Here are the top 5 most viewed posts on this blog for this 2013 calendar year’s end:

1. Leaf and twig design ring sets
2. Da Pacem Domine (Last year’s 2nd also)
3. Hello Aleister Crowley The Magician Kitty
4. Satanic Knit Baphomet Sweater
5. My Life with the Fill Kill Kult

All but one of the top 5 are newly posted this year. The 1st most popular post from last year The Copiale Cipher: An Early German Masonic Ritual Unveiled fell off as a discrete post, but, as you will see, shows up strongly in the searches still, and it is still in the top 50 posts along with a number of other items about the copiale cipher.

While last year’s Hello Aleister Crowley Kitty was the 4th most popular then, The All-Seeing Cat appears again with her sculptures in the top with Hello Aleister Crowley The Magician Kitty this year, and a number of related works appear elsewhere in the top 50.

Leaf and twig design ring sets is the real dark horse here. These are pretty interesting ring sets I noticed from BandScapes, but still rather a surprise to find at 1st place as the most popular post on the blog for this entire year.

Overall views of posts on the blog is fully double last year’s total and a striking 6 times what it was in 2011. Also, the drop off in total views between posts seems remarkably gradual on the rest and whole way down, so that shows me posts on the blog have a really nice and strong long tail. (Or, you know, it could just mean everything on the blog is equally unpopular in the grand scheme of things, because statistics.)

Here’s the 5 most popular search terms on this blog for 2013:

1. baphomet
2. krampus (Last year’s 1st and 2011’s 3rd)
3. aleister crowley (Last year’s 3rd as well)
4. da pacem domine
5. oculists secret society

The site-relevant keyword thelema, which was 2nd in 2011 and 4th in 2012, dropped down a few more this year, although if one combined all the Aleister Crowley related search terms together that aggregate would be 1st in the list by far. Also, if one added copiale cipher and order of the eye, then “oculists secret society” would jump to 4th instead of 5th; as that search was quite popular all year long in various variations; The Copiale Cipher: An Early German Masonic Ritual Unveiled was the most popular post in 2012 and continues to be something of interest to people. “da pacem domine” seems strange to me in the top searches this year, as there’s only one actual post relevant to that term, but it was the 2nd most viewed article in both 2012 and this year, all in all, so people are definitely still finding that via their search engine of choice.

If you want to compare, take a look at the most popular posts and search terms of 2011 and 2012.

Also, if you want to head off on your own journey through the past, for over the last year I’ve been posting summaries, usually weekly, that you can gander through tagged Hermetic Library; or, just head to either the blog archives or search tool for your own self-guided exploration of this blog’s long tail of, I trust, interesting and entertaining posts.

Are you curious about the other posts in the top 50 for 2013? The most popular posts are quite an interesting variety of new fascinations and old favourites! Here’s the next 45 most popular posts on this blog in 2013:

6. More on the Copiale cipher and the revealed rites of a secret society of Oculists
7. Sex Secrets of Ancient Atlantis
8. The historical place of Aleister Crowley in fact and fiction is explored a bit and somewhat sorted in a column about “Bad Books you never want your co-workers to know you’re reading”
9. The Book of Soyga
10. Baphomet items from Toxic Vision
11. Jesus Potter Harry Christ
12. Magickal Self-Defense on Aug 18, 2013
13. The Book of Law of the Venerable Secret Order of the Eye
14. The Book of Abraxas: A Grimoire of the Hidden Gods
15. Handmade leather boots with a Baphomet design
16. Secret Practices of the Sufi Freemasons
17. Hello Baphomet Kitty
18. Krampus Tee Shirt
19. Summoning of Evil Spirits: Goetia and Solomonic Magick with Lon Milo DuQuette
20. Silver and garnet pomegranate pendant
21. The Wild Unknown Tarot
22. The Occult Anatomy of Man & Occult Masonry
23. Hail Satan and Drink Coffee
24. Open letter from John Michael Greer to the Golden Dawn community
25. The Moonchild of Yesod is also available as a free download
26. The Daemon Tarot
27. Whore of Babylon tattoo tights
28. A Report on Current Magical and Esoteric Blogs
29. Oracle Tarot Deck
30. The Celtic Golden Dawn: An Original & Complete Curriculum of Druidical Study
31. Priest/ess
32. Goetic demon statues and more
33. Ruby Snake Ring
34. Baphomet cameo necklace
35. The Copiale Cipher: An Early German Masonic Ritual Unveiled
36. Baphomet Burning Cigarette Pants and more
37. Tree of Life corporate organizational chart
38. The Secret History of the World
39. Leather masks of Thoth, Anubis and Ra
40. Leather steampunk Anubis and Bast masks
41. Hello Aleister Crowley Kitty
42. Photos From An Album Discovered In The Burnt Out Lair Of A Sixteenth Century Crypto-Alchemist
43. Death Tarot card leggings
44. The Complete Golden Dawn Cipher Manuscript
45. AMORC altar set
46. The Qabalah Workbook for Magicians
47. It’s Aleister Crowley’s Birthday
48. Aleister Crowley in: Facing Death
49. Peaches Geldof has signed up to Aleister Crowley’s sex cult OTO
50. Cats, Coffee, Satan & Spells