![\"konx1.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/konx1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Not the musician<\/a> but the book of “Essays in Light” published by Aleister Crowley in 1907. I’ve been familiar with this for years but only via the many reprints. It was only recently that I discovered the striking cover design of the first edition which, we’re told, was designed by Crowley himself during a hashish bout. I’ve not been able to find the source for this piece of information but it’s not in the chapter of his autobiography where he discusses the writing of the book. (Matters aren’t helped by\u00a0Konx om Pax<\/em> not being listed in the index.) If anyone has the relevant details then please leave a comment.<\/p>\n In design terms this cover might seem radical for 1907 but if Crowley did design it I’d guess he was thinking of a quite common geometric variation of Kufic script<\/a>. Crowley travelled East as far as China, and had an abiding interest in languages of all kinds. Konx om Pax<\/em> opens with a quote in Arabic from the Qur’an which is followed by a succession of quotes in different languages including Hebrew, Chinese, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and hieroglyphic Egyptian.<\/p>\n Konx om Pax (2011) by Fredrik S\u00f6derberg<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n Crowley’s lettering turns up much later in this painting by Fredrik S\u00f6derberg. The phrase was also referenced during the 1990s on many of Bill Laswell’s recordings, often by cryptic phrasing on CD stickers. The name forms part of one of the tracks on Laswell’s Axiom Ambient<\/a><\/em> album from 1994, an album which includes a sample of Crowley’s voice. Also in the 1990s, Laswell was making frequent use of what MacGregor Mathers claimed was the English translation of the Egyptian origin of the phrase: “Khabs am Pekht” or “Light in extension”. One of Laswell’s many dub projects, Divination, released two compilation albums called Light In Extension<\/em><\/a>, while the phrase “Khabs am Pekht” (which had me mystified for years) appears on the back of Material’s magnificent Hallucination Engine<\/a><\/em> (1994). One of my favourite albums, which also includes a portion of a Crowley Tarot card in its James Koehnline artwork.<\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } Not the musician but the book of “Essays in Light” published by Aleister Crowley in 1907. I’ve been familiar with this for years but only via the many reprints. It was only recently that I discovered the striking cover design of the first edition which, we’re told, was designed by Crowley himself during a hashish … Continue reading “Konx om Pax”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,4,3,16,44,10],"tags":[391,8924,466,3550,6355,2595,4605,552],"class_list":["post-15550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-design","category-music","category-occult","category-painting","category-typography","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-axiom-ambient","tag-bill-laswell","tag-fredrik-soderberg","tag-james-koehnline","tag-material-group","tag-samuel-liddell-macgregor-mathers","tag-tarot"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-42O","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"konx2.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/konx2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"konx3.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/08\/konx3.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u2022 Burroughs at 100<\/a>
\n\u2022 Aleister Crowley: Wandering The Waste<\/a>
\n\u2022 Brush of Baphomet by Kenneth Anger<\/a>
\n\u2022 Rex Ingram\u2019s The Magician<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Mysteries of Myra<\/a>
\n\u2022 Aleister Crowley on vinyl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"