from Richard Kaczynski’s FB feed:
“Aleister Crowley, MAY MORN (published 100 years ago)
“Crowley, when “May Morn” was shown in Greenwich Village in early 1919: “The painting represents the dawn of a day following a witches’ celebration as described in Faust. The witch is hanged, as she deserves, and the satyr looks out from behind a tree. In the background, all is a beautiful spring and a nymph dances joyously to the piping of a shepherd.” (According to William Seabrook, ca. 1923)
“Crowley, when “May Morn” appeared in The Equinox: “The picture is symbolical of the New Æon. From the blasted stump of dogma, the poison oak of ‘original sin,’ is hanged the hag with dyed and bloody hair, Christianity, the glyph thus commemorating ‘sa vie horizontale et sa mort verticale’ [his life horizontal and his death vertical]. The satyr, a portrait of Frater D.D.S. [George Cecil Jones], one of the Teachers of The Master Therion, represents the Soul of the New Æon, whose Word is Do what thou wilt; for the satyr is the True Nature of every man and woman; and every man and woman is a star. The Shepherd and the Nymph in the background represent the spontaneous outburst of the music of sound and motion caused by the release of the Children of the New Æon from the curse of the dogma of Original Sin, and other priestly bogies.” (The Equinox, March 20, 1919)
“New York Times Book Review: More impressive is the next colored plate—a painting “symbolical of the New Aeon,” and entitled “May Morn,” which would have shocked the stodgy artistic conservatism of Gustave Moreau. (November 23, 1919)
“Bankruptcy receiver trying to blame the Universal Book Stores’ failure on carrying The Equinox: “A business man should have known that the frontispiece of The Equinox, representing the hanging of Christianity on a gibbet, alone would have resulted in the failure of the publishing house.” (Detroit Free Press, January 10, 1922)”
