Thanks hamal. He basically came to the same conclusion as I have with out reading the book yet. I find of no importance relatively speaking if Aiwass as a part of Crowleys psyche, or as an independent being dictated the Book of the Law, what is of import to me is that Thelema and the A.:.A.:. are amazingly valuable tools for personal and perhaps societal evolution. Looking forward to reading the book.

That's true. There are no dates, ships, museum locations, names of conspirators, etc.  That's what this thread is about - but except for pederasty claims, sailing schedules, and honorable mention of watermarks, there have not been many details posted here. I'm still waiting to hear how there was no Rose, no Museum, no Aiwass, et al.

Another deleted post?

Not by me, ptoner , and I'm the only moderator. What makes you think something has been deleted?

i must admit to being disappointed by the Cornelius post.  I thought it might go into some more detail about or analysis of RTC's claims, given that Cornelius himself has written much on AC's history. Back to watching the paint dry then…

What a horrible review. Inbetween Cornelius' personal attacks on Cole, and his religious apologetics, there is almost no substance to the review at all. Indeed, it was more of a critique, and the worst possible kind. I suppose I will just have to wait to read the book, and to make an effort to ignore all these critics. RTC, good job. I await the publication of this book with glee if only because it seems to be causing a rustling of peoples jimmies.

Crowley's work must stand or fall based upon it's own merits. He seriously lacked objectivity as a person, and an artist such objectivity is crucial. If taken by itself Crowley's legacy - his paintings, his poetry, his writing, everything about him - it is all sub par. There are far greater artistic talents out there, saying things much more profound and they manage to do it without being a totally undesirable character, and starting a cult around themselves.

And what about posts like this which also offer very little substance, other than to let everyone know how butt hurt everyone is by RTC's book?

I too would like to have a go at the actual evidence, and to discuss the contents of this book, but until it is offered for sale, all we can really do is speculate and discuss like we have been. Personally I would like to be able to have a discussion about the book in general, but the other thread for that is closed. I don't see why we should not be able to discuss Cole's book, or the concerns he raises. It seems silly to not be able to talk about it like adults.

Apologies Paul. Failed to see your post on the procedding page.  Read it initially on the phone and stupidly failed to realise it we had jumped into another page.  Oops.

No worries! I was just concerned that there might be a fault.

This speaks well of Jerry Cornelius' view of the insight granted to Crowley as detailed in Liber AL. Said insight alone helps to hold up Liber AL in the face of the fact that it very may well be something Crowley just made up.
 

Crowley is completely and totally interwoven with the Book, by virtue or vice of him being the Prophet. Without him, the Book does not occur in the form in which we know it, in the manner in which it occurred, whatever that is.  Then again, that's kind of what makes a Prophet, so it's 'sort of' mandatory, as Marriages go.

That doesn't mean it is all about him, or all him. I agree that there is little enough of him that the Book appears to be able to stand on its own merit. There is still enough of him for people who question Crowley to write the Book off totally.

Ironic indeed. If he did a good job, it may help the next person who comes along to write about it.

As for how it really happened, I think it may even have been somewhere in-between both Crowley's and RTC's story (whatever his is). You know, with all this talk about Annie Besant, and thinking of the Theosophical Society and the Mahatmas and such, I can only imagine what Crowley was into at the time - aside from Rose and the butler - that may have influenced him into 'something similar', leading to Liber AL. Let us also not forget the coma incident. These might be the two most important points of the entire Reception story that have been in the limelight lately.

Yes. Eventually, to each their own on the matter.

Thanks, Jerry.

From Jerry's review, it appears that RTC did a solid job of creating a Yin to Crowley's Yang, in a way. It is noted that he did not cite RTC as having made a definitive case beyond reasonable doubt that Crowley was a liar in regards to the Reception story.

The review was respectful towards both Richard Cole and the book, though making it clear where the reviewer diagreed. I saw no "personal attacks on Cole"; could you please cite some of these "personal attacks"? 

You actually think that your posts have substance, do you? In the passage by Shiva you have quoted, perhaps you could tell me which phrase indicates to you how "butt hurt" he is.

The thread was open for a couple of years or more, and ran to a great many pages. You can, if you wish, start another thread with yet more speculation about a book that most of us have yet to see; then again, the owner of this website might judge that he doesn't want another such thread since one can have too much of a good thing. If that's the case, of course, there's nothing to prevent you from starting your own discussion website where you can talk about what you like whenever you like.

Please let us focus on the claims and evidence presented by RTC in his book.  If we need to bicker back and forth there are a number of other threads available for just that.

There was no bickering. "J T" commented adversely on the review by Cornelius, and I was merely probing his remarks. There seems precious little in the way of "claims and evidence" from Cole's lucubration for us to focus on thus far.

93!

Is there any "real" evidence for this story besides the Confessions? We have an exact date by Crowley, November 5, 1891, but  so far I wasn't able to find any independent report on this. At a time when minor gas expelosions in personal flats made news, I have found no newspaper clipping so far that tells of an explosion and of "windows [that] were smashed for a long way round", which just looks like newspaper material to me. So, anything in the book about that?

And sorry, but what does this mean? Either the paper existed in 1904 or not. If the "London" brand was not "commercially" available before 1905, what does that mean? Was there a French brand? A US brand? Was the paper available for printers and professionals? Or was it simply not existing in 1904? I mean, this alone would be enough to destroy the reception story.

So? What about proof in the book? (or should I say in said book?) At the moment I have the feeling no judge or jury could really nail Crowley down...

Love=Law
Lutz

And in this post, Lutz, you get to the crux of the matter. I'll return to the watermark issue in a moment.

Richard T Cole's book is a must-read. Of course it is: the hype makes enormous claims that demand attention, but ultimately it's a disappointment... His focus on the negative aspects of Crowley's personality, for example, (or, more accurately, his sexuality) brings with it an imbalance that ultimately discredits his approach. I've yet to speak with anyone interested in Crowley who wasn't already well-informed about all that, but to embellish one story (seduction of a maid on his mother's bed) with an extraordinary accusation (a knife being used and the bed replaced by a chopping board) and then to use a 1957 magazine, 'Real Action For Men', as its sole source is, frankly, breath-taking in this context.

Don't misunderstand me: Cole's book is informative in parts, it is well-written, well-produced and entertaining but the real question is whether he includes evidence that justifies the extravagant hype used to promote it. Unfortunately, he doesn't, not in this 'promotion and review' edition at least, which adds very little to the 'evidence' already published in his free taster PDF.

Some examples: His photographic resources are all over the place; handwriting is misidentified as AC's; ill-advised 'humorous' photoshopped manipulations are shown ridiculing a prominent scholar (a point-scoring in-joke of questionable value at best); there's a photograph of a reproduction of the stele in place of the actual stele (in itself obscuring something that, had Cole realised it, actually provides evidence in support of his argument); and, finally and most suspiciously, he reproduces on p209 a deliberately faked photograph, exposed as such on the Forums here.

Factually, he lurches from one minor error to the next - nothing too alarming but mostly demonstrating his poor choice of resource material. Why make so much of 'evidence' in Marcus Katz's embarrassingly poor and error-strewn reprint of OS27 when the 'original' text is widely available? Dates are often incorrect, works are described as 'unpublished' when they're not, incorrect assumptions are made (e.g. the time taken to travel from Egypt to Europe) and so on.

Ultimately, the point of this book seems to me to be two-fold: first to establish that AC could not have written Liber AL in 1904, and, secondly, that dark forces have tried to hide this fact. Does the book provide convincing evidence for either? Factual evidence of the first is scarce and is based almost exclusively on Cole's repeated assertion regarding the paper used for the MSS. As Lutz notes, all other evidence is ultimately peripheral: if the paper includes a watermark proving it didn't exist until 1905 then Cole's case is proved. Well, he repeats the assertion (as quoted by ptoner above) but provides no evidence, expecting us to take him at his word and assuring us that the 'issue [will be] discussed at length in Part 2(B), Appendix 1.'

As for the second point of the book, Cole writes at length regarding the omission of OS23 from the (partial) Yorke Collection microfilm, alleging a conspiracy to hide it as if it proves his hypothesis, without showing evidence that he has read its content and therefore what its significance might be. Those of us familiar with OS23 will be surprised to see so much made of it, fascinating though it is.

In short, then, yes, this is a book that all interested in AC and Thelema should read. I've described it in correspondence with RTC as a 'breath of fresh air'. But, despite the years of effort seemingly invested in it, it still shows the signs of being rushed: there's simply very little evidence in it, certainly nothing of great significance that withstands rigorous analysis.

I should end by pointing out that RTC spends two pages complaining about the treatment dished out to a LAShTAL.COM member, one 'Carrot_Childe', for daring to innocently ask serious questions on the Forums about some of RTC's claims, bemoaning 'a predictable fog of feigned ignorance punctuated by volleys of sarcasm and derision from established members.' As readers of these Forums now know, 'Carrot_Childe' is an anagram of 'Richard T Cole'. The account was created by Cole or his team, it turns out, to promote the book. It's this hubris and hype, combined with an unwise choice of source material, that ultimately renders the book disappointingly less than the sum of it parts.

Let's be clear, there is mystery in the Cairo Working and there is evidence that AC obscures far more than he reveals in his account of it. I have lectured on some of the puzzles and Churton has discussed some of them in his biography of AC. This all merits a serious and properly researched work that can withstand academic or at least informed investigation. Unless the 'final version' of Cole's book is subjected to extensive revision, this isn't it.

Thank you, Paul, for this very informative review that more or less confirms what I expected.

Personally, I think Cole should be ashamed of himself not just for producing an overhyped book that is apparently embarrassingly light on substance but for the disgraceful way he conducted himself on these forums.

Source: Reply #576 in the thread titled Re: Liber L. vel Bogus - The real confession of Aleister Crowley http://www.lashtal.com/forum/http://www.lashtal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=88243#p88243

Just for the sake of clarity, Lashtal. Are certain 'inconsistencies' within a certain well-known photographic portrait of Aleister Crowley, not emphasized within the review/pre-publication edition of Richard T Cole's Liber L vel Bogus?

He discusses the apparent age problem in some detail but only touches on the other 'inconsistencies'.

thanks for the review Paul. As someone intimately familiar with the source material, your impressions count for a lot. It is indeed a twofold disappointment - that RTC's book is such an ill-tempered farce, and that the fascinating questions surrounding the origins of Liber AL remain to be addressed in an informed, rigorous  and academic examination.

Fantastic post, Lashtal, exactly what this thread has been waiting for.
You could have added, 'drops the mic' at the end 🙂

Well, that made me smile! Not something that happens on these forums very often these days.

Thanks for the review, Paul!

Interesting.

I really don't like that he would even want to put such information into an appendix, and not into its own chapter. It really goes back to what I said previously, that if he had actually found the golden egg to disprove Crowley's story, it would have been the main sauce and thesis of the book.

On the paper... Is it possible that the paper in question existed at the publisher's prior to 1905, and AC just happened to get his hands on some 'next run' paper? Or, has that possibility already been radically explored, and the statement that "[the paper] didn't exist until 1905" mean just that?

I enjoyed the rest of your review. Thanks for it. If the book is as factually terrible as you say, I probably won't spend my money on it, no matter how much of a collector's piece it is.

Maybe with this part done, we can return to awaiting your book now. 🙂

I remember this popping up but there was no follow up.

http://www.lashtal.com/forum/http://www.lashtal.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=90321#p90321

...I thought that the issue of the 'watermark' was only due to the difference between the import/export from the company in question? I looked into it myself years ago, when this first came up, & I don't have the details, but it was clear that the paper company used a different stock for home & abroad, & at that time (1904) the hôtel that he was staying at in Cairo would have had the paper he had. I should have posted what I found then, I don't know why I didn't!! Now I have to find it again....

Horemakhet? Any extra information for the Scooby Gang?

Presuming that this kind of paper existed in 1904 or earlier (I have seen no reason to doubt Crowley's date of the ms. of Liber Legis), there should still be a lot of it around, in typed and handwritten documents dating from those years.

I would suggest that the most likely place to turn up examples would be in London itself, where Pirie & Sons had an office at 97 Farringdon Street already by 1896 (and probably earlier; the company was founded in 1770 and had offices (distributors?) in Paris and New York as well), and where there were doubtless the greatest concentration of businesses and journalists, and typewriters to serve them, in the era.

Anyone with the inclination and some patience might search for paper with this watermark in archives of business correspondence, personal letters, or journalism, in London for those years. There are no doubt scores of places to begin looking. Archivists are often very helpful and interested in obscure searches like watermarks on paper from 1903-04.

93!

Hello! Thelema and/or Crowleyanity still seems to be alive and kicking. I am still waiting for my complementary copy of the book, so I still haven't read it.

Is there any reason for the silence about this - now that's it's out for a few weeks?

Why is this earth-shattering publication not discussed any longer anywhere?

Did I mention this only to finally receive my complementary copy?

Love=Law
Lutz

Is it at all possible that this apparent silence can be connected in any way to the mysterious phenomenon whereby replies, posts and threads broadly connected with the subject have mysteriously and inexplicably (i.e., without any given explanation ::)) vanished into a black hole (e.g. as happened with Paul Toner’s news article about the topic only a mere fortnight or so ago)?

= “Is this some oojy-woojie shit?”, as Los might say...
N Joy

Jamie: Please grow up. If there was an attempt to keep references to Cole's book from this site, I'm not sure I'd have provided it with extensive publicity across numerous threads, several News items and two lengthy reviews!

Rather than taking every opportunity to question my integrity through public posts and Private Messages, perhaps you'd care to return to the topic and actually discuss some of the 'evidence presented' in the book? Have you even read it?

Jamie, 93!

People have answered my queries via pm. I guess we all have to wait for part 2 whenever it appears before it will be discussed more substantially. But I also haven't read it so far - I hope I will soon.

Love=Law
Lutz

There seems to be a quantum of over-reaction here; I certainly do not take “every opportunity” to question your integrity – far from it, in fact I don’t think I have ever directly done so at all – I was merely observing in the last thread (there was the one other, plus 2 PMs sent as a reply to your initially PM’ing me) that there still seemed to be a pervasive, mysterious element of uncertainty: i.e., it was curious that no one seemed to have posted further, as Lutz then remarked.  It seems a bit much if Society members can’t even query areas of mysterious uncertainty without themselves being accused of some sort of skulduggery.

You’ve also made a thing about having to curtail your own book on the subject, therefore it wouldn’t be unreasonable for anyone to conjecture (rightly or wrongly, I hasten to add) that you might very well be feeling a bit sore as a result of the work done & wasted and maybe feeling like wanting to settle the score a little in some way.

It seems also rather a coincidence that you have decided to choose this exact moment to remove the Blogs (- If I was of a more cynical frame of mind, well…)  When I posted material relating to the post-Germer development of the O.T.O. onto a couple of threads, you also made a thing about saying it was inappropriate to discuss it within this forum (itself devoted to the legacy of A.C. wherein the O.T.O. was especially designed by him to protect, safeguard & forward just that legacy) and suggested to me that the best way to present it would be in the form of a blog.  Which I then did, involving some fair additional labour on my part.  And which you have now announced yesterday is itself very likely to be removed and therefore also disppear.

I haven’t had a chance to read the book yet, although I have made plenty of comments about all the previous material relating to it (e.g., and particularly, the advance ‘Xmas stocking’ excerpts published on the other large locked thread.)  I may offer some further critical comments at a later date, although I was not aware of there being any rush to need to do so.

All in all, and for whatever reason it’s a most curious business, as I say.

N Joy

'Wrongly.' The decision to stop work on my own book - which as it turns out has very little overlap with Cole's - resulted from personal circumstances to do with my wife's health.

🙂 That little piece of paranoia did actually make me smile, so thanks for that.

No, I thought not.

Now, back to the topic, please.

When I try to access the longest thread connected with the subject, the thread titled Liber L. vel Bogus - The real confession of Aleister Crowley, I get this message:

An Error Has Occurred!  The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.  [0] Board index Go to full version

[Source: http://www.lashtal.com/forum/index.php?topic=6399.470;wap2 ]

Will eol, Administrator Member, explain how it is possible to access the said thread?

Strangely, I get the same error message, although I think I checked something on this thread at most a few weeks ago.

I'm getting the same error message.

I knew it! 😮  It's the work of the Black Lodge ... again!

Dial "EOL" for an exorcism.

🙂

I've emailed eol to see if he can fix this problem.

Liber Bogus runs to 246 pages, I quickly read through 195 pages and then got distracted by other material. It got a bit boring and repetitive in places.
It does have enough information to make people question the reception ....but Mormons are quite happy to believe their reception so...

I think within the vast amount of Crowleys writings there are enough nuggets of esoteria and practical exercises to make it worth it.

I might try to finish the book today.

Isnt there hints of Liber Bogus 2 coming out too?

@Paul: i remember you wrote the liber al code was simple if you had a map of Cairo, i do hope you finish your book or at least release some more of your research.

I am sorry, but there isn't much I can do about this. 🙁 Perhaps it is better if Paul explains what happened and why is that particular thread unavailable.

From the Owner & Editor of LAShTAL.COM

This site has been online in various forms (initially with ALMAC and subsequently hosted by Demon Internet) since 1992 and, for the first time in 23 years, I extend the members here an apology...

Situation

A thread was started by me as the result of legitimate interest expressed by members in announcements relating to the publication of a new book. The thread was intended to encourage a free and frank discussion of the evidence presented by Richard T Cole in his new book, Liber L vel Bogus: The Real Confession of Aleister Crowley in support of his arguments expressed therein: that Crowley was a 'nut job', a psychopath (raping a housemaid at knife-point) and a liar. Cole's work suggested that the established account of the Cairo Working, based on AC's writings, is wholly erroneous. I was particularly interested in promoting this discussion of the evidence since my own researches had resulted in similar suspicions regarding the timeline.

The thread subsequently ran to many pages and to dozens of posts, many very interesting but many more simply repeating opinions based on prejudice from members inevitably as yet unable to read the book.

It soon became clear that I had started the thread too soon, starting as it did even before publication of the very small 'pre-release/review/fact-checking' edition of the book and the frequency of posts very quickly decreased until the thread was effectively dormant. This all changed when a new member sporting the username of Carrot_Childe started to post on the thread, immediately taking a line that can best be summarised as: 'You're all in denial, the book is wonderful and you're all having a go at me because...'

The 'pre-release/review/fact-checking' edition was subsequently published and Carrot_Childe's experiences on this site - bullied by an opinionated, prejudiced and aggressive membership deliberately and wilfully ignoring the newly discovered 'evidence' - featured prominently in its concluding pages. A member of this site quickly noted that Carrot_Childe is an anagram of Richard T Cole and, when challenged, Cole admitted that the account had been created and the posts made for reasons to do with promotion of the book and 'sock-puppetry' for its arguments.

Task

I found myself, as editor and owner of the site, in the position of knowing that an author had employed a 'sock puppet' account to promote his commercially-available work, even using the deliberately-engineered response of the membership here as part of the 'evidence' in the published text. Added to this was the use by the author or his editorial team of photoshopped photographs of me taken from Facebook and other sources, as part of his promotional online material for the book. (Members of this site familiar with Cole's books will be aware of his approach; witness, for example, his use of photographs of Bill Breeze.)

I was not prepared to have LAShTAL.COM membership treated in this way. The suggestion that we're all Crowley acolytes and 'ultra-conservative Thelemites', for example, was especially galling given that the site has always asserted that it is committed solely to discussion of the life and legacy of Aleister Crowley. I therefore decided to delete the posts by the admitted 'sock-puppet' account (i.e. those made, at his own admission, by Cole or his team). At the same time, I was aware that there was a need to examine other suspect posts on the thread, using basic IP tracking techniques...

Actions

For the reasons outlined above, I first deleted the posts by Cole (in the guise of Carrot_Childe) and then I moved the whole thread to a 'Private' forum for the further research described.

Results

For technical reasons that I don't yet understand, this combination of actions resulted in the complete loss of all threads in the 'Private' area. I immediately sought the assistance of our technical resource, 'eol', and members may recall the resulting period of downtime for the Forums. All appeared to be resolved until it was pointed out yesterday that the 'Bogus' thread was no longer visible.

It turns out that a number of threads from the 'Private' forum have been lost and, as mentioned by eol above, it isn't possible to recover them from the database here without jeopardising the links that make the rest of the Forums work.

Apology

I know that some members here will 'assume the worst' and will put this whole sequence of events down to a deliberate conspiracy. But... I made a mistake, one that I still do not understand, that resulted in the permanent loss of a number of threads, and for that I apologise. As someone utterly committed to Internet libertarianism, this is something that distresses me. It's not a mistake I will make again.

Future

I will close this thread now to ensure that my apology is the most prominent post on it. Please, I urge any member sufficiently interested in Cole's book, feel free to start another thread - and please use it to discuss what evidence there is in Cole's book...

Sorry, guys.