Tag Archives: summary of the week

Summary for two weeks ending May 5th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending May 5, 2019.

I’m procrastinating over moving the website to a new server. The blog and BBS are on their own separate better servers from the website already, but that last time I tried to move the website was a bit of a technical fiasco and didn’t end up happening. It’s such a pain to do, and so many fiddly bits. But, those performance issues are real, and a struggle that is also too real. So, I’ve got to do it. Ugh.

But, I got Postal Exchange and Publication Subscription perks out to ongoing Patrons! This time with zines and tchotchkes from Praeterlimina.

Hermetic Library zines and tchotchkes from Praeterlimina May 2019

Hermetic Library Postal and Subscription perks for Patrons May 2019

Those are, even now, winding their way to Patrons in four countries across our wide earthy globe!

By the by, as a reminder, May is the month of the anniversary of my birth. I’ll be 50 this year! Also, later this year, in September, will have been 10 years that I’ve been Librarian of Hermetic Library. Wild, and funny, both milestones will occur this year. All I want for my birthday and anniversary is a bunch more Patrons so I can keep doing all this and do more. Become a Patron so I can send you gifts for my birthday!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and in Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from these last few weeks

Summary for four weeks ending Apr 21st, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for four weeks ending April 21, 2019.

Oh, wow. I really thought I’d done a summary for two weeks, two weeks ago. I completely missed it! So, this, of course, covers all the four weeks since the previous summary.

Don’t forget that there’s a new special offer in April for active or new Patrons of Hermetic Library, for an extra $99 off Carolyn Elliott’s INFLUENCE: the life-altering course on mastering practical magic. This 10-week course is intended to help people achieve dramatic positive change in their lives through shadow integration practices and applied occult philosophy.

Become a new Patron of Hermetic Library now to get your $99 off coupon.

Check out this course at INFLUENCE: the life-altering course on mastering practical magic

Hermetic Library Elliott Influence-special-offer

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to improve how I’ve been doing things for Patrons with Postal Exchange and Publication Subscription perks. Last summary, I talked about some thinking I’ve been doing, and am still doing. I’ve also mentioned in some places I got a new booklet stapler, and I’ve been trying out making chapbooks. But, I’ve not been happy with the quality of the printing from my basic printer. So, one thing I’ve done in the last couple of weeks is to get a new laser printer.

Hermetic Library Tale of Two Printers

There it is: a tale of two printers. The new one is monochrome. But, I’ve still got the other one if I need to do anything in colour. But a laser printer will have an overall better quality, and prints probably a bit more longevity.

Which is as much to say that Postal and Subscription perks are still coming, but have been held up as I’ve been sorting through how and what to do for them. I’ve pulled the list of everyone with perks as of March, through today, and will be getting something to everyone as soon as possible.

The past few weeks, in addition to other things, has seen lots of work on Magical and Philosophical Commentaries, with missing text from I and II newly transcribed and restored, with III on the way.

I’ve also started, as you may have seen, if you’re following on social media, changing up how I’ve been doing calendar events. For the past two years, I’d been posting those directly to social media; but this year, I’m folding those into new Hermeneuticon event pages for each day of the year. I’ve also started to include posts to social media about the recommended readings and correspondences from the Thelemic Tephilah.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve been noticing some performance issues with the main library website. The overall site itself has been seeing some performance bottlenecks and within the site there’s some issues with some indexing of tags and issues with search indexes. So, I really need to migrate the site to a different underlaying platform, a different server. That’s always a huge pain. But, it’s something that needs to happen. Over the years, I’ve migrated the site several times, but, and I did actually try once previously but there were issues that required I abort that at the time, the site as it is right now, built on the Dokuwiki engine, is even more complicated than previous migrations. However, it’s been a nagging issue for a while, and recently seems to be even more pressing. I’ll keep on that as a project that’s coming soon.

By the by, as a reminder, May is the month of the anniversary of my birth. I’ll be 50 this year! Also, later this year, in September, will have been 10 years that I’ve been Librarian of Hermetic Library. Wild, and funny, both milestones will occur this year. All I want for my birthday is a bunch more Patrons so I can keep doing all this and do more. Become a Patron so I can send you gifts for my birthday!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and in Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from these last few weeks

Summary for two weeks ending Mar 24th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending March 24, 2019.

I’m working on two new promotions. I’m still trying to get some final details sorted, so I’m not sure which I’ll be doing; but, I’m going to start one of them up for the month of April. This will be similar to the previous, but will go for the entire month. Then, whichever I don’t do in April should be ready for May.

By the by, May is the month of the anniversary of my birth. I’ll be 50 this year! Also, later this year, in September, will have been 10 years that I’ve been Librarian of Hermetic Library. Wild, and funny. All I want for my birthday is a bunch more Patrons so I can keep doing all this and do more. Become a Patron so I can send you gifts for my birthday!

I’ve got digital files for a chapbook of poetry that was sent to me and I’m hoping to share with Patrons with the Publication Subscription perk. I’m not finished figuring out how to do production on that, but when I’ve got that sorted I’ll be preparing them and getting them in the post. Getting something sorted has been a bit delayed, but, either way, I’m hoping to have this or another thing ready to post soon.

I’ve been trying to figure out what I want to do with the Zine. It’s been too long since an issue, and I don’t seem to be getting submissions for inside and cover that I feel I need to make another one happen. As I’ve been posting the call for submissions every month for far too long, I’ve started to think about how I could do things differently; do things in a way that doesn’t require that I have a full set of submissions before getting things out. What I’m thinking about is moving submissions for the zine to a mailing list. That would make the zine a kind of ongoing and rolling release, instead of something that ended up sitting on the back burner for months and months. My current plan is to link the mailing list to patronage, probably as part of the Research Topics perk.

I’m also thinking that I might move participation in the overall submissions process from the BBS perk also to the Research Topics perk. That would change the BBS perk a little bit, but still leave its core perkiness. But, this would also increase the overall value of the Research Topics perk, and start to bring together more researchiness in the mix, with articles, essays, and submissions, along with the previous, and kind of lonely, perk of suggesting research topics to add to the list of calls for submissions. I think this makes a lot of sense to have all these things together. I’ll do a little more thinking, and consider the options for mailing list integrations, but probably will start doing this in the next month or two.

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and in Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Summary for two weeks ending Mar 10th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending March 10, 2019.

This last week I decided to try something new, and that I hope to do more. This week I announced a special offer [also] for active or new Patrons of Hermetic Library, for an extra 15% off Donald Robertson’s Marcus Aurelius: Life and Stoicism, a 4 week intro to Stoic philosophy and psychology course, which begins March 17th, about how to build emotional resilience and develop a more meaningful life, from Marcus Aurelius.

Hermetic Library Robertson Marcus Aurelius promo March 2019

I’ve actually been thinking about doing something like this for a long time. I’ve always tried to help pay it forward to bring some of the attention that is afforded to me to other people doing great and interesting things, and I continue to do that in various ways. But, I’ve also tried to create more value for those willing and able to support the work I do and that help me keep this overall project going by becoming Patrons. Of course, I have kept the Hermetic Library site itself available online as an open access resource for everyone. But, I’ve also been trying to create neat and fun and interesting additional content for those that make the extra commitment to support that work and the site.

One of the ways that I feel would be a great way to add extra value, for those helping to keep the library online and supporting my ongoing work maintaining and improving the site and projects, is to team up with other creators doing cool things to make special offers for Patrons of the library.

Recently, Patreon created a new tool to help creators make special offers, certainly not the only way to do it, but it’s there in my toolbox. And, while I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, I happened to notice that Robert Donaldson was starting up a new online course on Stoicism. Well, I decided it was time to put the peanut butter with the chocolate, reached out to Robert, and we agree to try this idea out!

This is the first special offer. I’d like to do more! If you’re a creator making things or online classes or soever, and want to team up with me to develop the second special offer, get in touch!

Hermetic Library booklet stapler

I have a new booklet stapler! This is something that arrived at the library recently, and I’ve been trying it out. What this does is help to staple the center of booklets and pamphlets together, since regular staplers don’t really have the reach for that. This means that I can much more easily create things for Patrons with Postal Exchange and Publication Subscription perks. I don’t have one ready to go yet. I’m still futzing around, but it’s something I’m hoping to do for real.

My current ideas are to do pamphlets from the material at the library, reprints of old out of print zines, an even doing some new actual physical zines. Or, heck, anything I can think of! If you’ve got old zines or ephemera that you’ve created, or even new stuff, I’d love to talk. Even if it’s not about doing limited reprints that I could create, I’d love to talk about preserving those materials, or even just information about them. Check out some of my thinking along those lines over at The Serapeion Project: Occult ’Zine, Journal and Ephemera Preservation. Preserving, cataloguing and making accessible archives of occult ’zines, journals and other ephemera as cultural artifacts of the living Western Esoteric Tradition is something that I’ve wanted to do actively, but haven’t been able to do much about yet. Want to help? Get in touch!

Thinking about zines, my mind comes around to the Zine. I was able to pull together two issues back in 2016, but, for various reasons, there hasn’t been another issue since. I have almost everything I need to do a new issue, except that I don’t currently have any visual work for inside pages or the cover. It’s been so long that some submissions have been in the pool for over a year or more, but I’ve been asking for participation on the next issue since the last one released.

My main idea for the Zine was to create a wild and wooly whatever of occultura and esoterrata compiled together, generally related to Hermetic Library’s overall mission of archiving, engaging and encouraging the living Western Esoteric Tradition, Hermeticism, and Aleister Crowley’s Thelema. My hope was that the Zine could become a place for submissions on no particular topic, theme, style, or soever. I’d be able to accept new and old material of pretty much any kind, as long as it can be included on pages in the Zine. But, that just hasn’t happened. I haven’t had enough material to do a full issue.

So, I’m thinking it might be time to change things. If I don’t get enough participation to do a full issue of the Zine, then maybe it’s time to deconstruct the idea of doing complete issues. I’m thinking that “zine” becomes a category on the blog instead. I really like the idea of doing full issues of the Zine, but if that’s not possible, maybe separately publishing pieces of zine material to the blog would be another option.

I shared to the library’s Instagram account some pictures of a box of belated winter holiday gifts from my mother. I didn’t share everything that arrived, but there were some fun library-related things I thought you’d be interested in seeing, including a brass plate with “LIBRARY” on it, a paper embosser with the library’s Abraxas, and more.

Hermetic Library brass library plate

Hermetic Library Abraxas paper embosser

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Popular posts on social media

Summary for two weeks ending Feb 24th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending February 24th, 2019.

There’s been a slight uptick in the number of ideas for new work pitched recently, which is great news! I hope this continues, and we also see several new works this year make it entirely through the submissions process. I’m still looking for visual work, old or new, for inside and cover pages of a new zine issue that could release soon, if there’s enough to fill it with content!

In the last few weeks, I’ve been working with a volunteer, moreover a Patron of the library, who has been generous with their time, to help improve the current Magical and Philosophical Commentaries. This is a huge project, but we’re focusing on repairing some truncation that happened at some point in the past, so that these comments are complete; then, if we can get that done, we can then try to loop around and check all the content against the source materials.

Hermetic sections Crowley Liber AL vel Legis Book of the Law Magical and Philosophical Commentaries

This is something that I’ve long intended for these pages. And, it is part of the overall work of the library to do a close reading and correction of all pages compared to source documents across the site, and that has been an ongoing project from the beginning. But, it’s a lot of work that will takes me a significantly long time to do, so the help in focusing on these particular documents is so very much appreciated!

If you have a particular interest in and excitement about helping with any of the existing documents on the site, or want to tackle preparing and checking new documents which should be on the site, I’d welcome your help too!

I’m still trying to work out the next Postal Exchange and Publication Subscription mailings for Patrons, but haven’t got that sorted. I’ve got a couple ideas that haven’t come together yet. I’m hoping to get one of those ideas solidified soon. But, of course, I’d love to hear from anyone with an interest in sharing their eclectic, esoteric tchotchkes through the postal system, or anyone creating esoteric books, zines, music or soever, with Patrons of the library! (By the by, I was having a bit of nostalgia just now whilst gandering at the old Eclectic, Esoteric Postal Potlatch page at the library. Consider checking that out for a reminder of the idea when I introduced it! And the Hermetic Library stamp!)

Hermetic Library Eclectic Esoteric Postal Potlatch

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Popular posts on social media

Summary for two weeks ending Feb 10th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending February 10th, 2019.

Still, doing a lot of omnium gatherum posts. Don’t forget that you can participate by heading over to the omnium category on the BBS.

I’m currently also trying to work out the next Postal Exchange and Publication Subscription mailings for Patrons, but haven’t got that sorted. I’ve got a couple ideas that haven’t come together yet. I’m hoping to get one of those ideas solidified soon.

I’ve got a few other daggers in the fire, things I’m working on for the library site, as well, but for some reason things are all progressing slowly at the moment. I’m hoping things thaw and get moving faster soon!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Popular posts on social media

Summary for two weeks ending Jan 27th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending January 27th, 2019.

Welp. That’s it for Google+. I’ve stopped updating that social media account ahead of the entire service being shuttered.

And, IDEK, but I’ve done a lot of omnium gatherum posts in the last few days. I don’t think this means I’ll be doing them this often all the time, but for some reason a lot has caught my eye recently. Don’t forget that you can participate by heading over to the omnium category on the BBS.

You know, by the by, it’s still January, so it’s not too late to make it a New Year resolution to make it part of your daily practice to click on every link I post … you know, actually check out all the material and stuff I post from the library and beyond! … Pretty please?

Finally, it’s darned cold here, where I am. Wow. Hope you’re all staying safe and warm!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and subscribe on Bandcamp or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Popular posts on social media

Summary for two weeks ending Jan 13th, 2019

Here’s a summary of activity for two weeks ending January 13th, 2019.

There’s been a lot of recent escalation of ongoing tumult in social media services. Most notably, Google+ is shutting down, earlier than previously announced, and the API that allows external processes to post is shutting down even earlier. Tumblr has crumbled under to Apple’s removal of their app, which conveniently provided cover for the new ownership to crack down on content in general. Further, Flickr has recently changed ownership, and has announced new limits on basic accounts. With this in mind, I have stepped away from all of these services as places where I actively participate on behalf of the library.

I’ve also continued, over the years, to step away from being active on Facebook, which was a primary place I was active with posts about the library in early days; mostly because I have not, won’t, and never will pay to reach the audience who follow the page, even if I had the money to pay exorbitant and extortionate fees to reach those who are already fans of the page, and thus I rarely reach more than a increasingly vanishingly tiny fraction of those followers. I fear there will come a time when Facebook-owned Instagram, which I recently added to the mix, also begins implementing a similarly punishingly awful algorithm which submarines any and all posts when not being paid to promote them. But, for now, at least, Instagram has been a nice addition to the mix, and there’s been good engagement there.

For the most part, Twitter has been the social media account I have steadily used, but even there, of late, I have slowly been stepping back from being engaged actively. I miss it the most, but for every pleasant engagement I’ve had there have been a tumble of far too many negative and hateful encounters. More than anywhere else, though closely followed by Facebook, Twitter has been the place that has caused me to have extremely reduced levels of willingness to engage with awful or negative people on social media and to have a presumption of suspicion about engagements until they are proven pleasant that isn’t conducive to community or overall engagement.

All in all, I continue to engage through certain social media, but it is not any longer a primary focus for me, either personally or on behalf of the library. I miss the promise of it, but I don’t miss the actuality. The current state of affairs with social media all seems so disappointing to me at the moment.

As a reminder, I consider all social media to be supplemental to the site itself, places where I engage in the world on behalf of the library site. Certainly, the site itself is always at hermetic.com and I consider the site, and the library blog and BBS, the primary presence for the library online.

I’m happy for any and all positive and constructive engagement with the material at the library, and plan to continue to reach out in various places with reminders about the library. I’ll always link from the main library site to any active social media accounts or projects, so be sure to check there for that if there’s ever any question about where I’m currently active.

There’s recently been some encouraging increase in engagement over on the Discord-based voice and text chat service. Unfortunately, Discord is a centrally-managed service, much like the others, which is just as vulnerable to platform changes at the direction of corporate interests over those of users. But, it’s something that exists and is available.

Personally, I would much prefer people to become engaged and active over on the BBS, which is built on a self-hosted installation of Discourse, and thus is an independent place for Hermetic Library related activity, just as the blog and site itself are self-hosted. There are currently not enough active users for the BBS to be a self-sustaining place for community and conversation, but it continues to provide a place for certain things I feel are important enough to keep it going; primarily it is the commenting system for posts the blog. So while not currently an active place for users, it does have an ongoing and sufficient reason to exist.

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and drop a buck in the tip jar, subscribe on Bandcamp, or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Popular posts on social media

Summary for the week ending Dec 30th, 2018

Here’s a summary of activity for the week ending December 30th, 2018.

It’s a new year on the Gregorian calendar! I wish well and weal to you and yours! And, please join me in a toast to another great, bigger, and better year for the library!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and drop a buck in the tip jar, subscribe on Bandcamp, or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week

Summary for the week ending Dec 23rd, 2018

Here’s a summary of activity for the week ending December 23rd, 2018.

I wish well and weal to you and yours for this winter season for whatever festivities you enjoy and rituals you celebrate and into the new Gregorian year!

Also, check out this cool thing! The Librarian’s mother sent this gift for the library: an actual card catalog!

Still looking for help and others to join me in a working community around the library, of course.

Lots of new pages and work on old pages on the site, which is pretty much every week, really. You can always check the front page of the site which shows the most recent changes and new pages, or check out the Recent Changes special page for a full list.

Want to join me on this blog and create new art or writing for Hermetic Library? Pitch your Idea.

Help get some conversations started over on the BBS and Chat.

Be sure to check out the actual Hermetic Library, and drop a buck in the tip jar or become a Patron.

Consider also checking out what I’m up to on my personal blog and at Odd Order.

Here’s a summary of posts on the blog from this last week