Penn: Liber Forty (Patreon)

“I was turning 40 and thinking, Oh dear, I'm probably going to have one of those midlife crisis things which always just bore the hell out of everybody. So it would probably be better if, rather than just having a midlife crisis, I just went completely screaming mad and declared myself to be a magician.” 

–Alan Moore

I find that when art and life want to line up, it’s best to just let them. So here I am nine days away from my fortieth birthday, and I’ve got something cool to share with you.

It’s for that spiritual leadership apprenticeship I’ve mentioned; I’ve been asked to make a presentation about a religion that was new to me. The other members of my cohort went for things like Shinto, and Rastafarianism. I went for Thelema – the occult religion founded by Aleister Crowley. Technically it doesn’t quite fit the parameters of the assignment, but Perris can’t resist a good pitch, Sága bless her. Also, I didn’t exactly make a presentation, so much as crawl up into a wizard tower with a pile of books and go feral. Rather than just telling the class what Thelema was, I was going to figure out what it was doing. I’ve been studying Crowley, and ceremonial magic for a bit, and I like big swings. Why not?

Yesterday, I finished the first draft of an essay. It goes… hard, and has extensive chatty footnotes. The essay (minus footnotes) will be read as a presentation – there’ll be slides or some shit, I don’t know, I’ve not figured that part out yet – and the full version published as a small zine made to look like one of Crowley’s Libers.  Clearly, I have to march right back up into my wizard tower and polish it to finished to release on my birthday; celebrate in a proper Moorelian fashion, you know? 

So, before I slip back into it, I thought I’d lob the unedited first draft at you all as a preview of the work. See you in 9 days. 

--Penn