General Style

3.1 Scope of this chapter

This chapter covers the forms that words, names, and numbers take in prose: spelling and word forms, italics, and punctuation; the names of persons, orders, grades, deities, places, and works; numbers, dates, and the Thelemic calendar; quotation; and the language a writer uses of people and traditions. Citation forms are treated in chapters 5 and 6, and abbreviations and sigla in chapter 8.

3.2 Dictionary and spelling

Use one variety of English for the whole work, and spell every word as that variety spells it. American spelling is the default: the form Merriam-Webster.com lists first, even where it gives two forms as equal variants, with Merriam-Webster Unabridged for a word the site does not list.

A work may use British spelling instead, or that of another established variety such as Canadian or Australian English. It then follows one current dictionary of that variety throughout, named on the style sheet with the variety (see 2.2), and takes the first of two equal variants. A publisher or journal may require one variety (see 1.5).

The variety governs spelling only; the rest of this guide applies to every work. The forms in the Word List hold in every variety. Quoted matter and the titles of works keep the spelling of their source, without comment and without [sic].

3.3 Which authority settles a spelling

For your own prose, take the first of the following that answers the question: the Word List; for the names and terms of a received text, the spelling of the edition the work quotes (see 6.6); the work’s dictionary (see 3.2); CMS chapter 7. Record on the style sheet any form you settle that none of them gives (see 2.2).

3.4 The Word List and received forms

The Word List gives the house form of terms the field uses constantly, and for those terms it overrides the dictionary. Many of its entries are received forms: spellings fixed by Crowley, the Golden Dawn, or the Holy Books and kept by the field, although a dictionary or a modern system of romanization would spell the word otherwise. Use each exactly as the Word List gives it. A received form governs the term listed and nothing else; it does not extend by analogy to related words, and it does not alter a quotation that spells the term another way. Form the plural of other borrowed words as the dictionary first lists it.

3.5 Qabalah, Kabbalah, and Cabala

Write Qabalah for the Hermetic and Thelemic tradition, Kabbalah for the Jewish tradition and its texts, and Cabala for the Christian Cabala of the Renaissance and early modern period. Choose by the tradition the sentence concerns, and keep any other form found in a quotation or a title. The adjectives follow their nouns: Qabalistic, Kabbalistic, Cabalistic.

The name of a particular system keeps the spelling its proponents give it, in your own prose as well as in quotation. The English Qaballa (EQ), the system of English letter values first worked out by James Lees in 1976, is spelled with two l’s and no final h (see 6.63).

In Hermetic and Thelemic contexts the Sephiroth take the Word List’s received forms: Kether, Chokmah, Binah, Chesed, Geburah, Tiphareth, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malkuth. In discussion of Jewish Kabbalah, romanize their names as 4.14 directs.

3.6 Magick and magic

Write magick, a lowercase common noun, for the practice as Crowley and Thelemic writers name it. Write magic for the phenomenon in other traditions and in historical or anthropological discussion, the magic of the Golden Dawn and of Crowley’s other sources included. The adjective is magical in every sense; magickal appears only in quotations and titles. Capitalize Magick only where a title or a quotation does.

3.7 Compounds and prefixes

Look first in the dictionary: a compound the work’s dictionary lists keeps its listed form in every position. Hyphenate a temporary compound before the noun it modifies, and leave it open after the noun. Never hyphenate an adverb ending in -ly to the word that follows. Close a prefix to its stem unless the stem is capitalized or a numeral, or closing it would put two a’s or two i’s together, invite a misreading, or make a different word. The field’s recurring cases are these:

3.8 Line breaks

Divide an ordinary English word at the end of a line only where the dictionary divides it. Do not divide a barbarous name, a word of a motto, a siglum, A∴A∴, a grade or degree notation, a verse reference, or an Anno date; carry the whole of it to the next line. Keep Frater or Soror on the same line as the motto it precedes, Liber on the same line as its number, and a siglum on the same line as the numbers that follow it. Break URLs and DOIs as 5.29 directs.

3.9 Key terms, words, and emphasis

A key term is a word the work takes into its own vocabulary and goes on using. Italicize it once, at the point where you introduce or define it, and set it in roman at every later use.

A word discussed as a word is one the sentence is about, in its form or its meaning. Italicize it every time it is discussed in this way; unlike a key term, it does not pass into roman after its first appearance. Its meaning may follow it directly, in single quotation marks and without parentheses (see 3.19).

For emphasis in your own prose, use italics, sparingly. Never use bold type or capitals for emphasis in running prose. Italics in quoted matter belong to the source, as do the rubrics of a quoted ritual (see 3.77); mark emphasis you add to a quotation as 3.74 directs.

3.10 Non-English words and phrases

Italicize an unfamiliar word or phrase from another language at its first use, give its meaning, and set it in roman at later appearances. Set in roman, always, a word the work’s dictionary lists as English, a proper noun in any language, and a term the Word List gives in roman. The Latin words of a Liber title are part of the title and take its italics (see 3.46). Set a quotation in another language in roman, whether it is run in or set as a block. For words in other scripts, see 4.2.

3.11 Barbarous names

A barbarous name, or vox magica, is a name or word of power that belongs to no language a reader could consult: the voces of the Greek Magical Papyri, the names of a conjuration, the unexplained strings of a ritual or a received text. Set it in roman exactly as the source prints it, with its capitals, hyphens, accents, and divisions. Do not italicize it, translate it, correct it, or gloss it in the text. Put a proposed meaning or derivation in a note, attributed to whoever proposes it. Where two printings of a text differ, quote the one you cite; the difference is a textual matter (see 3.79, 6.24). Enochian follows 4.35–4.37.

3.12 Punctuation in this chapter

The sections below set the house choices and treat the cases this field meets often. The punctuation of citations is treated in chapter 5, that of verse references in 6.13–6.17, and that of abbreviations and sigla in chapter 8. Quoted matter keeps its own punctuation within the limits set in 3.69 and 3.70.

3.13 The serial comma

Use a comma before the conjunction in every series of three or more items. A series of two takes no comma, however long its members. Where any member of a series contains a comma of its own, separate all the members with semicolons. Keep a quotation’s punctuation of a series as the source has it, with or without a serial comma.

3.14 Commas with names and degrees

Where a name and a description stand side by side, the second is an appositive. Set it off with a pair of commas where it adds something about a person the first already identifies, and close the pair after it. Set it without commas where it identifies which of several people is meant. A motto or office-name linked to its bearer’s legal or public name goes in parentheses, not between commas (see 3.28). No comma stands between Frater or Soror and the motto, or between a name and the degree that follows it.

3.15 Possessives

Form the possessive of a singular name with an apostrophe and s, whatever letter the name ends in. A name that ends in a period or in the three-dot mark takes the apostrophe and s after it. Do not form a possessive or a plural on a grade or degree notation; recast the phrase.

3.16 The three-dot mark and A∴A∴

The three-dot mark (∴) appears in the names and abbreviations of orders and in signatures within them. A∴A∴ has one written form: capital A, the three-dot mark, capital A, the three-dot mark, with no spaces. A.A., AA, A.'.A.'., and every other substitute are wrong; do not give an expansion of the name as its equivalent. A source’s own form is reproduced only inside a quotation. The mark is not a period, and a sentence that ends on A∴A∴ takes one of its own. For the character, see 4.51.

Reproduce another body’s three-dot abbreviations, and the initials of its members, as the source prints them; do not invent such an abbreviation for a body that does not use one.

3.17 Dashes

Use the en dash for a range of numbers and to join a compound one of whose elements is an open compound or a pair of names.

Commas set off most elements that interrupt a sentence, and parentheses set off an aside the sentence could do without. Use a pair of em dashes instead where the element breaks the structure of the sentence, needs more weight than commas give it, or contains commas of its own. A single em dash may introduce an element that closes the sentence. Never use an em dash to join two independent clauses; use a period or a semicolon. Set the em dash closed up, with no space on either side, and use no more than two in a sentence.

No comma, colon, or semicolon stands before or after an em dash, and no period except one that ends an abbreviation. A question mark or an exclamation point that belongs to the element set off stays before the closing dash. Where the element ends the sentence, the sentence’s own closing mark takes the place of the second dash.

In speech you transcribe, mark a speaker who is cut off, or who breaks off abruptly, with an em dash, set directly before the closing quotation mark with no other punctuation. Ellipsis points mark speech that trails off or falters. In speech quoted from print, keep the source’s own marking of the break, normalizing a dash as 3.69 allows. Never use a dash for your own omission from a quotation; mark that with ellipsis points (see 3.72). Mark matter missing or illegible in a manuscript as 4.42 directs, never with a dash.

3.18 Quotation marks

Use double quotation marks for a quotation and single marks for a quotation within it. Place periods and commas inside the closing mark, colons and semicolons outside it, and a question mark or an exclamation point inside or outside according to whether it belongs to the quotation. A period or comma of your own never goes inside a quotation from a received text (see 3.70). In textual discussion, where the position of a mark is itself evidence about the source, set the mark where the source has it and say so once in a note.

3.19 Scare quotes and glosses

Use scare quotes sparingly, to show that a word belongs to someone else or is being questioned, and drop them after the first use in a passage. Use so-called or quotation marks, not both. Do not put a practitioner’s own vocabulary in quotation marks to hold it at a distance; attribute it in the sentence (see 3.88). A word discussed as a word may take its meaning in single quotation marks directly after it, with no parentheses. A gloss in parentheses, alone or after a script form, takes double quotation marks (see 4.7); give the translation of a phrase or a motto in the same form.

3.20 Parentheses and brackets

Use square brackets for a parenthesis that falls within another. A translation you supply for a passage you quote follows the passage, in brackets; a phrase you use in your own sentence takes its meaning in parentheses (see 3.10, 3.19). Add nothing, bracketed or otherwise, inside a received text (see 3.70). In a transcription, brackets and other editorial signs carry only the meanings 4.42 gives them. For words you add inside a quotation, see 3.74; for [sic], see 3.73.

3.21 Slashes

Join alternatives with or, and use a slash between two of them only in a fixed pair that modifies a noun. Do not write and/or; name the possibilities instead. In verse run into prose, a spaced slash marks each line break. A range of years takes an en dash (see 3.53); a dual year under Old Style reckoning is treated in 3.60. The closing salutation 93 93/93 keeps its slash.

3.22 Modern personal names

At first mention, give a person’s name in full in the form under which the person published or was publicly known, and use the surname alone afterward. Where two people discussed in a work share a surname, give each a fuller form at every mention. A compound surname stays whole. Use a birth name, a legal name, or a library catalog’s form of a name only where that form is the point. For names in citations, see 5.15–5.16; for filing, see 7.19.

3.23 Premodern and non-Western names

Call a premodern figure known by a single name by that name. Call a figure with a fixed family name by that name after first mention. A particle such as de, von, or della follows the person’s established usage in English. Give a non-Western name in the order its own tradition uses, and do not invert or shorten it on an English pattern. For their romanization, see chapter 4.

3.24 Pen names and one form per person

Choose one name for each person and use it in your own prose throughout a work, identifying the person’s other names where the reader needs them. Cite the person’s works under that name as well; in a bibliography, any other name on a work’s title page follows the chosen name in square brackets (see 5.15–5.16). Where 2.39 forbids linking the names, cite each work under the name printed on it. A pen name that has become the usual form of a person’s name is that person’s name in your prose.

3.25 Mottoes

A motto is the name an initiate takes within an order. Set it in roman, without italics or quotation marks, spelled, capitalized, and punctuated as its bearer wrote it. Give it in full at first mention, with a translation in parentheses where the reader needs one, and do not translate it again. Where a person took several mottoes, give the one that belongs to the order or the period under discussion; the person keeps the one name chosen under 3.24. A motto stands with Frater or Soror or alone, as the source or the context requires.

3.26 Frater and Soror

Frater and Soror are capitalized and set in roman before a motto, with no comma between. Where space requires, abbreviate them as Fra. and Sor., never Fr. or Sr. Neither stands alone in place of the motto. Used generically, of no particular person, the words are lowercase.

3.27 Mottoes of initials and numbers

A motto made of initials keeps every point and capital its bearer gave it, in text, headings, and bylines alike. Expand it once, at its first mention, in parentheses; the expansion is itself a motto and is set in roman. A translation of the expanded words follows 3.25. A motto written in numerals keeps its numerals; it is never spelled out or converted to another system. For the possessive, see 3.15.

3.28 Linking a motto to a person

Where a motto or office-name is linked to its bearer’s legal or public name, give the second name once, in parentheses, at first mention, and afterward use the form you have chosen for the person (see 3.24). Whether a motto may be linked to a legal name at all is decided under 2.39. Where it may not, print the motto alone, with no initials or other hint of the person behind it and no note about the omission.

3.29 Office-names

An office-name is borne by successive holders of an office and distinguished by a qualifier: Hymenaeus Alpha, Hymenaeus Beta. Write it whole at every mention. Set it in roman, like a motto. The qualifier is never treated as a surname (see 7.18). Capitalize the title of an office, such as Frater Superior, Outer Head of the Order, or Hierophant, where it precedes a name or stands for the holder of that office in a particular body; lowercase it where it describes a role in general.

3.30 Orders and other bodies

Give an order’s full name at first mention and its established short form afterward. Initials keep the periods the body itself uses, as O.T.O. and E.G.C. do; other all-capital initialisms take none. A∴A∴ has neither a longer nor a shorter form (see 3.16). Lowercase order, lodge, temple, and church unless the word is part of a name or title or is used as a proper noun. Use the definite article before an order’s name or initials as the order’s own usage does; with O.T.O. and A∴A∴ either form is acceptable, used consistently. How to name a body, and how to distinguish bodies that share a name, is treated in 2.42.

3.31 Golden Dawn and A∴A∴ grades

Write a grade of the Golden Dawn or of the A∴A∴ as an arabic numeral, the degree sign, the equals sign, an arabic numeral, and the white square, closed up. In typeset work, raise the square and reduce it to match the degree sign, as a superscript; where text cannot be styled, it stays on the line. Give the grade’s name with its notation at first mention; afterward either may stand alone where the system is clear. Grade names are capitalized and set in roman. A quotation keeps its source’s form of a notation. The characters are treated in 4.51 and 4.55.

3.32 Naming the grade system

Below Practicus, the Golden Dawn and the A∴A∴ attach the same notation to different grades and the same name to different rungs. Wherever both systems are in view, and at first mention in any work that treats both, name the system with each grade. Do not equate grades of different systems because they share a name or a number; this holds also between these systems and the O.T.O. and Masonic degrees. The lower grades of the two systems stand as follows.

3.33 O.T.O. degrees

Write a degree of the O.T.O. as a capital roman numeral with the degree sign. The Minerval degree is 0°. A degree follows a name or motto with no comma between them, and a range of degrees is written in full. Never give an O.T.O. degree the notation of the Golden Dawn and A∴A∴ grades.

3.34 Masonic degrees

Write a Masonic degree as an arabic numeral with the degree sign. Name the rite wherever its numbering matters. A Masonic degree and an O.T.O. degree that share a number are not thereby equivalent.

3.35 Divine names and epithets

Capitalize the name of a deity or other divine being, and an epithet that stands for one, and set it in roman. Lowercase a generic word for gods, angels, or spirits, and the common noun god-form. Pronouns referring to a deity are lowercase in your own prose; quoted matter keeps its capitals.

3.36 Thelemic and Egyptian names

The theonyms of the Thelemic texts are kept in their received forms: Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Hoor-paar-kraat, Heru-ra-ha, Babalon, Therion. Choose between a received form and a conventional one by referent. Use the received form for the deity of the Thelemic texts and the conventional form (see 4.26) for the deity of ancient Egyptian religion, and do not correct either toward the other. Where a sentence turns on the relation between the two, name both and say whose identification it is. Where a received text varies its own spelling, quote each occurrence as printed and keep the forms above in your own prose.

3.37 Hebrew and Greek divine names

A Hebrew or Greek divine name written in roman letters is a proper noun: set it in roman with an initial capital, never in italics. In discussion of Golden Dawn and Thelemic ritual, use the form the Word List gives, or for a name it does not list, the spelling of the edition the work follows (see 6.6). A name spelled letter by letter in Latin capitals is used only as 4.16 allows. In discussion of Jewish or Greek religious texts, romanize as chapter 4 directs. When to give a divine name in Hebrew or Greek script is treated in 4.7–4.8, and how in 4.16 for Hebrew and 4.22 for Greek.

3.38 Planets, signs, and elements

Capitalize the names of the planets and the zodiacal signs. Capitalize Sun and Moon where they are astrological bodies, or astronomical bodies named alongside the planets, and lowercase them in ordinary senses; Sol and Luna are names and are capitalized. Lowercase the elements and the qualities of the signs. A table of correspondences and a quotation keep their source’s capitals.

3.39 Tarot cards and the paths

Capitalize the names of tarot cards and set them in roman. Name the deck wherever a card’s name or number differs among decks. A trump is numbered in roman numerals, after Atu in a Thelemic context and trump elsewhere (see 3.52, 6.45). Lowercase path. Spell out the ordinal of a path in prose, and number the path in arabic numerals in a reference or a table. The names of the Hebrew letters are capitalized and roman, in the forms the Word List gives. The citation of a deck, its book, and its attributions is treated in 6.45–6.46.

3.40 Terms of art

Capitalize a term that names a unique Thelemic doctrine, attainment, or being: True Will, the Great Work, the Holy Guardian Angel, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, the Law of Thelema, the Abyss. Lowercase the same words in their ordinary senses, and capitalize nothing for reverence alone. Will is capitalized only in True Will. Every other will is lowercase, including the pure will of AL 1:44, the divine will, and God’s will; where the True Will is meant, write True Will. Quotations keep their source’s capitals (see 3.67). Thelema, Thelemic, and Thelemite are capitalized. A class designation is Class and a capital letter. The Holy Books, as a body of texts, are capitalized and roman; The Holy Books of Thelema, in italics, is the subtitle of the controlling editions (see 6.6). The following pairs set capitalized terms beside lowercase uses of the same words.

3.41 Aeons

Spell aeon with ae in every Thelemic sense; eon belongs to geological and ordinary time. Capitalize Aeon in the name of an aeon, and lowercase it in general use. The Equinox of the Gods, the name Thelemites give to the opening of the New Aeon in 1904, is capitalized; Crowley’s book of that title is italicized.

3.42 Traditions, movements, and fields

Capitalize the name of a tradition, movement, or school formed from a proper noun or used as a proper name, and lowercase its generic counterpart. Lowercase the names of practices and fields of study unless a proper noun is part of them. Capitalize Western where it names a cultural tradition.

3.43 Forms of place names

In your own narration, use the current English form of a place name. In quotation, and where the historical entity is meant, use the source’s or the period’s form. Where the two differ, give the other once, in parentheses, at first mention. In running text a place is separated from the larger jurisdiction that follows it by a comma on each side.

3.44 Italics and quotation marks

Italicize the titles of books, periodicals, and other whole published works. Each of the Holy Books, and every work with a Liber title, takes italics whether it was published alone or within a larger work. Set in roman, in quotation marks, the titles of articles, chapters, poems, and other parts of a larger work that have no Liber title. For the scriptures of other religions and their books, and for titles within titles, see CMS chapter 8.

3.45 Names of rituals and practices

The name of a ritual or practice is capitalized and set in roman. The title of a text that contains or prescribes it takes italics, or quotation marks where 3.44 calls for them (see 3.46). Lowercase a generic description of a ritual. Expand a practice siglum such as LBRP at its first use (see 8.4).

3.46 The Liber title

A Liber title is italicized whole, apparatus included. Its parts stand in a fixed order: Liber; the book’s name; vel with an alternative name or number; sub figurâ with a number or a word. A title may lack any part after Liber, but its parts are never reordered. The words vel and sub figurâ are lowercase, and figurâ takes the circumflex. A Liber or sub figurâ number keeps the numerals the title prints. A Hebrew or Greek word in the sub figurâ position is set as 4.9 and 4.17 direct.

3.47 Capitalization of received titles

Write the title of a received text that 8.29 lists exactly as the table gives it, capitals, ligatures, and diacritics included, whatever form an edition’s title page prints. Capitalize and spell any other received title as the edition used prints it (see 6.6). Do not impose English title case on a received Latin title. Once a title’s form is fixed, use it unchanged at every mention, in text and citation alike. The one exception is the bibliography entry for a printing named under 6.22, or for one published under its English title (see 6.29), which gives the title as that printing prints it. Other titles in Latin and other languages follow 5.20.

3.48 The article The

Keep an initial The that belongs to a title, capitalized and italicized with it, in text and citation alike, periodicals included. Drop it after a possessive and from the short title in a short note (see 5.8). A Liber title has no article, and none is supplied.

3.49 Short titles and sigla

Give a work’s full title at first mention and a short title afterward. The short title of a Liber is Liber with the name or number its title prints; a received text may also be called by its English title. In references, the sigla of 8.29 and 8.34 stand for titles. Do not identify a work by its number alone, or convert its number to another system; the siglum 777 is the one numeral that stands for a work (see 8.14).

3.50 Spelling out numbers

Spell out whole numbers from zero through one hundred, and round multiples of one hundred, one thousand, and higher; use numerals for all other numbers. These rules do not reach the numbers treated in 3.54 and 3.55, which are always numerals. Do not begin a sentence with a numeral; where the numeral is one that may not be spelled out, recast the sentence. A numeral of four or more digits takes commas, except in page numbers, line numbers, addresses, and years of fewer than five digits.

3.51 Arabic numerals in references

Use arabic numerals in every reference to a part of a work, whether chapter, verse, volume, issue, part, or book, even where the source numbers its divisions in roman. Roman numerals are kept only where they belong to a name or a fixed designation (see 3.52).

3.52 Roman numerals

Use roman numerals only in the names and fixed designations listed below. Every other number takes arabic numerals, except that a quotation, a title, or a shelfmark keeps the numerals it prints. Write a range of roman numerals in full, and never mix roman and arabic numerals in one range.

3.53 Inclusive numbers

Give both numbers of a range in full, whether pages, verses, or years. Join them with an en dash, with no space on either side.

3.54 Numerals that are names

Some numbers in the field function as names: 93, 418, 666, 156, and the like. Write them in numerals in every position; where one would begin a sentence, recast the sentence (see 3.50). Do not spell one out, convert it to another numeral system, or abbreviate it as the end of a range. A Liber number keeps the numerals its title prints (see 3.46).

3.55 Gematria values

Give a gematria or isopsephy value in arabic numerals, with the word in its script and its romanization or English form, and name the system of reckoning at first use: Hebrew gematria, Greek isopsephy, or the English system concerned. Use one form of presentation throughout a work. The presentation of a Qabalistic argument, and the checking a value needs, are treated in 6.58–6.67; script forms are treated in 4.8.

3.56 Date order

Write a date as day, month, and year, with no commas. A month and year take no punctuation between them. A range of days within one month gives the month and year once. Quote a date in the order and form its source uses.

3.57 Spans and approximate dates

Give a span of years in full with an en dash (see 3.53). Mark an approximate date with ca., set in roman before the year, and an uncertain one with a question mark after the year. For an undated source, follow 5.26. A source’s own c. or circa is quoted as printed.

3.58 Times of day

Give times of day in numerals, and use one system, the twelve-hour clock or the twenty-four-hour clock, throughout a work. In running text on the twelve-hour clock, spell out an even, half, or quarter hour that stands without a.m. or p.m., and write noon and midnight as words. In a quoted diary or magical record, give each time exactly as the source writes it. Where the moment of an equinox or of a planet’s entry into a sign matters to the argument, give the time with its time zone.

3.59 Eras

Write CE and BCE after the year, in capitals without periods. Use AD and BC only in quoted matter. A common-era year needs a label only where years before the common era, or Anno dates, are also in view. In a work that gives Anno dates, write EV for the common era in place of CE, and expand it once, at its first use, as era vulgaris. Use one label for the common era throughout a work, and where a passage mixes eras, label every year. Quote a source’s e.v. or E.V. as printed.

3.60 Old Style and other calendars

Give a date from a source that used the Julian calendar as the source gives it. Where both calendars are in play, mark the date OS or NS, and give the conversion once, in parentheses, where the argument needs it. A year that began on 25 March keeps the split form the source uses. A date in another calendar, such as the Hebrew or the Islamic, is given as the source gives it, with the calendar named and the Gregorian equivalent in parentheses at its first occurrence.

3.61 The Thelemic year and Anno dates

The Thelemic era begins at the vernal equinox of 1904. Its year runs from one vernal equinox to the next, so a date between 1 January and the equinox falls in the year that began the previous March; on the day of the equinox, the moment of the equinox decides. The years are grouped in docosades of twenty-two, and both the docosades and the years within each are numbered from 0. Write an Anno date as Anno, the docosade in capital roman numerals, and the year within the docosade in lowercase roman numerals, closed up. Write Anno in full in your own prose. No date before the vernal equinox of 1904 has an Anno form.

3.62 Converting dates

To find the Anno year of a common-era date, subtract 1904 from the year, or 1905 if the date falls before that year’s vernal equinox. Divide the result by 22: the whole number is the docosade, and the remainder is the year within it. To convert an Anno year, multiply the docosade by 22 and add the year and 1904; the result is the common-era year in which the Anno year began. The docosades begin as follows.

3.63 The zero form

Write a docosade or a year of zero as the arabic numeral 0, closed up like the roman numerals beside it. Do not leave the position empty or fill it with a letter or a word.

3.64 The common-era equivalent

At the first Anno date in a work, and wherever a reader could lose track, give the common-era equivalent in parentheses. For a dated day, give the full common-era date; for an Anno year alone, give the two common-era years it spans. Quote an Anno date in its source’s form, including the abbreviation An. and the older practice of counting the years from 1904 with a single roman numeral; convert it, where needed, in your own sentence or in a note.

3.65 Astrological dating

A Thelemic date may give the positions of the Sun and the Moon by degree and sign. In a date you compose, give the Sun’s position, then the Moon’s, then the Anno year. Name the Sun and Moon as Sol and Luna or in English, and the signs by name or by glyph, and keep the same choices throughout a work. In running prose use names. Where you use glyphs, give their names at first occurrence; in web output, also give every glyph a text equivalent (see 4.53–4.54). Transcribe a quoted colophon or dated heading exactly, in its own order and notation. Where you supply a position the dated document does not give, say where it comes from, and mark a position you computed as computed.

3.66 The Thelemic feasts

Capitalize the name of a feast in title case and set the whole name in roman, a book’s title within it included. Take the names from the passage that establishes the feasts (AL 2:36–43), and do not shorten a name in formal prose. Date a feast fixed to a calendar day by day and month, and a feast tied to the equinox by the equinox of the year in question. Practice differs among Thelemites and among bodies; say whose observance or date you report.

3.67 Accuracy

Reproduce a quotation exactly as its source has it: words, spelling, capitalization, punctuation, and italics. Check every quotation against the edition you cite (see 2.12). A passage you know only from another writer’s quotation is cited as quoted there (see 5.11). A saying attributed to an author that you cannot find in a printed or otherwise checkable source is not quoted as that author’s. Quote a living speaker directly only from a recording or a transcript made at the time; otherwise report the words indirectly.

3.68 Run-in and block quotations

A prose quotation of one hundred words or more, or one that fills eight or more lines, is set as a block. A shorter quotation runs into the text, in quotation marks. Quote a single verse of a received text run in, and set two or more verses as a block, beginning each verse on a new line. Set as a block any quotation of a ritual that includes a rubric or a speaker’s designation. A block quotation takes no quotation marks of its own. Quoted matter within it takes double marks, and a quotation inside that takes single; a received text keeps its own marks (see 3.70). A reference to a received text goes in parentheses after a run-in quotation, and in parentheses after the final punctuation of a block, in either citation system; it never goes in a note (see 6.13–6.17).

3.69 Permissible silent changes

In an ordinary quotation, make silently only these changes: converting quotation marks to the pattern of your text, normalizing dashes, adjusting the initial letter and the final punctuation to fit your sentence, omitting note reference marks, writing the long s of an early printed book as s (see 4.47), and correcting an obvious typographical error. Do not correct errors silently in a quotation from a manuscript, a diary, or an older work, where the source’s spelling and punctuation are evidence. Make any other change in brackets or explain it in a note.

3.70 Class A and received text

Reproduce text from a Class A book, and any received text, exactly: spelling, capitalization, punctuation, italics, line breaks, and apparent errors. None of the changes listed in 3.69 applies to it. Do not alter its initial letter or its punctuation to suit your sentence, and add nothing inside it, in brackets or otherwise. A comma or period that belongs to your sentence never goes inside the closing quotation mark; it follows the reference in parentheses, or the closing mark where no reference follows. You may begin a quotation within a verse or end it before the verse’s final mark; where the words will not otherwise fit your sentence, recast the sentence. Reproduce a misprint in the edition you quote and discuss it, if at all, in a note. Which texts are Class A, and which editions control them, is set out in 6.6 and 6.8–6.10.

3.71 Partial and omitted verses

A verse of a received text may be quoted in part, as one continuous run of its words. Do not omit words from within the run you quote, and do not mark the beginning or end of a partial verse with ellipsis points. The reference is to the whole verse, or to the clauses quoted, in a lettering the work follows (see 6.13). Where whole verses are omitted between verses quoted in a block, mark each omission with a line of three spaced periods, and cite the verses quoted, not a range that includes the omitted ones (see 6.16). Quote passages from different chapters separately.

3.72 Ellipsis points

Mark an omission within a quoted sentence with three spaced periods, and an omission that crosses the end of a sentence with four: the sentence’s own period followed by three spaced periods. Do not mark an omission with ellipsis points at the beginning or end of a quotation. Omit nothing whose absence would change the sense of the passage. Describe in a note any omission a reader needs to know about in order to judge the passage. Matter missing from a manuscript is not an omission of yours; mark it as 4.42 directs.

3.73 [sic]

Use [sic], italic within square brackets, only after an error in the source that a reader would otherwise take for yours. Do not use it after archaic or British spelling, a barbarous name, a disputed reading, or a source’s own form of a date or era, and do not use it to register disagreement or disapproval. Never use it in a Class A or received text, where an oddity belongs to the text (see 3.70).

3.74 Interpolations and emphasis

Put any word you add inside a quotation in square brackets, including a name supplied for a pronoun and a gloss. Where you italicize words for emphasis, say so in parentheses after the reference, or in the note: (emphasis added). Where the source’s own italics might be taken for yours, say (emphasis in original). Add nothing to a received text and add no emphasis to it; make the point in your own sentence or in a note.

3.75 Published translations

Where you quote a work in translation and a published translation exists, quote the published translation and name its translator in the citation. Change it only as 3.69 permits, and do not improve it silently. Where an argument turns on a word or a phrase, give the original in brackets after the translated words or in a note. Where two published translations differ in a way that matters, say which you follow. Where the wording of a non-English scholar is itself at issue, quote the original.

3.76 Your own translations

Say that a translation is your own at its first occurrence, or once in a note that covers every translation in the work. Where a machine tool produced or drafted a translation, follow 2.48. Give the original with your translation, beside it or in a note. Where the source is a primary text such as a ritual, a scripture, or an archival document, give the original first.

3.77 Ritual and performed text

A ritual carries several kinds of text: the words spoken, the rubrics that direct action, the designations of the speakers, and its headings. Quote all of them as the source sets them, keeping each kind distinguishable, and set any quotation that includes a rubric or a designation as a block. Never drop a rubric silently; where you omit one, say so in brackets at the point of omission. In a received text, omit only as 3.71 permits, and add nothing in brackets (see 3.70). Do not impose line or verse numbers that the ritual lacks. Cite a ritual by the page and its named part, as 6.43 directs.

3.78 Vibration and pronunciation

Reproduce a source’s marks of vibration, intonation, or pronunciation exactly, with its capitals, hyphens, accents, spacing, and instructions. Do not convert them to another system or regularize them toward a modern romanization. Use the International Phonetic Alphabet only for your own phonetic analysis, and say that the analysis is yours. Attribute a pronunciation to whoever supplied it: a later order’s or editor’s pronunciation is not the original source’s.

3.79 Damaged and variant text

Quote the reading of the edition you cite. Where another witness or edition reads differently and the difference matters, note it once, at its first occurrence in the work. Never adopt a conjecture silently or present it as a reading. Mark matter missing, damaged, or illegible in a manuscript you transcribe as 4.42 directs, never with ellipsis points or an unmarked guess. Variant readings in the Thelemic corpus, those of Liber AL included, are treated in 6.24.

3.80 Bigoted material in sources

Quote antisemitic, racist, misogynist, or otherwise bigoted language from a primary source only where the argument needs the words. Frame the passage before the reader reaches it, saying whose view it is and what it is doing in your argument. Do not soften it with an unmarked omission, and do not attach [sic] to it as comment. Keep such language out of headings, epigraphs, pull quotes, abstracts, and keywords. A received text is reproduced exactly here as everywhere (see 3.70); your judgment of it belongs to your own prose.

3.81 Oath-bound and restricted material

Whether privately circulated or oath-bound material may be quoted, and how much of it, is decided under 2.34. Where material may not be quoted, describe what 2.34 permits, such as its existence, date, and character, and make the argument without its words. Do not stand in for withheld words with dashes, ellipsis points, or other signs that invite the reader to supply them. Citation forms for restricted sources are given in 6.68–6.74.

3.82 Epigraphs

Quote an epigraph exactly, without quotation marks. On the line below it, credit it by author and title alone, or, for a received text, by its reference. Give no page number. A work with a bibliography lists the source there. An epigraph from an in-copyright source needs permission unless it falls within fair use, which a merely decorative epigraph seldom does (see 2.15).

3.83 Accurate language

Write of people, communities, and traditions in the terms they use for themselves, where those terms are known, and claim no more about them than the evidence supports. For bias-free language in general, see CMS chapter 5. The sections below govern your own prose; quotations keep their language (see 3.67). Whether a work speaks from within a tradition or about it is treated in 2.32.

3.84 Singular they and generic terms

Use singular they for a person whose gender is unknown or unstated, and for a person who uses it; it takes a plural verb. Use a person’s stated pronouns where you know them, and do not impose a pronoun on a historical figure against the record. Avoid he or she. Revise a gendered generic that no source or doctrine requires, by making it plural, repeating the noun, or dropping the pronoun.

3.85 Gendered language for divinity

Keep gendered language for divine beings in quotation, in ritual formulas, and wherever it is part of a theological claim. Avoid it as a habit of your own prose. To tell the two apart, ask whether changing the word would change what is claimed. Report a tradition’s gendering of a figure as the tradition’s. Do not supply a gender the tradition leaves open; for the Holy Guardian Angel, repeat the name or write the Angel. Writing of deities as a class, do not default to one gender. Pronouns referring to deities are lowercase (see 3.35).

3.86 Naming communities and traditions

Name the specific community or tradition, not a region, an era, or an umbrella term. Voodoo appears only in quotation or in discussion of the word itself. Capitalize Indigenous, and name the nation or people where it is known. Use Pagan for the modern religious identity and pagan in historical and descriptive senses. Do not call a living community a cult in your own voice. Use sect only in a stated sociological sense, with its source.

3.87 Community orthography

Spell a community’s names and terms in its own current orthography, diacritics included, even where the dictionary differs. Where communities spell a shared name differently, use the form of the community under discussion; do not merge the forms, or carry one community’s form into writing about another. A body’s own spelling of its name and its offices governs (see 3.29, 3.30). The principle is stated in 2.45.

3.88 Whose claim a sentence makes

In the scholarly voice, attribute a tradition’s claim to the tradition in the sentence that makes it. Do not let a tradition’s history, cosmology, or account of its own origins stand as bare narration. Present a comparison between traditions as your own argument. A work in the practitioner voice follows 2.32.

3.89 Practitioners and initiates

Call a person a practitioner on the evidence of their practice, a member on the evidence of a body’s record or the person’s own statement, and an initiate only on the evidence of a documented initiation. Do not apply a label, such as Thelemite, that a person did not use of themselves; describe a historical figure by what they did and the bodies they belonged to. Do not treat a grade or degree as a measure of a person’s insight or worth. Write a grade or degree as 3.31–3.34 direct.

3.90 Language about outsiders

Do not adopt a tradition’s own words for outsiders, such as profane, cowan, or the uninitiated, in your own voice. Quote such a word and gloss it as the source’s usage, or describe the people plainly. Report a judgment that a practice is superstition or fantasy as the judgment of the person who made it.

3.91 Honorifics and praise

Name a scholar in running prose without title, rank, or affiliation. Do not praise cited work with words such as seminal or definitive; say what it established. In the scholarly voice, use a tradition’s honorific epithet for a person, such as the Prophet for Crowley, only in quotation or with attribution. A motto, an office-name, or a byline is a name and follows 3.24, 3.25, and 3.29.

3.92 Disability and visionary accounts

Do not use disability, illness, or madness as a figure for error, as blind to, deaf to, and insane do. Mention a person’s illness or disability only where it bears on the argument, in the terms the evidence supports, and quote a historical diagnosis as the record’s language. Describe a vision, trance, or possession in the terms the account itself uses. A clinical term such as hallucination or psychosis makes a claim; use it only where that claim is your point, with its source and evidence.

3.93 Cautioned terms

Some terms are used in this field without a fixed sense. Use them, and make their sense plain: define the term at first use, or use it where the sentence leaves no doubt what it means. If deleting the word would lose nothing, delete it. An editor queries an unclear use and does not substitute another word. These cautions do not apply to quotations or to titles. The terms, and what each use should make clear, are these: