Tag Archives: novel

The Brotherhood of Light and Darkness

The Brotherhood of Light and Darkness by Jason Augustus Newcomb, the 2007 hardcover from New Hermetics Press, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Jason Augustus Newcomb's The Brotherhood of Light and Darkness

“Alexander Sebastian is an armchair occult enthusiast who lack much direction in life, but his world is turned upside down when his police detective brother-in=law asks him to help identify some magical symbols scrawled at a gruesome, ritualistic homicide. The crime is so horrific that it almost seems the killer might be some sort of demonic creature.

Alex quickly becomes obsessed with the crime, wondering who could be practicing black magick right in his hometown of Arlington, Massachusetts. He decides to find out and is quickly drawn into the underground modern magick scene. He encounters a cast array of odd characters—an obese, narcissistic, drug peddling adept, a beautiful, coke-snorting, sex magick dominatrix, an insanely jealous Freemason who pontificates with a lisp, and many others. But is one of them a killer? Or is one of them a demonic conjurer?

To find out more, Alex joins the A∴R∴T∴, an international magical fraternity with a sinister reputation, discovering that the murder victim was a member of this group. He soon begins to have unusually vivid and peculiar dreams, and terrifying encounters with what appears to be the world of the supernatural. He can’t tell whether these experiences are magical attacks from the killer, or just the product of his overactive imagination. As he tried to separate fact from fiction, and find out who is responsible for murder, Alex also discovers the beginning of his personal spiritual journey into the world of magical awakening.

This story is drawn largely from Newcomb’s own personal experiences over the past twenty years actively participating in the modern magical community. It comes out of his real life encounters with secret magical fraternities and the unique, eccentric people that populate this sub-cultuer. Fans of Harry Potter or the DaVinci Code will discover what the world of magick and secret societies really looks like when you’re personally involved. It reveals the world of the unknown as it truly exists, with an insider’s view of the real world of Witches, Wizards, Rosicrucians and magical creatures.”

 

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.

Revolt of the Magicians

Aleister Crowley – Revolt of the Magicians: A Novel by Lon Milo DuQuette and James M Bratkowsky, the 2011 softcover edition, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Lon Milo DuQuette and James Bratkowsky's Aleister Crowley The Revolt of the Magicians

“The dawning twentieth century is not big enough for eccentric genius Aleister Crowley. He is an acclaimed poet, chess master, world-class mountaineer, and probably the most passionately liberated man in Victorian London. His real devotion, however, is magic … and the search for his own soul. An infamous fourteenth century Arabic book of magic survives the centuries to spawn the formation of a hidden society of magicians in London. The Order is led by occult scholar MacGregor Mathers and his wife Moina, who claim to be in touch with secret masters that give them ever-increasing magical knowledge and power. For several years the Order grows, drawing on new members from the giants of British commerce, art, and literature. Suddenly, at the height of the Order’s influence, MacGregor and Moina appear to lose contact with the secret masters. They move to Paris and ignore the Order’s plea for more teachings and higher initiations. The London lodge threatens to sever ties with them and make magical contact with the secret masters themselves. Five very famous members lead the revolt:
• the poet William Butler Yeats
• the playwright Maude Gonne
• Bram Stoker, author of Dracula
• Florence Farr, the most acclaimed actress of her day
• and one of the wealthiest women in the world, tea heiress Annie Horniman.
Crowley naively joins the Order at the beginning of the revolt. Blinded by his intense spiritual aspirations, he is not only drawn into the conflict, but unwittingly becomes the catalyst that brings about their destruction.”

 

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 Secret History

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Donna Tartt's The Secret History from Ballantine

“Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.”

 

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.

What’s Wrong with the Movies? by Aleister Crowley in Vanity Fair, Jul 1917.

“Several times, of late, I have seen films where the tinkers had improved a good novel out of existence. The beginning, end, and middle of the story had been dexterously amputated or ‘arranges.’ We were not informed of the relationship existing between the various characters; the motives for their acts were utterly obscure. A ‘situation’ would ultimately arise—and then, instead of a dénouement, the film stopped suddenly!

One felt as if one had somehow got into a lunatic asylum.” [via]

What’s Wrong with the Movies? by Aleister Crowley in Vanity Fair, Jul 1917.

“In the first place, the wretches in power, when they get a perfectly competent author—say a novelist of great repute—will not trust him at all. The great writer’s story has always been a ‘movie’—on the screen of the author’s mind. It was complete in every picture before he ever put pen to paper. But the producing wretches do not know that. They do not realize that he has done the thing right. They do not even realize this in the case of a famous novel—or play—where a long success has proved it.” [via]

Aleister Crowley appears as a character in The Demi-Monde: Winter

Aleister Crowley appears as a character in The Demi-Monde: Winter, a novel according to a review at “Book Review: The Demi-Monde: Winter by Rod Rees“.

“What is the Demi-Monde?

It is the most complex and immersive computer simulation ever created, with over 30,000 avatars, known as ‘dupes,’ who think and act exactly like humans (except they require a certain intake of blood daily to survive, which they get from ‘Blood banks.’) Created by the military to provide a way to train soldiers to fight in unpredictable conditions, the world is designed to be in a state of constant warfare. It is divided into sectors which are ruled by exact duplicates of some of the world’s greatest leaders who were also psychopaths, including Nazis, brutal Civil War commanders, Robespierre, and master of black magic Aleister Crowley.”

Apparently Aleister Crowley was not only a “master of black magic” but also psychopath and one of “the world’s greatest leaders” … at least, in this book anyway.

A new review of an old book with a character based on interviews with Crowley

A new review of an old book with a character based on interviews with Crowley at “Book Review: The Devil Rides Out”

“Here we are in wonderful October Country, so how about a Gothic classic?Dennis Wheatley was once one of England’s most popular writers of adventure and espionage novels. Today, when he’s read at all, his occasional forays into the supernatural are what receive the most attention.”

“The novel begins when De Richleau, who knows pretty much everything as the plot requires it, discovers that his friend Simon Aron has fallen in with a wealthy Satanist society under the auspices of a ‘Mr.’ Mocata. The fleshy Mocata is a thinly veiled version of Aleister Crowley, whom Wheatley actually interviewed for the book.”