Moonchild: a prologue

by Aleister Crowley

Paper Book, 1970

Status

Available

Call number

133

Genres

Collection

Gifts

Publication

Maine : Samuel Weiser, 1970.

Description

A year or so before the beginning of World War I, a young woman named Lisa la Giuffria is seduced by a white magician, Cyril Grey, and persuaded into helping him in a magical battle with a black magician and his black lodge. Grey is attempting to raise the level of his force by impregnating the girl with the soul of an ethereal being - the moonchild. To achieve this, she will have to be kept in a secluded environment, and many preparatory magical rituals will be carried out. The black magician Douglas is bent on destroying Grey's plan. However, Grey's ultimate motives may not be what they appear. The moonchild rituals are carried out in southern Italy, but the occult organizations are based in Paris and England. At the end of the book, the war breaks out, and the white magicians support the Allies, while the black magicians support the Central Powers.… (more)

Media reviews

knjigainfo.com

Pred vama je najčuveniji i najbolji Kroulijev okultni roman! Tema je večna bitka između Sila Svetlosti i Sila Tame. Mlada devojka je upletena u magički rat između dva muškarca, i prisiljena je da izabere između jednog od njih. Kako priča odmiče čitalac proleće furioznim tempom kroz

seriju magičkih zapleta, uzbuđenja i celokupnog okultnog repertoara, uključujući i Crnu Lozu. Sam Krouli se u romanu predstavlja kao lik Dobrog Majstora Magike.

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User reviews

LibraryThing member Miro

This is a novel by Crowley about a magical war between a white lodge ( led by Iff ) and a black lodge ( led by Douglas ) over an unborn child, the "moonchild" of the title, with the action moving between London, Paris and a villa in Naples. It was written in 1917 in New Orleans.

Crowley keeps

reappearing, first in the 1960's and now again in the jumble of ideas of the New Age movement. He was a mountaineer with expeditions to K2 and Kangchenjunga, otherwise "Brother Perdurabo" studying under "McGregor" Mathers, chief of the Golden Dawn movement, and also a good writer as this book shows. It switches between being surprising, humourous and stomach churning with Crowley showing his invincible English class prejudice along with the magical themes.

The main thread of the story is a Taoist one with the plot twisting and turning nicely around this axis. Supposedly Crowley identifies with Simon Iff and the forces of light but the undercurrent of the book and the not so obvious ending suggest a darker different conclusion.In any event it is probably a good idea to read some of the Tao Te Ching to catch the full flavour of the book.
Crowley was persistently hunted by the press and eventually bankrupted by legal actions but he didn't do anything to discourage the speculation. He loved to showboat ( the self-proclaimed Beast 666 ) and wanted the publicity. However, the relevance of the story for today is that strands of the New Age movement take the magical aspects completely seriously which is surely a trend worth watching.

His view on the advantages of being a magician:"...all one's different parts are free to act with the utmost possible vigour according to their own natures, because the other parts do not interfere with them. You don't let the navigators into the stoke-hole, or your stokers into the chart house".

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LibraryThing member boniface

I admire Crowley's work a lot. He was a genius and his ideas were creative and before their time, however, he didn't write as well as he himself thought he did. His writing is slow and boring. In general, his books are excellent textbooks but not very entertaining as novels.

LibraryThing member israfel13

I was assigned this one in a college class and thus went in with some trepidation. Despite my fears the book was pretty good in its depiction of the classic struggle between good and evil decorated with all the trappings of the occult you would expect from Crowley.

LibraryThing member Loptsson

I read this book many, many years ago and thought it was a fair book back then. But upon rereading it recently I have found that there is just so much more to the book than my first reading. Of course I have had over the last couple decades been able to read much more about Crowley and his exploits

and the Golden Dawn and its people who were in it and I would highly recommend reading a great deal more about all of these folks before reading Moonchild. Having done that the book definitely becomes more enlightening and explains Crowley's attitude to its members which are played out in this book. I mean this book had me in falling out of the chair when he started in on Arthwaite because I could readily agree with him in his thoughts after reading Arthur Waite's books. And his depiction of Mathers is just as funny. A good read, just do the prep and you will enjoy it more.

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LibraryThing member DreamingTikay

Lots of nakedness and frolicking in gardens, quite pretentious and yet, a bit of magick succumbed to, has never hurt a flea, well me...oh! yes, but that's an altogether different type of tale. A decent and fun read by Crowley, nothing read in advance is necessary for ones enjoyment, if you like

this sort of tome, as I do. Of course I had read the Illuminatus Trilogy, before this book ~ but Crowley does easily, completely, stand on his own.

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LibraryThing member HarryMacDonald

Imagine my surprise at seeing how many re-issues there are of this work -- and how many LT participants have listed it! I read the First -- and at that time the only Edition some years ago and will add nothing much to the previous Reviews except to say that Crowley would have been astonished that

so many people have taken it so seriously, probably much more seriously than he did himself. It's a lark, a jolly pass-time for a loveable screwball in his semir-retirment -- and incidentally, an unacknowldged inspiration for that hack-job ROSEMARY'S BABY.

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