Hey, even entities can slapstick and pratfall …

This week I added a new page for Unicursal FREEDOM IS DEATHLESS Propaganda. I actually created the poster and mentioned it on the blog and so on back in 2016 but apparently the page at Ministry of Information for it disappeared at some point. Okay. Well, I’ve fixed that now.

And it’s still Spooky Season and you really must beware of what might show up in your candy. Who knows? Well, at least a couple more memes, anyway.

For my generative art experiments for Goetia and Tarot, I worked with the text and seal of Sallos and text and image hint for The Moon card using MidJourney with 4-up images and some attempts using DALL-E, and I link to the threads on the library’s social if you want to see them all, individually posted.

Plus almanac, propaganda, memes, zine, updates, quotes, reviews, and more!

And, as always, I worked on various other things on website, blog, and more … Enjoy!

BEWARE: As the end of Empire gets closer, the self-proclaimed upstanding moral people of Rome are warning debauched and virtueless party goers to LOOK for rose petals in your orgy of candy to avoid being smothered by the murderous seductions of Emperor Heliogabalus

MidJourney & DALL-E

I continued to play with generating art based on text description and seal image prompts from Goetia this week for Sallos.

(19.) Sallos. – The Nineteenth Spirit is Sallos (or Saleos). He is a Great and Mighty Duke, and appeareth in the form of a gallant Soldier riding on a Crocodile, with a Ducal Crown on his head, but peaceably. He causeth the Love of Women to Men, and of Men to Women; and governeth 30 Legions of Spirits. His Seal is this, etc.

I’m still in the process of posting these, but here’s some 4up grids which link to the thread.

I also tried using just the seal image, without any text, to see what would happen.

Of those, I only bothered continuing to generate upscales with the first two, and just ignored the other ½.

And, I also played with just the text description using DALL-E.

Over in the ‘verse, Ⲍⲟⲥⲑⲁⲛⲏⲥ said, “i wonder what AI would draw if you'd feed it the 'evocation keys' for the Goetia demons from the Gallery of Magick books”

Well, okay, then! From Demons of Magick: Three Practical Rituals for Working with The 72 Demons by Gordon Winterfield, the “evocation key” for Sallos:

Brilliant white, like the midday sun, and a texture like icy water. there is the smell of hot iron and a taste like blood.

Here’s MidJourney’s take followed by DALL-E using just the text prompt.

Kinda minimal, so we decided to also try a more visually descriptive text for Jareth Tempest, from the same book.

A river running through a snow covered landscape. the midday sun shines brightly on the white snow. a pale blonde woman falls backwards into the river. steam rises from where she entered the water.

Here’s MidJourney’s take followed by DALL-E.

Haha! Hey, even entities can slapstick and pratfall …

I also continued the tarot series with text and image prompts for The Moon tarot card as if by William Mortensen.

Learn more about William Mortensen and for the image prompt, I hinted with Off for the Sabbot.

And here’s the three (yes, I did manage to do fewer this time! Um, sort of … maybe not overall but for just the tarot series?) sets of 4-up results from MidJourney.

And here’s a set of 4 using just the text prompt in DALL-E.

I just started to post these, Goetia on Tuesday and tarot on Thursday, so I’ve got a ways to go but you can check out the ones I’ve posted so far, including expansions on the DALL-E images.

And, I’ve created entries in Hemeneuticon for both Sallos and The Moon.

Almanac

Here’s upcoming calendar and astronomical events, plus the daily Thelemic Tephilah practice for the coming week, October 21–October 28.

Calendar

Follow Calendar on the web, email, rss, and in the ‘verse. And, if you have a current or upcoming event to share, add it to the Hermetic Library Calendar!

• Greater Feast of Gérard Encausse, Gérard Anaclet Vincent Encausse, Papus, died October 25, 1916 at Paris, France
• Greater Feast of Karl Germer, Karl Johannes Germer, Saturnus, died October 25, 1962 at West Point, California
• Greater Feast of Theodor Reuss, Albert Karl Theodor Reuss, Merlin Peregrinus, died October 28, 1923 at Munich, Germany

And, check out these upcoming events posted to the Calendar blog.

• John Cowper Powys: A Magician Between Worlds — Oct 21, 2022, London, UK
• Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity — Oct 22, 2022–Jan 29, 2023, Potsdam, DE
• A Night in Hell with Martin Olson — Oct 29, 2022, Los Angeles, US

Astronomical

• Orionids meteor shower, Oct 21–22
• New moon, Oct 25 (and great time to view the dark sky)
• Look for Arcturus appearing in the night sky around October 25 as "the Ghost of Summer Suns" in the place where Sun was in the day sky in June & July.
• Partial solar eclipse, Oct 25 (best seen in Russia and Kazakhstan, with coverage of central Russia apparently at 80%)

Thelemic Tephilah

Follow Thelemic Tephilah on the web, rss, and in the ‘verse.

• Thelemic Tephilah, October 21, Luna, Liber VII, Cap. VI, 36-40
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 22, Luna, Liber VII, Cap. VI, 41-51
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 23, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 1-5
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 24, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 6-14
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 25, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 15-20
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 26, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 21-28
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 27, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 29-40
• Thelemic Tephilah, October 28, Venus, Liber VII, Cap. VII, 41-49

Zine

Follow Zine on the web, email, rss, and in the ‘verse. And, if you something you’ve created to share, send it in to the Hermetic Library Zine!

• Untitled by John Griogair Bell
• Marvelous by Star Ruby

Things to check out at Hermetic Library

• I did a little more work on The New and Old Commentaries to Liber AL vel Legis, The Book of the Law where I’ve changed up the main index a little, with links to an ongoing project to break out each chapter, verse comment into a separate page. I also added a few more of those, linked on that index. Part of this is for ease of direct linking without having to try to suss out what the invisible anchor name is for each one, so, for example, a link can look like https://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/i.13 instead of https://hermetic.com/legis/new-comment/chapter-i#i.13 which seems like a small difference as I mention it, but I think it’s a lot cleaner and easier to predict and understand. What do you think? There’s actually a lot of those hidden anchors still on the site, and a lot that were in the old HTML that didn’t make it to the wiki engine pages. It’s kinda of a mess, but I do work on it as I get to it, as one does.
• I created new Hermeneuticon entries for Word of the Equinox, 1907, Arden Press, Aquila Press, Apuleius, Apex Printing, The Moon, Sallos, and Betty May. I updated a couple others, including Ethel Archer and Marjorie Cameron.
• Strangely, I seem to have created a page for Unicursal FREEDOM IS DEATHLESS Propaganda, but it disappeared. I know it should exist because I have the old poster image and there’s even two posts from 2016 on the blog about it. It’s not archived in Wayback either, which is really odd and means it must have gone up and then disappeared relatively quickly, so IDEK what happened. Now, a slight wrinkle is that I made this a Unicursal design, but it features a quote from outside Crowley/Thelema, so if I were doing it now it would be a Village design poster. But, I’ve restored the poster to the site approximately how I think it would have appeared and updated it with additional downloadables, as I’m wont to do. Anyhow, kinda apropos, perhaps, though I suppose it could be taken either way, and Churchill was kinda of a bastard after all, so I don’t know, but now I restored it either way.

And on the blog

• The pleasure which escapes them changes itself for them into a long irritation and desire. The more murderous are their excesses, the more it seems to them that supreme happiness is at hand. … One more bumper of strong drink, one more spasm, one more violence done to Nature… Ah! at last, here is pleasure; here is life … and their desire, in the paroxysm of its insatiable hunger, extinguishes itself for ever in death.—Éliphas Lévi, trans Aleister Crowley, Liber XLVI The Key of the Mysteries [Blog]
• Ardor on Aros—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Ardor on Aros [Amazon, Abebooks, Publisher, Local Library] by Andrew J Offutt, cover by Frank Frazetta.
• Omnium Gatherum: 19oct2022—An irregular hodgepodge of links beyond the library curated together from @OmniumGatherum at Hrmtc I∴O∴ and more. Until this post becomes public in a year, to view this content on the blog, you must be a member of Hermetic Library’s Patreon. However, you can follow the raw feed (drink directly from the firehose!) by heading to @OmniumGatherum at Hrmtc I∴O∴ and participate with likes, boosts, and comments to help curate the best stuff for everyone!
• ‘Ha! ha!’—and he laughed with a kind of despairing mockery, while the fragments of the vessel’s sails flapped against the spars with a din as if some mighty demon were struggling with the blast.—George W M Reynolds, Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf [Amazon, Amazon (Dover), Gutenberg, Publisher, Local Library] [Blog]
• A Study in Emerald—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews A Study in Emerald [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Neil Gaiman, Rafael Albuquerque, Rafael Scavone, Dave Stewart, & al.
• If you valorise paranoia so much don’t be a hypocrite about it, all right?—Tamsyn Muir, Nona the Ninth [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] (The Locked Tomb Series Book 3) [Blog]
• In the Coils of the Labyrinth—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews In the Coils of the Labyrinth [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by David Annandale, cover art by John Coulthart, part of the Arkham Horror series.
• we occasionally admit, but only each to himself alone, that we’re just plain nuts.—Fritz Leiber, The Night of the Long Knives [Amazon, Publisher, Local Library] [Blog]

Also, elsewhere

• Anthology news, Oct 21 [Bandcanp/Followers]

BEWARE! Out of an abundance of caution, I carefully LOOKED at my spooky season haul of wonderfully dangerous red books only to discover that someone has laced them with refined-sugar logo-emblazoned corporate branding in the shape of innocent children's seasonal treats!