{"title":"Books by Tobias Churton","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781644114797","title":"Aleister Crowley in Paris","description":"Exploring occultist, magician, poet, painter, and writer Aleister Crowley’s longstanding and intimate association with Paris, Tobias Churton provides the first detailed account of Crowley’s activities in the City of Light.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Using previously unpublished letters and diaries, Churton explores how Crowley was initiated into the Golden Dawn’s Inner Order in Paris in 1900 and how, in 1902, he relocated to Montparnasse. Soon engaged to Anglo-Irish artist Eileen Gray, Crowley pontificates and parties with English, American, and French artists gathered around sculptor Auguste Rodin: all keen to exhibit at Paris’s famed Salon d’Automne. In 1904--still dressed as “Prince Chioa Khan” and recently returned from his \u003ci\u003eBook of the Law\u003c\/i\u003e experience in Cairo--Crowley dines with novelist Arnold Bennett at Paillard’s. In 1908 Crowley is back in Paris to prove it’s possible to attain Samadhi (or “knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel”) while living a modern life in a busy metropolis. In 1913 he organizes a demonstration for artistic and sexual freedom at Oscar Wilde’s tomb. Until war spoils all in 1914, Paris is Crowley’s playground.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The author details how, after returning from America in 1920, and though based at his “Abbey of Thelema” in Sicily, Crowley can’t leave Paris alone. When Mussolini expels him from Italy, Paris becomes home from 1924 until 1929. Churton reveals Crowley’s part in the jazz-age explosion of modernism, as the lover of photographer Berenice Abbott, and many others, and how he enjoyed camaraderie with Man Ray, Nancy Cunard, André Gide, and Aimée Crocker. The author explores Crowley’s adventures in Tunisia, Algeria, the Riviera, his battle with heroin addiction, his relationship with daughter Astarte Lulu--raised at Cefalù--and finally, a high-level ministerial conspiracy to get him out of Paris.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Reconstructing Crowley’s heyday in the last decade and a half of France’s Belle Époque and the “roaring Twenties,” this book illuminates Crowley’s place within the artistic, literary, and spiritual ferment of the great City of Light.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43128613863602,"sku":"9781644114797","price":26.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644114797_7155b21c-affd-419a-aa92-e9f770a428cd.jpg?v=1786025000"},{"product_id":"9781594770357","title":"Gnostic Philosophy","description":"Gnosticism was a contemporary of early Christianity, and its demise can be traced to Christianity's efforts to silence its teachings. The Gnostic message, however, was not destroyed but simply went underground. Starting with the first emergence of Gnosticism, the author shows how its influence extended from the teachings of neo-Platonists and the magical traditions of the Middle Ages to the beliefs and ideas of the Sufis, Jacob B\u0026amp;#246;hme, Carl Jung, Rudolf Steiner, and the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. In the language of spiritual freemasonry, gnosisis the rejected stone necessary for the completion of the Temple, a Temple of a new cosmic understanding that today's heirs to Gnosticism continue to strive to create. The Gnostics believed that the universe embodies a ceaseless contest between opposing principles. Terrestrial life exhibits the struggle between good and evil, life and death, beauty and ugliness, and enlightenment and ignorance: gnosisand agnosis. The very nature of physical space and time are obstacles to humanity's ability to remember its divine origins and recover its original unity with God. Thus the preeminent gnostic secret is that we are God in potential and the purpose of bona fide gnostic teaching is to return us to our godlike nature. Tobias Churton is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine FreemasonryToday. He studied theology at Oxford University and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore. He lives in England.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301782303093,"sku":"9781594770357","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781594770357_559e913d-2d44-4242-a536-0ee20ba8cd0e.jpg?v=1787747118"},{"product_id":"9781644112311","title":"Aleister Crowley in England","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA detailed examination of the last 15 years of Crowley’s life\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with important figures, including Dion Fortune, Gerald Gardner, Jack Parsons, Dylan Thomas, and black equality activist Nancy Cunard\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplores Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work for British intelligence\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamines the development of Crowley’s later publications and his articles in reaction to the Nazi Gestapo actively persecuting his followers in Germany \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfter an extraordinary life of magical workings, occult fame, and artistic pursuits around the globe, Aleister Crowley was forced to spend the last fifteen years of his life in his native England, nearly penniless. Much less examined than his early years, this final period of the Beast’s life was just as filled with sex magick, espionage, romance, transatlantic conflict, and extreme behavior. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton provides the first detailed treatment of the final years of Crowley’s life, from 1932 to 1947. He opens with Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and his return home to England, flat broke. Churton offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work as a secret operative for MI5 and explores how Crowley saw World War II as the turning point for the “New Aeon.” He examines Crowley’s notorious 1934 London trial, which resulted in his bankruptcy, and shares inside stories of Crowley’s relations with Californian O.T.O. followers, including rocket-fuel specialist Jack Parsons, and his attempt to take over H. Spencer Lewis’s Rosicrucian Order. The author reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with spiritual leaders of the time, including Dion Fortune and Wicca founder Gerald Gardner. He examines Crowley’s dealings with artists such as Dylan Thomas, Alfred Hitchcock, Augustus John, Peter Warlock, and Peter Brooks and dispels the accusations that Crowley was racist, exploring his work with lifelong friend, black equality activist Nancy Cunard. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChurton also examines the development of Crowley’s later publications such as \u003ci\u003eMagick without Tears\u003c\/i\u003e as well as his articles in reaction to the Nazi Gestapo who was actively persecuting his remaining followers in Germany. Presenting an intimate and compelling study of Crowley in middle and old age, Churton shows how the Beast still wields a wand-like power to delight and astonish.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302077804917,"sku":"9781644112311","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644112311_ea566c4f-bd6a-4c94-b487-4f3fc00e959e.jpg?v=1786024945"},{"product_id":"9781644110430","title":"The Lost Pillars of Enoch","description":"\u003cp\u003eExplores the unified science-religion of early humanity and the impact of Hermetic philosophy on religion and spirituality\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInvestigates the Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that Seth’s descendants inscribed knowledge on two pillars to save it from global catastrophe\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eReveals how this original knowledge has influenced civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Hindu, and Islamic mystical knowledge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamines how “Enoch’s Pillars” relate to the origins of Hermeticism, Freemasonry, Newtonian science, William Blake, and Theosophy \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEsoteric tradition has long maintained that at the dawn of human civilization there existed a unified science-religion, a spiritual grasp of the universe and our place in it. The biblical Enoch--also known as Hermes Trismegistus, Thoth, or Idris--was seen as the guardian of this sacred knowledge, which was inscribed on pillars known as Enoch’s or Seth’s pillars. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eExamining the idea of the lost pillars of pure knowledge, the sacred science behind Hermetic philosophy, Tobias Churton investigates the controversial Jewish and Egyptian origins of Josephus’s famous story that Seth’s descendants inscribed knowledge on two pillars to save it from global catastrophe. He traces the fragments of this sacred knowledge as it descended through the ages into initiated circles, influencing civilization through Hermetic, Gnostic, Kabbalistic, Masonic, Hindu, and Islamic mystical knowledge. He follows the path of the pillars’ fragments through Egyptian alchemy and the Gnostic Sethites, the Kabbalah, and medieval mystic Ramon Llull. He explores the arrival of the Hermetic manuscripts in Renaissance Florence, the philosophy of Copernicus, Pico della Mirandola, Giordano Bruno, and the origins of Freemasonry, including the “revival” of Enoch in Masonry’s Scottish Rite. He reveals the centrality of primal knowledge to Isaac Newton, William Stukeley, John Dee, and William Blake, resurfacing as the tradition of Martinism, Theosophy, and Thelema. Churton also unravels what Josephus meant when he asserted one Sethite pillar still stood in the “Seiriadic” land: land of Sirius worshippers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShowing how the lost pillars stand as a twenty-first century symbol for reattaining our heritage, Churton ultimately reveals how the esoteric strands of all religions unite in a gnosis that could offer a basis for reuniting religion and science.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302803124597,"sku":"9781644110430","price":18.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644110430_da1f727c-7719-43ee-acb0-b0c6a6f6add4.jpg?v=1786024934"},{"product_id":"9781644116838","title":"The First Alchemists","description":"\u003cb\u003eExplores the origins and practices of early alchemy.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Investigating the origins of alchemy and the legend of the Philosopher’s Stone, Tobias Churton explores the oldest surviving alchemical texts, the original purpose of the “Royal Art,” and the first alchemists themselves. He reveals the theories and philosophies behind the art and how early apparatus and methods were employed by alchemists through the ages.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Showing how women dominated early alchemy, Churton looks at the first known alchemist, the Jewess Maria the Prophetess, inventor of the \u003ci\u003ebain marie\u003c\/i\u003e, still in use worldwide today. He also looks at early alchemist Cleopatra (not the well-known Egyptian queen) and 3rd–4th century Egyptian female artisan Theosebeia, who had a guild of adepts working under her. He examines in depth the work of Zosimos of Panopolis and shows how Zosimos’s historic work inspired the medieval view of alchemy as an initiatory path whose stages follow the transmutation of base metals into gold.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Exploring the latest research on early practices in Upper Egypt, the author discusses the political and industrial realities facing the first alchemists. He examines the late antique “Stockholm” and “Leiden” papyri, which offer detailed knowledge of the first known Greco-Egyptian chemical recipes for gold and silver dyes for metal and stone, and purple dyes for wool. He emphasizes how \u003ci\u003echanging color\u003c\/i\u003e in early alchemy was misinterpreted to imply transmutation of one metal into another. He reveals how the alchemical secrets for working with the “living statues” of the Egyptian temples was jealously guarded by the priesthood and how secrecy helped to reinforce beliefs that alchemical knowledge came from forbidden, celestial sources. He also investigates the mysterious relation between alchemy, spiritual gnosis, Hermeticism, and the \u003ci\u003eBook of Enoch\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Revealing the hidden legacy of the early alchemists, Churton shows how their secret workings provided a transmission line for ancient heretical doctrines to survive into the Renaissance and beyond.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56303123333493,"sku":"9781644116838","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644116838_993b17ba-b88b-4eb6-8820-f6b074eafc67.jpg?v=1786024156"},{"product_id":"9781578633296","title":"Golden Builders","description":"In a breathtaking span of detailed research, Tobias Churton reveals, without resorting to mythology or pseudo-history, the most up-to-date knowledge on the development of Gnostic alchemy, the true origins of pre-Grand Lodge Freemasonry, and the mysterious Fraternity of the Rosy Cross (the Rosicrucians). Following the Hermetic spiritual and philosophical stream through 1,600 years of esoteric history, Churton introduces readers to great men of magic and wisdom spiritual heroes and masters like Paracelsus, Caspar Schwenckfeld, Johann Valentin Andrae, and Elias Ashmole. The Golden Builders is an essential addition to any serious seekers' library.The Golden Builders is divided into three parts:* Part 1 presents a broad survey of the Hermetic current and its transmissions from Hellenistic Alexandria to the time of Paracelsus.* Part 2 focuses on the Rosicrucian movement as a vehicle of the Hermetic current, drawing on state-of-the-art research, such as the works of Spanish scholar Carlos Gilly.* Part 3 concentrates mainly on one man, the English polymath, antiquarian, collector, alchemist, astrologer, and early Freemason, Elias Ashmole, after whom the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford is named, and one of many Renaissance figures who carried the Hermetic current forward.Debunking myths while revealing genuine mysteries, The Golden Builders is an enticing read that contains much spiritual wisdom. Explore the deeper meaning of magic and human existence, as revealed in the records and inspiring lives of the Golden Builders.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304084713845,"sku":"9781578633296","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781578633296_b92d2610-5259-46a1-8f33-00fa9ddda3f5.jpg?v=1786023455"},{"product_id":"9781780283845","title":"Aleister Crowley","description":"At last, the unexpurgated, true story of the amazing Aleister Crowley—philosopher, poet, artists, writer, magus, explorer, parapsychology—and spy. Packed with fresh research and previously unpublished ‘Crowleyana.’\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e For 100 years, Aleister Crowley’s true achievements have been suppressed and his true character defaced in a campaign of vilification unparalleled in British history. Until now, Crowley’s life has not been written—it has been written over.\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e Tobias Churton is a world authority on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Gnosticism. In writing Aleister Crowley, he enjoyed complete access to all Crowley’s restricted papers, unpublished letters and personal diaries kept in a trust at London’s Warburg Institute and in the Ordo Templi Orientis archives. Ninety percent of the authentic material here has never before been published.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56304560079221,"sku":"9781780283845","price":30.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781780283845_3a6a3c5e-19dc-407b-b8fa-477f9558ed64.jpg?v=1786024673"},{"product_id":"9781644119259","title":"The Books of Enoch Revealed","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe first comprehensive examination of the Book of Enoch and its prophecies, origins, and history\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExamines in depth Enoch’s full story of the Watchers, the fallen angels who came to Earth and shared corrupting forbidden knowledge\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplores how Enoch was a vital component of Second Temple messianic Judaism, speculative Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah, and Gnostic mythology\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eInvestigates the entire history of the Book of Enoch and its important esoteric offshoots, including the later 2 Enoch (the Slavonic “Book of the Secrets of Enoch”) and the so-called Hebrew “Book of Enoch” (3 Enoch)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSaid to have been written by the prophet Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah, the Book of Enoch disappeared for many centuries, except for one place: the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which held the book as canonical.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRevealing the profound influence of the Book of Enoch on world thought over the past two thousand years, Tobias Churton investigates the entire history of the Book of Enoch and its important esoteric offshoots, including the later 2 Enoch (the Slavonic \"Book of the Secrets of Enoch\") and the so-called Hebrew \"Book of Enoch\" (3 Enoch). He explains how Enoch was taken to Heaven where he received personal instruction from God and examines in depth Enoch’s full story of the Watchers, the fallen angels who came to Earth and shared corrupting forbidden knowledge. He explains how the Book was a vital component of Second Temple messianic Judaism and speculative Jewish mysticism, playing a key role in the development of both the Kabbalah and Gnostic mythology.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInformed by continuing studies of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Churton provides the first comprehensive examination of the Book of Enoch, clarifying and refuting many errors of understanding about Enoch’s apocalyptic and sometimes sensational prophecies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56419953574261,"sku":"9781644119259","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781644119259_5bd6f189-cc27-4772-8b85-eae11545891a.jpg?v=1786024212"},{"product_id":"celestial-realms","title":"Celestial Realms","description":"\u003cp\u003eComprehensively explores the meanings, history, ideas, and experience of Heaven throughout the world’s exoteric and esoteric traditions\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eExplores the heavens of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, the Abrahamic traditions, Far Eastern mythologies, and Indigenous nations\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eConsiders questions about our “need” for Heaven, further informed by popular culture, folklore, and personal experience\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Across all ages people have wondered about the afterlife. Is Heaven a reward for good behavior, the home of the gods, or a state of being? As Tobias Churton reveals, such questions and beliefs about the nature of Heaven go back to humanity’s earliest days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Churton’s exploration reveals a perennial search for spiritual meaning. Beginning with early civilizations, including mythology in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Far East, we find sophisticated conceptions within philosophy and the Abrahamic religions, many of which persist unchanged. Churton examines the complexities of Jesus’s teaching that “the Kingdom of God is within you,” and Islam’s ideas about paradise. He analyzes the beliefs of eastern mystics, Maori, Australian Aboriginal, and Polynesian traditions as well as heavenly conceptions among Indigenous cultures of the Americas. Readers will explore Renaissance-era understandings of Heaven’s connection to the body in the chemico-spiritual medicine of Paracelsus and mysticism of Jacob Böhme. Emmanuel Swedenborg, followed by William Blake, controversially associated Heaven with sexuality. Churton then takes us into the contemporary era, exploring Heaven from perspectives of “spiritualism,” psychedelic experience, communist materialism, and the arts, including John Lennon’s lyrical suggestion that we imagine that there is no heaven.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Whether Heaven is considered a specific place or a deeply felt state of being, this in-depth investigation emphasizes its resonance and significance for all people.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57495301030261,"sku":"9798888502112","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9798888502112.jpg?v=1786617988"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-tobias-churton.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}