy”, while Crowley’s usage was “ecstasy,” and Neuburg used “ecstasy” or “exstasy” in the MS. of Liber 418. Whether Crowley worked through all the proofs himself with one or more of the editors, or delegated the verse by verse comparative work, is not known. We do know that September and October of 1913 was one of the busiest months of his life, so it would not be surprising if he delegated. But he unquestionably had input as, in the first or final proofs, he added a footnote concerning his memory of a dictated word vs. the MS. reading. He probably also wrote the endnote referring readers to the MS. for doubtful words and styles.

Whoever read the first (and the later final) proofs, I think that “fill” rather than “kill” was used for III:37 on the basis of the pencil note in the MS. If one or more editors handled it, they may have used a copy of Thelema as a backup reference. This need not have been A.C.’s temple copy; his editors had their own. With Crowley emphasizing—as he did to Neuburg—that the MS. needed to be followed, any proofreader might well have defaulted to the “fill” reading in the MS., absent information to the contrary. As noted above, this procedure might account for how that particular reading got into the Cairo typescript in the first place. Speaking as an editor, it is likely that I would have done the same in the circumstances, given the same general instructions.

Later editions of Liber Legis (UK 1936, 1938, US 1942) show some variation, which is not really relevant here, except to note that no completely satisfactory edition of Liber Legis was published in Crowley’s lifetime. Some of the more beautiful editions (e.g. the 1909 Thelema and the 1938 London O.T.O. edition, which had a limited buckram issue) are the least accurate. I have used a variety of these early editions in temple work as the altar copy, and do not worry about their minor variations, as any copy stands for the “ideal” Liber Legis. Around June 1913, when first organizing O.T.O., Crowley issued a directive stipulating the use of Thelema, which by then he should have known had accuracy issues:

“In all lodges of O.’.T.’.O.’. and M.’.M.’.M.’. in Great Britain and Ireland the Volume of the Sacred Law shall be the book of Thelema, or a facsimile copy of Liber Legis (CCXX), and no initiations upon any other document will be recognized by the Grand Lodge.”

(Golden Book of the O.T.O., quoted in R.A. Gilbert, Baphomet and Son, ed. Darcy Küntz (Edmonds: Holmes, 1997), p. 9.)

As an editor of editions of Liber CCXX and The Holy Books, I feel obligated to make the “fill” to “kill” correction because it was made by the prophet himself. I cannot go against an express directive, which is how I have to view Crowley’s correction. I really do not see that I have any choice in the matter, and what I might personally think (which might surprise some of you) is irrelevant. I am filing this one under “Obey my prophet!” (AL I:32).

The implementation of Crowley’s correction rests on Crowley’s authority as prophet. It does not rely on my authority as an officer of any order, or my supposed (by some!) expertise as a Crowley editor. We are dealing with a received religious text. The author was not just its scribe and prophet, he was also its executive editor, with the final say, though he himself deferred wherever possible to the instructions of Aiwaz. This particular problem involves material of Crowley’s own composition (the Stèle Paraphrase) that he was ordered to insert into the received text. It also involves a pencilled note to himself, in the MS. of the received text, that conflicts with the text he was ordered to quote. But the correction he later made is not ambiguous, and has to be accepted as a directive from the prophet—not dismissed as some sort of aberration. I have to assume that he was doing his best to honor the “order” to “quote” his Paraphrase that he had received—which is in fact a reasonable assumption, since the surviving sources for the material to be quoted support the accuracy of his correction.

As the editor of Liber Legis, Crowley had the requisite authority, knowledge, experience and access to all the necessary primary materials to decide this matter; we do not. Or, to back up the timeline and put it more bluntly: Crowley was at the Cairo Working; we were not. He marked what he wanted clearly. Who are we to second-guess him?

That the correction was made to the text’s first publication under its Class A imprimatur gives the correction the authority of Class A. In other words, his correction plainly means that there was a failure of accuracy in the 1909 Class A printing that he wanted corrected. His correction outweighs all secondary indications to the contrary, even when taken together.

A correction to a book carries a great deal more information than the change of a letter or word. It tells you (a) that the author (or in this case, scribe-prophet) wants the book changed; (b) it clearly tells you what is wrong; (c) it clearly tells you what it should be changed to. When corrections like this are made in an author’s personal copies, they have to be accepted at face value and incorporated—an editor has no right to ignore them. This is a problem familiar to any editor who works with an author’s MSS., proofs and personal annotated editions. In some countries with strong author’s rights laws, the author’s known revisions and corrections can be considered mandatory inclusions in posthumous editions.

That Crowley gave away the one copy in which he had made the correction, and failed to make the change in any of the subsequent editions in his lifetime, should not surprise us. His publications are well-known among bookmen for their typographical errors, as noted by Timothy d’Arch Smith in his excellent The Books of the Beast, which quotes Crowley’s letter to Gerald Yorke: “’Proof-reading is an art which I strongly recommend you not to learn; as long as there are any sewers to clean, you would be ill-advised to adopt it as a profession.” Crowley published his own magnum opus, Magick in Theory and Practice, in a first edition that was missing not one or two letters or words, but literally dozens of lines of text, rendering passages in as many pages almost incomprehensible. Crowley never noticed. Had O.T.O. not spent the $40,000 or so in O.T.O. treasury money on the necessary typescripts, and done the reverse proofreading, we might today all be convinced that the 1929–30 Magick in Theory and Practice was the last word in accuracy. (As a demonstration of the power of sheer conservatism, there are those who still swear by it!)

To rely on repeated later printed editions of Liber CCXX with the “fill” reading for authority gets into the syndrome of repeated error. Crowley’s usual practice was to hand the last printing to a compositor for the next printing, so errors tend to be repeated. There aren’t that many examples, as most of his works were not often reprinted, but this clearly occurred with the Gnostic Mass. It was written in 1913, and its original typescript takes its quotations of Liber Legis from the 1909 Thelema, and it therefore has the bad reading “children of the prophet.” Despite the fact that “children” was corrected to “child” in The Equinox I(10) only six months or so after the mass was written, Crowley published it in 1918, republished it in 1919, and reissued it yet again in 1929–30, all with the mistaken reading. Crowley is known to have performed the Gnostic Mass, and I would not be at all surprised had his Deacon used the “children of the prophet” reading, and even less surprised if Crowley had not noticed. The former is likely as it had been published with that reading, and it was present in TS. as well. The latter is likely because, if Crowley had noticed, he might well have thought to correct. I think that this shows that reliance on known or inferred past ritual practice is an unreliable guide for solving textual questions.

As for later printings of the Paraphrase, Crowley just had the original 1912 type reproduced in photofacsimile for the Stèle plate and Paraphrase in The Equinox of the Gods (1936). In his errata slip, which I believe appeared with the 1937 second issue, Crowley corrected “Revelling” to “Revealing,” but did not change “kill” to “fill.” However, it should be said that “Revelling” is an obvious error in a headline, and the chances are very good that Crowley had lost the Cairo vellum book with the Paraphrase many years earlier, and had nothing to proof the poetry against. But at least in this instance we know that he actually looked at one of the problem pages in question, so it possible that he read the entire Paraphrase through and accepted the “kill me” reading again. But again, this is with the caveat that one must not put too high a premium on Crowley’s thoroughness as a proofreader.

There has been some fascinating and often learned discussion of the original Egyptian-language basis for the Paraphrase, with attempts to relate its stanzas to the hieroglyphic text. The line of poetry at issue, however, is not based on the Egyptian at all. My colleague J. Daniel Gunther, a capable Egyptologist, correlated the poem to the hieroglyphs some years ago:

“Unity uttermost showed!” — A QA KUA-TU-F — “O exalted one, may he be praised”

“I adore the might of thy breath” — UR BAU  — “the great one of power”

“Supreme and terrible God” — BA OA ShFYT — “Great Spirit (Ba) of dignity”

“Who makest the gods and death  To tremble before Thee” — DDU NRU-F N NThRU — “Who puts the fear of himself among the gods”

“I, I adore thee!” — < no hieroglyphic correspondence >

“Appear on the throne of Ra!” — HA’aU HR NST-F UR — “Who shines forth upon his great seat”

<no correspondence in paraphrase> — IR WAUT BA-I — “Make a way for my Soul (Ba)”

“Open the ways of the Khu!” — N AKh (I) — “for my Spirit (Akh or Khu)”

“Lighten the ways of the Ka!” — < no hieroglyphic correspondence >

“The ways of the Khabs run through”— N ShU(T)-(I) — “for my Shadow” (N.B.: old French transliteration erroneously had KHAB for ShUT (“shadow”)

“To stir me or still me!” — IU AaPR-KUI UBN-(I) — “So that I am equipped, that I might shine forth”

“Aum! let it kill me!” — < no hieroglyphic correspondence >

Some have questioned why the Paraphrase should read “kill me” at all, and ask: Why would Ankh-f-n-khonsu invoke his own death? A closer reading is instructive, as he is described elsewhere in the Paraphrase as the “self-slain Ankh-f-n-khonsu,” giving the reading “let it kill me” a clear contextual basis in the Paraphrase.

Some members are understandably concerned about the performance of “Liber Resh vel Helios,” which has become a group practice in many areas. In Northern California, primarily due to the teachings of Phyllis Seckler and James A. Eshelman, it gradually became a common practice to append the poetry from the Paraphrase as given in Liber Legis III:37. This was not the original practice, so far as I can establish. Sister Seckler, writing in a very early issue of In the Continuum I(5) (1975), pp. 9–11, published “Liber Resh”, and appended several excerpts from other writings, beginning with the poetry from Liber Legis III:38 (“So that thy light is in me” through “The prophet Ankh-af-na-khonsu!”) and going on to quote III:37. It would seem that her early teaching in the mid-1970s recommended III:38 or III:37—they seem to be true alternatives, given the order of presentation.

The earliest source making a straightforward recommendation of the III:37 text that I have been able to trace is an article by Sister Seckler’s close colleague James A. Eshelman (writing as Frater Iacchus) in a paper titled “Comment to Liber Resh,” In the Continuum IV(4), p. 6. He was then Deputy National Grand Master of O.T.O., and writes in this capacity, at p. 8:

“From our office in O.T.O., we have no authority to do anything but recommend on this point. We pass on to you what we have received as the appropriate adoration for the early stages of Work.”

He then specifies the Liber Legis variant of the Paraphrase (with “fill me”) from AL III:37.

The original practice specification is for solitary work, directing that the student incorporate whatever additional adoration is taught by his or her A.’.A.’. instructor. The original reads:

“5. And after each of these invocations thou shalt give the sign of silence, and afterward thou shalt perform the adoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then do thou compose Thyself to holy meditation.”

(“Liber Resh vel Helios,” para. 5.)

I did skim through Jane Wolfe’s MS. diaries and ritual notebooks for indications as to what, precisely, she had been taught at Cefalù on this point, as “Liber Resh” was certainly done in group Vespers etc. there. It appears that she employed the adorations from J.F.C. Fuller’s “Treasure House of Images” in her personal work, but there is no indication that I could find of what might have been used during house sessions for an addendum adoration, if indeed anything was. That said, I would not be at all surprised to find Cefalu-period ritual material by disciples, or even by Crowley himself, using III:37 with the “fill me” reading from the published versions of Liber Legis in later life. All that this would show, to my mind, is that Crowley could be just as “book-bound” (if that is a term) as the rest of us.

As for Agape Lodge, “Liber Resh” appears in The Oriflamme I(1) (1943), which just quotes the main text without any additional adoration or adorations being specified or recommended. Similarly, Jack Parsons’ unpublished 1945 Agape Lodge teaching lecture on rituals (his third of six in his lecture series) quotes the main text of “Liber Resh,” but without any supplements; in his brief discussion of the ritual, he does not discuss the section 5 matters appropriate to A.’.A.’. members at all. This makes sense, as he was teaching the ritual to O.T.O. members.

When Crowley taught “Liber Resh” to Grady McMurtry in letter of March 30, 1944, he wrote:

“Liber Resh gives 4 adorations (Magick pp. 425–6) with directions for facing. (Deosil is clockwise—widdershins anti-clockwise). Use at start signs of grades, 0°–III° O.T.O., and Sign of Enterer, followed by Sign of Silence, at the “Hail”—Damn it, you saw me do it.”

(“Aleister Crowley, Selected Letters to Hymenaeus Alpha,” The Magical Link IV(4), winter 1990–91, p. 26.)

There is no mention of an additional adoration in the letter. This is perhaps not surprising, as the use of the additional adoration was taught in A.’.A.’., and Grady was a member of O.T.O. and not A.’.A.’.. It is also notable, in this regard, that Crowley has him using O.T.O. signs and not A.’.A.’. signs. A.’.A.’. teaching on this point, in my experience, has drawn on both the “fill me” version (relying on Liber Legis) and the “kill me” version (relying on the Paraphrase), as well as other material.

That said, I am not aware of any evidence that Crowley himself used III:37 as part of his daily “Liber Resh” practice. Diary of a Drug-Fiend (1922) has two instances of “Liber Resh” being said (in part III, chaps. 5 and 6), and neither adds a supplemental adoration to the basic text.

I can understand how, in the Bay Area and parts northward especially (where the practice is most common and has the longest standing), the recitation of the additional quotation from III:37 with “fill me” becomes an issue with this correction to “kill me”. It may even result in peer pressure to conform to one reading or another when people do “Liber Resh” in a group. The additional adoration—that A.’.A.’. members are to learn from their private instructors—was not and is not intended for group work, so really, I suppose that this issue should not be arising. But I understand that this is a beloved social custom of long standing—I have enjoyed it myself many times, on visits, and it is undeniably lovely. Also, we have no wish to interfere with harmless local adaptations of our shared liturgy. However, I would recommend that O.T.O. groups use the Paraphrase, thus setting any question of the correct reading of Liber Legis to one side in the interests of social harmony. This allows members to keep whatever they might privately think about Liber Legis a private matter, which is as it should be, in keeping with the “each for himself” injunction in the Short Comment.

Members concerned with honoring an O.T.O. advancement form that affirms that they do not wish to make changes to Liber Legis should accept the prophet’s directive that this change should be made. You are not changing anything.

Some individuals—not many, but they deserve to be heard and to have an explanation—have petitioned me with the message “Do not change The Book of the Law.” I understand their concern, and appreciate their love for the book, and their commitment to the principle underlying revelation and all that Class A implies. I understand their distrust of spiritual “authorities” too. But paradoxically, what we are doing in implementing this correction is exactly what they ask: not changing The Book of the Law. To leave things as they were would be to acquiesce in a known change to the text that we now know was not intended by the prophet. So we are, in other words, un-changing it.

I ask that those who question this sit back and allow for this possibility: what if all prior printed editions had it wrong? What if we now have it right—and for the first time? Wouldn’t that be amazingly great?

I am confident that we do. We have authority in the holograph correction, in a very special book—a codex really, being Crowley’s own annotated temple copy—and it is a correction that resolves a well known hundred year old textual difficulty.

Future editions incorporating the change will have a note at the end of the book explaining the change. Those who reject Crowley’s correction can, of course, make an anti-correction in their copy—thus duplicating Crowley’s correction but in reverse.

In my travels I have learned to be cautious. “The Great Invocation” and the Paraphrase were both “corrected” by yours truly in Magick (Liber ABA) (1994 and later editions) to change their original readings of “kill me” to “fill me”—a woefully misguided attempt to make these non-Class A texts agree with what I had every reason to assume was the correct reading in Liber Legis. I think I originally picked up the “fill me” version by “picking up” (a term of art for cutting and pasting from another electronic document) part of the Paraphrase from Liber CCXX to save time, and failed to catch the different wording. In a later revision I decided to let it stand, and just annotated it as such, thinking that one of the readings had to be wrong, and it couldn’t be the Class A, could it? This was an object lesson for me: wait for the source material. You might have to wait a hundred years, but it may turn up.

No wonder we’re given 2,156 years to sort out the affairs of prophets.

Fraternally,

Love is the law, love under will.

Hymenaeus Beta

Frater Superior, O.T.O.

CROWLEY-HARRIS THOTH TAROT PAINTINGS IN THE VENICE BIENNALE

The 55th International Art Exhibition, or Venice Biennale, titled Il Palazzo Enciclopedico (The Encyclopedic Palace), is curated by Massimiliano Gioni and was organized by la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta. It opens to the public on June 1 and runs through November 24.

O.T.O. International Headquarters and the Warburg Institute arranged for the inclusion of nine of the Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris Thoth Tarot paintings. We have held back releasing news of their inclusion until the general press releases from the Biennale went out, which happened in mid-March.

A few Thoth paintings have been shown before. Leaving aside Harris’ own shows in the 1940s, the first was the inclusion of “Atu XX, The Aeon” in the O.T.O.-curated October Gallery Crowley art show of 1997, which had a brief run. The second was the inclusion of four trumps (Atu II – The High Priestess, Atu IX – The Hermit, Atu XVIII – The Moon and Atu XIX – The Aeon) in the 2008 Traces du Sacré show at the Centre Pompidou, which ran for just over 3 months.

The Biennale is the first time so many Thoth paintings will be on public display for such a length of time—about 5 months. Attendance at the last Biennale approached 400,000, so this will introduce the Thoth Tarot to a large, new and sophisticated audience.

We wish to thank Massimiliano Gioni and his assistant-curator Helga Just Christoffersen for their inclusion of Crowley and Harris, and the Warburg Institute for making the loan of the paintings possible.

The nine paintings included are:

• Atu VIII – Adjustment, 1940
• Atu XII – The Hanged Man, 1938–40
• Atu XV – The Devil, 1938–40
• Atu XVI – The Tower (or: War), 1939
• Atu XVIII – The Moon, 1938–40
• Atu XIX – The Sun, 1938
• Queen of Wands, 1938–40
• Ace of Cups, 1940
• Queen of Cups, 1938–40

As a side note, this year’s Biennale also includes work by two other Thelemite painters, Harry Smith and Xul Solar.

For information, see:

• La Biennale de Venezia (English)
• La Biennale di Venezia – 55th International Art Exhibition – The Encyclopedic Palace
• Venice Biennale to showcase new generation of young British artists
• Venice Biennale Artist List Announcedz

THOTH TAROT RESTORATION PROJECT COMPLETED

O.T.O. had known for many years that the original Thoth Tarot paintings, owned by the Warburg Institute, needed urgent restoration work if they were to be preserved for future generations. The initial estimate obtained by the Institute from a British firm of conservators many years ago was discouragingly high.

Eventually, an arrangement was made between the O.T.O. and the Warburg’s in-house conservation specialist, Susan Campion, who kindly offered to do the work on a time-available basis for a cost that seemed possible, if not easy, for O.T.O. to raise. The Institute kindly made available its conservation studio for the work, a large savings of costs over sending the work out. We began internal fund-raising back in 2005 and the work began in 2006, reaching completion in late 2011. The project requirements changed during restoration due to conditions discovered on disassembly of the mounted cards—see the conservation report. Susan Campion generously offered to perform the additional work required—much of it very challenging technically—within the original estimate.

O.T.O. was eventually able to raise the full amount required, including extra funds beyond the original estimate to have replacement storage boxes built, totalling over $53,000. Of this, nearly $48,500 came directly from the O.T.O. membership—including several wonderfully generous individual donations, and including pooled donations sent in through local bodies. The comparatively small topup needed to complete the project came from the International Headquarters treasury.

I am incredibly proud of O.T.O. as an organization, and of my brothers and sisters who gave so generously. Thank you all—and thanks to Treasurer General Vere Chappell for coordinating the fundraising.

I especially wish to thank Susan Campion, and the curators of the Yorke Collection, for making this possible.

It was this restoration project that made possible the inclusion of several of the Thoth Tarot paintings in major art exhibitions—the paintings could not have travelled otherwise.

THOTH TAROT COPYRIGHT LIGITATION

O.T.O. is filing suit in U.S. Federal Court against U.S. Games Systems, and perhaps others, over the Thoth Tarot Deck.

Years ago O.T.O. licensed the Thoth Tarot to AGMüller (whose assets are now part of Königsfurt Urania, a division of Carta Mundi, the world’s largest card producer). In an attempt (clearly misguided in retrospect) to “make room” in the deal for U.S. Games, who had long published the deck under an arrangement with Samuel Weiser dating from the days when the deck was public domain in the U.S.A., we set up the deal to let U.S. Games continue in North America, supplied with the decks by AGMüller, with U.S. Games executing a separate license with O.T.O.—the U.S. copyright to the Thoth Tarot had by then been restored, in 1996. We concluded our contract with AGMüller for world distribution less North America. The “set-aside” of North America to accomodate U.S. Games gave rise to a last-minute clause in our contract with AGMüller that allowed AGMüller to ship decks to U.S. Games royalty unpaid—it being understood that U.S. Games would take care of its royalty obligations for North American English sales through the separate contract that they were expected to conclude with O.T.O. To my surprise and dismay U.S. Games then refused to sign the contract—or even discuss the contract any longer; and this was the contract that O.T.O. had negotiated hard with AGMüller to get for U.S. Games. Sadly, this loophole in our AGMüller contract has been exploited ever since, to the detriment of both copyright owners of the Thoth Tarot. The grand total paid to the copyright owners for North American English language deck sales (by far the largest market in the world) has been exactly zero.

Incidentally, don’t believe what you read in some places on the Internet about Thoth Tarot copyright terms—these rights don’t expire anytime soon. If memory serves, they run until end of 2039 (first authorized publication in 1944 + the 95 year extended US term) in America, and they run until end of 2032 in Europe (the life of Lady Harris, the last co-creator to die, in 1962, plus 70 years).

This distorted rights situation has also kept the color-corrected new edition of the Thoth Tarot Deck off the market in English—U.S. Games insists on selling the absurd “three-Magician” version of the deck, with its over-saturated colors that are nothing like the original paintings. Around 2007, O.T.O. went to considerable trouble and expense—with very supportive assistance from AGMüller and the Yorke Collection curators—to digitally rephotograph the deck in high resolution, using a (rented!) $100,000 Phase One camera. We even did the typsetting and layout for the new deck in multiple languages, including English, for free—all in the interests of finally getting a version out that would meet Crowley’s and Lady Harris’ exacting standards. We’ve been very disappointed—thus far, it has only appeared in German.

I have compared this printing of the deck to the original paintings, and it is almost perfect. The original paintings have not faded over time, as some have claimed (the originals have always been protected from light, barring brief exhibitions, and are stable Winsor and Newton pigments). The problem is that prior printings have been simply negligent about color correction—which was admittedly harder in the pre-digital era—and in some cases, colors have been “pushed” to get an effect the publisher likes. Matching the subtlety of the paintings themselves is much harder, but clearly worthwhile.

With this litigation, we fully expect a typical American-style defense strategy that seeks to pit their considerable financial resources against ours. We’re veterans of this sort of asymmetrical fighting, and have prevailed against much larger opponents more than once. Having prepared thoroughly for the case, both legally and financially, we are confident of winning.

But we do want to ask for your support. If it offends your sensibilites that our shared legacy in the Thoth Tarot (one of the crowning achievements of Crowley’s life’s work) is being squandered and demeaned artistically against the creator’s and the estates’ wishes in this cynical manner—as it offends mine—please donate to the O.T.O. Legal Fund, and please be generous. We very much wish to conclude this as quickly and economically as possible, without hampering other ongoing O.T.O. projects.

Donations to the O.T.O. Legal Fund can be sent via Paypal to legal_fund@oto.org, or by check to Ordo Templi Orientis, Treasurer General, 24881 Alicia Parkway, Suite E-529, Laguna Hills, CA 92653 USA.

In other legal news, O.T.O. now has in-house counsel in its New York office, with a very qualified intellectual property attorney and member looking after our licensing. We now have the ability to handle smaller litigations entirely in-house in any state.

O.T.O. PUBLISHING NEWS

We have, as many of you know, issued two large paperback collections of Crowley’s fiction, The Drug and Other Stories, and The Simon Iff Stories and Other Works (Wordsworth Editions, UK). These were done for a nominal royalty fee in order to sound out the depth of the market for Crowley in paperback at a low price-point, and they seemed like good titles for introducing Crowley to a wider audience. The endnotes were a lot of work, and give a preview of some of the new research done for Crowley’s unabridged Confessions. If you haven’t ordered, do—they’re very reasonable (Simon Iff is currently (April 2013) $4.50 and The Drug is $7.19 with free shipping worldwide from www.bookdepository.com). And very readable, too. They are not at all what you might find floating on the internet—these have been carefully proofed and corrected, and draw on all available archival sources.

I have only just emerged from a very deep editorial rabbit-hole that lasted much of the last year, and am pleased to report that all of Crowley’s surviving diaries are now in page proofs—totalling over 6,000 pages as things now stand. This was a necessary exercise in order to develop a consistent editorial standard across the entire series, as we’re about to publish the first new volume of diaries to appear in some fifteen years.

As many of you know, the second volume of his Collected Diaries appeared in 1998 as The Vision and the Voice with Commentary and Other Papers (Equinox IV(2))—we are developing a slightly revised reprint of this. We are in the final stages (indexing—or rather, reindexing!) what will be the third volume in the series (chronologically), The American Diaries (Equinox IV(3)). This will be followed by the first volume, The Early Diaries (Equinox IV(4)), which is in second page proofs. We are optimistic that The American Diaries will go to press around mid-summer.

We have also developed a new edition of The Holy Books of Thelema (Equinox III(9))—currently in final proofs except for the appendices (the joys of typesetting Egyptian hieroglyphs are new to us here). This is a high priority for reissue.

We also have a new edition of The Diary of a Drug-Fiend that includes Crowley’s corrections and final additions, with his notes and a good editorial apparatus, needing only the introduction completed. We have newly-mastered versions of several out of print “backlist” titles—Liber Aleph, Eight Lectures on Yoga, The Law is for All, The Revival of Magick and Little Essays Toward Truth, that are nearly ready to be sent to press. Some of these may be released via print on demand and ebook at a price point that will be affordable to students.

A few months ago Apple revised its specification for its ebook format to allow free online updates for purchased ebooks. This is great, as we were planning to release via Apple as their file format is very secure. This new feature will allow us to improve the ebooks as we find necessary corrections, add material, or even substantially revise ebooks to use newly-supported features in the Apple ebook environment. Ebooks will of course look very different in, say, five or ten years, than they do today. We dislike, in principle, the idea of charging twice for the same book, so this is a welcome feature. It may also permit us to release in ebook before we release a print version (e.g., before the indexing for the print book is completed—an index being less important in an ebook, which behaves very differently and has a built-in search function). It is usually considered bad for business to release in ebook before print, but we’re more interested in saving money for our readers than sticking them for the maximum possible. That said, we’d like to be able to ensure that respectably-printed hardcovers remain available, for the comparative few who want them.

The unabridged Confessions is at an advanced state—it has had final proofs read for everything but the new editorial matter, and was indexed (though it now needs re-indexing). A few years ago I was so far along that at one point I described it as an “in press” title in a bibliographic citation. That proved too optimistic, as it was put on hold to allow the key volumes of diaries to appear first. As the first three volumes of the Collected Diaries cover 1894 through 1919, they span most of Confessions (which ends with a small amount of material for the early 1920s). This approach—releasing the first three volumes of the Collected Diaries—will allow the diaries to be crossreferenced by page in Confessions, making both sets of books much more useful as references.

We may, conditions permitting, begin issuing Confessions this year with volume 1 (this first volume has little parallel material in the diaries), and try to issue further volumes concurrently with the publication of the diaries, i.e., issuing the book volume by volume. Confessions volume 1 is basically complete, and features a great many previously-unseen photographs, and some new (and surprising!) research. The book is set and laid out to match the 1929 Mandrake Press first edition typographically, and will use a binding and paper of similar quality, with a great many full page photographs.

I did make much of my research for Confessions available to Richard Spence, Richard Kaczynski and Tobias Churton for their recent Crowley biographies—this happened at different times, so that their respective books reflect a little of the new Confessions but at different stages. Their own new research is incorporated and gratefully cited in the new Confessions. But the last few years of work on the new Confessions has turned up amazing new material and research.

A slightly technical digression by way of explanation and apology is in order. Confessions, the various volumes in the Collected Diaries series, and many other projects have been delayed by a painfully long and protracted series of technical problems having entirely to do with the software platform used by O.T.O. for book production.

Since 1991, our major books have been done in Adobe Framemaker, a powerful large-document book publishing program—we began using Framemaker with version 2 before it was owned by Adobe. This program made possible the programming of extensive crossreferences and complex indexes characteristic of our bigger books, like Liber ABA (Magick) and The General Principles of Astrology. Years ago now, Adobe decided to kill off Framemaker on the Macintosh, so we moved the projects to Windows, and for a time were able to maintain and further develop the books with that work-around, unsatisfactory as it was (The Drug was produced in Frame under Windows, for example). But stability issues (crashes) increasingly became a problem, so we decided to move everything to the new Adobe book production program InDesign (which was used for Simon Iff). Incomprehensibly, Adobe chose not to provide a migration path for people moving book projects from their old book production program (Framemaker) to their new book production program (InDesign)—at least, they don’t provide one that doesn’t throw away most of your programming. O.T.O. has worked with a third-party provider of a conversion utility that—after about a year of extra programming—eventually succeeded in preserving our original cross-references. Even with this, conversion still requires 50+ hours per book of hand programming to get things working properly. And sadly, all our Framemaker indexes are lost, i.e., not convertible. Well, I did them once, I’ll do them all again—but indexing is unbelievably tedious and time consuming—and contrary to popular belief, it has to be done in your head, knowing the entire book, and not using computer aids (that works for directories, not esoteric books).

There are other books that were nearly completed in Framemaker some years ago but stalled in the press due to the financial pressures occasioned by our legal exertions in the UK. These include Jesus and Other Papers (The Equinox III(2)), The Philosophy of Magick and Mysticism, The Unabridged Commentaries on Liber AL vel Legis, Crowley on Drugs, The Book of Oaths and The Golden Rose. These books need different amounts of further conversion and indexing, and will necessarily have to follow after our near term releases discussed above.

So in short, please excuse the long delay in the appearance of books, and thanks for your patience.

ARCHIVAL NEWS

I had one of those rare real-world material/spiritual experiences last year. I had sent out final proofs on The Holy Books, and a few weeks later the advance shipment of a large consignment of books from South Africa arrived. I knew it included a frighteningly rare Crowley title of great importance—the one-volume edition of Thelema (1909), i.e., The Holy Books, printed on actual sheepskin vellum (not Japon vellum, a type of paper favored by Crowley) and bound in Morocco by Zaehnsdorf. I had good reason to think it might be the very copy that appears on the altar in the famous “Magician” photo of Crowley, as I knew that A.C. had inscribed the book, almost certainly to Windram on his departure for South Africa after his 1913 visit to London, so it had without question been Crowley’s copy before 1913.

I was not, however, quite prepared for what arrived: the book includes several early comments on verses of Liber Legis (a few of which are important), as well as a very important text correction to Liber CCXX III:37
which resolves a longstanding textual difference between three sources: (1) the versification of the Stèle of Revealing from a now-lost vellum notebook, which was published with the reading “kill me!” in The Equinox I(7) (1912) and The Equinox of the Gods (1936); (2) a quotation (“fill me!”) given in a pencil note to Liber XXXI, the MS. of Liber AL, giving directions for the extent of the quotation to be inserted from a contemporary vellum notebook; and (3) the editions of Liber Legis published by Crowley, all of which gave “fill me!”.
In this copy Crowley’s marginal holograph note clearly corrects “fill me!” to “kill me!” in the text of Liber CCXX.

Below are photographs of the book’s binding and the page with the correction to Liber Legis. These photos are just quick snapshots taken before rushing the book into safe deposit—I don’t care to have such valuable Order property around on an ongoing basis.

Further details about the correction to Liber CCXX may be found here.

The underlying tale of the James Thomas Windram Accession to the O.T.O. Archives is a story in itself, which I will briefly relate here. We knew of the collection’s existence in South Africa as some years ago Frater Shiva X° of Australia, with assistance from the South African Crowley scholar Clint Warren, had met and befriended Windram’s only child, Clive Aleister. Clive had been born soon after Bro. Windram’s death in 1939. Clive’s mother had written to Crowley to ask what she should do with Windram’s books and papers, and A.C. advised her to save them for the boy. She did, and Clive hung onto them for many decades, but finally, last year, decided that it was time they went to the O.T.O. The collection included the original O.T.O. charter for South Africa signed by Crowley and Leila Waddell, Windram’s robe (made by Northam), numerous first editions (including a nearly complete deluxe binding of The Equinox, a Book of Lies signed “Perdurabo,” and one of the very scarce Japon vellum copies of The Goetia—graced with a few of young Clive’s crayon scrawls from his boyhood!), and dozens of valuable books from the secondary literature, including some mint first editions, e.g., of Forlong’s Rivers of Life. I wish to thank Bro. Clint Warren for flying the bulk of the collection from South Africa to the US. We are deeply grateful to the Windram family—I can think of no better example of a son keeping faith with his father’s wishes, or of a widow keeping faith for both husband and son. That this collection should have been preserved largely intact for a century and come to us out of the blue in our centenary year—100 years after the founding of the M∴M∴M∴ and the South African O.T.O.—is all the more fitting.

We will be performing initiations into the Minerval Degree and Second Degree of Ordo Templi Orientis on March 23rd at our Cavan location. All initiate members of O.T.O. are welcome to attend and assist us in initiating our new Brethren into our Holy Order.

On Sunday January 27th our Brethren in the North will be hosting the Breaking of Bread ritual plus Brother Matthew will be giving a talk on Liber Samekh, followed by a performance of that ritual too. The event will be held in Lisburn. Please contact us if you would like to attend.

All Kephra Oasis members please arrive at 1 pm for an Oasis business meeting, all other guests please arrive by 5pm. Everyone is asked to please bring a contribution to the feast.

The first meeting of our new book discussion group will be held on 12th January 2013 e.v. in Blackrock, when the subject will be Aleister Crowley’s Eight Lectures on Yoga. Non-OTO members are welcome, so if you’d like to come along, please contact the Khephra Oasis Secretary for more details.