it’s time to close that chapter
Howdy everyone! Here’s a public summary of my activity this week ending February 3, 2023!
This week I worked on adding new entries in Hermeneuticon and improving Trevor Blake’s OVO zine. I also created new Patron merch, and completely changed how I’m doing merch. I revamped the library’s Patreon and Ko-Fi profiles to better reflect the new merch regime, and all the changes recently made everywhere. I got started adding various old newsletters to the blog from various old platforms.
Plus the usual weekly stuff like almanac, propaganda, calendar, zine, updates, quotes, reviews, and more!
And, as always, I worked on various other things on website, blog, and more … Enjoy!
Thank you for visiting and being a guest of Hermetic Library. You help me be of service and make the work of the library meaningful. Especial thanks to each and every Patron and Subscriber for making the work of the library possible!
Newsletters
After last week’s newsletter, which was the first one pulled back to the blog, I went through and added some older newsletters. I added #104 (banging my head against the wall for a while, as one does), the previous week and last newsletter on the Write.As platform, and #67 (I’m not sure what I’m doing (still!), but I’m doing it (again!)), the first newsletter on the Write.As platform. Then, as proof of concept to show myself that it can be done well, I added Newsletter #1 (Hey, what does this button do?), which was the first newsletter on the Revue platform. I also dug through my archives and found the two messages from the old, old newsletter, Of Tunis and bees and Hello and Halfway to a Newsletter!, back when I was trying out TinyLetter. (I kinda thought I’d done more of them, but they were such a pain to hand craft that I’m not surprised if it only seemed like there were more. I have not preserved the handcrafted bespoke CSS formatting that I’d shoehorned into TinyLetter, however, just the basic content.)
Check out the Hermetic Library Newsletter category on the blog for all of them together, and more as I add them.
Merch
Big changes for Patron merch this month, posted to a Patron-only post at Merch update for February, 2023, but here’s what’s going on. I went to add a new design on a merch option in the Patreon system, and it was gone. They’d stopped offering a number of merch options I was using for Patron merch. Welp. Okay. I’ve never been happy with the Patreon merch system, per se, even if I’ve enjoyed being able to get fun stuff to Patrons; so, it’s time to close that chapter. Instead of re-vitalizing the Patron merch, as I had planned to do, I will now completely switch over to doing merch myself.
Here’s a sneak peek at the first Patron merch under the new regime!
I’ll be sending these out to current Patrons as soon as they arrive, and posting about it again then. But that also means it’s not too late to get one, if you weren’t already, by becoming an ongoing supporter now!
Patreon
Along with completely changing the way I do merch on Patreon (or, rather, now, not doing Patron merch on Patreon! Long live platform agnostic Patron merch!), I’ve also re-vamped all the tiers, and updated everything, I think, I hope, to best reflect how things are now. There’s fewer tiers, and I’ve removed mention of things I’ve had to sunset in the last few weeks.
Ko-Fi
One side benefit to the Patreon tier update and pulling Patron merch away from Patreon is that I can now add the same tiers to my essentially unused Ko-Fi. I’ll also start to post a link to this weekly newsletter there to see if there’s any interest.
As an experiment, I have also added “Help cast oculus reparo for the Librarian” a special goal on Ko-Fi to help me travel to the big city so I can get new eyeglasses, to replace my current set which are increasingly messed up and have lenses with prescriptions that are over 10 years old.
Almanac
Here’s upcoming calendar and astronomical events, plus the daily Thelemic Tephilah practice for the coming week, February 3–10.
Calendar
Follow Calendar on the web and rss. And, if you have a current or upcoming event to share, add it to the Hermetic Library Calendar!
Here’s recurring calendar events in Hermeneuticon for this coming week.
- Astronomical Imbolc, February 4, 2:43 UTC, on ☉ in 15° ♒ (Sol in 15° Aquarius), a cross quarter day, which is the evening of Feb 3 here at Hermetic Library World HQ.
- Greater Feast of Aimée Crocker, died February 7, 1941 at New York, NY
- Greater Feast of John Frederick Charles Fuller, died February 10, 1966 at Falmouth, United Kingdom
Astronomical
- Comet ZTF is still around and near peak brightness, but moonlight might make it more difficult to see as it heads farther and farther away. Around the 7th, moonlight should be less of an issue, with a moonless sky, for last looks without stronger telescopes.
- Astronomical Imbolc, February 4, 2:43 UTC, on ☉ in 15° ♒ (Sol in 15° Aquarius), a cross quarter day, which is the evening of Feb 3 here at Hermetic Library World HQ.
- Full moon, Feb 5
Thelemic Tephilah
Here’s reminders for the daily practice for this upcoming week, from the Hermeneuticon page for the month.
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 3, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 60
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 4, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 61-62
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 5, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 63-67
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 6, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 68-69
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 7, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 70-72
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 8, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 73
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 9, Heru-Ra-Ha, Liber L., Cap. III, 74-75
- Thelemic Tephilah, February 10, (Silence)
Zine
Follow Zine on the web and rss. And, if you something you’ve created to share, send it in to the Hermetic Library Zine!
I’ve slowed down posting to one item a week because I’m low on things. I more than filled the previous issue, but now I need more submissions for this current one, if it is to happen, as planned, on Aphelion 2023.
- Untitled by John Griogair Bell
Things to check out at Hermetic Library
- I’ve added 5 new entries in Hermeneuticon, including Thomas Ashby, Charles Ashby, Lord Ashburnham, Margaret Arnold, and Mary Arkell.
- I’ve made improvements to Trevor Blake’s OVO 1 zine page, including adding a description of the entire contents, and pages for a couple of those: Trajectory Through Anarchism, Letter from the Graveyard Shift, and Tape Fragmentation.
- I’ve added entries for Forneus, from Goetia, and Princess of Cups, from the Book of Thoth, to Hermeneuticon with images from MidJourney and DALL-E.
- I created a new Unicursal PRACTICE FALLING NUIT HADIT SURRENDER Propaganda page, based on a quote from Liber NU, with the usual downloadables. I also updated SEX IS THE SACRED SONG OF THE SOUL with new downloadables.
- Updated formatting on Liber NU in the Libri and Liber NV in Equinox.
And on the blog
All the quotes, reviews, &c. (But not OG, Calendar, Zine, &c.)
- Anthology news, 3feb2023—Here’s a few things anthology related, more or less, I’ve got to share, including new releases by Anthology Artists Primitive Knot(‘s alter ego) and Doleful Lions.
- Swords & Dark Magic—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery [Amazon, Abebooks, Local Library] eds Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders, with Joy Abercrombie, C J Cherryh, Glan Cook, James Enge, Steven Erikson, Greg Keyes, Caitlín R Kiernan, Tim Lebbon, Tanith Lee, Scott Lynch, Michael Moorcock, Garth Nix, K J Parker, Michael Shea, Robert Silverberg, Bill Willingham, and Gene Wolfe.
- Princess of Cups—Generated visuals for Princess of Cups from Thoth Tarot using MidJourney and Dall-E from a mix of parsed text description & card image prompts.
- Even imaginary libraries can sink under the prestige and pompousness of academia.—Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night
- Imbolc (observed) – Feb 1, 2023
- Chess Is Child’s Play—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Chess Is Child’s Play: Teaching Techniques That Work
- Forneus—Generated visuals for Forneus from Goetia using MidJourney and Dall-E from a mix of parsed text description & seal image prompts.
- We make no secret of our methods and results, on the other hand; but only the right man knows how to discover them.—Aleister Crowley, Moonchild, Chapter 8
- A Princess of Mars—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter: A Princess of Mars
- For those in whom the truth has not yet become a living power, fictitious forms are necessary to show them the way, but the majority of the ignorant see only the fiction; there being no truth within themselves, there is nothing to perceive the truth in the form.—Franz Hartmann, In The Pronaos of The Temple of Wisdom
- Mysterious and Horrific Stories—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews Mysterious and Horrific Stories
Also elsewhere
- Anthology news, Feb 3 [Bandcamp/Followers]
- Merch update for February, 2023 [Patreon/All Patrons]