Progradior and the Beast. Frank Bennett & Aleister Crowley

Hardcover in dust jacket. 8vo. 316pp. Blue cloth, gilt titling, full colour dust jacket, and black and white illustrations. Bibliography and Index. Progradior and the Beast recounts the story of Lancashire-born Frank Bennett (1868-1930), one of Aleister Crowley's more successful, if little-known followers. While still a youth Bennett embarked on a spiritual odyssey which eventually led him to the study of ceremonial magic, and into contact with Crowley. Bennett, also known by his magical name, Frater Progradior, migrated to Australia in 1911 where he founded A .*. A.*. and O.T.O. groups, and sought to promote Crowley's law of Thelema. In 1921 Bennett traveled to Crowley's Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu, where he rapidly became one of the Beast's star pupils. Progradior and the Beast is largely drawn from previously unpublished sources - letters, journals, and other documents - and provides rare insight into the private and public worlds of these two twentieth century magicians. It is illustrated with a number of previously unseen pictures of Crowley and Bennett, and the dustwrapper and endpapers include striking colour reproductions of two paintings by Crowley: one a portrait of Frank Bennett, and the other a Cefalu landscape. The book is uniform in format with its companion volume: 'The Magical Record of Frater Progradior.'