Tag Archives: readings

Reader’s Theatre with Hermetic Library

Any followers interested in participating in an ongoing audio / video readings from library, and library related, material? A virtual Reader’s Theatre group of sort, maybe eventually doing some group reading occasionally as well?

Reader's Theatre with Hermetic Library

Send me audio (or video) of something from the library site, or something reasonably related, if you’re interested in being part of a Readers Theatre! Here’s an inbox you can upload to my Reader’s Theatre file request folder or just use your file transfer tool of choice and send the link to my email.

Here’s a blurb about Reader’s Theatre, to describe the idea a little more. As an example, here’s an announcement I wrote for a local OTO body where I held several of these:

Come participate in an unrehearsed and un-staged reading of Aleister Crowley’s play The Ship. This play was originally published in Equinox Vol I No 10, in 1913, and is not only the source for the Anthem used in text of Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass, but is a wonderful mystery play and example of dramatic ritual. Consider other material you’d like to share and bring those as well.

Many people are aware that Aleister Crowley was a poet, but few are familiar with the extent of his work. In addition to poetry such as the Hymn of Pan and a few others, Crowley wrote quite a few dramatic works though most people have only heard of the Rites of Eleusis and perhaps The Ship. Further, the wider body of poetic and dramatic works from the broad world of contemporaries and those inspired by Aleister Crowley, including many members of the Golden Dawn, offer an amazing array of wonderful works.

Recognizing that public speaking and performance are one of the greatest fears of most people, this will be a safe and supportive environment to explore and expand that personal edge through readings from the broad corpus of works mentioned above. Attendees will have an opportunity, and are encouraged, to share their own favourite pieces, as well as participate in impromptu, unrehearsed readings of works with others.

And, another:

Let’s share some works with each other that are in the mood of the current season of the elements, appropriate for the upcoming cross-quarter day of Samhain at 15º Scorpio. The theme is: creepy, spooky and strange!

Many people are aware that Aleister Crowley was a poet, but few are familiar with the extent of his work. In addition to poetry such as the Hymn of Pan and a few others, Crowley wrote quite a few dramatic works though most people have only heard of the Rites of Eleusis and perhaps The Ship. Further, the wider body of poetic and dramatic works from the broad world of contemporaries and those inspired by Aleister Crowley, including many members of the Golden Dawn, offer an amazing array of wonderful works.

Recognizing that public speaking and performance are one of the greatest fears of most people, this will be a safe and supportive environment to explore and expand that personal edge through readings from the broad corpus of works mentioned above. Attendees will have an opportunity, and are encouraged, to share their own favourite pieces, as well as participate in impromptu, unrehearsed readings of works with others.

Thoughts, comments, or questions? Let me know!

The Genesis of Secrecy

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Genesis of Secrecy: On the Interpretation of Narrative (Charles Eliot Norton Lectures) by Frank Kermode, from Harvard University Press.

Frank Kermode The Genesis of Secrecy from Harvard University Press

This volume of Kermode’s Norton Lectures addresses “some of the forces that make interpretation necessary and virtually impossible, and some of the constraints under which it is carried on.” (125) Although he uses various literary instances (notably Henry Green’s Party Going, Joyce’s Ulysses, and Pynchon’s Crying of Lot 49), his central and recurrent case study is the gospel of Mark.

Kermode treats various important hermeneutic dilemmas, such as the determining influence of institutional readings, the difficulty in delineating between history and fiction, the chicken-and-egg relationship between plot and character, and the difference between meaning and truth. First and foremost, though, he explores the necessity of both esoteric and exoteric interpretation. He suggests that the notion of esoteric sense in text may be especially pervasive in Western literature due to the influence of the gospels.

This is a short volume, but one worth savoring by anyone whose sense of the real, the sacred, or the beautiful is invested in a text. And it communicates important ideas about the nature of secrecy and its effects. [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.