Here’s a tchotchke I’ve kept from a tour of the East Coast, circa 2010. I happened to be in NYC when Lon Milo DuQuette was having a class at Tahuti related to Enochian Vision Magick. This was the DIY papercraft ring and lamen I made then. (Look, you don’t need anything fancy to do the work. Use what you’ve got. Make what you don’t with what you have.)
Now cometh from every side at once a voice, terribly great, crying: Close the veil; the great blasphemy hath been uttered; the face of my Mother is scarred by the nails of the devil. Shut the book, destroy the breaker of the seal!
Aleister Crowley, The Cry of the 28th Aethyr, Which is Called BAG in The Vision and the Voice
“You know Enochian?” he asks. I’m startled by the gentleness—and the hope. I can hardly lie about it now, but I don’t give more than the bare truth. “I learned it as a child.”
Ruthanna Emrys, The Litany of Earth [Amazon, Publisher, Local Library]
An irregular hodgepodge of links gathered together … Omnium Gatherum for June 4th, 2014
“Stunning Digitally Composited Star Trail Photos [by Justin Ng] of the Night Sky over Singapore” — EDW Lynch, Laughing Squid
“I am continuing to think about this word that we don’t yet have to describe a religious point of view that sees all conventional religions as inadequate human constructions, that have not been able to communicate the experience of an ultimate reality that transcends us. […] I am thinking now about these possibilities: 1. Transtheism […] 2. Numinalism”
“Be not of any Faction: A wise Man is always free.”
“For [John] Toland, this was not just another apocryphon. From this ‘Turkish Gospel being fathr’d upon Barnabas,’ he claimed to have been led to recover “the original plan of Christianity” as centered on Jewish-Christian beliefs that ‘Jesus did not take away or cancel the Jewish Law in any sense whatsoever.’
This, Toland argued, was the very oldest form of Christianity, only it was lost to history when ‘converts from the Gentiles… did almost wholly subvert’ it. On the basis of the Gospel of Barnabas, Toland characterized the most ancient Christianity as harmonious with Islam as well: its account of Jesus, after all, was perfectly conformable to the traditions of the Mahometans [i.e., Muslims], who maintain that another was crucified in his stead; and that Jesus, slipping thro’ the hands of Jews, preach’d afterwards to his disciples, then was taken to heaven.”
“At least from the evidence now at hand, there’s little to support the theory that the GBarn is authentically ancient. The question, rather, is why this possibility continues to arise again and again despite the paucity of evidence. Why is the idea of this gospel—and speculation about its possible suppression—so compelling to modern readers? How has on-line speculation about a Syriac manuscript of an obscure apocryphon risen to the status of e-Rumor, spreading widely through social media and persisting for years?”
“… I’m assuming deities contemporaneous with Christianity are just fine, so grab your Pope cards and take the next flight to Chesterfield, Subgenii: These folks clearly need ‘Bob’ and his redeeming message of Slack.”
“Artist Leonardo Ulian offers another interpretation of the mandala with his assemblages of electronic components, copper wire, and more. The intricate, finely detailed works radiate the innards of what makes technology tick. Ulian crafts smaller geometric patterns within a larger, more general shape that become more impressive once you see close up shots of his handiwork.”
“The outside of the building melds surprisingly well with its surroundings. However, this all changes when you walk inside. As soon as you step through the entrance, the vibrant lighting and futuristic decor make you feel like you’re on the set of the latest terrible sci-fi dystopian flick. It’s prompt validation that this is not your average church.”
“Be Here Nowish had a soft launch last month and now emerges in its entirety, picking up where the main characters, fuck-ups in their own right, left off, finding themselves in Los Angeles among a group of freaky devotees of a guru played by Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio.
Adam, are you personally involved in any of the kooky spiritual stuff that’s going on in Los Angeles?
Adam [Carpenter]: Does Pilates count?
No. Sorry.“
“Entering altered states of consciousness has a dramatic effect upon a ritual. Everything becomes more profound, from the smell of the incense, to the colour of the candlelight, to the feel of your wand in your hand.”
“But whence the week? Throughout history, human societies have found it useful to divide time into groups of days shorter than a lunar month. One of the most common uses of this cycle has been to establish a regular market day, though just how regular varies. At one point, the Basques evidently employed a three-day week. For centuries, China, Japan, and Korea employed a 10-day week. Other societies have employed four-, five-, six-, eight-, and nine-day weeks.”
“So were vampires ghosts? Were ghosts vampires? These days most of us can easily distinguish between a vampire and a ghost and would consider them two very different phenomena. Examples from antiquity, however, suggest a blurring of these distinctions which lasted until the modern era. This overlap in the supernatural has caused much consternation among scholars who study the undead, complicating what would otherwise be neat categories.”
“‘This is really more of a question for the Economics of Potion-Making, I guess. What time are econ lessons here?’
‘We have no economics lessons in this school, you ridiculous boy.’
Harry Potter stood up bravely. ‘We do now. Come with me if you want to learn about market forces!’
The students poured into the hallway after him. They had a leader at last.”
“How consciousness bends the body: an illustration from The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception by Max Heindel, 1911.”
“You know, Saint Isidore of Seville was declared the patron saint of the Internet and computers by the vatican. You can imagine confession as the ultimate data-mining and blackmail tool. The church had to coerce people with the idea of infinite hell to get them to confess, and they could still lie if they wanted to! Now we just give away access to every single piece of ourselves for free. So the need for protection from Saint Google is very real.”
“But the trouble with disruption is that it’s dangerously close to detonation. You can end up destroying what you sought to shake up and take over.”
“We get flicked in the nuts by a badminton birdie we’ll double over for 20 minutes, moaning and rocking back and forth. Our balls are like little yarn-bundles contained in a thin, wifty sack of outlying flesh. They unspool like bobbins of delicate thread when damaged. Women on the other hand push entire people out of their lady-realms like divine fucking beings.”
"Does this look infected to you?"
[points at entire existence]
— Post-Culture Review (@PostCultRev) May 29, 2014
If you’d like to participate in the next Omnium Gatherum, head on over to the Gatherum discussions at the Hrmtc Underground BBS.
The Enochian Experiments of the Golden Dawn: Enochian Alphabet Clairvoyantly Examined by Florence Farr, edited with an introduction and notes by Darcy Kuntz, Vol 7 of the Golden Dawn Studies Series, the 2007 third revised edition published by J D Holmes, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“The experiments Farr conducted with the Sphere Group in 1901 with the events and experiences chronicled in her diary. Keys to the Enochian Language; a corrected Holy Table; and a rare full page plate also are included.” [via]
The Essential Enochian Grimoire: An Introduction to Angel Magick from Dr. John Dee to the Golden Dawn by Aaron Leitch, from Llewellyn Publications, is due to be released February, 2014.
You may be interested in taking a gander at some of the artwork by James Clark being previewed over on Leitch’s blog.
“Aaron Leitch, author of The Angelical Language, Volume I and The Angelical Language, Volume II, has created the first how-to Enochian magick grimoire. This practical instruction manual outlines Enochian cosmology, the angels and the spirits of the system, the temple setup, and the making and usage of tools. It reveals the secrets and power of the classical Enochian system by Dee, as well as the modern version by the Golden Dawn, and provides rituals for each. All the angels’ names are listed, along with exact instructions for summoning them and descriptions of how they should appear when summoned. Featuring almost 100 illustrations and tables for clarity, this is an important resource for both beginner and advanced practitioners alike.” [via]
Conjuring Spirits: A manual of Goetic and Enochian Sorcery by Hermetic Library fellow Michael Osiris Snuffin, the 2010 hardcover from Concrescent Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“Sorcery, defined here as the art of conjuring spirits, is one of the traditional, core disciplines of magickal practice. It is highly admired and its practitioners accorded great prestige. While many of the old grimoires have baroque and elaborate procedures for conjuring spirits, Frater Osiris cuts through the Gordian knot of complexity and obfuscation to present us with a much more direct approach to evoking Goetic and Enochian spirits. It is simple, clear, practical and without mystification. It is highly accessible and designed to enable practitioners to assemble the few tools required, prepare themselves, and begin work almost immediately reaping the practical and spiritual benefits of sorcerous practice. Naturally, it is an approach that some won’t like, but many more will appropriate and tune to their own satisfaction. Anyone can get started here.” [via]
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.
Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley by Lon Milo DuQuette, with foreword by Clay Holden (of the John Dee Publication Project at the library), the 2008 paperback from Weiser Books, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“Dr. John Dee (1527–1608) was one of the greatest minds of the Elizabethan Age, and his system of angelic communication was the result of the most dramatic magical operation ever recorded. It has survived to become the cornerstone of the modern ceremonial magician’s practice. In 1582 Dee and his clairvoyant partner Edward Kelley made magical contact with a number of spiritual entities who identified themselves as angels — the same that communicated with Adam, Enoch, and the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Over the next three years they revealed to Dee and Kelley three distinct magical systems of vision magick. The third and last of these incorporated a series of ‘calls’ to be recited in an angelic language in order to raise the consciousness of the magician to a level where angelic contact is possible. Best-selling author and magician, Lon Milo DuQuette, who has practiced Dee’s system for over twenty-five years, has seized upon elements of the original Dee material overlooked by adepts of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and other modern magicians, and brought them to light in Enochian Vision Magick. DuQuette offers the expert and novice alike the practical means by which they can become attuned in the same simple step-by-step manner that first prepared Dee and Kelley. There has never been a book on Enochian magick like this one.” [via]
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.
The Magic Seal of Dr. John Dee. The Sigillum Dei Aemeth by Hermetic Library fellow Colin Campbell, the 2009 hardcover limited to 777 copies from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“The Magic Seal of John Dee comprises a detailed examination of the history and structure of the Sigillum Dei Aemeth of the Elizabethan scholar and Magus, Dr. John Dee, as well as a study of its use in the practice of ritual magic. The appendixes include a new transcription and translation of Dee’s Liber Mysteriorum Secundus, and an important new translation of the section of the famous grimoire, The Sworn Book of Honorius, that gives details of what is clearly a precursor of the Sigillum Dei. From the standpoint of a practicing magician, the work has two clear aims: to demonstrate the importance of the pattern established by Dee’s Sigillum Dei as opposed to its implementation, and to bring the Sigillum Dei out of the limited confines of the Enochian temple and into its role as a powerful magickal system in its own right. The recognition of the patterns established in the construction of the Sigillum Dei allow us to view the seal in a new light, not as a static framework decided once and for all hundreds of years ago in the study of a Renaissance magician, but as one that can be reconstituted in the light of modern interpretation. Furthermore, the seal is, in essence, a system of evocation — the very same method of communication used by Dee & Kelley in its reception. This book explains the nature and method of this approach and how the practicing magician is able to use the Sigillum Dei in the manner in which it was truly intended — as a powerful system of planetary magick.” [via]
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.
A Concordance to the Holy Books of Thelema by Hermetic Library fellow Colin Campbell, the 2008 hardcover limited to 418 copies from Teitan Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“‘The Holy Books of Thelema,’ is the collective name given to the group of inspired texts received by Aleister Crowley between the years 1904 and 1911. These texts lie at the very heart of the teachings of his magical fraternity, the A∴ A∴, and consequently have been the subject of intense study and commentary by Crowley himself, and also by many of his students.
A Concordance to the Holy Books of Thelema is an important new tool for those engaged in the study of these beautiful and enigmatic books. It comprises a survey of every word in these texts, along with a brief quotation to give the context in which each word is used, and the location in which it appears.
On the most basic level A Concordance to the Holy Books of Thelema serves as a convenient reference guide or index to the contents of The Holy Books. More importantly, it provides a level of access to the basic elements of the structure and composition of the texts that no conventional reading would afford. Key words and their frequencies of use become apparent, broader usage patterns are revealed, and the identification of particular phraseologies and idioms is simplified. The new paths of exploration that it opens for those with knowledge of the Kabbalah and Gematria are too numerous to list.
The Concordance includes an Introduction by the compiler, Colin D. Campbell, a student and teacher of the Thelemic, Kabbalistic, and Enochian magickal systems, and a Foreword by Crowley biographer and scholar, Dr. Richard Kaczynski.”
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.