Tobias Churton

Examines Aleister Crowley’s 30-year-long intimate association with Paris Investigates the tales of Crowley “raising Pan,” going mad, and working gay sex magick in Paris. Uncovers Crowley’s involvement in the Belle Époque with sculptor Auguste Rodin and other artists and in the 1920s with Berenice Abbott, Nancy Cunard, Man Ray, André Gide, and Aimée Crocker. Reveals Crowley’s “expulsion” from Paris in...

Explores the origins and practices of early alchemy Examines the oldest surviving alchemical texts, the original purpose of the “Royal Art,” and the first alchemists, showing how women dominated early alchemy. Looks at the historical setting for the first alchemists, with detailed accounts of their apparatus, recipes, chemical processes, and the ingredients they used. Reveals how changing the colour of...

Sharing excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries, Tobias Churton tells the true story of Crowley’s adventures in India from 1901 to 1906, culminating in his first experience of the supreme trance of jnana (“gnostic”) yoga, Samadhi: divine union. Churton shows how Vedantist and Advaitist philosophies, Hindu religious practices, yoga, and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism informed Crowley’s spiritual system and reveals how...

An investigation into ideas and experiences of Heaven across religious and cultural traditions throughout history Celestial Realms comprehensively explores the meanings, history, ideas, and experiences of Heaven throughout the world’s exoteric and esoteric traditions. It delves into the heavens of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, the Abrahamic traditions, Far Eastern mythologies, and Indigenous nations. Additionally, the book considers questions about our "need"...

A biographical history of Aleister Crowley’s activities in Berlin from 1930 to 1932 as Hitler was rising to power. Examines Crowley’s focus on his art: His work as a spy for British Intelligence, his colourful love life and sex magick exploits, and his contacts with magical orders. Explores Crowley’s relationships: With Berlin’s artists, filmmakers, writers, and performers such as Christopher...

Aleister Crowley in England offers a detailed examination of the last 15 years of Crowley’s life. It reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with important figures, such as Dion Fortune, Gerald Gardner, Jack Parsons, Dylan Thomas, and black equality activist Nancy Cunard. The book explores Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and provides...

The Books of Enoch Revealed offers the first comprehensive examination of the Book of Enoch, exploring its prophecies, origins, and history. Examining in depth Enoch’s full story of the Watchers, the fallen angels who came to Earth and shared corrupting forbidden knowledge, this work details how Enoch was a vital component of Second Temple messianic Judaism, speculative Jewish mysticism, the...

Gnosticism was contemporary to early Christianity, and its demise can be traced to Christianity's efforts to silence its teachings. The Gnostic message, however, was not destroyed but simply went underground. Starting with the first emergence of Gnosticism, the author shows how its influence extended from the teachings of neo-Platonists and the magical traditions of the Middle Ages to the beliefs...

The first complete historical and philosophical investigation into the “invisible fraternity” of the Rosicrucians. Invisible History of the Rosicrucians contains the latest research on the origins of the Rosicrucian movement. It presents the ties between Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, and the Templars, and is written by a “perfected” Knight of the Rose Croix and the Pelican (18th degree, Ancient and Accepted Rite)....

Explores the unified science-religion of early humanity and the impact of Hermetic philosophy on religion and spirituality. The Lost Pillars of Enoch investigates the Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that Seth’s descendants inscribed knowledge on two pillars to save it from global catastrophe. It reveals how this original knowledge has influenced civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic,...