Description
Richard T. Cole; Aleister Crowley
Orange Box Books, United Kingdom, 2009. Hardcover. First Edition. 104 pages. Limited Edition, limited to 156 copies, each with a postcard numbered and signed by the author. This copy being number 26/156. Out of print, when published these books sold out almost immediately. Features 72 full colour and 42 black & white illustrations. A wicked series of pictorial and textual parodies on Crowley, his friends and followers. As New/Fine.
“Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.
In the spring of 2004, when asked if I could provide a bit of light relief for insertion into a proposed series of digital editions, I accepted the challenge with relish. Crowley is, in my opinion, a truly great British tradition. He travelled extensively, enjoyed a good joke, was energetically enthusiastic about sex and throughout out his life was, and still is, much derided. With these elements in mind an obvious format for, “a bit of light relief” immediately sprang to mind in the form of the much-loved and, by today’s standards extremely politically incorrect, other great British tradition of saucy holiday postcards. And so was born the concept of my Comely Crowley Cards.
Between 2004 and 2007 a light dusting of these images were sprinkled amongst the limited digital editions of Crowley’s works released by Black Flag & Naughty Nun New Media. A few were e-mailed to friends and colleagues, as private jokes. One or two found their way onto the Internet and, on the odd occasions where a bit of space was available on the run-offs of other projects, a small number were printed as actual postcards. However, for the most past my collection of Thelemic artwork remained unknown, unseen and gathering cyber-dust… Until now! A Postcard from Hell is a compilation of all 70 of the infamous postcards (including the much-debated Leah Hirsig images), plus a whole host of other artistic goodies relating to the life, loves & legacy of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast 666. Includes an entire chapter on the recent (1985-2009) history of the guardians of Crowley’s artistic and literary legacy, O.T.O..
Summary of contents:
Postcards – The date is 12 October, 1875, and Emily Bertha has just given birth to a chubby little baby called Alick. Who could know this innocent child would create a worldwide scandal with his quest to track down and extract a new Bible for mankind from a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwaz. The wickedest man in the world? Nah, he’s just a very naughty Magus. This lavishly illustrated chapter escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Aleister Crowley’s seventy-two year life of doing exactly what he wilt…
*Discover what Crowley’s relationship with the Loch Ness monster was.
*Uncover why Crowley was evicted from the Garden of Eden only 31 minutes after its official opening.
*Glimpse a rare poster promoting Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls.
*Study a reproduction of the Divine Slice of Toast on which the face and Magickal number (666) of The Great Beast recently manifested.
*Read about Crowley’s sellout, one-man show (The Aiwaz Man Cometh) at the Warburg Theatre.
*Find out the real secret behind Tantric yoga – Why did Buddha laugh?
*Learn about Crowley’s attempt to produce a batch of hununculus’ at his Abbey of Thelema, in Sicily.
*See a photograph of LAM’s birthday party with uncles Al, and Ken and aunt Steffi.
Leah Hirsig (The Scarlet Woman) – It’s spring, 1918, and a naive young New York teacher is about to get the lesson of her life. Leah Hirsig has just met the man who will sweep her off her feet (and head) and take her on a breathtaking journey which will change forever her life, her attitude towards pets and her gynecological configuration. Leah, or Alostrael (her magickal name), repeatedly demonstrated herself to be ‘game for anything’ and indisputably provided invaluable assistance to Crowley in his difficult mid-life transition from Magus to Ipsissimus – Though she found subsequent cause to recant her vows of Crowleyanity, re-revert to Catholicism and sever all links with her former Master, The Great Beast. Based on the infamous series of postcards created between 2004 and 2007, Richard T. Cole’s lavishly illustrated compendium of materials escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in Leah Hirsig’s five year long holiday romance with The Great Beat 666. Gaze reverentially in awe, wonder, adoration and sheer disbelief at Aleister Crowley’s favourite Scarlet woman as depicted in a sequence of rare and alluring photographs, including:
*The Opium Queen – “High Tea – Our Favourite Hobby!”
*At Cefalu – “Wish you were her”.
*”Sublime Salome.”
*His Sepia Woman – “Paint me as a hairy armpit!”
*At Cefalu, with a randy old goat – “I know what you did last summer”.
*As inspiration for Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter- “Can unload your bags, Sir?”
*Chastising A.C. for smudging an oil painting of her – “Don’t finger me whilst I’m still wet”
O.T.O. – The date is 12 July, 1985, and Grady McMurtry, head of the California-based faction of an occult fraternity known as Ordo Templi Orientis, has just celebrated his Greater Feast. The membership of O.T.O. holds its collective breath and strains to watch a white dove issue forth from the tallest chimney of its Head Office; a feathered omen announcing the appointment of a new head. Is what happened next the stuff of fiction, legend, or horror? Is that strange sound we’ve been hearing really Crowley turning in his urn? Can, “Lite Cakes” really be used as part of a healthy, balanced diet? Who is the mysterious Butch Butcher of Berne and what are his gristle-burgers made from? Who were Pipie & Sons and did they really invent time-travelling paper? All these and many more intriguing questions are completely ignored in Richard T. Cole’s humorous expose of O.T.O.’s soft white underbelly. This lavishly illustrated chapter picks up the story and escorts readers on a whistle-stop and satirical tour of the unforgettable moments in O.T.O.’s history during the ensuing twenty-four years – The rise of the Caliphate…
*Discover what happens each year on the mound of, “GolgOTOha” (the place of skulks)
*Uncover links between O.T.O.’s secret Elixir and a certain pharmacological giant *known for its blue pills.
*Glimpse a rare poster for the movie SCOTOP.
*Study a diagram of the structure of O.T.O. and learn where to purchase your hand-held *Thelemic Navigation console.
*Read rarely seen pages from the Magickal Sink magazine.
*Find out what really happened at a dinner party in the Paris Ritz.
*Learn O.T.O.’s Word of the Equinox (1985) and understand why this will never change.
*See the promotional flyer used to promote “a radical new awareness-raising campaign”.
*Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about O.T.O. but were afraid to ask.
Art – A compilation of watercolour and acrylic paintings plus other assorted promotional items, past, present and future; real and imagined. Includes:
*Two acrylic paintings of Aleister Crowley, entitled In the Desert and Red Heat.
*Watercolour paintings of A.C. Scintillating in Purple and Leah Hirsig as, Predator posing as a house-pet.
*Two promotional flyers for live appearences, in London and Moscow, of Aleister Crowley’s Ragged Rag-Time Girls.
*A selection of book covers and descriptions of Richard T. Cole’s forthcoming projects.
Miscellaneous – Contains various bits ‘n’ bobs which, upon finishing the project, I happened upon by chance and thought, “Bugger! I forgot all about that one”. It also holds a small selection of pictures conceived to accompany text, rather than as stand-alone images, including two eBay listings and a short essay entitled A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick (a sharp, insightful, funny and perceptive a comment on Sex Magick).
*Crowley’s X-Mas Lucky Lotto Ticket – It Could Be NU.
*The Holy Toast – A Divine Manifestation!
*The Rock Valley Messiah.
*A Rite of Auto-Ejaculatory Magick.
*Thelemic Talisman – A 31 x 31 Magick Square.
*Three very strange digital renderings of Crowley’s distinctive features, entitled *FractAL, Beastly Balls in Thick Darkness Sauce and Shredded Beast.
APPENDICES
A – Index of Images. B – Chartering Blame. C – DISCLAIMER. D – Additional Notes.
E – A Flashback
Laugh until your hoor splits. Cry tears of pure elixir. Feel your kundalini spasm with unadulterated delight. Suppress your wails as an army of savage ‘Warrior Briefs’ tear down your door and initiate you within thirty-one inches of your Holy Guardian Angel.”
