The Scrutinies of Simon Iff by Aleister Crowley were once published, circa 1917-1918 E.V., in The International magazine, but since that time these six short stories featuring the character of Simon Iff, one of the protagonists of Moonchild, have not been available.*  Likewise, the others, Simon Iff Abroad, Simon Iff Psychoanalyst and Simon Iff in America, a total of seventeen short stories, were never before published and have remained so, unavailable to most students of Crowley and Thelema, until I grew tired of this state of affairs and published them in a simple form, without the benefit of copyright to make certain they remained in the public domain.  Each order filled cost me dear, but it was important to me to make this material available and keep the Iff stories from being used and monoplized to personally benefit a few at the expense of the many.  Every order I filled to accomplish this task did not put money into my pocket, but just the opposite.  Each order represented a financial loss I could ill afford.  Now, with the Castle of the Silver Star, I can offer this material to all at relatively no expense to myself but for the time spent to prepare these wonderful stories for the Internet.

During my first Great Magical Retirement at the Mt. Nebo Hermitage I corresponded with James Wasserman, an editor at the time for Samuel Weiser, Inc.  Occasionally we conversed over the telephone as well.  When he asked me if I would like to have copies of the Simon Iff stories I replied enthusiastically in the affirmative.  I figured he was simply trying to kiss up to me, and I doubted his actions were ethical, but I saw an opportunity here to obtain this rare material by doing nothing more than saying "Yes!"  Later, our correspondence having run out of steam, Mr. Wasserman hooked up with Marcelo Ramos Motta and his S.O.T.O..  That did not go well for Mr. Wasserman.  He and the late Sr. Motta had the inevitable falling out that was common to all relationships with mad Mr. Motta, and Mr. Wasserman's employment with Weiser ended.  Showing a further lack of good judgment, Mr. Wasserman next took up with the late Grady Louis McMurtry (Caliph Hymenaeus Alpha) and the Caliphate pseudo-o.t.o..

Time passed.  The Iff stories were not published.  On the Winter Solstice of 1977 E.V. I began The Newaeon Newsletter.  I was gradually and casually investigating the Caliphate gang since my 1st G.M.R., and soon after publishing the first numbers of TNN I began corresponding with Helen Parsons Smith (Soror Grimaud), a surviving, elderly member of the original Agape Lodge of the genuine Ordo Templi Orientis, and publisher of Crowleyana.  Her relationship with Grady McMurtry and his ex-wife Phyllis Seckler (Soror Meral), et al, was always strained, and this seems to have been a contributing factor to her decision to assist me with Newaeon in small but significant ways.  During this time I gave her my most readable typscripts of the Iff stories as a donation to her publishing efforts, asking only that she mention my contribution somewhere in the book or books and that she make no more than a fair profit from the publication of this material.

More time passed.  HPS hoarded the Simon Iff stories.  The Caliphate pseudo-o.t.o. was not making the material available to all, as is usual for the gang, restricting access to material that could possibly assist others to discover and accomplish their True Wills.  This situation was starting to annoy me.  And so, I did my best to make these stories available to as many interested parties as possible, albeit in a rough typescript form.  My intention was to eventually retype everything and make the material more presentable, but one thing led to another and I never found the time to do this.  Now that I have been dragged into the computer age and cyberspace, I have found a better way make the Simon Iff stories available to all ... and this is it!

This, however, is not quite the end of the story.  Before the Simon Iff stories could get here, they had to be put into HTML form.  I knew nothing of this then.  Obviously things have changed.  However, then I was going to the public library every day to use their computers just to struggle with e-mail and learn now to surf the Net.  A righteously disgruntled member of the Caliphate, Ellen (Soror Rhia), was helping me to get the web site begun, but she found the task that she had enthusiastically volunteered to take on a bit more work than she had anticipated.  I had given her a copy of the Iff stories and she was going to put them into HTML format.  However, when a "friend" of hers in the Caliphate pseudo-o.t.o., one Chris Feldman (Christeos Pir, Frater Vitriol, etc.), offered to do this for her, she eagerly accepted his help.  Then, instead of doing what he had offered to do, Chris proceeded to use the Simon Iff stories to give some worth to his inconsequential Caliphate camp newsletter, betraying me, but more importantly betraying his friend, Ellen.  Chris and I exchanged a few e-mails messages over this matter.  Speaking like a true Caliphate toadie, so used to doing what he's told, he asked me what I wanted him to do.  I merely replied that I wanted him to do the polite, responsible, ethical thing.  The problem for Chris was that on his own he could not determine what this meant, so he resorted to an attempt to insult me, along with a program of speaking ill of me behind my back.  After the way the Caliphate has hoarded these stories and restricted your access to them, I found Mr. Feldman's behaviour particularly rude.  But it is now of little consequence.

I hope you enjoy these stories written by the Master Therion under the nom de plume Edward Kelly, and that you find value in them beyond mere entertainment.

G.M.Kelly, Editor
The Newaeon Newsletter

*Some time after I published and distributed The Scrutinies of Simon Iff (and the other three collections), Teitan Press published a very nicely done edition of Scrutinies.  Because this material is currently available in this form, I will not at this time place these stories on Castle of the Silver Star.  It is only because I do not wish to be redundant and waste space on the Newaeon site.  However, I have put Scrutinies into HTML format and The Complete Simon Iff Collection is now available on disk, for Windows only.  For further information, please see the bottom of the next page.  As for the Teitan Press edition of The Scrutinies of Simon Iff, I recommend it highly.