The Heart of the Master.
Montreal Canada: 93 Publishing, 1973. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Small octavo. (iv) + 44pp. White buckram with gold titling and Crowley's Baphomet seal design in red gilt the front cover. Title-page text in red, bookshop label on front pastedown. The Kenneth Grant / 93 Publishing edition of "The Heart of the Master". Crowley wrote the bulk of "The Heart of the Master" in 1924, although the book was not published until 1938 when it appeared in a very small edition. In his introduction to this edition Kenneth Grant refers to this "small and cryptic volume" as containing "the One True Occult Tradition" and says that it "declares openly the Magical formulae of the New Aeon." Grant explains Crowley's choice of pseudonym by telling that Crowley was "inspired by the spirit of Khaled Khan while on the 'Holy Hill' of Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, the present site of ancient Carthage. Khan was a great warrior who delivered the Arabs from the stranglehold of Christianity at the battle of Damascus. Both the Khan and Crowley were therefore avatars of the anti-Christian Current represented in the Apocalypse as the Beast 666." There were two issues of the Grant / 93 Publishing Edition of "The Heart of the Master", one with a large A.'. A.'. sigil rubber-stamped on the front free endpaper and the other with ordinary blank endpapers - as is this copy. They seem of about of equal scarcity, and we have never heard a reasonable explanation of why one had the sigil added and one didn't. White cloth has just a hint of shelf rubbing else a very bright, clean near VG+ copy (no dust jacket issued). Item #74563
ISBN: 0919690009
Price: $250.00