The Sword of Song

Presents Crowley’s preferred text, drawing on all existing draft manuscripts and margin notes from Crowley’s personal copies.

Contains an introduction and explanatory notes by Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski, helping to illuminate obscure passages and references.

Includes Crowley’s mystical essays on his first forays into sex magic, his initial embrace of the legendary title of “the Beast”, and his encounters with the Golden Dawn, Buddhism, Agnosticism, and Christianity.

Too inflammatory for English publishers, Aleister Crowley printed The Sword of Song, his first talismanic work, in Paris in 1904, releasing a mere one hundred copies. Deconstructing his encounters with the Golden Dawn, Buddhism, Agnosticism, and Christianity, the book explored Crowley’s magic and spiritual philosophy before he experienced the revelation that led to The Book of the Law. The Sword of Song also contained Crowley’s first manifesto, his first forays into sex magic, his initial embrace of the legendary title of "the Beast", the occult poem "Ascension Day", and mystical essays.

Now in this fully annotated deluxe hardcover edition, renowned Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski presents Crowley’s preferred text for The Sword of Song, drawing on all existing draft manuscripts as well as unpublished margin notes from Crowley’s personal copies of the book. Kaczynski clarifies all the significant changes and additions throughout the book’s various iterations and provides explanations for the many occult and popular culture references. He also includes a substantial scholarly introduction, reflecting an intimate knowledge of Crowley and the development of his magical practice.

Kaczynski demonstrates how The Sword of Song was not only a prototype for Crowley’s later works such as Konx Om Pax and The Book of Lies, but that The Sword of Song's blend of poetry, allegory, fiction, and essay reveals the formative inner workings of one of the twentieth century’s most provocative thinkers just before he received the life-changing Book of the Law from the discarnate entity Aiwass.