LAShTAL.COM is very pleased to be in a position to announce what is probably the Thelemic publishing event of the year!
Atlantis Books’ illustrious Neptune Press has just published two books by the highly-respected Crowley scholar, Keith Richmond.
First is Progradior And The Beast: Frank Bennett and Aleister Crowley, a significant addition to the biographical material relating to Aleister Crowley. Second is The Magical Record Of Frater Progradior, which covers the all-important Cefalu period.
It’s fair to say that I consider this a most exciting publishing event. I’ll be reviewing them just as soon as I’ve finished reading them!
Meanwhile, though, Read More for full details of the books, including availability and price. To order, contact The Atlantis Bookshop in the UK or the excellent Weiser Antiquarian Books in the US. Tell them that LAShTAL.COM sent you!
Progradior and the Beast – Frank Bennett & Aleister Crowley by Keith Richmond
Neptune Press, London, 2004
ISBN 0-9547063-4-X
Hardcover, 8vo. 316pp
Clothbound, with full colour dustwrapper, and black and white illustrations.
Bibliography and Index
Trade edition (a special edition of 50 numbered copies in slipcase sold out on publication.)
Progradior and the Beast recounts the story of Lancashire-born Frank Bennett (1868-1930), one of Aleister Crowley’s more successful, if little-known followers. Whilst still a youth Bennett embarked on a spiritual odyssey which eventually led him to the study of ceremonial magic, and into contact with Crowley. Bennett, also known by his magical name, Frater Progradior, migrated to Australia in 1911 where he founded A .*. A.*. and O.T.O. groups, and sought to promote Crowley’s law of Thelema. In 1921 Bennett travelled to Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu, where he rapidly became one of the Beast’s star pupils.
Progradior and the Beast is largely drawn from previously unpublished sources – letters, journals, and other documents – and provides rare insight into the private and public worlds of these two twentieth century magicians. It is illustrated with a number of previously unseen pictures of Crowley and Bennett, and the dustwrapper and endpapers include striking colour reproductions of two paintings by Crowley: one a portrait of Frank Bennett, and the other a Cefalu landscape. The book is uniform in format with its companion volume: The Magical Record of Frater Progradior.
£37.50 / USD $75.00
The Magical Record of Frater Progradior & Other Writings by Frank Bennett
Edited and with an Introduction by Keith Richmond
Neptune Press, London, 2004
ISBN 0-9547063-5-8
Hardcover, 8vo. 176pp
Clothbound, with full colour dustwrapper, and black and white frontis-portrait of Frank Bennett. Trade edition (a special edition of 50 numbered copies in slipcase sold out on publication.)
The Magical Record of Frater Progradior is a journal chronicling the visionary and magical experiences which Lancashire-born Frank Bennett (1868-1930) underwent during an intense retreat or Magical Retirement which he undertook at Crowley’s Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu in 1921.
Crowley himself was profoundly moved by Bennett’s visions, which he described as ‘exalted and intense and intimate,’ and felt displayed a ‘kinship of the soul’ with John Bunyan.
The Magical Record contains the text of Frank Bennett’s Cefalu diary, with Aleister Crowley’s added comments, along with several other writings by Bennett. It also includes the text of Crowley’s Liber Samekh, a ritual he prepared especially for Bennett’s use during his Magical Retirement.
The Magical Record has a previously unpublished photographic portrait of Bennett as its frontispiece, and the book’s dustwrapper and endpapers include striking colour reproductions of two paintings of Cefalu by Crowley which he presented to Bennett.
The book is uniform in format to its companion volume: Progradior and the Beast.
£32.50 / USD $65.00
UK sales and distribution via The Atlantis Bookshop
United States sales and distribution via Weiser Antiquarian Books