Whatever Happened To Z-5?

If you are familiar with Pat Zalewski’s work, you’ve probably seen his Z-5 books for the Neophyte and Zelator grades. However, it was originally intended to span the entire Outer Order grades. So, whatever happened to it? Where’s the rest of it?

I asked these questions recently and found some interesting answers. It seems that Pat originally intended this to be all one book, but Llewellyn, being a publisher interested in making money, wanted to split them up into individual books, forcing people to buy seven books as opposed to a single one. Pat was against the idea, as he felt that sales would suffer, which, given the limited audience of the topics the book dealt with, was exactly what occurred.

And so it was cancelled.

To say that it was a big shame would be quite an understatement. This is valuable material from the Whare Ra lodge that all serious Golden Dawn students should have access to. Knowing this, Pat decided to self-publish it as a single volume, which was called Golden Dawn Rituals & Commentaries. Since it was self-published, it was obviously expensive and limited in number, which means that too vanished, leaving newer students with no access to the teachings and commentaries contained therein.

I got in contact with Pat to see if he had any copies of the self-published book left, but instead of that I got some better news. The Rituals & Commentaries book is being republished by Thoth Publications. Pat forwarded me to Tom Clarke at Thoth and I found out that they are still in the early stages of the project, so a release date or pricing details cannot be shared yet. We’re probably talking six months to a year before it’s out, if not longer, but the fact remains that it will be in print again, where it belongs (and with better editing than the self-published version, I imagine). I’ll keep you guys posted when I find out more details closer to publication date.

For more information on this, HOGD has a detailed article here.