Here’s an early announcement of a book that’s gone to press. It’s by the definitive Crowley biographer, Dr Richard Kaczynski: Panic in Detroit: The Magician and the Motor City (Blue Equinox Journal #2).
Contents:
* Historical introductory essay by Richard Kaczynski
* 43 previously unpublished letters of Aleister Crowley and Charles Stansfeld Jones, copiously annotated
* 25 newspaper article transcripts from the 1919-1923 dealing with the Detroit saga
* Documents including the Blue Equinox prospectus; the flyer for Frater Arctaeon’s lectures in Detroit; Crowley’s Voice of the Silence manifesto; and M.M.M. & R.C. certificates
* A previously unseen photograph of C.S. Jones and W.T. Smith in Detroit, 1920
* Cover design (from a 1922 exposé of Detroit’s O.T.O.) by digitalpear
“Is Detroit heaven?” Aleister Crowley asked his field organizer, Charles Stansfeld Jones. It certainly seemed so at the time: Bookman Albert W. Ryerson was selling Crowley’s books and publishing the latest installment of The Equinox. Several prominent Masons were interested in establishing the Lakes Region of Ordo Templi Orientis. Jones was in high demand teaching classes on magick and Thelema. But things turned suddenly sour. When slow sales dragged the Universal Book Stores into bankruptcy, the activities of the O.T.O. were luridly thrust onto the front pages of the daily news. The Equinox was declared obscene and all copies impounded. The O.T.O. “love cult” was blamed for everything from broken homes and Hollywood’s wild parties to the mysterious murder of film director William Desmond Taylor.
166 pages. $20. Availability March, 2006 e.v.
through www.blueequinox.org