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Teitan Press has recently published The Progradior Correspondence, edited by Keith Richmond.

The text is comprised of ninety letters and documents that were exchanged between Aleister Crowley (Frater Progradior), Frank Bennett, and members of Crowley’s inner circle, including Charles Stansfeld Jones (Frater Achad), Leila Waddell, Leah Hirsig among others.

The letters discuss first hand accounts of the development of Thelema and efforts to promote its vehicles, the A.’. A.’. and the OTO.

From Teitan Press:

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.

The book is available in hardcover in a limited edition of 666 copies for $45 US, and is available from Weiser Antiquarian and Amazon.com.

Popularity: 6%

Thelema Revisited: In Search of Aleister Crowley is a new book compiled and edited by Richard T. Cole. It contains more than 200 colour and black and white images, the majority previously unseen and unpublished, including pictures of the interior and exterior of the Abbey as it stands today, floor plans, photographs of Crowley’s artwork inside the Abbey, and rare photographs of the Abbey through the years.

From the author’s website:

In June, 2007, I travelled to a small fishing village on the north-east coat of Sicily in order to obtain a complete photographic record of Aleister Crowley’s former ‘Abbey of Thelema’, before it crumbles into the dust of Cefalu. Also, to stand in the same room where, exactly fifty years ago, the building’s owner gave a curious keepsake to a young child – a small glass phial on which was stuck a label neatly written by the hand of the previous tenant.

The photographs and 8mm movie footage taken by the child’s grandparents that morning were to feature in a publication intended to cash-in on the growing interest in Aleister Crowley created by John Symonds’ 1951 biography ‘The Great Beast’ and a three-part series of articles printed in Picture Post magazine (1955). However, the proposed book was never completed. Consequently, this material has languished quietly in a chest of drawers for the last fifty years.

Thelema Revisited is an account of the events I experienced during my recent visit to Cefalu and also of various correspondences which developed in the subsequent months. Due to a fortunate set of circumstances and coincidences, this travelogue has expanded far beyond its original scope and to a point at which I am reasonably confident to suggest that it answers most, if not all of the questions you are ever likely to ask abut Crowley’s (very Thelemic) three year and one month long residence at the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalu.

I received an e-mail announcement earlier this week from Caduceus Books. It’s limited to 666 copies, and the hardcover has already sold out. I’ve already placed my order; I’m intensely curious.

Popularity: unranked