Jones as the Magical Child of Aleister Crowley

Having been recruited through The Equinox in 1909, Jones was the twentieth person to join Aleister Crowley's A.A.order. Jones' motto as a Probationer was Vnvs in Omnibvs (V.I.O.), and his supervising Neophyte was J. F. C. Fuller (Per Ardua). When Fuller later withdrew from the A.A., Aleister Crowley took over as Jones' superior. Jones advanced to Neophyte, taking the motto Achad, which he was subsequently to use for most of his published writings, and by which he is best known. Jones continued his work under Crowley in the Outer Order of A.A.until the former decided to "take 8=3, in case that is what the Master really needed," i.e. to claim the grade of Magister Templi in the Third Order, thus assisting Crowley's advancement to the further grade of Magus, by filling "the Master's" current position in the A.A.hierarchy. (Note that—vows of obedience notwithstanding—service to a superior is not part of the A.A.ethical system.) Jones took the Magister Templi obligation (i.e. "the Oath of the Abyss") and notified Crowley.

The news came as a profound revelation to Crowley. Nine months earlier he had been involved in a set of sex-magical operations with Sr. Hilarion (Jeanne Foster) in an apparently unsuccessful effort to conceive a child. Crowley noted the nine-month interval and concluded that Jones' "birth" as a Babe of the Abyss qualified him as the "magical child" of Crowley and Hilarion. He welcomed Jones to the Third Order, and declared him to be his "beloved son." Eventually, goaded by suggestions from Jones and impressed by his qabalistic insights into Thelema's founding volume, The Book of the Law, Crowley came to consider the younger man the "child" and the "one" prophesied in the book (in I:55-56 and similar passages).