TRANSLATED INTO THE ENGLISH TONGUE

BY A

DEAD HAND

AND

ADORNED WITH DIVERS OTHER MATTERS GERMANE

DELIGHTFUL TO THE WISE

A facsimile of the copy annotated by

Aleister Crowley

J.F.C.Fuller & Leah Hirsig

1904

This edition limited to 250 copies bound in quarter kidskin and purple silk.

Exact hand number shown may vary from the edition you receive.

Published by Hell Fire Club

The GOETIA of Solomon the King annotated, edited and introduced by Aleister Crowley, originally published in 1904 now reproduced with the personal annotations of Aleister Crowley, his pupil J.F.C.Fuller and Crowleys’ Scarlet Woman Leah Hirsig

The volume opens with a curious self-portrait of Aleister Crowley in his magical persona of ‘Perdurabo’, evoking the great demon Paimon to visible appearance, above him is inscribed his magical motto with the grade 5’=6’ of the A.A. magical tradition, derived in part from the teaching structure of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Crowley shows himself holding the feather of truth and wearing the symbolic horns and side-curl. Paimon is shown here as described in the Lemegeton, astride a dromedary rearing up out of the Triangle of art. Opposite the sketch is a series of notes dated to 1903 covering letter and number symbolism, below is a paragraph of notes by the collector and Crowley disciple Gerald Yorke (from whose collection the book originally came) detailing the history of the volume.

Aleister Crowley as the magician ‘Perdurabo’

The ‘Preliminary Invocation’ of the GOETIA, used by Crowley to summon aerial spirits prior to reception of the Book of the Law, is heavily annotated both in the hand of Crowley and of J.F.C.Fuller.

These annotations and ciphers reveal potent A.A. and O.T.O. magical formulae later given formal expression in Crowleys advanced magical instruction paper ‘Liber Samekh’ published in 1929 ‘Magick in Theory and Practise’, and in the ‘Liber Pyramidos’, both aimed at uniting the initiates consciousness with his Holy Guardian Angel through magical and tantric means. Much light is shed upon Crowleys later teachings, a detailed study of these notes and their placement to the text shows the ideas breaking upon Crowleys mind. A great deal of similarities are revealed between these psycho-sexual practices of Crowleys personal formulae and the inner spiritual teachings infused into the Golden Dawn by Crowleys friend and early mentor Allen Bennett, whose early G.D. paper on the ‘Bornless One’ shows Bennetts contributions.

Throughout the rest of the work Crowleys sketches of demonic entities jostle with the text, beings he saw and conversed with press against the margins of the book as against the borders of the mind.

Included in the annotations is Fullers inscribed copy of a series of demonic entities ‘…seen by W.B.Yeats wife at a Ghost-Club dinner…’ and which were later printed in Crowleys pseudepigraphic ‘Bagh-i-Muattar’, the pornographic work dubbed ‘The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz’ privately printed by Crowley in 1910 where he refers to them as the clairvoyant results of ‘…a well-known Irish lady…’

After the unique set of Enochian translations of the Goetic conjurations printed by Crowley at the rear of the volume, there are three pages of Enochian Calls in the hand of Crowleys mistress, the scarlet Woman Aloestrael, or Leah Hirsig, inserted into which is a series of seven talismans used by Crowley at his ‘Temple of L.I.L.’ in Mexico.