Authors and Editors

2.1 Scope of this chapter

This chapter covers the author’s work on a manuscript before submission, the editor’s work on it afterward, the obligations of anyone who writes about a living tradition, and the paper written for a course. For tables and illustrations, see CMS chapter 3; for rights and permissions, CMS chapter 4.

2.2 The author’s style sheet

Begin a style sheet when you begin writing. The editor keeps the same sheet and adds to it (see 2.23). Record on it the choices this guide leaves to the work and the forms you have settled:

• the variety of English and its dictionary (see 3.2);
• the citation system;
• the edition from which each primary text is quoted (see 6.6) and, for Liber AL, which text, TRV or OTOV, the quotations follow where a cited verse differs between them (see 6.23);
• whether each language is romanized in full or simplified form, and the system for any language chapter 4 does not cover (see 4.4, 4.34);
• the system of gematria, if the work computes values;
• the voice the work speaks in (see 2.33);
• the form of each recurring name, motto, title, and term the Word List does not fix;
• any siglum or abbreviation defined for this work alone;
• every character outside the basic Latin alphabet that the work uses (see 2.5);
• the kind of each restricted source (see 2.34) and the consent held for each living person named (see 2.37).

Write each entry as a term and its decision.

2.3 Manuscript files

Submit one editable file for each chapter of a book, or one file for an article, together with a PDF of the whole made from those files on the same day. Make a new PDF whenever the files change. Name each file with a two-digit number, an underscore, and a short description in lowercase letters, with no spaces, accents, or version words. Name each figure file for the figure’s number.

2.4 Formatting the manuscript

Set the whole manuscript in one typeface at one size, and leave its design to the publisher. Use the word processor’s styles for headings, paragraphs, and block quotations; never build a format from tabs, spaces, or bold body text. Do not divide words by hand at line ends. In ritual text, give the rubric, the speaker’s name, and the spoken words each a style of their own (see 3.77).

2.5 Special characters

Type every character as the Unicode character it is, in a font that contains it: the degree sign and white square of a grade notation; the three-dot mark ∴ (U+2234) in A∴A∴; the half rings ʿ and ʾ of transliteration; and Hebrew, Greek, or Coptic in their own scripts. Type the half rings themselves, never an apostrophe or quotation mark in their place, and turn off automatic quotation marks while typing transliteration. Never type a magical alphabet in a symbol font that draws its letters over ordinary Latin characters. Romanize such an alphabet in the text, and where the letterforms themselves are the subject, supply them as images (see 2.10). List on the style sheet every character outside the basic Latin alphabet that the work uses. For code points and look-alike characters, see 4.51.

2.6 Global changes

Copy the file before making any global change, and afterward read every instance the change touched, above all those in quotations, titles, transliteration, and sigla.

2.7 Headings

Give each heading the word processor’s heading style for its level; never make a heading by setting body text in bold. Use as few levels as the work needs, skip none, and do not open a level for a single heading under its parent. No heading carries a note reference, and no two headings in a work read alike. Set the title of the work and the titles of its chapters in title case. Subheads take title case or sentence case; choose one for each level, record it on the style sheet, and keep it throughout. A title of a work within a heading keeps its own capitalization and italics.

2.8 Note reference numbers

Make every note with the word processor’s note function. Never set two note references at the same place; combine their notes into one. A reference to a received text goes in parentheses in the text, never in a note (see 6.17). For the choice of footnotes or endnotes and the placement of the reference, see 5.3 and 5.5; for the content and form of notes, see 5.6.

2.9 Tables

Build each table with the word processor’s table function, never with tabs or spaces. Number tables in arabic numerals, in one sequence through an article and by chapter in a book: the second table in chapter 3 is table 3.2. Give each a title. Key notes to a table with superscript letters (a, b, c), never numerals. Do not let color alone carry any distinction. A table of correspondences carries a source line naming the work, the edition, and the columns it reproduces (see 6.37).

2.10 Figures

Number figures as 2.9 directs for tables, in a sequence separate from theirs, and give each a caption and, unless the figure is the author’s own, a credit line. Supply each figure as a separate file: a raster image at 300 ppi or more at printed size (1,200 ppi or more for black-and-white line art), or a vector file. Supply an original diagram as editable vector art, with its labels as live text, never outlines. Supply as an image, never as font text, any sigil, seal, or letter of a magical alphabet that Unicode does not encode, and give the romanized value of any letters beside the image or in its caption (see 4.39–4.41). A diagram that asserts correspondences takes a source line, as a table does (see 2.9).

2.11 Alt text

Write alt text for every figure. Describe what the image shows that the argument uses: for a manuscript page, the feature in question and where it lies on the page; for a diagram, its structure and the labels the text relies on. Mark a purely decorative image as decorative. Submit, with the figure files, a list giving each figure’s number, caption, credit line, and alt text.

2.12 Checking quotations

Check every quotation directly against the edition named on the style sheet. The quotation must match that edition in wording, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, italics, and line breaks. Check the reference at the same time: the verse, chapter, or page cited must hold the words quoted. A quotation taken from a secondary source and not checked against the original is cited as quoted in that source (see 5.11). A claim about a manuscript’s reading, hand, or layout rests on the manuscript or a facsimile of it, and the citation names which. Correct nothing silently in quoted matter beyond what 3.69 permits.

2.13 Checking facts, numbers, and names

Check every date, Liber number, grade notation, and reference to The Equinox against its source. Recompute every gematria value from the original script, under the system named on the style sheet. Check each personal name against the form its bearer published under, each motto against its bearer’s own spelling, each work’s full title against its title page, and each organization’s name against the name it bore at the time referred to. Check the title of a received text that 8.29 lists against that table instead (see 3.47).

2.14 Unpublished or uncheckable sources

Keep a copy of every source that is not formally published, such as a letter, a privately circulated paper, a web page, or a forum post. Where a reader cannot check a source, as with oral instruction, the author’s own magical record, or a document seen in a private collection, say so in the note. Present such a source as what it is, never as a document the reader could consult.

2.15 Permissions

Secure written permission, before submission, for any material whose use goes beyond fair use. The permission covers every form in which the work will appear: print and electronic, worldwide, for the life of the edition. Send copies of the correspondence with the manuscript, and supply each credit line in the wording the rights holder requires. Fees are the author’s unless the publisher agrees otherwise in writing before permission is sought. Quote no more of any text than the argument needs. For copyright, fair use, and requesting permission, follow CMS chapter 4; take legal advice on any question that is not routine.

2.16 Crowley’s writings and editions

Crowley died in 1947. Whether a particular work of his is still protected depends on the country, on when the work was first published, and on whether it was published in his lifetime; establish it for each work you quote at length or reproduce. Ownership of the rights in his writings has been claimed and disputed. Where you rely on a contested rights position, tell the publisher which position you relied on. Introductions, notes, translations, and apparatus added by a modern editor carry rights of their own, whatever the status of the text they accompany. An emended or restored text carries rights of its own where the editor’s choices in it are original, and some European countries protect a critical edition for a limited term whatever its originality. Clear any such matter you quote at length or reproduce.

2.17 Tarot images and other artwork

Rights in a tarot deck’s images are separate from rights in the writings the deck illustrates. The Thoth deck was painted by Frieda Harris (1877–1962), and the Rider–Waite–Smith deck was drawn by Pamela Colman Smith (1878–1951). The publisher of a current edition may hold further rights in its reproductions. Before reproducing a card, ask the publisher of the edition you reproduce; where the image is not itself the evidence, describe the card and cite it (see 6.45). A Golden Dawn diagram usually reaches a writer through a modern edition whose redrawing may carry its own rights: redraw it from the original or clear it with that edition’s publisher. A sigil or talisman drawn by a living practitioner is that person’s work, and its reproduction needs their permission.

2.18 Facsimiles and archival documents

A repository’s permission to read a document is not permission to reproduce or publish it. To reproduce a manuscript page or an archival photograph, obtain the repository’s license for reproduction, naming the publication and its formats, and use the credit line the repository specifies. Where the document itself is still in copyright, obtain the rights holder’s permission as well.

2.19 Names and insignia of orders

Naming an order to refer to it needs no one’s permission. Reproducing its seal, lamen, insignia, or logo is a permissions matter. Nothing in a work’s title, cover, or design may suggest a body’s endorsement unless the body has given it.

2.20 Rights holders who cannot be found

For much of the field’s older material, such as privately printed pamphlets, no rights holder can be found. Before reproducing such material, search for the holder and keep a record of the search: the sources consulted, the dates, and the results. A documented search is not permission. Where the publisher declines the risk, describe the material instead of reproducing it.

2.21 What to submit

Submit the manuscript files and the PDF made from them (see 2.3); the style sheet (see 2.2); the figure files and the list of figures (see 2.10–2.11); copies of all permissions and of any search record (see 2.15–2.20); and the disclosures the work requires (see 2.47–2.48).

2.22 Editor’s and author’s authority

The editor decides matters of house style; the author decides what the work says. Outside the matter listed in 2.27, make changes of house style without query: spelling, punctuation, the capitalization of ordinary words, the form of citations, numbers, and abbreviations, and the forms recorded on the style sheet. Query any other change that could alter the meaning. Do not strengthen or soften a claim, supply a citation the author did not make, or repair an argument; query instead. An author may decline a change of style for a reason that bears on the work, and the editor records the outcome on the style sheet. Where author and editor cannot agree, the publisher decides.

2.23 The editor’s style sheet

Keep one style sheet for the work: the author’s, extended. Add to it the level of editing agreed (see 2.24), each decision made during editing that this guide or CMS leaves to the work, and each name, term, and title form settled. Arrange entries alphabetically under headings such as names, terms, titles, sigla, and special characters. Send the sheet with the manuscript to the typesetter and the proofreader, and keep it after publication as the record consulted when a correction is proposed (see 2.30).

2.24 Levels of editing

Agree the level of editing with the author before the edit begins, and record it on the style sheet. A mechanical edit brings the work into house style and consistency and checks its citations and cross-references. A substantive edit adds rewriting at the level of the sentence, reordering within paragraphs, cutting repetition, and queries on structure. A developmental edit adds reorganization of the work itself. Edit at the level agreed, neither more heavily nor more lightly. The protections of 2.27 and the check in 2.29 apply at every level.

2.25 Queries

Ask before making any change that could alter the meaning; never make the change and append a question. Place each query in the file at the point it concerns, address it to the author, and raise one issue in each. Give the author what is needed to answer it: the reading of the edition named on the style sheet, the conflicting date, the character in question. Every query is answered before the manuscript goes to the typesetter; none is settled by default.

2.26 Queries on belief and secrecy

Query whose claim a sentence makes, never whether the claim is true. Where a work in the scholarly voice states a claim of the tradition as fact, ask the author to attribute it or to mark the change of voice (see 2.33). Do not ask an author to soften a claim the work’s voice entitles it to make, and do not set the author’s terms in scare quotes. Never ask an initiate to explain material they are bound not to disclose. Where a claim cannot be supported without such material, ask the author to recast it or withdraw it.

2.27 Matter never changed silently

Some matter may be queried freely but is changed only with the author’s written agreement. It comprises quoted matter, beyond the silent changes permitted in 3.69; a received text, in any particular (see 3.70); a barbarous name, which keeps its source’s spelling and casing; a motto, as its bearer wrote it; a received form of a name or term; a spelling on which the author’s argument turns; and the voice the work speaks in. The rule holds however a change is made. A global replacement, or tracked changes accepted unread, that alters any of this matter is the editor’s change.

2.28 Proofs

Use one method of marking throughout a set of proofs; for the stages of proof and proofreaders’ marks, see CMS chapter 2. At proof the author corrects errors only; changes of substance belong to the edited manuscript. A wrong reading in a quotation, a wrong reference, or a misidentified source is corrected at any stage, including the last.

2.29 Special characters in proof

Check every non-Latin character, diacritic, and symbol in proof against the author’s PDF and the character list on the style sheet, above all grade notations, forms with ∴, the half rings of transliteration, and astrological glyphs. Check that right-to-left text runs in the right order and that punctuation beside it has not moved. Report a wrong character to the typesetter by name and code point (see 4.51).

2.30 Corrections after publication

Correct a published error openly. In an online text, make the correction and add a dated note saying what was changed; never alter a published text silently. In a printed book, correct the next printing and, where the error affects the sense, issue an erratum. Retract a work only when an error invalidates its claims, and keep the retracted work available with a notice saying what was wrong, who found it, and what still stands. A notice does not characterize the author. The publisher decides on a correction or retraction and tells the author before the notice appears.

2.31 Matter removed after publication

Some published matter is removed instead of corrected: a person identified without the consent 2.37 requires, a motto linked to a legal name contrary to 2.39, and oath-bound material (see 2.34). Remove it from every version the publisher controls, record the removal in a dated note, and leave the rest of the work standing. Where a person withdraws consent to be named after publication, remove the name from the online text and from later printings; where the argument cannot stand without it, retract the work. A disclosure found missing after publication is added as a correction.

2.32 Practitioner and scholarly voice

A sentence in the scholarly voice makes a claim the writer defends on evidence any reader can weigh, whatever the reader believes. A sentence in the practitioner voice speaks from within a tradition, on that tradition’s terms and authority. In the scholarly voice, report the tradition’s claims as claims and attribute them to those who hold them. In the practitioner voice, cite scholarship as fully as a scholarly work does, and on the same terms.

2.33 Declaring the work’s voice

Record the work’s voice on the style sheet. A work that speaks as a practitioner, or in both voices, says so in a sentence in its introduction or first paragraph. Mark each change of voice in the prose, where it happens, in ordinary words; never mark it with a rule, a change of type, or a symbol. The voice belongs to the work: an initiate may write in the scholarly voice, and an editor of any belief may edit either.

2.34 Kinds of material

Classify every restricted source before writing, and record its kind on the style sheet. The kind decides what may be quoted.

Material of every kind may be discussed: its existence, date, provenance, general character, place in a body’s structure, and the scholarship about it. Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass, printed in The Equinox, vol. 3, no. 1 (1919), is published material. For citing privately circulated and oath-bound sources, see 6.68–6.74.

2.35 Deciding the kind

A document’s kind is fixed by how the body that issued it treats it. A writer under no oath who obtained an oath-bound document is bound by its kind all the same, and a writer bound by an oath keeps it whatever this guide permits. Publication by the issuing body makes a document published material permanently. Publication by anyone else changes nothing while that body exists; where a body has divided, publication by another branch does not release the documents of the branch that restricts them. Documents of a body that no longer exists are published material once printed, as are the Golden Dawn papers Israel Regardie published in 1937–1940. Where the kind is uncertain, say so and treat the document as the more restricted kind.

2.36 Availability and permission

That a document can be found on the internet, in a library or archive, or in a commercial reprint settles nothing about whether it may be quoted. Cite a restricted document according to its kind, and never link to a copy of it (see 6.74). An argument that wide circulation has changed a document’s standing is made in the prose, with evidence, and the editor treats it as a claim. A copy of unknown origin is not a source against which a quotation can be checked (see 2.12).

2.37 Naming living people

Name a living person in connection with any of the following only with their consent to this use: membership, grade, motto, or office in an initiatory body that they have not made public themselves; their private conduct; and anything learned from them in an interview, in correspondence, or in confidence. Consent to an interview is not consent to be named, and consent to be named in a lodge newsletter is not consent to be named in a book. Keep consent in writing, note on the style sheet that it is held, and show it to the editor on request.

Where the person was a minor at the time of the events, or the matter concerns health, sexuality, or leaving a body, seek consent for each matter separately. No consent is needed to name or criticize a person for their published work or for an act done in a public role, such as the head of a body acting as its head.

2.38 Describing without identifying

Where consent is refused or cannot be obtained, describe the person without identifying them, and do not gather details that together identify them.

2.39 Linking mottoes to legal names

Naming a person by a motto or office-name is naming them (see 2.37). Do not link a living person’s motto or office-name to their legal name unless the person has published the link or consents to its publication in this work. That the link is widely known, or has been printed by someone else, is not consent.

The same rule protects the recently dead, meaning anyone who died less than twenty-five years before the work is published; treat a person as living unless their death is documented or they were born more than a hundred years before publication. For a person dead twenty-five years or more, make the link only on cited documentary evidence: the person’s own publications, published scholarship, or an archive open to researchers. At no distance in time make it from private knowledge, from a body’s private records, or from leaked material. For the form of mottoes, see 3.25.

2.40 Oral and initiatory instruction

Oral and initiatory instruction may serve as a source when the work says which kind it is: oral instruction, given in speech outside any body; lodge instruction, given under a body’s authority in its own setting; initiatory transmission, in the course of a rite or grade; or private teaching, from a teacher to a student. Give its date and setting as far as the source permits, and where the source permits neither, say so. Name the teacher only as 2.37 and 2.39 allow. State in the note that the reader cannot check the source (see 2.14). Never present such instruction as a document, or cite it as a personal communication. Nothing oath-bound is disclosed through it (see 2.34). For the citation forms, see 6.73.

2.41 Teachings attributed to the dead

Attribute to a dead teacher only what can be evidenced, whether a teaching, an opinion, a remark, or a permission. Evidence is the teacher’s own writing; a contemporary record made by someone present, identified and dated; a body’s own minutes; or a published account the teacher did not dispute in life. A claim that something is well known, a transmission at third hand, and the claimant’s own initiatory standing are not evidence. Where none exists, report the claim as what it is: a statement of what the claimant says they were told.

2.42 Naming organizations and lineages

Call each organization by the name it uses for itself, never by a name its rivals use for it. Where two bodies use or have used the same name, distinguish them at first mention by a fact anyone can check: the name of the head, the place and year of incorporation, the year of founding, or the location. Never distinguish them by a word of approval or disapproval. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Stella Matutina, and the Alpha et Omega are distinct bodies. Partisan shorthand for a body appears only in quotation, or in the practitioner voice of an author who has disclosed an affiliation (see 2.47).

2.43 Court decisions and lineage claims

State a court’s decision as what the court decided, and extend it no further. A judgment on the ownership of copyrights, property, or a name is not a judgment on initiatory authority. An expulsion is a fact about a body’s decision, not proof of the conduct alleged. Report a claim of lineage or of grade as a claim, naming who makes it.

2.44 Borrowed traditions

Support a claim about a tradition the Western esoteric traditions drew on, such as Jewish Kabbalah, Egyptian religion, Hinduism, or Buddhism, with that tradition’s own sources and its scholarship. Support a claim about what the Golden Dawn, Crowley, or later Thelemites made of it with their own writings. A Thelemic or Hermetic source, Liber 777 included, is evidence only for what its own tradition holds. Name a borrowing as a borrowing at the first use of the borrowed term, and mark the point where a sentence passes from one tradition’s claim to another’s. A comparison between traditions is the writer’s argument, and is presented and supported as one.

2.45 The usage of living communities

Write a living tradition’s names and terms as the community under discussion currently writes them, and where communities differ, say whose usage the work follows. Haitian Vodou and West African Vodun are distinct traditions. The restrictions a community places on its own initiatory material bind as a Thelemic body’s do (see 2.34), and the rules for naming living people apply to its members (see 2.37). For particular names and cautioned terms, see 3.86–3.87 and 3.93.

2.46 Sexual and drug material

Discuss the corpus’s sexual and drug material as you would any other subject, and quote what the argument needs. Judge a passage by the work it does in the argument. Do not give operative instruction in sexual practice for its own sake, and do not give preparation methods or dosages for drugs. The kinds of material in 2.34 apply without exception. The sexual conduct of a living person is not discussed without that person’s specific consent (see 2.37). For quoting passages in the corpus that are racist, antisemitic, or otherwise bigoted, follow 3.80.

2.47 Disclosure of affiliation

Disclose to the reader any membership or office in a body the work discusses, any restricted material the work relies on, any claim grounded in the author’s own initiatory instruction, any financial interest in the subject, and any part the author has taken in a dispute the work reports. Private practice, belief, and grade need no disclosure unless the work rests on them. In an article, place the disclosure in an unnumbered note at the head of the notes; in a book, in the preface or introduction; never among the acknowledgments. An editor or reviewer with such an affiliation, or with a close relationship to the author, tells the publisher before taking the work on, and the publisher decides whether they continue.

2.48 Machine assistance

Tell the reader, in a note, where a machine tool translated, transliterated, or transcribed primary-source material, or produced correspondences or gematria values, and say how the result was checked. Present no machine-produced value or correspondence as checked until a person has checked it against the script or the source. Tools used only for spelling, grammar, or phrasing need no disclosure. For citing machine-generated text as a source, see 5.53.

2.49 Allegations and disputes

Report an allegation as an allegation, naming who makes it, when, and where; “it is alleged,” with no one named, is not attribution. Keep four things apart in the prose: an allegation, an admission, a finding by a body or court, and a conviction. State a finding as what was found and no more. Cite an anonymous accusation posted online as an anonymous post, with its date and an archived copy (see 5.30, 5.46–5.50), and say what it can and cannot support. Never name a complainant without their consent, or let detail identify them. That an accused person’s name already circulates does not license repeating it where the allegation concerns private conduct and not an act in a public role. For defamation and privacy, follow CMS chapter 4 and take legal advice.

2.50 The response of the person accused

Give the subject of a serious allegation an opportunity to respond before publication, and say in the work whether a response was given, declined, or could not be sought. An author who is a party to a dispute the work reports, or a witness, complainant, officer, or member of a body involved in it, discloses that stake (see 2.47).

2.51 The paper written for a course

Of the duties this chapter gives an author, those that prepare a manuscript for a publisher do not apply to a paper written for a course: manuscript files (see 2.3), figure files and alt text (see 2.10–2.11), permissions (see 2.15–2.20), and the submission package (see 2.21). The course decides the paper’s layout and what is handed in, and where its requirements differ from this guide, they prevail (see 1.5).

All the other duties apply. Keep a style sheet (see 2.2), and declare the paper’s voice as 2.33 directs. Quote a restricted source only as its kind allows (see 2.34). Make the disclosures 2.47 requires, placed as in an article, and report machine assistance as 2.48 and 5.53 direct. Once a paper is published or offered for publication, every duty this chapter gives an author applies to it. For when to cite a source, see CMS chapter 13.