Book of Thoth Study Group #1: Bibliographical Note

Ross G Caldwell

About the authorship of the “Bibliographical Note”, Richard Kaczynski in Perdurabo says (2nd edition, p. 530): “The book contained nine color plates of the cards, technical appendices, and a bibliographic note (by Crowley but attributed to Martha Küntzel).”

He gives no source for this assertion, but I find that Crowley’s diaries confirm it. For Thursday 30 September, 1943:

Wrote Cordelia, Cohen. Bibliographical
note for Taro
thank God that’s over!”

So there you have it. Kaczynski doesn’t speculate on why Crowley may have credited Küntzel, and I can only offer a vague guess. She had recently died, and Crowley was fond of her, despite her support for Hitler; perhaps he had suggested that she write such a bibliographic note sometime in the early stages of writing the book (1938-1940), and, whether she produced something or not, he may have honoured her memory by writing one in her name.

He wrote the following about this “venerable lady” in letter XLVIII of Magick Without Tears (about 1944):

"Now here I must tell you a story which may throw a good deal of light on much that is obscure in the political situation of '25 to date. The venerable lady (S.H. Soror I.W.E. 8° = 3□) who, on the death of S.H. Frater 8° = 3□ Otto Gebhardi, succeeded him as my representative in Germany (note that all this pertains to the A∴ A∴; the O.T.O. is not directly concerned) attained the Grade of Hermit (AL I, 40)."


Martha Küntzel, Soror I.W.E. (Ich Will Es) apparently died in 1941. According to Kaczynski (Perdurabo p. 420) and Marco Pasi (Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics, p. 18), her dates are 1857-1941; she was therefore about 18 years older than Crowley.
 

Aeon418

I never had the slightest doubt that the Introduction was written by Crowley. The tone could only be his. Why the subterfuge? Perhaps a tongue-in-cheek nod to the the literary convention of having laudatory remarks contributed by other persons of note (but . . . Martha Kuntzle? Could that have been part of the joke?).
The intro is definitely Crowley's work. But why did he sign it, Soror I.W.E.? I'm not sure. But it may have been a bit of a joke, albeit a couple of years too late.

In 1939 Crowley sent Martha Kuntzel a scathing letter about Hitler and some of the Nazi rhetoric that she, Kuntzel, was spouting at the time. Crowley never heard back from her.
In a 1946 letter to Gerald Yorke, Crowley reported that Kuntzel may have died in 1941. When exactly Crowley learned of her death is unclear though.
 

Aeon418

The date of Kuntzel's death is slightly different in Tobias Churton's recent book, The Beast in Berlin.
Tobias Churton said:
According to Frederic Lekve, Martha died on 8 December 1942 at a convalescent home for retired teachers at Bad Blankenburg, southwest of Leipzig in Thuringia. She was eighty-five, and senile
 

Ross G Caldwell

The date of Kuntzel's death is slightly different in Tobias Churton's recent book, The Beast in Berlin.

Originally Posted by Tobias Churton
According to Frederic Lekve, Martha died on 8 December 1942 at a convalescent home for retired teachers at Bad Blankenburg, southwest of Leipzig in Thuringia. She was eighty-five, and senile

Thanks Aeon. That information sounds more authoritative than Kaczynski or Pasi.
 

Barleywine

I am still not quite sure who AC is referring to by those "parents". The GD instructors he was studying under, decades before? Or even Aiwass, the "father" of his system Thelema, that the cards are illustrating? Probably the former, although he had digressed from them in some ways.

I took it to mean (more than a little sardonically?) his former mentors in the Order, but he could just as well have been suggesting a "higher" kind of supervision that he was willfully delinquent from. Since so much of his work after 1904 was informed by the BoL, it's unlikely that he was referring to Aiwass. Regardless, I never took him seriously there since he seemed to be having some fun at his own expense.

:laugh: Yes, and it became such a classic nonetheless! Or perhaps because of its improvised character?!

I've always valued how he dispenses with some of the most difficult (at least for the Western mind) subjects with just a few well-chosen words and quickly moves on, leaving me both initially mesmerized and galvanized, a winning combination for any kind of esoteric learning. (Although I think he reached the pinnacle of that in the Book of the Law.) At least in Part One he doesn't take any great pains to elucidate for the uninitiated (but we'll get there, won't we?). Not "milk for babes" by any stretch.
 

Aeon418

That information sounds more authoritative than Kaczynski or Pasi.
I agree.

Frederic Lekve first met Kuntzel in 1936, and was tutored by her in Thelema. I think it's highly likely that he knew what became of her.

As for Kuntzel, her relationship with Crowley was showing strain as early as 1935. In a letter from that year she complains that Crowley's letters "cut me dead", and can't understand why she deserves such punishment. But in the same letter she also praises Hitler as "the man chosen by Providence", and declares herself National Socialist with her whole soul.

In Crowley's final 'snappy' letter of 10 May 1939, it is clear that he has been ignoring Kuntzel's letters (28th March, 25th April, and 1st May), despite her insistence for a reply. That seems highly unusual for Crowley, who was an avid letter writer throughout his life.
 

Zephyros

What's strange is that although Crowley signed it as someone else and speaks in the third person, he makes no real effort otherwise to obscure the identity of the writer. He was proficient in a great number of literary styles and it seems he could have made a better "forgery." It is as if he both wanted to sign her name while simultaneously making sure everyone would be in on the "joke." The punchline, however, seems to have been lost.
 

Ross G Caldwell

It appears that Crowley didn’t learn about Martha Küntzel’s death until after the war, so that when he wrote the Bibliographical Note, he didn’t yet know of her death. This may influence our interpretation of his intention in attributing it to her.

On 5 December, 1945, he received a letter from Herbert Schmolke (I transcribe it as it is in my Word copy of the diaries):

“Chit from Schmolke. [+] IWE mon December ’41 mortua est.”

There are obviously some errors and ambiguities in transmission from manuscript to typescript to my copy here, principally in the missing day (which “mon(day)” is it?) and the year – which could be Crowley’s careless mistake or the later transcriber’s.

A little over two months later, on 13 February 1946, Crowley received a letter from Friedrich Lekve, apparently written on 11 January, which contained more information as well as specifying that he was with her when she died.

From Peter-R. Koenig’s page
http://www.parareligion.ch/sunrise/lekve.htm

“In March 1955 [17] Eugen Grosche first disseminated the tale that Martha Küntzel had disappeared in a concentration-camp, which does not agree with Lekve's story that 'I.W.E.' died on December 8th 1942 in a convalescent home: "Until the last moment of her life I was with her." [18] Küntzel's supposed foreword to "The Book of Thoth", which appeared in 1944, was in fact Crowley's work. [19] Herbert Schmolke - Crowley and Friedrich Mellinger's German contact in the 40s - told Germer on February 2nd 1946: "Soror I.W.E . left Leipzig in June 1937 and went to Bad Blankenburg-Thur. In a home for aged teachers [...]she died by senility (aged 85).". [20] No indications about anyone called Martha Küntzel can be discovered in the German federal Archives. [21]”

(Koenig’s notes:
17. "Sonderdruck 2".
18. Friedrich Lekve to Aleister Crowley, letter of 11.1.46.
19. The Master Therion (Crowley): "The Book of Thoth", London 1944, pp. xi-xii.
20. "In The Continnum" Vol. IV Nº 5, Oroville 1989, p. 44.
21. Letter of 29.12.87.)

Note that Koenig writes “After the war on January 11th 1946, Lekve renewed his correspondence with Crowley (who noted in his diary: "Hurrah! Friedrich Lekve")”, whereas this entry is under the date 13 February 1946 in my copy (p. 782). So it took a month for Lekve’s letter to reach Crowley.

If Koenig and Churton are independent witnesses to the date written in Lekve’s letter, then it strengthens the case for 8 December 1942.

But Crowley’s “mon” gives me pause, since 8 December in 1941 was a Monday, while it was a Tuesday in 1942. Could the transcriber of Crowley’s diary here have gotten both things wrong – the day of the week AND the year as Crowley wrote them (as well as dropping the day number)? Or does the error really go back to Schmolke? But again, he says (apparently, in Koenig’s italicized transcription) ”(aged 85)”, and she could only have turned 85 in 1942 if she were born anytime in 1857, which year does not appear to be in dispute.

I still favour the 1942 date, whatever the explanation for the discrepancies. In any case, Crowley was not yet aware of her death when he wrote the Bibliographical Note, and I imagine he didn’t know of her clinical dementia either. So my new hypothesis for his attribution of the Bibliographical Note to her is that it is a magical gesture, a shot across her (and Hitler’s) National Socialist bow. That is, perhaps he imagined that somehow she might get a copy and read this piece attributed to her, feel remorse for what was clearly by then Germany’s inexorable defeat, and come back to her senses. Something like that, anyway.
 

Aeon418

For the record: AC became an Adeptus Major 6º = 5º in the Golden Dawn the very same month that he received the BoL.
I think you have to be a little cautious with the grade list given in the introduction. It's a curious mixture of formal and actual grades. Or as Crowley would put it, natural and spiritual.

A good example is the Adeptus Minor grade. The list says he attained that in January 1900. But he didn't attain the actual Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel until 1906. The former grade is the formal Golden Dawn 5=6 grade, corresponding to Tiphareth in Yetzirah. The latter is the actual A.'.A.'. 5=6 grade, corresponding to Tiphareth in Briah.

So when Crowley says he attained Adeptus Major 6=5 in April 1904, he's talking in the 'outer' Golden Dawn sense of Geburah in Yetzirah. This grade is roughly equivalent to the experience of the Path of Peh and Atu XVI. What Crowley appears to be saying here is that the reception of The Book of the Law was his personal Tower moment, at least on the intellectual plane.

Crowley's actual attainment of Adeptus Major 6=5 A.'.A.'. (Geburah in Briah) is presented in the diary extract, John St. John. Written in 1908 and published one year later in the first issue of the Equinox. Here Crowley makes the grade distinction very clear.

The Fourth Day, 3.55pm.
Aleister Crowley said:
I add a few considerations on the grade of Adeptus Major 6° = 5ø.
(P.S. --- Distinction is to be made between attainment of this grade in the natural and in the spiritual world. The former I long since possessed.)

1. It may perhaps mean severe asceticism. In case I should be going out on that path I will try and get a real good dinner to fortify myself.

2. The paths leading to Geburah are from Hod, that of the Hanged Man, and from Tiphereth, that of Justice, both equilibrated aspects of Severity, the one implying Self-Sacrifice, the other involuntary suffering. One is Freewill, the other Karma; and that in a wider sense than that of Suffering.
The Ritual DCLXXI will still be applicable: indeed, it may be considered sufficient; but of course it must be lived as well as performed.

(I must here complain of serious trouble with fountain pens, and the waste of priceless time fixing them up. They have been wrong throughout the whole operation, a thing that has not happened to me for near eight years. I hope I've got a good one at last --- yes, thank God! this one writes decently.)
 

Michael Sternbach

I simply observed that Crowley seems to have considered the attainment of that grade a result of his reception of the BoL. Thanks for confirming that - while elaborating on the distinction between formal and actual grades. In other words, it was a self-bestowed grade that was later acknowledged by a higher ranking GD member. Right?