The Unknown God: W. T. Smith and the Thelemites.
Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press, Inc., 2003. First edition. Hardcover. Large octavo. xii + 416pp. Blue cloth with gilt title, etc. to spine, gilt sigil on front cover, frontis, photographs. The first documentary study of Aleister Crowley's contemporary followers in North America, told through the life of their de facto leader, Wilfred Talbot Smith (1885-1957). Introduced to Crowley's works by Charles Stansfeld Jones in Canada, Smith met Crowley only once, but their twenty year correspondence povided a major link between the Beast and his followers in the United States and Canada. Smith's spiritual life centered first on the initiatic structure of the Order of the A.·.A.·., complemented by the emerging fraternal and social schemes of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). Smith followed Jones into a few all but-forgotten movements like the Universal Brotherhood and the Psychomagian Society. Obviously it includes much on Jack Parsons and Smith's other associates in Agape Lodge. Hint of shelf-wear, and barely noticeable small pale discolored patch on upper fore-edge of about the last 80 pages barely affecting the margins (perhaps a tea splash that was quickly wiped off?). Otherwise near Fine condition in lightly rubbed near Fine dustjacket. Unusually scarce. Item #60305
ISBN: 093342907X
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