The UK’s Kamuret Press has announced the upcoming publication of The Sword of Song: Called by Christians The Book of the Beast, edited, annotated and introduced by Richard Kaczynski this coming December 2020. The publisher’s site has posted this description:
“The Sword of Song (1904) is the most important of Aleister Crowley’s early works. His first talismanic book, it synthesized his interests in poetry, religion, mysticism and magick into a work that is at turns witty, profound and baffling. It would serve as the template to his celebrated Konx Om Pax (1907), and his unsurpassed mix of profundity and absurdity in The Book of Lies (1912/3). Significantly, it also offers insight into his mindset around the time of his received text, The Book of the Law, in 1904.
“This edition follows the layout of The Sword of Song’s rare first edition, while incorporating subsequent revisions and additions from its republication in volume 2 of Crowley’s Collected Works (1906). The introduction by Crowley biographer Richard Kaczynski’s documents this book’s genesis and extensive revisions, while editorial footnotes illuminate obscure references, kabbalistic riddles, altered or deleted passages, and much more.
From the Introduction
“In Aleister Crowley’s oeuvre, The Sword of Song is arguably the greatest story never told. It is a book of firsts: his first manifesto, his first talismanic book, his first mystical essays, his first nod to sexual mysteries, and an enticing preview of what was to come in The Book of the Law, the spirit-writing that would form the cornerstone of his philosophy. This foreshadowing of his revealed text has received surprisingly little comment among Crowley scholars; on this ground alone, The Sword of Song deserves further study, for it uniquely reveals the workings of Crowley’s mind in the years leading up to penning The Book of the Law”.
