THE NEW YORK TIMES

New York, New York, U.S.A.

17 April 1910

(page 24)

Aleister Crowley, Poet and Rosicrucian.

LONDON, April 9.—Some months ago the publication was begun in this city of perhaps the most extraordinary magazine ever published. It is called The Equinox, the Review of Scientific Illuminism, and is a thick quarto, with a cover design of “occult” symbols. The price is 5s., and, so far as quantity of reading matter is concerned, the reader gets a generous return for his investment, unusually large though the price is, compared with the cost of most other magazines.

As for quality, opinions differ. There are some persons who would not be willing to invest sixpence in the magazine, while others declare that if the 5s. were 50s. the money would be well invested. The latter are the persons who believe the extraordinary claims made by the magazine. These, in brief, are that in it are to be found “occult” secrets which have never before been made public, formulae for ceremonial magic which contain almost all the directions necessary for the evocation of “elemental spirits,” etc.

The editor of the magazine is Aleister Crowley, who, to the ordinary reader, is best known as a poet. The Equinox was in the courts a few days ago, when Mr. MacGregor Mathers, the well-known writer on magic and witchcraft, applied for an injunction restraining Mr. Crowley from publishing the ritual of an order which calls itself the Rosicrucians. Mr. MacGregor Mathers, who is the chief of the order, failed to obtain the injunction, so, presumably, Mr. Crowley, who is also a Rosicrucian, will proceed to print the ritual.

Here is a specimen title of an Equinox article:

AHA! The Sevenfold Mystery of the Ineffable Love: the Coming of the Lord in the Air as King and Judge of this corrupted world; wherein under the form of a discourse between Marsyas an adept and Olympas his pupil the whole Secret of the Way of Initiation is laid open from the beginning of the End; for the instruction of the Little Children of the Light. Written in trembling and humility for the Brethren of the A.A. by their very dutiful servant, an Aspirant to their Sublime Order, Aleister Crowley.

The English Rosicrucian Society was founded in 1888.