The Equinox: The Official Organ of the A A : The Review of Scientific Illuminism. Volume I, Number I - Number X (10 volumes)
- London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton; Printed for the Author (Numbers 4 and 5); Wieland & Co, 1913
London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton; Printed for the Author (Numbers 4 and 5); Wieland & Co, 1913. First edition. Fair. Small quarto [24 cm] Tan cloth spines with tan illustrated paper over thin card boards. Title pages printed in black and red. With advertisements for a plethora of esoteric titles on the preliminary and terminal leaves and the boards. Heavily worn. Spines chipped with loss. Spine of volume 1 completely perished. Many boards detached. Complete breaks to several of the text blocks. Pages and/or gatherings sporadically loose or detached. Periodic notations and underlining. Prior owner's name in pen here and there. Roughly 30 pages of volume 1 have light stains in the bottom margins of the pages. Vol 1: 4 plates; Vol. 2: 1 plate; Vol. 3: 8 plates; Vol. 4: 5 plates; Vol. 5: 1 plate; Vol. 7: 18 plates; Vol. 8: 3 plates; Vol. 10: 2 plates. First editions of all ten volumes of this monumental periodical devoted to the occult. Volume 1 of "Equinox" features a number of works by Crowley (AHA!; The Garden of Janus; The Rites of Eleusis, an adaptation of Poe's Tell-Tale Heart), poetry, plays, and essays on subjects including Hashish, Geomancy, Mermaids, and Tarot - to name just a few.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), formerly Edward Alexander Crowley, referred to himself as the Beast 666. He was a British occultist, writer, and mountaineer. and was one of the most significant authors in 20th-century occultism. Crowley joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898, an organization descended from the Rosicrucians. His most stringent belief was "Do what thou wilt should be the whole of law," and he founded a new religion that he called Thelema from this theory. He managed to redefine magic as a field of inquiry and endeavor through his books. "Equinox," issued in ten volumes, synthesized the aim of religion and the method of science. These volumes were issued twice a year, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. In his work "The Great Beast," Crowley's biographer John Symonds, refers to these issues as "a kind of Crowley scrapbook and exposition of Crowleyanity." Symonds then goes on to reveal how Crowley himself felt about his magazine: "'The Equinox,' he said, 'was the first serious attempt to put before the public the facts of Occult Science, so-called, since Blavatsky's unscholarly hotch-potch of facts and fables, Isis Unveiled. It was the first attempt in history to treat the subject with scholarship and from the standpoint of Science.'
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), formerly Edward Alexander Crowley, referred to himself as the Beast 666. He was a British occultist, writer, and mountaineer. and was one of the most significant authors in 20th-century occultism. Crowley joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898, an organization descended from the Rosicrucians. His most stringent belief was "Do what thou wilt should be the whole of law," and he founded a new religion that he called Thelema from this theory. He managed to redefine magic as a field of inquiry and endeavor through his books. "Equinox," issued in ten volumes, synthesized the aim of religion and the method of science. These volumes were issued twice a year, at the vernal and autumnal equinoxes. In his work "The Great Beast," Crowley's biographer John Symonds, refers to these issues as "a kind of Crowley scrapbook and exposition of Crowleyanity." Symonds then goes on to reveal how Crowley himself felt about his magazine: "'The Equinox,' he said, 'was the first serious attempt to put before the public the facts of Occult Science, so-called, since Blavatsky's unscholarly hotch-potch of facts and fables, Isis Unveiled. It was the first attempt in history to treat the subject with scholarship and from the standpoint of Science.'