Item #69739 Amrita. Essays in Magical Rejuvenation. Aleister. Edited and CROWLEY, Martin P. Starr, signed, From the library of Oliver Marlow Wilkinson.
Amrita. Essays in Magical Rejuvenation.
Amrita. Essays in Magical Rejuvenation.

Amrita. Essays in Magical Rejuvenation.

Kings Beach, CA: Thelema Publications, 1990. First Edition. Hardcover. Large octavo. xviii + 60pp. Original gilt decorated purple cloth with color frontispiece and purple endpapers. First Edition - limited to 1000 copies (there was also a sub-limitation of 33 leather bound copies). This copy SIGNED and warmly INSCRIBED by the editor Martin P. Starr to Oliver Marlow Wilkinson on the half-title-page. A collection of Aleister Crowley's writings on occult medicine, particularly on Amrita: an ambrosia or "elixir of life" said to ensure longevity, restore youth and energy, and bestow various occult boons. It was referred to by Crowley as "the principal Secret of the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O. )." Contents are: Foreword by Soror Grimaud (Helen Parsons Smith); Introduction by Martin P. Starr; A. M. R. I. T. A. ; The Elixir of Life: Our Magical Medicine; The Elixir of Life (I); The Elixir of Life (II); The Order of the Purifications on Waking; Remarkable Experiment with the Elixir of Life; AMRITA; Additional Cases; IT; On Food. From the library of Oliver Marlow Wilkinson (1915-1999) dramatist, author, educator and raconteur. Oliver was the son of Louis Umfreville Wilkinson (1881-1966) an English man-of-letters who wrote a number of satirical autobiographical and fictional works, mostly under the pseudonym "Louis Marlow." Louis Umfreville Wilkinson was a good friend of Aleister Crowley's, the two had an extensive correspondence, and Crowley respected Louis's literary skills to the extent that he engaged him to prepare a popular edition of Crowley commentaries on "Liber AL." Crowley also made Louis one of his executors, and it was Louis Wilkinson who caused some uproar amongst the more excitable members of the press by reading from Crowley's "Hymn to Pan" and other of his works at the Beast's funeral. Louis's son Oliver also knew Crowley well; indeed he was the one that found Crowley the rooms at Netherwood that became his final home and Crowley, along with John Cowper Powys, is said to have jointly shared the honour of being Oliver's godfather. Oliver Wilkinson inherited many of the Crowley books and papers that had belonged to his father Louis, including a number of signed and inscribed items, etc. etc. In the 1980s Oliver refreshed his interest in Crowley, meeting with a number of contemporary Crowley afficiandos including Hymenaeus Beta, Clive Harper, Tony Naylor, Keith Richmond, Martin P. Starr, et al. At Tony Naylor's urging he also wrote an Introduction to a new edition of his father's book "Seven Friends" (which included a chapter-long reminiscense of Crowley) which Naylor published under his Mandrake Press Ltd. imprint in 1992. Oliver Marlow died in 1999, and in 2021 Weiser Antiquarian books acquired the remains of Oliver's Crowley collection, which comprised some of the books and pieces of ephemera that had belonged to his father, as well as books, such as this, that he himself had bought or was given in the 1980s and 1990s. A small posthumous book-label, tipped in at the rear, identifies it as having come from his collection. PLEASE NOTE CONDITION - Spine lightly bumped at head and a little leaned, cloth quite discolored (darkened and faded) at the spine and edges of the boards. The book has clearly had a significant exposure to damp, although oddly this seems to have only affected the internals. Thus the pages are quite stiff and rippled and somewhat splayed, but none have stuck together and save for a very slight tidemark on the reverse of the frontispiece, it is unmarked. Better than a reading copy, but not a lot, and sold "as is." No dust jacket issued. Item #69739
ISBN: 0913576182

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