Thelema Revisited: In Search of Aleister Crowley

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Description

Richard T. Cole

Orange Box Books, 2007. Paperback. 104 pages. Limited Edition. Details the authors visit to what remains of the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu Sicily including photos, diagrams, maps and background information. As New/Fine copy in protective mylar cover.

“The Abbey’s whitewashed external walls reflect light strongly, in stark contrast to the doorway looming just ahead which sucks it down and splatters convoluted shadows across the murky interior. For a moment I pause between the dark lips of a monster into whose mouth I will soon enter, an wonder… What on earth am I doing here? Why have I travelled 2,000 kilometres and halfway up a volcanic mountain situated on an island that’s hotter than hell, just to spend one night in the ruins of a derelict farmhouse: A reputedly haunted farmhouse and former residence of Mr Aleister Crowley – ‘The man who chose evil’.”

Richard T . Cole requests your company on a nostalgic journey to a small village on the north-east coast of Sicily, where fifty years ago, on a hot June morning, a wealthy Sicilian named Giuseppe Ferrara arrived on a horse and carriage to greet a middle-aged couple and escort them around his old farmhouse. Before leaving Mr Ferrara gives their grandson a keepsake of the visit – a small glass phial left by the previous tenant.

Although the phial is soon lost, the child retains a life-long fascination for its owner. A man whose rise from obscurity, to the celebrity status and world renown he enjoys posthumously today is nothing short of remarkable.

Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated travelogue answers all the questions you are ever likely to ask about Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema and dispels many of the myths, it includes:

  • Hundreds of rare unseen and unpublished photographs of the Abbey and Cefalu from the past and present.
  • A comprehensive and fascinating history of the Abbey, its tenants, visitors, vandals and owners.
  • A summary of the key events which occured during Crowley’s three year and one month long attempt to create a New World Religion.
  • Fills in gaps and ties up many loose ends left by other published accounts.
  • Recollections and memories of Crowley from lifelong inhabitants of Cefalu, neighbours and relatives of the Abbey’s current owners.
  • A contemporary ghost story about the Abbey, complete with a recently taken photograph of Crowley’s ghost!

 

Additional information

Weight 0.360 kg