Occult & Esoterica
[CROWLEY, Aleister] The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz (The Bagh-i-Muattar)
[CROWLEY, Aleister] The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz (The Bagh-i-Muattar)
Introduction by Martin P. Starr
Chicago: The Teitan Press, 1991. Facsimile Edition. Hardcover. Octavo.137 pp. Red cloth spine over white boards (issued without dust jacket). Red Arabic lettering to front, spine titled in red. A few small dark spots to upper edge of front board, otherwise a near fine copy.
A mystical text by Crowley which is spinkled with homo-erotic elements, first issued in an extremely limited edition in 1910. "The book itself is a complete treatise on mysticism, expressed in the symbolism prescribed by Persian piety. It describes the relations of God and man, explains how the latter falls from his essential innocence by allowing himself to be deceived by the illusion of matter. His religion cease to be real and become formal; he falls into sin and suffers the penalty thereof. God prepares the pathway of regeneration and brings him through shame and sorrow to repentance, thus preparing the mystical union which restores man to his original privileges, free will, immortality, the perception of truth and so on." And another important quote: "We had resumed Magical work, in a desultory way, on finding that Mathers was attacking us. He succeeded in killing most of the dogs. (At this time I kept a pack of bloodhounds and went man-hunting over the moors.) The servants too were constantly being made ill, one in one way, and one in another. We therefore employed the appropriate talismans from The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin against him, evoking Beelzebub and his forty-nine servitors. Rose had suddenly acquired the power of clairvoyance. Her description of these servitors is printed in The Bagh-i-Muattar, pages 39, 40. (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. New York, NY. Hill and Wang, 1969).