Moonchild (novel)

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Moonchild (a.k.a., Liber LXXXI [Book 81], or The Butterfly Net) is a novel written by the English occultist Aleister Crowley in 1917. Its plot involves a magical war between a group of white magicians, led by Simon Iff, and a group of black magicians, over an unborn child. It was first published by Mandrake Press in 1929 and its recent edition is published by Weiser. It has been translated to Spanish and published in Argentina by Walden Editora under the title "Hija de la Luna". Albeit not strictly a roman à clef, the novel depicts numerous acquaintances of Crowley's, thinly disguised as fictional characters. Grady McMurtry's "Note on Moonchild" provides some insight into the possible real characters on which the author based the characters in the novel. Crowley portrays MacGregor Mathers as the primary villain, including him as a character named SRMD, using the abbreviation of Mathers's magickal name. Arthur Edward Waite appears as a villain named Arthwaite, and the unseen head of the...

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