In memoriam Bill Heidrick
Howdy everyone! Here’s a public summary of my activity this week ending August 18, 2023 and reminders about some things upcoming!
This week, in sad news, Bill Heidrick, long time guest and Fellow of Hermetic Library, has passed away. I posted a brief in memoriam on the blog, with more about that, which you can read there. He lived a long, storied, and impactful life on earth, but his powerful idealism will be missed. What is remembered lives, and unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills.
I also reached a couple milestones for the library’s new profile in the ‘verse and on the now venerable-in-Internet-years blog.
In addition to the ongoing social media and Patron giveaway for copies of Tarot: Mirror of the Soul, I also this week posted a special offer for Patrons on Patreon, Members on Ko-Fi, and Subscribers on Bandcamp, with 10 gratis download codes for Hermetic Library Anthology Artist Mr Zoth and the Werespider’s collab Necrosignals by Orthokeras. So, if you’re one of those in those places, check that out. And, after about a week, if I have any left, I’ll open that up to others in some fashion. I’ll have details in next week’s newsletter if that happens.
In addition to the usual work on the site, blog, and so on, which I detail below the fold, I did a bunch of backfilling the Zine archives for the two issues this year. That’s in preparation for creating the digital publications gratis for Patrons and for a buck to the public. I’m still working toward those, and it’s taken a long time; much longer that I had hoped. But, I’m making progress!
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 ongoing Patron on Patreon, Subscriber at Bandcamp, and Member on Ko-Fi for making the work of the library possible!
Over on the new-again profile for the library in the ‘verse @[email protected] I’ve been going around and trying to contact all those who were following the old profile last year. The follower count passed 93 and is now around ⅕ what it was. Still not gotten to 666, but I didn’t manage that before either. It’ll happen or it won’t, I guess. I’ll just keep trying to reach people about the library and blog, as one does, and hope those interested in what I’m doing can find me.
As an aside, I debated whether to mention this or not. I honestly don’t know if it is awesome or embarrassing? But, I noticed that the library blog just in the last month or so reached over 1 million views from ½ million visitors and 10,000 posts over the 10+ years it’s been up.
To be fair, it probably actually technically happened last year. There’s an entire year of stats missing in this total from Aug 2012–Aug 2013, for boring technical reasons, which was just before the most popular point in the blog’s history.
Now, 1 million is a whole lot of views! No doubt. But, in comparison, the main library site gets over that many every year. It took the blog 10 years of lifetime total traffic to get to 1 year of the main site’s. Also, tbh, the blog was most popular around 2014. Like, by a lot. Since then, perhaps as blogging as a whole has also been in decline, so has the library blog. At least, until this year. It’s been a bit heartbreaking how much effort I’ve put into it, only to have blog traffic keep declining year over year. This year is the first year since 2014 that there’s been an overall increase in traffic to the blog from the previous year. That’s wild, and cool. I am definitely excited by that!
So, like I said, I don’t know about sharing this metric. The content I post, as awesome as I think it is, and as much as I’m glad to share it, isn’t the most viral compared to some others. But, I’ve been at it, variously slow and mostly steady, for a long damned time and it’s a definite milestone to reach 1 million and to finally see another upward trend in readers! I’m going to choose to celebrate that. Join me in a humblebrag cheer for the blog! Hip hip huzzah!
Almanac
Here’s upcoming calendar and astronomical events, plus the daily Thelemic Tephilah practice, for the coming week, August 18–25.
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. Also, remember, I’m once again posting events from the Hermeneuticon calendar daily, along with Thoth card and Hexagram of the day and Thelemic Tephilah reminders, on the Hermetic Library profile in the ‘verse; so, consider following along there, adding it to your RSS reader, or soever.
- This week I’ve added Greater Feast of Bill Heidrick, William Emmet Heidrick, August 14, 2023
Greater Feast of Rodrigo de Borja, Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, died August 18, 1503 at Rome, Italy
Greater Feast of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, died August 25, 1900 at Weimar, Germany
And, check out the newly posted upcoming calendar events on the blog this week.
- Freud and the Occult — September 5, 2023, online
- Harnessing the Magic and Creative Power of the Cut-up Method — beginning September 10, 2023, online
- The Wind in the Willows — September 12, 2023, online
Astronomical
- Moon enters Libra, August 19, 2023, 11:54 UTC (☉ in ♌︎, ☾ in ♎︎)
- Moon enters Scorpio, August 21, 2023, 23:22 UTC (☉ in ♌︎, ☾ in ♏︎)
- Sun enters Virgo, August 23, 2023, 09:02 UTC (☉ in ♍︎, ☾ in ♏︎)
- Moon enters Sagittarius, August 24, 2023, 08:08 UTC (☉ in ♍︎, ☾ in ♐︎)
Thelemic Tephilah
Here’s reminders for Thelemic Tephilah daily practice for this upcoming week, from the Hermeneuticon page for the month. Also, remember, I’m once again posting Thelemic Tephilah daily, along with Thoth card and Hexagram of the day and events from the Hermeneuticon calendar, on the Hermetic Library profile in the ‘verse; so, consider following along there, adding it to your RSS reader, or soever.
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 18, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 14-15
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 19, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 16-18
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 20, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 19-21
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 21, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 22-23
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 22, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 24-25
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 23, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 26-28
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 24, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 29
- Thelemic Tephilah, August 25, Spirit, Liber LXV, Cap. V, 30-33
Things to check out at Hermetic Library
- I added five more stories from Laura Gibbs’ Tiny Tales of Nasruddin, including An Unexpected Visit From Nasruddin, Nasruddin on the Roof, Getting Fooled by Nasruddin, A Token of Friendship, and Jokes in the Coffeehouse. I also added five new tales from Tiny Tales from the Sufism including Rabia Instructs Hasan, Rabia and Hasan, Rabia’s Needle, Rabia and the Preacher, and Rabia and the Bread.
- I updated the list of Zine issues to include Perihelion and Aphelion 2023, adding contents and cover and link to the library’s digital publications at Itch, and then decided to split the Issues list into a new page.
- I added an entry in Hermeneuticon for Bill Heidrick. I also added Bill’s Greater Feast to the Hermetic Library Calendar. I moved Bill from the Fellows landing page to Figures.
- I added an Hermeneuticon entry for Shan from Goetia, with images from this week’s generation experiment.
And on the blog
All the quotes, reviews, &c. (But not OG, Events Calendar, &c.)
- I’ve gone back through Hermetic Library Zine #5 January 2023 and added back-dated posts for the full table of contents. There’s a whole lot in that issue! It’s a shame I didn’t have submissions enough to keep up the pace in the next one, and have since had to essentially put the zine back on hiatus. But, this was necessary to get ready for creating the full digital versions of those issues.
- Anthology news, 14aug2023—More news for you!
- In memoriam Bill Heidrick—What is remembered lives, and unto them may there be granted the accomplishment of their wills.
- The Ravening Deep—Hermetic Library Fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Ravening Deep by Tim Pratt, cover by John Coulthart, part of the Arkham Horror series.
- Yes, that’s very nice, I know that you’re conjuring up some wonderful theoretical thingamajig, but Samantha, would you fuck me now, please?—Phoenix Baker, Mittens: A story about two women falling in love and doing really weird things to each other
- The Book of the Law is the Charter of Woman; the Word Thelema has opened the lock of Her “girdle of chastity.” Your Sphinx of stone has come to life; to know, to will, to dare and to keep silence. Yes, I, The Beast, my Scarlet Whore bestriding me, naked and crowned, drunk on Her golden Cup of Fornication, boasting Herself my bedfellow, have trodden Her in the Market place, and roared this Word that every woman is a star. And with that Word is uttered Woman’s Freedom—Aleister Crowley, New Comment on Liber Legis, The Book of the Law, III:55
- Shan—Generated visuals for Shan (or Shax, Shaz, Shass) from Goetia using Midjourney from a mix of parsed text description & seal image prompts.