Tag Archives: michael bertiaux

Vūdū Cartography

Vudu Cartography: The Autobiography of Michael Houdeaux by Michael Bertiaux, the 2010 hardcover from Fulgur Limited, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Vūdū Cartography explores the mysteries of ‘Les Vūdū’ through chants, oracles, séances and a symbolic system of images—all connected by a descriptive narrative which leads us, like a dusty highway, through the shimmering landscape.

Drawn from his rich experiences in Haiti, Bertiaux’s own evocative voudon ‘art brut’ creates a map for those regions of ‘invisible power’, giving the reader strange ingress to the ‘mysteries and hiddenesses of an exotic theology, with its spiritist twists and turns and esoteric spaces.’

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The Voudon Gnostic Workbook

The Voudon Gnostic Workbook: Expanded Edition by Michael Bertiaux, introduction by Courtney Willis, from Weiser Books, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“Available for the first time as a facsimile of the original, this edition of Michael Bertiaux’s rare esoteric text comes expanded with a new introduction by renowned Gnostic Voodoo scholar Courtney Willis. The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is a singular sacred work, comprehensive in scope—from how to be a lucky Hoodoo to how Magick and Voodoo intersect energetically to esoteric time travel. Complete with charts and graphs and instructive interdimensional physics, The Voudon Gnostic Workbook is an object of desire among students of the occult.

Voodoo derives from the Dahomean Gods called the Loa. Esoteric Voodoo is actually a highly practical procedure for leading us into making contact with the deepest levels of our being and most ancient modes of consciousness. Michael Bertiaux’s The Gnostic Voudon Workbook is the most comprehensive and illuminating contemporary book on the subject. Begun out of a correspondence course and series of classes for students and followers of Voudon Gnosticism and the OTO, this seminal text is at once one of the most mysterious and magnificent of all esoteric books.” — back cover

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I:MAGE 2014 across London on Oct 21st – Nov 2nd, 2014

I:MAGE 2014 – Travelling with Unfamiliar Spirits, the second exhibition of esoteric art from Fulgur, will actually be a series of events in London and online from October 21st through November 2nd, 2014, with art, events, publications and stories.

“The spirit world comes to life in this two-week-long celebration of esoteric art. The show’s theme coincides with the time of year: the beginning of the dark months. Popular culture calls it Hallowe’en but contemporary Witches and Druids across Europe and North America call it Samhain, Heathens Winter Nights, Greek reconstructionist movements Thesmophoria; Vodou practitioners celebrate Fete Ghede, followers of Santeria and indigenous religions in Latin America observe Día de los Muertos, while Welsh folklore advises staying away from cemeteries on Calan Gaeaf.

In most magical and esoteric traditions the end of October is a sacred time of year, a time for honouring the dead and communicating with the spirit world. It is a time to acknowledge the winter months and delve into the darker part of the year and of the self. The boundaries between the familiar and what is Other shatter. The veil is thin. The magic begins. For I:MAGE 2014, artists will explore what it means to communicate with spirits through art. They will give us a glimpse of a unifying theme across different esoteric practices and offer us the perfect opportunity to introduce you to a truly international show.” [via]

At the core is a selling exhibition hosted by Fulgur Esoterica that brings together an a number of international artists in the esoteric genre. That exhibition will take place at Cob Gallery in London and feature a number of artists.

“Agostino Arrivabene
Michael Bertiaux
Jesse Bransford
Anne Crossey
Arrington de Dionyso
Denis Forkas
Cristina Francov
Steffi Grant
Barry William Hale
Sara Hannant
Liz Insogna
Francesco Parisi
Max Razdow
Residue
Penny Slinger
Austin Osman Spare
Shannon Taggart”

Of particular interest, for those not nearby London, may be the artist blogs but especially Veil of Dreams: A Pilgrimage through Icelandic Magic with Jesse Bransford and Max Razdow, an interactive esoteric art project which you can start following now and in which you can participate.

Artists Jesse Bransford and Max Razdow set out to inhabit the same dream space for six months, blog about it and travel across the world to tell the story. Their starting point: Icelandic Magic.

For the next five months Jesse Bransford and Max Razdow will use Icelandic magical symbols as a reference point to enter the larger dream divination space of the Seiðr traditions and to synchronise their dreams. The results are published here on a daily basis. The project will culminate with a pilgrimage: the artists will travel to Iceland to visit sacred sites, perform a series of workings and find physical correspondences with their shared dream experiences and then to London, where they will exhibit the journal, the original artworks emerging from the dreams and be interviewed about their experience. Be a part of their story. [via]

Abraxas: Issue 5

Abraxas: Issue 5, edited by Christina Oakley Harrington and Robert Ansell, from Fulgur, is due to release on March 20th, 2014, in limited paperback and even more limited hardback editions, which includes many new works that will certainly be of interest, including a contribution by K Lenore Siner, who you may recogonize from her participation in the Hermetic Library visual pool.

“Abraxas Issue #5 offers 180 large format pages of essays, poetry, interviews and art.

Printed using state-of-the-art offset lithography to our usual high standard, contributions for Abraxas #5 include an interview by Pam Grossman with Greek artist, Panos Tsagaris; an analysis of Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne Atlas by Silvia Urbini, a visual interpretation of the Dionysian mysteries by Arrington de Dionyso; a substantial essay from Shasha Chaitow on the grandfather of esoteric art, Joséphin Péladan; an introduction to the art of Michael Bertiaux by Ariock Van de Voorde; reminiscences by Caroline Wise of her friend Olivia Robertson (1917-2013), and much more…

CONTENTS

Editorial, Christina Oakley Harrington
Olivia Robertson: A Visionary Life, Caroline Wise
A Brief History of the Use of Spirits in European Occultism, Stephanie Spoto
Mycology, Madeline Cass
De Vermis in Se, Max Razdow
John Augustus Knapp: Modern Master of Occult Illustration, Ken Henson
Marrasio’s Masque, translation by Merlin Cox, illustrated by Gromyko Semper
Black and White & Gold All Over: An Interview with Panos Tsagaris, Pam Grossman
Musings on Breath, David Blank
The (Not Entirely) Lost ‘Art of the Apothecary’: Abramelin Oil and Ancient Perfumery, Ioannis Marathakis
Blind Love, K Lenore Siner
Victor Brauner at the Crossroads of Magic and Chance, Jon Graham
La Villa dei Misteri, Arrington de Dionyso
Esoteric City: Theological Hermeneutics in Plato’s Republic, Edward Butler, with photography by SF Said
Sonnet, Comte de Saint-Germain, translated by Sebastian Hayes
Nihilalia: In conversation with Bea Kwan Lim, Randall Morris
A Brief History of Witchcraft: Inquisitors & Witches, Ian Pyper
Games of Fate: Aby Warburg’s Mnemosyne, Plate 23a, Silvia Urbini
Oversoul, Joanna Pallaris
Hidden in Plain Sight: Joséphin Péladan’s Religion of Art, Sasha Chaitow
Bené-Satan, Sasha Chaitow
Isis and Taweret with tomb of Hafiz, Adela Leibowitz
Meeting Le Maître: An Introduction to the Art of Michael Bertiaux, Ariock Van de Voorde
Antinous and Glykon: The Gods of Good Hair in Late Antique Anatolia, P. Sufenas Virius Lupus” [via]

Nightside of Eden

Nightside of Eden by Kenneth Grant is being republished by Starfire Publishing, and is scheduled for release in March, 2014. It is currently on pre-order in both a standard edition, available directly and, for US and CA, from J D Holmes, and in a deluxe edition available directly.

“The republishing of the Typhonian Trilogies continues with the release in March 2014 of the fourth volume in the series, Nightside of Eden, which opens the second of the three trilogies. Originally published by Muller in 1977, it was subsequently reissued by Skoob Publishing in 1994. This new edition of 1500 copies is freshly typeset in an octavo format of 316 pages. Sewnbound hardback, with a frontispiece, a twenty-page section of plates, illustrated endpapers and a full-colour dustjacket, this republication integrates the errata from the Skoob edition within the text, and incorporates further corrections noted subsequently in Kenneth Grant’s personal copy of the book. Many of the plates have been rephotographed, and some are printed in colour.” [via]

“There exists a map of consciousness, with its light and dark byways, in the form of a qabalistic glyph known as the Tree of Life. It has its roots in the primal earth of Eden, but its branches extend into extra-terrestrial dimensions. This Tree, which is a familiar concept to mystics and magicians alike, has another side, a nightside which receives but passing mention in contemporary manuals of occultism; as if the ancient writings of the Arabs and Jews contained allusions to mere figures of speech and monstrous fancies.

Nightside of Eden interprets the symbolism of the Tree of Death, the ‘other’ side of the Tree of Life which forms the basis of the Western Occult Tradition. Kenneth Grant, whose Typhonian Trilogies have infused new life and meaning into ancient and forgotten mysteries, here provides an exhaustive survey of the other side of the Tree, haunted by dark forces that are today seeping insidiously into human consciousness and threatening it with violent disruption. The creative magical current represented by Aleister Crowley, Charles Stansfeld Jones, Austin Osman Spare, and in our day by Michael Bertiaux, Margaret Cook, and others, is here traced to its source in the formless voids beyond the threshold of mentation.

Nightside of Eden is an explication of the Cult of Choronzon and an initiated exposition of the Mysteries of the Left-Hand Path in relation to Western Occultism. Here, for the first time, the head of a genuine Magical Organization reveals the esoteric doctrines of the ‘black’ magic of the Left-Hand Path, as well as the practical application of psycho-sexual formulae of which very little is generally known.

The book is illustrated not only with the demonic sigils of the ‘other side’, which make of it a grimoire of the Dark Doctrine, but also by curious works of siderealism, or stellar art, sprung from the New Aeon consciousness which permeates those occult Orders working in harmony with the Typhonian Tradition.” [via]

Voudon Gnosis

Voudon Gnosis by David Beth, with an introduction by Michael Bertiaux, the 2010, revised and enlarged, standard edition hardcover from Fulgur Limited, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

“There exists a tradition of Gnosis and Sorcery which is unique in contemporary Esotericism. Unfolding from within an exotic lineage of initiatic Haitian Voudon, empowered and enriched by a variety of occult and Gnostic systems, the ever evolving world of Esoteric Voudon, or Voudon Gnosis, has intrigued and unsettled magical practitioners, scholars and artists for decades.

This book is the first comprehensive treatise of the fascinating spiritist realms which constitute the highly practical system of Voudon Gnostisicism. From sexual magic to fetich sorcery, from the qliphotic realms on the Tree of Death, to Esoteric Love and Time-Travelling. David Beth leads us towards making contact with the darkest levels and most ancient forms of consciousness and power.”

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.

I:MAGE An Inaugural Exhibition of Esoteric Artists at Store Street Gallery on May 19-25, 2013 in London

Fulgur Esoterica has announced I:MAGE An Inaugural Exhibition of Esoteric Artists which will be running from May 19-25, 2013 at the Store Street Gallery 32 Store Street, Bloomsbury, London UK.

“I:MAGE

An Inaugural Exhibition of Esoteric Artists

LONDON, 19th-25th May, 2013

I:MAGE is a selling exhibition hosted by FULGUR ESOTERICA that brings together for the first time an international group of artists working in the esoteric genre.

Ranging from the work of progressive women such as Ithell Colquhoun and Steffi Grant, to the dark symbolist themes of Agostino Arrivabene and Denis Forkas Kostromitin set against the contemporary exploratory audio-visual practices of NOKO, I:MAGE promises to be a landmark exhibition.

Held in the heart of London at the Store Street Gallery, this show will cover two floors and over 1600sq ft of exhibition space. A full colour catalogue will be available.

To mark this occasion a week of special evening events and art-related projects will be held in collaboration with Treadwell’s Bookshop, next door.” [via]

“The Artists

Michael Bertiaux
Jesse Bransford
Ithell Colquhoun
Peter Dyde
Denis Forkas Kostromitin
Cristina Francov
Rik Garrett
Steffi Grant
Barry William Hale
NOKO
Orryelle
Francesco Parisi
Residue
David Chaim Smith
Austin Osman Spare

and special guest
Agostino Arrivabene” [via]

Michael Bertiaux added to Mapping the Occult City

I’ve previously posted about Mapping the Occult City, a pre-conference for the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religions, on Fri, Nov 16, 2012 in Chicago, and just heard that Michael Bertiaux has been added as a speaker.

“Michael Bertiaux is an American occultist and Old Catholic Bishop, known for his book Voudon Gnostic Workbook (1988), a 615-page compendium of various occult lessons and research papers spanning the sub-fields of Voodoo, Neo-Pythagoreanism, Thelema and Gnosticism. He will be sharing memories of his many years in the occult scene of Chicago.” [via]

The Hermetic Library Blog

Faint gibbering heard from somewhere near the restricted stacks