Three Great Hoaxes of the War: Blessed Are They That Have Not Seen and Yet Have Believed
Thame: Black Lodge Publishing / Mandrake Press, 1991.
Paperback.
Black Lodge Booklets : No. 4.
Crowley debunks three great hoaxes associated with World War One that follow the generally accepted lines of demarcation: that is, legend, prophecy, and miracle.
Legend: 1.5 million Russian soldiers (with horses and artillery) were purported to have been smuggled through England in the dead of night to try to check the panic caused by the collapse at Mons. Yes, but how? Why?
Prophecy: Everyone wanted to know how the war would end. French mystic Sar Peladan claimed to have found a Latin prophecy by Abbot Johannes among his father's papers that, through allegory, accurately predicted events up to the battle of the Marne. His claims were accepted until the Abbot's predictions beyond the Marne and into the future proved obviously inaccurate.
Miracle: Arthur Machen's fictional account of The Bowmen who were magically summoned by a soldier to protect the outnumbered British brigade at the retreat at Mons became a miracle when it was verified by an unnamed priest. In the introduction to his book The Bowman and Other Legends of War, Machen recalled “it seemed that my light fiction had been accepted by the congregation of this particular church as the solidest of facts; and it was then that it began to dawn on me that if I had failed in the art of letters, I had succeeded, unwittingly, in the art of deceit. This happened, I should think, some time in April, and the snowball of rumour that was then set rolling has been rolling ever since, growing bigger and bigger, till it is now swollen to a monstrous size.”
Item #900981ISBN: 0941404293
5-11/16 x 8-1/4”, printed wrappers, unpaginatked (12pp), Mandrake Press ad rear wrapper (1993).
A bit of soiling, two small rectangles of glue discoloration where labels have been removed and small spot of red ink front wrapper, internally clean, tight, very good.
Price: $35.00