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Jane Wolfe (Soror Estai)
Born: 4:00 A.M. on 21 March 1875 in St. Petersburg, Pennsylvania. Died: 29 March 1958 at 12:20 p.m. in Glendale, California.
Sarah Jane Wolfe was an American silent film character actress and Thelemite.
Of Pennsylvania Dutch stock, Wolfe was born in the tiny Pennsylvania borough of St. Petersburg in Clarion County. As a young girl she went to New York City to pursue a career in the theatre but soon became involved with acting in the fledgling motion picture industry.
She made her film debut in 1910 at the age of 35 with Kalem Studios in A Lad from Old Ireland under the direction of Sidney Olcott.
In 1911, Wolfe was part of the Kalem Company's crew in New York City who relocated to the company's new production facilities in Los Angeles. She went on to become one of the leading character actors of the decade, appearing in more than one hundred films including an important secondary role in the 1917 Mary Pickford film, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.
In 1918, Jane Wolfe began corresponding with Aleister Crowley, and two years later she gave up her career in Hollywood to join Crowley at his Abbey of Thelema at Cefalù, Sicily, living there from 1920 until it closed in 1923.
Jane was admitted as a Probationer in the A∴A∴ on 11 June 1921, during her residence at the Abbey of Thelema. Her admitting Superior was Aleister Crowley. At her admittance, she took the aspirational name Estai. Years later, she rearticulated her aspiration in the words, "I will become the creative Force of the Universe," which became expressed in the new motto, Fiat Yod.
Wolfe is considered an important female figure in magick as, in addition to her friendship and work with Crowley, she took part in the founding of the Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis in Southern California as well as being its lodge master.
After not appearing on screen for 17 years, in 1937 Jane Wolfe had a small role in a B-movie Western named Under Strange Flags.
Jane Wolfe died on 29 March 1958 in the Southern California city of Glendale eight days after her 83rd birthday.
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Jane Wolfe's Library: It was the practice in the late 1940's and '50's for Agape Lodge members to provide Karl Germer with lists of books in their personal libraries. This was partly for sharing or loaning books between members of O.T.O. and partly to track books loaned by O.T.O. to the members. Here is such a list compiled by Jane toward the end of her life. By then she had simplified her life to an extent, as one does in later years on a limited income. That in itself lends special interest to this list, since these books form the residue of a life-time of study and collecting. This list provides a rare insight into the mind of one of Crowley's closest students from Cefalù and the 1920's.
Books by Aleister Crowley: - Equinox 1-10 plus Blue Equinox - Little Essays Toward Truth - Heart of the Master - Book of Lies - Collected Works - Eight Lectures on Yoga (London binding) - Eight Lectures on Yoga (Hollywood binding) - Equinox of the Gods (London binding) - Liber Al, in white paper (London binding) - Magick—in one vol. - Book of Thoth (Therion presentation) - Olla, de luxe (Crowley presentation) - Olla - Fun of the Fair (Crowley presentation) - City of God (Crowley presentation) - Mortadello - Moonchild - Book 4, Part I - Book 4, Part II - 777 - Winged Beetle - Diary of a Drug Fiend - Liber LXV, white in gold binding - Liber VII, white in gold binding - Liber AL, et al, white in gold binding - Liber Al, et al, unbound, given by Crowley for use on Great Magical Retirement. Cefalu - Typescript Liber Aleph - Typescript Commentary - Typescript Tao Teh King - Typescript Atlantis
Other Books: - Sacred Magick of Abramelin - Goetia—Chicago ed. - The Ritual of Higher Magic, Furze Morrish - Secret of the Golden Flower, Wilhelm and Jung - Garden of Pomegranates, Regardie - Candle of Vision, "A.E." (Russell) - Song and Its Fountains, "A.E" (Russell) - Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, Steiner - Laotzu's Tao and Wu Wei, Dwight Goddard, et al. - Light on the Path, Mabel Collins - Light on the Path & Illuminated Way, Mabel Collins - The Sun moves Northward, Mabel Collins - The Prophet, Kahil Gibran - A Dweller on Two Planes - The Tarot, Paul Case - Decline of the West - Pain, Sex and Time, Gerald Heard - Modern Woman, the Lost Sex, Lundberg & Farnham - Integration of the Personality, Jung - Psychology of Jung, Jacobi - Psychic Energy, Its Source, etc., Esther Hartman - New Visions for New Men, Dane Rudhyar - The Astrology of Personality, Dane Rudhyar - Man and the Supernatural, E. Underhill The Guru, Manly P. Hall - Bhagavad Gita, M... C... - Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, Max Hindal - In Search of the Miraculous, P.D. Ouspensky - Existentialism, Sartre - The Meeting of East and West, Northrop - Journal of Delacroix - Art, History of, van Loon. - Wind, Sand and Storm, Exupery - Fountainhead, Ayn Rand - Trelaney, Armstrong - Ape and Essence, Aldous Huxley - Yogi and the Commissar, Koestler - Darkness at Noon, Koestler - Reflection in a Mirror, Charles Morgan - Last Poems, Anna Hempstead Branch - Forth Beast!, Louis Marlow - Autobiography, Frank Lloyd Wright - Cycles, Edw. Dewey & Edw. Dakin - Progressive Relaxation - Syblis, Leda, & New Pleasure, Pierre Louys - 70 Chinese Poems - Both Sides of the Jordan, Nora R. H. - Life Everlasting, Marie Corelli - Roget's Thesaurus - Webster Dictionary, unab. 1925
[Books Loaned from] O.T.O. by Mary Green: - Marcel Poust, complete works - Middle Pillar, Regardie - The Song of Sano Tarot, Fullwood - Crystal Vision through Crystal Gazing, Frater Achad - The Moon and its Nodes.
[Books Loaned from] OTO by Karl Germer: - Diary of a Drug Fiend - Book of Lies - Book 4, Part I - Stratagem
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The below represents a partial filmography of Jane Wolfe: - A Lad from Old Ireland (1910) - The Roses Of A Virgin (1910) - The Wild Goose Chase (1915) - The Majesty of the Law (1915) - The Case of Becky (1915) - Blackbirds (1915) - The Immigrant (1915) - Pudd'nhead Wilson (1916) - The Blacklist (1916) - The Thousand-Dollar Husband (1916) - The Selfish Woman (1916) - Each Pearl a Tear (1916) - The Lash (1916) - Unprotected (1916) - The Plow Girl (1916) - On Record (1917) - Castles for Two (1917) - Unconquered (1917) - The Crystal Gazer (1917) - On the Level (1917) - Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1917) - The Call of the East (1917) - The Fair Barbarian (1917) - A Petticoat Pilot (1918) - Mile-a-Minute Kendall (1918) - The Bravest Way (1918) - The Firefly of France (1918) - Less Than Kin (1918) - The Cruise of the Make-Believes (1918) - The Girl Who Came Back (1918) - Under the Top (1919) - The Poor Boob (1919) - The Woman Next Door (1919) - An Innocent Adventuress (1919) - Men, Women, and Money (1919) - A Very Good Young Man (1919) - The Grim Game (1919) - The Thirteenth Commandment (1920) - The Six Best Cellars (1920) - Why Change Your Wife? (1920) - Thou Art the Man (1920) - The Round-Up (1920) - Behold My Wife! (1920) - Under Strange Flags (1937)
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At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
Jane Wolfe and Leah Hirsig At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
Jane Wolfe and Leah Hirsig At the Abbey of Thelema, Cefalu
Oath of a Probationer
Frank Bennett, Aleister Crowley, Leah Hirsig, Hansi, Jane Wolfe and Howard Shumway Cefalu - circa 1921
(front) Georgia Haitz, Oliver Jacobi, Regina Kahl, Wilfred T. Smith and Jane Wolfe 1936
Helen Parsons (far left) Wilfred T. Smith and Jane Wolfe (far right) 4 July 1956
Paris, September 1927
Karl Germer with Sascha Germer, Jane Wolfe and Phyllis Seckler.
Jane and her Sister Mary Wolfe
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