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Demons of Change: Antagonism and Apotheosis in Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism – Andrei A. Orlov

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Categories: luciferian, mesopotamian, Tags:

Demons of Change coverAndrei Orlov is Professor of Judaism and Christianity in Antiquity at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has previously published several titles through SUNY Press. With his past considerations of heavenly doppelgangers, divine scapegoats, and the place of Azazel and Satanael in early Jewish demonology, Orlov often has a focus on the demonic and this is the case here as well. In this instance, it is the idea of an adept’s combat with demonic forces being a prerequisite for their apotheosis, a combative tempering within the forge of diabolical antagonism. Such combat does not simply represent a standard hero’s journey in which the protagonist defeats a monster on their way to maturity, be it Marduk and Tiamat, Sigurd and Fafnir, or Luke Skywalker and the Rancor. Rather, this process of deification is one in which the antagonist not only loses the battle but also their status, with the hero being apotheosised at their expense, taking their place (and in some instances, their clothes) and assuming their role.

Orlov has a somewhat verbose academic style, particularly in the introduction where he establishes the core thesis and maps out a general framework. It’s all perfectly legible, but it does feel almost poetic in its grandiloquence, with a noticeable preference for certain field-specific key words that get quite the workout. And wonderful words they are too, can’t fault him there as some of them are personal favourites as well, with a surfeit of ‘eschatologicals,’ ‘protologicals’ ‘metamorphoses,’ soteriological,’ ‘sacerdotal’ (five times in one paragraph), and the delightful double barrel of ‘psychodemonic anthropologies;’ a collocation that really should be slotted into more everyday conversations.

Demons of Change is divided into four chapters, each dedicated to a particular variation of these antagonistic interactions, beginning with, well, the beginning, in which the battle is betwixt God and Satan, with the primordial Adam as the protagonist who is destined to usurp the mantle of his antagonist. Key to this theme of angelic opposition is what Orlov describes as an induction ritual, in which the protagonist is presented before the angels as tselem or image of the divine, one whose arrival threatens their privileged existence, and is then either venerated or opposed by them. In apocryphal versions of the creation myth, such as those found in the Primary Adam Books, Satan’s refusal to venerate Adam is what leads to his fall from grace, abandoning the vestments of heaven to the protoplastic Adam and assuming a dark mantle. Orlov shows how this Adamic template was applied to other significant figures, beginning with the antediluvian patriarch Enoch who was caught up to heaven upon his death and, in an act of apotheosis, was presented as an Imago Dei to the angels (who, seemingly aware of the Satan-Adam precedent, knew not to make a fuss this time). Jacob’s wrestling with the angel at Bethel and the vision of the ladder stretching between heaven and earth also aligns with this theme, as does an excerpt from the Exag?g? of Ezekiel the Tragedian in which Moses describes a vision of being enthroned in heaven and having stars process in front of him in obeisance.

Demons of Change spread

The full circle of this motif then occurs in the New Testament, where Jesus, the very literal iqonin or image of God, is tempted by Satan in the desert. Satan attempts to reverse his interaction in heaven with the prelapsarian Adam, compelling this New Adam to bow before him, offering him all the kingdoms of the world if he does so. When Christ refuses this genuflexion rematch, Satan departs and the gospels of both Matthew and Mark refer to angels then ministering to Jesus, drawing an inevitable parallel to the angelic attention paid in the climax of the induction rituals of other incarnations of the Imago Dei. Orlov studiously documents the evolution of these ideas and how such parallels have been drawn before in both Talmudic and Christian commentary.

In his second chapter, Orlov turns his attention to stories of fiery ordeals, in particular an apocryphal tale in which a tyrant (sometimes identified as Nimord) tried to burn a young Abraham for refusing to worship fire. The story is found in the midrashic Genesis Rabbah, but the focus here is on a version from the Slavonic recension of The Apocalypse of Abraham, a pseudepigrapha, that includes details not found elsewhere and is cited with some frequency across Orlov’s work. Thought to have been written sometime in the first or second century CE, the most obvious parallel to The Apocalypse of Abraham is the chronologically older but textually younger biblical tale of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace from the book of Daniel, with both including elements of oppressive leaders and angelic intervention. On the surface, this theme could feel somewhat divergent from the angelic and demonic antagonisms documented in the first chapter, but by drawing parallels with the fiery martyrdom of Christian saints, such as Pionius and Polycarp, Orlov shows how it relates to this book’s other theme of apotheosis. Orlov gets into the weeds here, drawing little details from various variations of the theme of fiery martyrdom to flesh out an interpretation of the apocalypse as one concerned with a ritualised apotheosis, including ideas of Abraham as a bound sacrifice whose igneous ordeal elevates him to heaven. Sometimes the recourse to chronologically and culturally diverse, but circumstantially similar, sources feels like a stretch, with the tiniest of minutiae being mentioned if it helps the speculative narrative.

Demons of Change spread

This second chapter is significant because much of this book’s remainder flows from The Apocalypse of Abraham and its characters and antagonists. While there are human antagonists in the various accounts of fiery martyrdom, with the various tyrannical rulers (Nimord, Nebuchadnezzar, Marcus Aurelius) seemingly acting as avatars of demonic malice, the second section of the apocalypse features an actual demonic adversary, Azazel, who assumes the form of an unclean bird and attempts to interfere with a sacrifice Abraham performs on the summit of Mt. Horeb. The angel Yahoel assists Abraham by fighting off Azazel, and rewards the patriarch with celestial garments that had been originally set aside for the fallen angel. This allows Orlov to return to one of his favourite themes, the gifting of ritual clothing, and to use that most favoured of his phrases, sacerdotal garments. Matters sacerdotal and sartorial continue in the third chapter with a brief, and on the surface, diverting, discussion of the cosmological symbolism of the sash worn by the Hebrew high priest. The snake-like appearance of the sash’s material has long drawn comparisons with the primordial serpent Leviathan and Orlov details how the symbolism of the outer waters and its monstrous inhabitant in Jewish cosmogony had a liturgical application, particularly in the macrocosmic design of the temple in Jerusalem as a vision of the earth. As such, the High Priest could be interpreted as an eschatological Adam, an Adam Kadmon whose very form represents creation as a dynamic process of divine exile-rectification hitlabshut (‘enclothement’). Orlov affirms this interpretation by mentioning a tradition found in some Jewish traditions (as recorded in the Aramaic Targum Pseudo-Jonathan and the midrash Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer) that when Adam and Eve were clothed by God, he did so with garments made from the sloughed off skin of the Edenic serpent; repeating, once again, the motif of the clothing of a demoted antagonist being given to their replacement.

For here on out it is pretty much Everybody Loves Azazel for almost the rest of Demons of Change, with the scapegoat returning in the fourth and shortest chapter with a little comparison between the demons ritualised sacrifice (as documented in Leviticus and elaborated on by Mishnah Yoma as well as a variety of apocalypses), and the description of Great Beast’s descent from heaven and subsequent binding from the Book of Revelation. Orlov breaks down the motifs of the scapegoat ritual (banishment to the wilderness, a binding and descent from a cliff, being sealed away in an abyss, a temporary healing of the earth, and a momentary release before a final demise) and compares them to key points in the descent of the beast. They make for a neat, but by no means conclusive, simulacrum, although once again, the comparisons can feel a tiny bit circumstantial and finessed. Given the brevity of this chapter, there’s obviously not much more than can be pulled from this comparison, but it’s an attractive interpretation nonetheless.

Demons of Change spread

In the penultimate chapter, Orlov broadly considers the will of Azazel and other demonic forces (such as Matema) but also uses this section as a demonological survey of how the nature of demons and spirits were understood in a variety of apocalypses and pseudepigrapha. Finally, and straying from Azazel, the concluding chapter deals with the use of fear as a component in divine encounters, with a particular focus on 2 Enoch, where this emotion often precedes their apotheosis.

Demons of Change runs to 262 pages, but with its six chapters it is something of a short book with 100 of those pages being taken up by a bibliography, an index, and rather extensive endnotes. For those who have read any of Orlov’s previous works, there is a certain atmosphere of familiarity, given the outsize role the Apocalypse of Abraham plays here and in his entire oeuvre. With that said, it is a text that warrants Orlov’s repeat visits, as he brings a different focus in this investigation and clearly knows his source material. The first chapter remains the highlight and a supreme statement of thesis, but the resulting ones have much to offer in fleshing out some of these themes.

Published by SUNY Press

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Demons in the Middle Ages – Juanita Feros Ruys

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Categories: grimoire, luciferian, middle ages, satanism, witchcraft, Tags:

Demons in the Middle Ages coverDemons in the Middle Ages is part of the Arc Humanities Press series Past Imperfect, which they describe as seeking to present concise critical overviews of the latest research by the world’s leading scholars. Concise is certainly what you get here from Dr Juanita Feros Ruys, with the page count, sans references and further reading, only running to a little over a svelte 100 pages.

Ruys is a Senior Research Fellow and Associate Director of the Medieval and Early Modern Centre at the University of Sydney, Australia, but this is a work that doesn’t feel particularly academic, and instead fulfils the brief of being a concise overview, something of a lay primer. As a result, while there is a lot of detail contained herein, there is not much in the way of academic analysis, no theoretical models applied to the information, with largely a just-the-facts approach being pursued. That isn’t to say that Ruys is devoid of insight, and she notes particular through-lines that occur across the centuries in regards to the theological function of demons, drawing attention in particular to how their interaction with saints and monastics served different purposes depending on the period. She also employs a style that, while not overly detailed, provides context and background information that may be essential for the lay reader, but without any sense of talking down, over-simplifying or being patronising.

Ruys divides Demons in the Middle Ages into a mere four chapters, largely based on locations, respectively situating demons in the desert, the cloisters, the schoolroom, and finally, the wider world. The desert, as a site of profound alterity, provided a paradoxically fertile ground for the growth of ideas about demons. Deserts already had an association with the demonic, due to the environment’s harsh and remote nature, and it was these same austere qualities that attracted the monks who travelled there to use this isolation as an aid to their spiritual growth. Here, though, the existing associations with the demonic were affirmed by the monks themselves, who were subjected to attacks from the indigenous metaphysical inhabitants. Demons impinging on the spiritual pursuits of monks became an almost de rigueur factor in the biographies of such future saints, and Ruys shows how this related to the idea of acedia, the emotional state of spiritual listlessness that monks in their isolation were often susceptible to. The spirit of acedia was ‘the noonday demon,’ and was described by the late fourth century Evagrius of Pontus, as the most troublesome of all of the eight genera of evil thoughts.

In chapter two, Ruys documents how demons, along with monasticism itself, moved from a harsh eremophilous environment to the more temperate climes of Western Europe, where eremitic privations were replaced by the slightly more hospitable cloister. Without the harsh conditions that had made spiritual combat in the desert so tangible, the demons found a new home within the very walls of European monasteries, the conflict becoming less physical and more metaphysical. Demonic attack was a constant concern, and because it was believed that the Devil would target site in which Christian truth and purity was at its strongest, the ardour and righteousness of an order or monastery could be inferred from the amount and ferocity of assaults that they suffered. In this section, Ruys therefore draws on material from two monks in particular, the Benedictine Peter the Venerable and the Cistercian Herbert of Clairvaux, both of whom collected a variety of accounts of demonic activity, representing an exponential growth in the conception of demons and their interaction with humanity. Ruys expertly notes this evolution of ideas, documenting how new concepts were introduced by various scholars, such as the twelfth century French monk Guibert of Nogent and the thirteenth century Cistercian Caesarius of Heisterbach. Guibert’s accounts place terrifying tales alongside farcical ones, such as the story of the pious priest accosted one night by a crowd of demons who appeared as Scotsmen, and, living up to the very worst of Hibernian stereotypes, demanded money from him. In addition to slanderous allegations against Scottish demons, Guibert asserted that demons could love women and seek to have intercourse with them, a reversal of the idea popular in desert eremitism, where demons appeared as lustful female spirits in order to distract monks with lustful thoughts, but did not seek to directly copulate with them. Caesarius underscores how demons were still associated with acedia, despite the relocation from the desert to the monastery, with the pious always being susceptible to the Devil inflaming their hearts with doubt, leading to melancholy, ennui and sickness.

Ruys moves from the cloister to the classroom in the third chapter, using the quaestiones compiled by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae as examples of the discussions common amongst medieval thinkers as to the nature of creatures like demons and angels. The focus here is largely on the value of demons and angels to the speculation, theories and thought experiments of scholars, with the ambiguous natures of both spirits making them worthy subjects for epistemological ruminations. Aquinas, naturally looms large in this chapter, casting an inevitable shadow down through the years, but Ruys also draws on works from the likes of Anselm of Canterbury, Bartholomeus Anglicus, and most notably, William of Auvergne, whose focus of the sexual interaction betwixt human and demon, segue into the next chapter.

In this, the final chapter, Ruys enters the world beyond the ecumenical and educational, considering how demons were treated amongst lay people, and in particular in so-called learned magic and the narratives of witchcraft. This is a whirlwind conclusion to the book at a mere seventeen pages, with the end coming far sooner than expected, just as things are getting interesting. It is largely a broad discussion of how the idea of magic as exclusively demonic cemented over time, beginning when the Early Church Fathers established a Christian orthodoxy amongst the milieu of competing traditions of Jewish belief and various pagan schools of philosophy. This had an antecedent in the apocryphal Jewish Book of Enoch, in which the fallen angel Azazel taught the secrets of witchcraft and magic to humans, as well as the arts of metalwork and makeup. Ruys documents how this intersection of magic and science also occurred in the medieval period, where the proto-science of alchemy, informed by ideas of forbidden knowledge introduced anew by a twelfth and thirteenth century influx of Jewish, Arabic and Greek learning, eventually lead to the grimoire tradition. Unfortunately, this is just a preamble that doesn’t go into much depth about learned magic following this. This is, something that then also occurs with the slightest of references to witchcraft’s relationship to demons, with the Malleus Maleficarum being introduced a mere three and a half pages before everything wraps up.

In all, Demons in the Middle Ages is a nice little potted history that does what it was intended to do at a brisk pace. Ruys has an enjoyable author’s voice that moves this pace along, but does make one pine for more of it.

Published by Arc Humanities Press

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The Pillars of Tubal Cain – Nigel Jackson and Michael Howard

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Categories: luciferian, qayin, sabbatic craft, Tags:

The Pillars of Tubal Cain coverOver the years here at Scriptus Recensera we have retro-reviewed a number of traditional witchcraft and occult titles produced by Capall Bann. With the exception of a few outliers, this is the final piece in a body of related works produced variously, sometimes individually and sometimes in collaboration, by Michael Howard and Nigel Jackson. While other titles from these two authors have dealt specifically with what could be called witchcraft, The Pillars of Tubal Cain takes a slightly more divergent track, considering angelic magick, but pursuing it in a way that is resolutely conscious of how it relates to witchcraft, and in particular those variants of said craft that are described as dual observance, in which Christian cosmology provides a mythological framework.

According to information posted by Howard, the book was begun by Jackson, with a few draft chapters then sent by the publisher to Howard who completed the majority of the book when Jackson discontinued his involvement. In an Amazon review, Jackson has repudiated this book and his role in it, apparently finding the sulphurous whiff of diabolism a little too embarrassing in his advancing years. Twice he speaks of it as something of a youthful folly, referring dismissively to his “occultist period” and describing the book’s core ideas as a result of the “entertainingly sensationalistic, but intrinsically illusory and misleading, vagaries of the 1960s-70s occultism” which he had imbibed in his wayward youth. While it’s easy to be a little embarrassed by what one may have written in the past (this writer certain has been), one feels a little suspicious of the complete 180 degree pivot here, especially when what was once apparently believed is now to be so contemptuously spoken of. The tone carries with it all the enthusiastic vitriol tinged with regret that one would expect of a new convert or a remorseful addict, and sees a struggle to replace the embracing of dark glamour with its inverse, a self-righteous and sanctimonious dismissal.

Tubal Qayin by Nigel Jackson

Amusingly, some other Amazon reviews suggest that this is a book that has often quite inexplicably found its way into the hands of people of a certain sensitive and easily spooked disposition, with one person describing it as a “sick and vile book” and another, rather grandly, as “a book of pure evil.” I do wish it lived up to that promise, but it’s not even close; evil perhaps, but pure evil, really? Let’s not overdo it. Oh to be the easily empathic type who finds demonic energies dripping from books and irrevocably impacting their lives, when I see only mere paper and ink; it must make life so exciting, if a little tiring. Indeed, while there is a fair bit of the demonic here, it’s of the type that would only be shocking to the kind of person who thinks a company playing with cutely devilish imagery in its branding is practically opening the gates of hell and welcoming damnation for all. Not only that, but in comparison to more specifically sabbatic-style titles, the focus here is on a slightly more palatable Lucifer, with his angelic siblings, fallen or otherwise, giving the Lightbearer an air of respectability.

The Pillars of Tubal-Cain spread with tarot image by Nigel Jackson

The Pillars of Tubal Cain follows the formula found in its companion titles with a deep dive into a lot of information, all collected together in an exhaustive but not necessarily rigorous or overly discerning manner. References to particular named sources can sit alongside speculation or an anonymous appeal to authority where a generalised and unnamed ‘some’ or ‘tradition’ is seemingly given as much credence as their named equivalent. Howard and/or Jackson begin with a survey of various forms of belief in the Middle East that show certain atypical interpretations of the Abrahamic religions, suggesting, more often than  not, a certain commonality with or continuity between Sabeans, Zoroastrians, Nestorian Christians, Yezidis, various Gnostic or Hermetic strains of thought, and others that have a sprinkling of Luciferian themes. The cascade of information can feel a little overwhelming, pulling as it does from a multiple of reference-less sources, and what emerges is a valuable overview of some roads less travelled, but one which you wouldn’t necessarily trust without checking in depth, if you can work them out, some of the primary sources.

This polymathic approach continues throughout the rest of the book, with the two Howard and Jackson meandering through various streams of esotericism, from Gnosticism and Qabbalah, to the Templars and Freemasonry, and to Arthurian lore and traditional witchcraft, highlighting particular gems that build a fairly convincing if sometimes circumstantial and insubstantial picture. Some of these stops along the way will prove familiar, to greater and lesser extents, to anyone acquainted with this particular oeuvre, specifically those strands of witchcraft that focus on Qayin, and obviously Tubal Cain, such as Robert Cochrane’s Clan of Tubal Cain, and Andrew Chumbley’s Cultus Sabbati. Interestingly, despite being a student of hers in the 1960s, Howard makes only brief mentions of Madeline Montalban, whose idiosyncratic and Luciferian magickal system aligns with much presented here.

Baphomet by Jane Estelle Trombley

The Pillars of Tubal Cain concludes with a series of appendices, all from Jackson, save the first one in which Howard gives correspondences for eleven angels (Mikael, Gabriel, Raphael, Anael, Samael, Sachiel, Cassiel, Uriel, Asariel, Azrael and Lumiel) with instructions on how to contact them. Jackson’s contributions are a hymn to Hermes; a ritual invocation of Herodiana-Sophia-Epinoia deliciously called the Ceremony of the Peacock Moon; another ritual, this time a prose-heavy fire rite for Tubal Cain; a brief two page Gospel of Cain telling a more favourable and numinous version of Qayin’s story; and finally, an invocatory poem addressed to Lord Lumiel called The Baptism of Wisdom – making for what is a considerable liturgical body of youthful indiscretions.

The Pillars of Tubal-Cain spread with tarot image by Nigel Jackson

There’s a multitude of images throughout The Pillars of Tubal Cain, some with credits and some without, with some custom illustration and other, one assumes, public domain images of relevance; leading to a somewhat uneven quality in source and replication. Of the most interest are Jackson’s always stunning pen and ink illustrations which are scattered throughout, including the colourised image of a winged Chnoubis on the cover. Featured most consistently is a selection of trumps from the Nigel Jackson Tarot, conveniently dotted throughout the book, usually in remarkably apropos locations. These are lovely, with Dame Venus as the Empress particularly evocative, but the replication quality is unfortunately inconsistent, with crisp and clear trumps sitting alongside soft or muddied ones.

As with all such titles published by Capall Bann, and as is always gleefully mentioned in these here reviews, there’s an appalling lack of proofing throughout this book, with an abundance of spelling mistakes, errant words and other typographic artefacts. Competing for the prize of best in show is the claim that there are about 10,000 Nestorian Christians were “incarnated” in Syrian refugee camps, putting a whole eschatological twist on religious persecution, displacement and incarceration.

Published by Capall Bann

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(h)Auroræ – G. McCaughry

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Categories: alchemy, art, esotericism, hermeticism, luciferian, Tags:

(h)Auroræ coverGabriel McCaughry’s (h)Auroræ could be considered an inadvisable tome to review here at Scriptus Recensera because attentive readers will note that your faithful reviewer has a proofing credit in the opening pages. In my defence, your honour, the proofing was for only a section of the work, and the finished book is so much more, appearing unfamiliar and unrecognisable from the raw and partial pure-text draught I worked with; unless that’s just due to a poor memory… I don’t remember.

(h)Auroræ has an air of being McCaughry’s magnum opus, the sum result, from an aesthetic perspective, of all that he has done previously with his Anathema Publishing imprint. It’s gorgeously presented, intricately designed, with a poetic quality that is enigmatic and just a little bit impenetrable. At 304 pages and 5.25 x 8.5 inches dimensions, it feels substantial and weighty, the right size, texture and weight to convey a sense of significance and substance, fitting in your hands like a treasured tome, without being cumbersome. This aligns with statements McCaughry has made elsewhere, where he has talked of the magick inherent in books, and the profundity inherent in writing, producing and reading them.

(h)Auroræ is divided into three main sections or books, the first of which reprises the (h)Auroræ title and is itself comprised of five codices; plus a long, circumlocutory introduction from Shani Oates. Each codex consists of short stanzas of poetry, formatted in a fairly large italic face and almost always accompanied with an illustration on the respective facing page. McCaughry’s style of verse is, one could charitably say, brisk, sometimes running to as little as four lines, with an economy of words that nevertheless draws from a clearly defined lexicon. He declaims, rather than rhymes, using archaic turns of phrase and employing a wide array of imagery that references a variety of mythological and magickal sources, including Luciferianism, tantra, alchemy, the Ruba’iyat and Mandaeism. This cornucopia of culture and its recherché language choices makes for a somewhat abstruse encounter, where you can get a sense of what is being said, but like alchemical texts of old, you’re never sure if you’re quite getting it all.

Illustration by José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

Book two of (h)Auroræ is titled Neoteric Heterodoxy and, for the most part, eschews the poetry format of its predecessor for a more discursive approach. Here, divided into three sections, McCaughry discusses various aspects of magickal theory and growth, with considerations of Gnosticism, doubt and truth, as well as the various forces, constructs and entities in his conception of a magickal cosmology: Lucifer, the Temple of LUh-hUR, the UmbraPlasma, the Monolith, the Quartz of Return, the Omni-Cipher, the Demiurge and the PCR or Prism Concrete Reality.

The third and final book of (h)Auroræ is called Anaphoras, Advent & Theurgia, and feels very much the conclusion, incorporating as it does various miscellanea and appendices. The lion’s share of this section takes the form of McCaughry’s account of the workings that form the basis of what is presented here, effectively his magickal diary fleshed out into a substantial narrative. He does not provide much in the way of explicit, point-by-point instructions, instead advocating for the ability of an adept to find their own tools and techniques; and emphasising the status of (h)Auroræ as a book of mysticism, rather than magick, with all the ritual rigmarole that the latter might entail. With that said, McCaughry’s magickal record is detailed enough that should one wish to emulate it, there is much to draw from.

Page spread

(h)Auroræ is profusely illustrated by José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal who almost deserves a co-author credit, such is both the impact and extent of his work. When almost every page within just the five codices of the (h)Auroræ section features an accompanying and presumably bespoke image, the amount of work is staggering; as is the cost, unless Sabogal severely undercharges for his work. There is an indefinable something about Sabogal’s illustrations, something that conveys an inherent sense of mystery and gnosis, but also somehow manages, with an apt turn of phrase, to keep silent.

Sabogal employs fine ink lines in a timeless manner that apes the look of traditional engraving, something that is reflected in the subject matter, where classical sculptures and equally sculptured bodies abound. In some instances, the lines of fine black ink are highlighted with striking washes of red, filling in spaces in some examples, and splattering across the image as blood in others.

Illustration by José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

Helpfully and fittingly, Sabogal speaks to his role in the book in The Birds That Speak At Dawn, his own chapter at the conclusion of (h)Auroræ. Here, he describes his and McCaughry’s shared creative journey, but also provides an explicit overview of the entire book, highlighting its passage of transmutation that begins with death and putrefaction and proceeds through four other alchemical stages symbolised by birds. Sabogal talks of dreams in which he discovers strange books filled with mysterious emblems, and thanks to his work here he may have created just such an oneiric tome.

In addition to Sabogal’s illustrations, (h)Auroræ succeeds in matters aesthetical with McCaughry’s typesetting and layout, which compliments the graphic content and showcases the written. For anyone that has seen McCaughry’s hand in the layout of other Anathema publications, there will be much here that’s recognisable, with the return of some familiar treatments and typeface choices. McCaughry has an antique typographic style, especially noticeable in the frontispieces that synthesise a variety of faces, styles and sizes, all perfectly balanced in their hierarchy and not cluttered or messy. With that said, there’s no slavish beholding to archaisms here, but rather a classic timelessness that joins rarefied presentation with readability.

Illustration by José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal

(h)Auroræ was made available in three editions: a standard edition of 500 individually hand-numbered copies, a collector’s edition of approximately 125 copies, and an eleven copy artisanal Spume of Luna edition. The standard hardcover edition of (h)Auroræ measures 5.25 x 8.5 inches, with 304 Cougar Natural 160M archive-quality paper pages bound in a lovely metal-flecked Italian Tele Legatoria Bronze bookbinding cloth. A design on the front is foiled in gold, as is the title and author on the spine. The collector’s edition is the same as the standard edition but bound in Eurobound Black Flanders (bonded leather), with gold foiling on the spine and a more complex design on the cover, incorporating blind-debossed elements. The eleven copy Spume of Luna edition, individually hand-numbered, signed and glyphed by the author, is three-quarter-bound in genuine Black Galuchat Ray rawhide, and white cow leather with gold foil blocking on the cover, and a blind-deboss on the back cover. The interior features handmade endpapers, in addition to those used within the standard hardcover edition.

Published by Anathema Publishing

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The Fraternitas Saturni – Stephen E. Flowers

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Categories: germanic, luciferian, magick, runes, thelema, Tags:

Fraternitas Saturni coverVerbosely subtitled History, Doctrine, and Rituals of the Magical Order of the Brotherhood of Saturn, Stephen E. Flowers’ The Fraternitas Saturni is the fourth edition of a work originally released by Llewellyn in 1990 as Fire and Ice, with the equally prolix subtitle of The History, Structure, and Rituals of Germany’s Most Influential Modern Magical Order – The Brotherhood of Saturn. Since that initial version, the work has been published again by Llewellyn in 1994, and then in a revised edition by Runa Raven Press in 2006. This 2018 incarnation is both revised and expanded, as evidenced by the already lengthy appendices lettered from ‘a’ to ‘i’ now extending to ‘l.’

At its release, as Flowers notes in his introduction, Fire and Ice was the first book to discuss the Fraternitas Saturni at length, and it would be hard to think of any title that has done much more since. In the English speaking world, it is Flowers who still seems to have the monopoly on this particular field of German occultism, with all the risks that having a single interlocutor entails. As Flower also acknowledges, the material contained in The Fraternitas Saturni dates from before 1969, so doesn’t necessarily reflect the beliefs and practices of the order after that date, or today.

One of the first additions to this new edition is found in the initial consideration of the occult milieu from which the Fraternitas Saturni emerged. Here, in addition to his previous discussion of quasi-Masonic lodges such as the Freemasonic Order of the Golden Centurium (FOGC) and obviously the Ordo Templi Orientis, Flowers now discusses the neglected but influential role of Adonism. He devotes several illustrated pages to this school of magical thought and its foremost proponents, Franz Sättler’s Adonistische Gesellschaft, as well as giving still further information as an appendix.

Other changes are largely subtle, with the one thing of obvious note being the amount of new images added to the text; something very much in evidence in the Adonism section. The pictorial elements in the original Fire and Ice were limited to a few diagrams, already well-worn photographs of Gregorius and the bust of GOTOS, and two hand drawn illustrations by James Allen Chisholm. All of these recur here, but in better quality (save for Chisholm’s pictures which look a little 8bit), and they’re joined by a swathe of supporting images, including examples of publications and portraits of key figures.

Fraternitas Saturni sigil

The Fraternitas Saturni begins with the aforementioned discussion of the occult subculture that birthed the order, with Flowers providing a thorough overview of German occultism of the period, noting in particular the way in which Thelema infused some of the major variants. While the OTO absorbed Thelema to become Crowley’s principle magickal order, the Fraternitas Saturni embraced the philosophy, but neither its cosmology, nor Uncle Al’s suzerainty. Instead, as Flowers details, the order promulgated a mythos that merged Gnosticism with Luciferianism, in which Saturnus is a demiurgic figure associated, not just with the typical saturnian characteristics of melancholic introspection and initiation, but with Lucifer (as the sphere’s highest octave) and Satan (as its lowest). For those with aphotic inclinations, there’s a certain appeal to this cosmology, with its combination of metaphysical speculation, plutonian-hued deity forms, and the handy appeal to authority that arises from its use by an order now almost a century old.

The other particularly striking aspect of the order’s belief system, and one which is fairly unique in its application, is the use of the egregor GOTOS, whose name was an acronym based on the name of the order’s 33° grade, Gradus Ordinis Templi Orientis Templi. Considered an embodiment of the order, but also as a pre-existing entity attached to Saturn, the GOTOS egregore took the place of the ascended masters and secret chiefs so typical of other occult organisations of the time, guiding initiates through their journey. The difference being that GOTOS was understood to be a thought-form manifested by the order’s members, rather than some dubious dudes in robes kicking it on a mountain somewhere in far off lands.

Subsequent chapters in The Fraternitas Saturni explore more of the order’s beliefs (but more from a philosophical rather than cosmological perspective), and the structure of the order (including a detailed listing of grades). An outline of their actual magical work and rituals follows and these, as one would expect, have a strong focus on masonic-style lodge work, but there is also a sacerdotal element, with an extensive list of liturgy-rich sacraments that includes the use of various type of elemental eucharist. Two other areas of ritual in which the Fraternitas Saturni are known are electrical magic (which Flowers touches on all-too briefly) and sexual magic (for which two rites are outlined).

Including index and bibliography, The Fraternitas Saturni runs to 207 pages, but just over half of that comprises the book proper, with the rest consisting of extensive appendices. These include several long Fraternitas Saturni rituals (three masses and the Gradus Pentalphae), various letters between Crowley and order founder Gregor A. Gregorius, and instead of his pragmatic suggestions regarding sex magic from 1990, Flowers includes an initiation rite from the Freemasonic Order of the Golden Centurium. The other appendices new to this edition include more details about Rosicrucianism and the Bavarian Illuminati, and the welcomed consideration of Adonism. There are also some lessons for neophytes from order member Master Pacitius (artist, architect and the producer and production designer for F. W. Murnau’s Nosferatu, Albin Grau), which are provided as one of the rare example of his written occult work.

The cover of the original Fire and Ice in 1990 featured an evocative painting by N. Taylor Blanchard, a darkly hued view of the sigil of Saturn suspended against a range of mountains, all lit from behind by an effulgent light. It was a mysterious image that, other than the Saturn sigil, didn’t seem to reflect too much that was specific to the Fraternitas Saturni, and was very much of its time; with many of the books by Flowers (as well as other Llewellyn authors) employing painted cover art, some better than others. The cover of this 2018 version is also of its time, with the oils of the 1980s and 1990s giving way to a strong graphic look that sets the title and sigils (highlighted with a subtle spot varnish) over a low opacity image of the bust of the GOTOS egregore. It’s nice, a simple but classy treatment, as is true of the covers of many books from Inner Traditions.

The Fraternitis Saturni spread

Inside, the copy is treated with an equally adept hand by the good folks at Inner Tradition. Whereas the original Fire and Ice had Llewellyn’s typical-for-the-time solid and functional layout with a slightly too large, almost slab serif face, and not a lot of space around it, The Fraternitas Saturni uses a classic serif at a respectable size for the body, with subtitles in a san serif, housed in roomy, but not too roomy, margins. The hierarchy makes it eminently more readable than its predecessor, and the reduced page count and larger page size, makes it more pleasant to hold.

This new edition of The Fraternitas Saturni makes for a worthwhile acquisition, whether you don’t have its previous incarnations, or simply want an excuse to reread it, now some 28 years after you may have read it the first time. As testified, the redesign from Inner Traditions will assist in this, making it feel not just eminently more readable, but just a little bit fresh and new. Throughout the book, Flowers writes with an unadorned, thoroughly competent style, with everything presented in a somewhat matter of fact manner.

Published by Inner Traditions

Review Soundtrack: Various Artists – Saturn Gnosis

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Masks of Misrule – Nigel Jackson

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Categories: folk, luciferian, qayin, robert cochrane, sabbatic craft, witchcraft, Tags:

Masks of Misrule coverEarlier this year we reviewed Nigel Jackson’s Call of the Horned Piper, and let’s just say we’ve got the Jackson bug as we return to another of his books released by the nice, but aesthetically questionable, folks at Capall Bann. In Masks of Misrule, Jackson turns his focus to the horned god of witchcraft, a figure he identifies as having roots at far back as the Palaeolithic era. The horned god, as detailed by Jackson and by Michael Howard in his foreword, is at his core a simple hunter deity, but beyond that he is more, being a multiplicious cosmic god of life and death, of boundaries and their crossings, of the night and the furious wild.

The chapters of Masks of Misrule delineate how this horned god can be viewed, drawing threads from across both time and distance. As the White Stag of Anwynn he is a Celto-Arthurian god of the forests, seen in figures as diverse as Cernunnos, the Breton St. Cornely, and the one-eyed guardian of the wood in The Mabinogion. He is leader of the Wild Hunt, the verdant Green Man, and the Saturnalian, goat-horned Christmas fool. And finally, he is the man in black, the lord of the sabbat and the hidden father.

Jackson also uses the horned god as a gateway that facilitates broader discussions of the themes of traditional witchcraft. Identifying the skull and crossbones as a persistent craft symbol of the horned god as Lord of the Red Skull, for example, allows Jackson to divert into a wide-ranging discussion of skull and skeletal symbology, bringing together examples from across the world, before returning to witchcraft in particular with toadsmen rituals and intimations of the Rose Beyond the Grave. Similarly, the discussion of the horned god as the man in black and master of the sabbat allows for a broader discussion of the sabbat and its symbolism, along with ritual accoutrements such as the obviously relevant stang.  The Rose Beyond the Grace

It is in the consideration of the horned god as master of the sabbat that we first see what separates a work like Masks of Misrule from the more typical witchcraft books, be they practical or historical. This is especially noticeable given conventional attempts to create distance from anything with the sulphuric whiff of diabolism; something that has been part and parcel of the history of modern witchcraft since the beginning, and remain largely unabated today. Still, it’s something that, despite the preponderance of horns on the cover of this book and others by Jackson and his colleagues, may go under the radar until you dive deeper into the pages. In the case of Masks of Misrule, this diving and discovery happens to its fullest extent late in the piece, when things get very specific and the book concludes with discussions of Lucifer, Qayin and Azazel.

Nigel Jackson: Horned God

As the Masks of Misrule title suggests, there’s much here that discusses the horned god as a figure of disruption, disorder, and naturally, panic and pandemonium. Jackson highlights the role of the horned god as overseer of times when liminality reigns, when the formula becomes one of ritual reversal, reflecting a greater cosmic rescission, a literal annulment when the world and the cosmos threatens to return to its primordial state, the sacred void of Ur-Khaos. In this regard, Jackson also incorporates Loki, highlighting his role as both mischief maker and the destructive Dark Fire-Lord of Misrule; while also mentioning that tantalising hint, as per Bill Liddell, about Loki being venerated by some East Anglian covens.

Nigel Jackson: Misrule

Throughout Masks of Misrule, Jackson writes clearly and competently, dropping bite-size chunks of information, almost always, as is the style, free of the specific citing of references. In additional to the encyclopaedic content of Masks of Misrule, Jackson does occasionally provide his own asides, bringing the threads together through an expositional voice that is authoritative and invested. There’s a sense that this isn’t theoretical for him, nor something that he has regurgitated from elsewhere, despite various touchstones, such as Robert Cochrane Clan of Tubal Cain and Andrew Chumbley’s Sabbatic Craft, being obvious.

It is the allure of the dark and diabolic that makes Masks of Misrule appealing, and ensures that it feels exceptional, with the diabolic interpretation feeling a lot more tangible than the usual nameless and bland presentation of the male principle. While darkening it up is something that has become increasingly popular when discussing witchcraft (as the surfeit of goat-faced traditional witchcraft books testifies), Masks of Misrule, feels like one of the originators, backed up with a wealth of knowledge that imitators may be lacking.

Masks of Misrule is once again illustrated throughout with Jackson’s own images, presented in a combination of heavy woodcut styled designs and finer, more illustrative works. These are, as ever, one of the highlights of the book, with a sense of mystery and numinosity, and just the right amount of sigils and, to use the vernacular of King Missile, mystical shit.

But as is also often the case with Capall Bann titles, the external appearance of Masks of Misrule does the work a huge disservice, so much so that judging this book by its cover would surely mean most people pass it by. One of Jackson’s beautiful hand drawn images is cut out and coloured in Photoshop and then placed unsympathetically over Photoshop-generated clouds and an ambiguous landscape that appears to have been generated with the Photoshop liquefy tool, but which gives the impression of Bryce 3D generated water (just needs some random geometric forms floating in the air). Meanwhile, the incongruous typeface of the book title has been attacked with text effects, featuring bevel and emboss, gradients and textures; as well as a little errant vertical line down the right hand side. And finally, as in other Capall Bann books, proofing could be better and Jackson conflates ‘it’s’ with ‘its’ – but he does it with such consistency that it almost becomes endearing.

Published by Capall Bann

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Call of the Horned Piper – Nigel Aldcroft Jackson

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Categories: folk, luciferian, sabbatic craft, witchcraft, Tags:

Call of the Horned Piper coverIt is sometimes hard to keep track of the various Nigel Jackson, Michael Howard and Evan John Jones titles released on Capall Bann. There’s not a lot of them necessarily, but the titles are somewhat interchangeable, and the covers are similar, if not in style then at least in theme (you’d better believe there’ll be horns on there). That’s not a criticism per se, simply a recognition that Jackson and his colleagues mine a very particular seam

After struggling through a fair amount of poor occult writing, where authors either can’t write or overreach whilst trying to sound more esoteric or more academic, reading Jackson here is something of a relief. Sure, he habitually types ‘it’s’ when he means ‘its’ but besides that most unforgivable of sins, he can actually write, creating a flowing narrative that is easy to read and at the same time, sophisticated and erudite. In some instances, he shows a particularly refined ability for the picturesque, with the first chapter beginning with a theoretical scenario of a witch preparing for transvection, written in a beautifully descriptive way.

In other instances though, as is the style of the book, Jackson just presents information in something of a fact-dump manner; albeit still well written. This kind of data (instances of witch accounts or folklore examples for the most part), will be largely familiar to anyone from these circles of traditional craft, which may be why there’s such a dearth of citing of sources. While the common knowledge nature of these facts makes this lacking of references slightly forgivable, one does find little gems that makes one wish for a place to go for more information – like the brief remark that Swedish witches preferred to use magpie forms when shapeshifting…. oooh, tell me more.Charivari image by Nigel Jackson

Call of the Horned Piper is divided into short, unnumbered chapters addressing various witchcraft themes, and these are grouped in the contents section into broad, unnamed segments that the reader won’t necessarily notice when reading the book from start to finish. In the first, Jackson considers what one could define as the sabbat and the wild hunt, emphasising the goddess lead versions of the Heljagd under Holda, Hela and Herodias, before moving on to her male counterpart, the Horned Master. This acts as a fulfilment of a statement of intent that Jackson makes at the start of the book, placing the witch’s ride at the centre of the image of the witch, with the broomstick being the preeminent symbol of this topology. By drawing together myriad threads provided by sabbat transvection and various other supernatural journeys, taken by either practitioners or deities, Jackson highlights the way in which this shamanic mystery with thousands of years of provenance lies at the core of Traditional Craft.

Later, Jackson incorporates other far flung strands of folklore, such as even werewolves and vampirism, showing how, in the footsteps of Carlo Ginzburg and Éva Pócs, these seemingly less esoteric aspects of legend play into the image of supernatural, shamanic-style journeys. Indeed, one could say that Jackson provides an entry level version of theories by Ginzburg, Pócs and the later Emma Wilby, heavy on examples but light on detail, and from a more hands-on, personally involved and less academic perspective.

Hela by Nigel Jackson

Jackson concludes Call of the Horned Piper with a practical section, providing information on tools and hallowing the witches compass, as well as a guided visualisation, Mysterium Sabbati: Riding on the Witch Way. There’s not a lot here but as a core toolkit it suffices and the theory and lore that precedes it contains enough information for practitioners to fill in the gaps and develop their own rituals in a Traditional Craft mould.

In all, Call of the Horned Piper has much to recommend it. It contains a wealth of information that can lead to more indepth investigation when you track down the uncited sources, and it comes from a specifically endemic place, with Jackson clearly providing the bones to existing modalities. Of specific personal appeal is the way in which Hela appears throughout the book, particularly in Her guises as a witch goddess of the underworld, with Jackson making several references to her.

Image by Nigel Jackson

Call of the Horned Piper is illustrated throughout by Jackson himself, which, as Gemma Gary does in her books, adds an additional layer of interest, omneity and authenticity. Jackson employs a variety of styles, largely differentiated by the weight of stroke. There’s woodcut (or woodcut-styled, it’s hard to tell) images, high in contrast as is the nature of the medium, and then there’s detailed, fine-line ink drawings. While there’s a certain rustic charm to the woodcuts (and I’m particularly fond of the image of Hela), it is their more intricate siblings that really appeal. These recall some of the work of Andrew Chumbley or Daniel Schulke, with icons that are beautifully archaic, festooned with hand written text and more mystical sigils than you can shake a stick at. Unfortunately, their effectiveness is lessened by repeated use, with some of the images reappearing throughout the book at various sizes as unnecessary fillers. Jackson’s fine line pictures also include more illustrative images, such as his stunning Fraw Holt, which I recall on the cover of an issue of The Cauldron so many years ago. In these, Jackson renders fey figures with an imperial distance and acerose features, in a timeless, evocative style that seems weighted with meaning.

The, how you say, roughness of Capall Bann productions has been noted before here at Scriptus Recensera, and Call of the Horned Piper is no exception. The book title on the spine is so large that it seeps onto the front and back covers, as does the Capall Bann logo, while the title on the cover is off-centre. The typeface choice and treatment on the cover leaves something to be desired, as does the orange gradient, which makes the book look prematurely sun faded. The image on the front, a striking woodcut by Jackson, is treated unsympathetically, askew within an unattractive white frame, with a dotted magenta trim line visible around the edge for some reason.

Published by Capall Bann

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Pillars: The Scalding of Sapientia – Edited, compiled and curated by G. McCaughry

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Categories: esotericism, hermeticism, luciferian, magick, robert cochrane, witchcraft, Tags:

The Scalding of Sapientia is something of special issue of Anathema Publishing’s Pillars journal, which at time of writing has had three soft-cover issues in its first volume; all of which have since been compiled into a single, hardbound Perichoresis Edition. The Scalding of Sapientia sits outside this issue structure and goes straight for the hardcover, with a standalone clothbound volume wrapped in a 3/4 dusk jacket. This special edition finds its purpose in its theme, Lucifer as an exemplar of magickal consuetude, making it, along with previously reviewed books from Three Hands Press and Black Moon Publishing, part of a vigorous renaissance for the light bringer. It is Lucifer’s role as this light bringer that The Scalding of Sapientia concerns itself, casting its net wider than just a consideration of him as a mythic figure, and also exploring various themes of Luciferian wisdom, sacrifice and praxis, as well as other personifications of wisdom such as the Gnostic goddess Sophia.

The contributors to The Scalding of Sapientia are a varied bunch and amongst the fourteen writers there are only a few names that immediately leap out as recognisable: Shani Oates, Craig Williams, Carl Abrahamson, Johannes Nefastos and Anathema owner Gabriel McCaughry. Things do start off slowly too, beginning with Kogishsaga, a long poem by Nukshean of the Alaskan black metal band Skaltros. Preceded by a preamble itself several pages long, the poem, which provides the lyrics to a Skaltros album of the same name, runs to eleven pages. It is presented as somewhat intimidating blocks of text, bisected only by the individual song titles, rather than more easily digestible verses. As such, it’s one of those things where you go “Well, this is nice enough and all, but I’ll come back and finish this later after I’ve read the rest of the book.” Once one realises that these are black metal lyrics, the phrasing and intonation makes more sense, and if you like, you can try and follow along while listening to the album and its corvid vocal stylings; this reviewer lost track pretty quickly.

The allure of America’s Pacific Northwest and its other mountainous and arboraceous regions is something that comes through clearly in Nukshean’s Kogishsaga and the same is true of the following contribution from Paul Waggener of Wolves of Vinland and Operation Werewolf. Both Nukshean’s piece and Waggener’s Sacrifice: Discipline & the Great Work emphasis the virtue of tribulation and time spent alone in the wilderness, with Waggener’s approach being largely an excoriation of those that don’t follow such an approach.

Johnny Decker Miller: Durtro

The first piece here that truly piques the interest is Johnny Decker Miller’s The Dreadful Banquet. Subtitled Sacrifice, Luciferian Gnosis & the Sorcery of the Bone Trumpet, it explores various examples of wind instruments made of bone, in particular the kangling, the human thigh trumpet used in Tibetan Buddhism. Heavily indebted to the work of Andrew Chumbley, Miller relates this instrument, its aesthetics and use to Sabbatic Craft and witchcraft in general, highlighting how an atavistic ritual such as the Tibetan Chöd can have an equivalent in more Western climes.

It is these kind of pieces, merging research with suggestions of contemporary praxis, that are ultimately the most satisfying amongst the content of The Scalding of Sapientia. They stand in contrast to more philosophical musings about the nature of the left hand path, metaphysical cosmologies, or the virtues of living alone in a cabin in the woods; none of which feel anywhere as revolutionary or revelatory as the authors probably hope they do. At this point in contemporary occultism, pretty much everything has been said in those avenues, and given that publications such as these are directed towards the choir, there seems little benefit in expatiating them once again.

There is a strong emphasis within The Scalding of Sapientia on the experiential, of exteriorising the interior, and representing one’s personal approach to the acquisition of wisdom. Sometimes specific examples are given, and other times the practical side may be a little veiled, cloaked in philosophical speak or biographical accounts bordering on the hagiographic. In addition to the personal recollections in the aforementioned contributions from Nukshean and Paul Waggener, Craig Williams provides a succinct introduction to his Cult of Golgotha, while Camelia Elias talks of her relationship with Lucifer and of being a prodigious two year old reciting Mihai Eminescu’s poem Luceafarul. Likewise, Graeme de Villiers intersperses a dual observance mass for Our Lady of the Two Trees with a biography both magical and mundane, and Anathema-stalwart, Shani Oates writes a somewhat peregrinating paean to the entities she works with, beginning her narrative as a child who was often thought to be a changeling left by the Fey.

Spread including artwork by Adrian Baxter

From an aesthetic perspective, The Scalding of Sapientia is a delight. Elsewhere we’ve lauded the look of releases from Anathema and this seems to have reached its apex with this release, making them the producer of some of the most beautiful books in occult publishing. McCaughry has a wonderful typographic eye, working with a suite of faces and techniques that says multiple things: occult, classic, yet paradoxically modern. Along with that, there’s an admirable use of white space and hierarchy that assists in creating that sense of rarefied environs.

Then there’s the artwork featured throughout, which feels very curated, such is the quality, with nary a dud amongst them. Consisting of predominantly black and white images, as well as some muted and murky colour ones and a few photographs, the highlights are those such as Johnny Decker Miller illustrating his own essay, Chris Undirheimer’s eitr-tinged inks (above) and Adrian Baxter’s ikon-like botanicals. All three artists specialise in what you would hope for in contemporary occult illustration: delicately rendered fine lines and beautifully defined forms that are redolent of engravings. And skulls, always skulls. Also worthy of note is Robert W. Cook, who traffics in blackened drips and eldritch rhizomes, hued in a gloaming effulgency.

The Scalding of Sapientia was made available in two editions, a standard edition of 600 copies, and an artisanal Cutis Novis edition of a mere twelve exemplars. The standard edition consists of 208 pages on Cougar Natural 160M archive-quality paper, hardbound in a gorgeous Bamberger Kaliko metallic cranberry red bookcloth, with gold foil stamp on the spine and cover, and the sigil for this volume blind debossed on the back. Inside are Neenah Dark Brown endpapers with a burnished leather and finish, and the entire book is wrapped in the aforementioned 3/4 dusk jacket featuring the artwork Hortus Aureus by Denis Forkas Kostromitin. I’m not totally convinced by this partial dust jacket as it looks a little messy, with Kostromitin’s artwork not integrating with the gold foiled image by Undirheimer on the cloth front, and only the title on the spine bringing the two elements together.

The Cutis Novis edition is bound in a mottled, highly textured calfskin leather, with the sigil for The Scalding of Sapientia blind debossed on the front. The spine features raised nerves and the title and Pillars sigil foiled in gold, while the interior includes additional handmade endpapers. Included with each of the deluxe editions was a pine wood seal with the McCaughry-designed Scalding of Sapientia sigil burnt at knife point by Undirheimer and consecrated with the blood of both artists.

Published by Anathema Publishing

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The Explicit Name of Lucifer – G. De Laval

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Categories: luciferian, satanism, Tags:

If there’s one word to describe The Explicit Name of Lucifer from Aeon Sophia Press it’s ‘cute.’ This is a tiny volume, 112 pages in all, measuring 11 by 18cm, just a little bigger than one of the current generation of mobile phones. The Explicit Name of Lucifer is something of a diversion from Laval’s considerably more voluminous works also available from Aeon Sophia Press. It expands on gematria systems from their previous work, Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash, which funnily enough has since had a revised second edition that is, in turn, informed by this work. That’s the circle of life, I guess. It moves us all.

The intent of The Explicit Name of Lucifer is to provide a magickal script that is, to use the language of cryptography, a perfect cipher, by which Laval means a script that is a letter-for-letter mirror of the English alphabet. The value of such a script, Laval argues, is that it makes for a more empowered, internally consistent system that allows the English language to be used as a “direct channel of occult energy.” With that said, though, there’s still a reliance on Hebrew here, with each of the letters (or rather, the demon associated with each letter) given a name derived from an acrostic based on the Hebrew letters from three verses in Psalms 73. The gematrial value of each letter/demon is, in turn, taken from these Hebrew names.

This script, then, forms the explicit name of the book’s title through the combination of the 26 demon names; good luck pronouncing it. The use of the letters must be preceded by the creation of a reliquary, a ritual invocation and the creation of a conjuration seal of Lucifer. The reliquary features an ingredients list that will put off all but the most dedicated, or foolhardy. There are 26 ingredients in all, though just one of these is dirt from thirteen cemeteries no less, and another is dirt from eleven gates (not sure if you can count one of these as ingredient number twelve, dirt from a church, just for the sake of efficiency). These, along with other choice items like a small magnet, tallow and a stone from the top of a mountain, are mixed together, set on fire, turned into mud and placed in a vessel with the letters of the script inscribed on the outside.

The 26 spirits of the Luciferal Alphabet takes up the lion’s share of this book with each of them presented consistently, with a page for the respective glyph from the Luciferal Alphabet, followed by a one page description of the demon. That is with the exception of the demon Bour, who is given a full page illustration as well. And why not? He’s adorable. Look at what a dapper chap he is, with his little frock coat, and gentleman’s walking stick; not to mention his generous endowment. He’s like some character from a more demonically inclined Wind in the Willows or Redwall.

In the information for each demon, Laval provides a description, a list of attributes, suggested incenses and offerings, and propitious times for summoning. It isn’t explained from whence these attributes have been derived, especially in the case of some of these spirits where they are given a whole retinue of other named spirits: Lemelel, demon of the letter N, for example, is part of something called the Kaphim (presumably taken from a word used for ‘beam’ in the book of Habakkuk), of which there are eight other spirits, no less: Mekem, Miyn, Nalakyah, Namiy, Niym, Pheyiy, Yayeph and Yenam. Similarly, Memadiah, the demon of the letter R, is part of something enigmatically but unhelpfully referred to as “the four amethysts of Shakti, the Achlemoth,” alongside her ungoogleable friends Avochel, Chavaa and Medam.

There are a couple of other things that give one pause. The 26 spirits each have a numeric value assigned to them, but with no explanation this is referred to as a gematria value in the case of some spirits, and as an energy current in others; despite indeed all being just Mispar Hechrachi-derived gematria values. Meanwhile, in one endearing erratum, things are apparently so antinomian that verses from the Book of Psalms are referred to with the homophone ‘versus.’ There’s also another script included in this book without any explanation other than a legend showing its corresponding letters in English and the Luciferal Script/Alphabet of Lucifer, the latter of which is here confusingly called yet another name, the Ceremonial Altar Script. This third script is referred to as Demotic Common but it doesn’t resemble any historical version of Demotic in the upper case sense of the word, and has more of a Lovecraftian look, all spirally and curved with tentacle-like terminals. This Demotic Common is used to render the three page invocation that must be made before the Luciferal Script can be used, making for yet another level of effort and translatory flicking of pages back and forth.

With its small format and 112 pages, The Explicit Name of Lucifer is a brisk, one-sitting read, and so feels a little brief; obviously it takes longer if you go the applied route and factor in the dirt-collecting visits to thirteen cemeteries and a trip to a mountain summit. This does, of course, reflect its status as an adjunct to Laval’s longer works (his expanded edition of Black Magic Evocation of the Shem ha Mephorash is over 500 pages), but it feels like more could have been drawn out of this system as its presented here.

The Explicit Name of Lucifer is a black Italian cloth bound hardcover of 112 pages, with a gold foil print title on the cover, black end-papers and black head/tail bands.

Published by Aeon Sophia Press.

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Lucifer: The Light of the Aeon – Written by Rebels. Edited by Diane Narraway

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Categories: devotional, luciferian, witchcraft, Tags:

The popularity of Lucifer seems to be surging of late with the recent compendium The Luminous Stone: Lucifer in Western Esotericism from Three Hand Press, a similar anthological work on its way from Anathema Publishing, and, of course, Peter Grey’s significant 2015 opus Lucifer: Princeps; not to mention the surfeit of Lulu and Createspace generated tomes that fill your Amazon recommendations with their appalling cover art, clunky sigils and poor typeface choices. Black Moon Publishing’s foray into this tumescent Luciferian field brings together a vast array of contributors, sixteen in all, variously presenting essays, poems and a smattering of images.

The first section, Awakenings, compiles a multitude of contributions within a relatively slight space, mostly short, personal anecdotes outlining people’s occult journey’s within which Lucifer, in some form, has played a role. There are nine of these in all, and at the beginning they are largely interchangeable, with similar writing styles depicting similar journeys. There’s often an estrangement from organised religion, which is followed by an encounter with an, at first, ambiguous supernatural figure whose identity is later confirmed to be Lucifer.

Speaking, erm, personally, the personal anecdote has never done much for me as a contribution to devotionals like this. While I realise that this approach is, in some ways, the very definition of a devotional, it seems to lack something when that experience isn’t expanded upon, and given context within a greater anthropological or mythological framework. Otherwise, it remains just a personal testimony, the equivalent of a fireside ghost story, which the reader has to either accept or dismiss; and as a somewhat pragmatic reviewer of books about magickal shenanigans, my default setting is the latter.

The contributions in Awakenings are often short and it isn’t until the second section, Love, Light and Laughter, that one realises why this is, with many of the stories now picking up from where they left off. Proof, mayhaps, that I didn’t read the introduction too carefully. This is not an entirely satisfactory device, given that the somewhat interchangeable nature of the contributions makes it hard to keep track of where the narrative is up to. And then there’s the additional wrinkle of perhaps not really wanting to hear anything further from a particular contributor after the introduction they’ve made in Awakenings. Because of how integral this multiple section structure is, it is worth mentioning the names of the nine contributors who reappear in this capacity: Dianne Narraway, Geraldine Lambert, Laurie Pneumatikos, Sean Witt, Eirwen Morgan, Richard K. Page, Jaclyn Cherie, Rachel Summers and Teach Carter.

This format ultimately makes Lucifer: The Light of the Aeon something of a struggle to get through. Personal reflections of people’s experience with organised religion, and their all too similar awakening to their inner rebel, are just not engaging. On top of that, the rebellion feels rather entry level and earnest, with nothing truly transgressive or adversarial, and just an all too obvious kicking against the pricks of an equally dull brand of Christianity.

It is only when this personal formula is abandoned that things begin to pick up and there’s more of a sense of focus. In Angels and Daemons, the cast of authors take a more exegetical approach with various, less-anecdotal explanations of Lucifer. These do largely cover the same ground because there’s only so much ground to cover when it comes to exploring Lucifer’s source material. These contributions still suffer, though, from the book’s structural device, feeling piecemeal in some instances, while in others they’re cast adrift from the anecdotal context of the previous two sections.

The other issue that arises here is that the less than stellar quality of some of the writing, which may have been protected by the personal nature of the previous entries, is laid bare when broader ideas have to be presented. In one piece, non sequiturs abound, conclusions are questionable, and facts are fuzzy: there’s a nonsensical reference to “biblical gnostics,” whoever they’re supposed to be, and a lazy, or at least poorly articulated, claim that ‘gnostic’ means ‘knowledge,’ when obviously it’s ‘gnosis’ that means ‘knowledge,’ not the adjective form.

The remaining four sections continue this same formula of slices from various contributors, focusing successively on blood and fire (identified as two of Lucifer’s more famous associations), magick (with a variety of broad accounts of people’s personal approach to ritual praxis, followed in some instances with specific exercises), questions concerning Lucifer’s consort (straw poll suggesting most contributors don’t see him as having one), and what could be described as concluding thoughts and miscellany. Naturally, these various shards range in quality, with some of the writing coming across as if they were written as an obligatory assignment simply predicated by the theme of that section. This is particularly noticeable in the discussion over whether Lucifer has a consort, with many of the authors writing as if it’s the first time they’ve pondered the question, and therefore spending the length of their contribution thinking out loud in print, as they try to work it out.

In all, the writing in Lucifer: The Light of the Aeon appears to come from a very personal place. There are no half-hearted adherents here, with a sense of a great deal of affection and devotion being paid to Lucifer. Your mileage may vary as to what weight such sincerity carries for you, but based on the effusive reviews on Amazon, it certainly works for some people.

As with the previously reviewed Women of Babalon: A Howling of Women’s Voices, I have reservations about the trademark Black Moon Publishing style with its 8×10 dimensions and use of wide decorative borders on every page. The dimensions make the book unwieldy, cumbersome to hold, and not conducive to being read, especially with the additional weight that comes from being over 300 pages long. This length is, no doubt, exacerbated by said border, which, whilst appealing in an over-the-top gothic aesthetic sense, does limit the amount of words that can appear on the page. It also overwhelms the occasional graphic contributions, which could all benefit from being reproduced larger and free of the competing rococo.

Lucifer: The Light of the Aeon has a companion volume, Songs of the Black Flame, also published by Black Moon Publishing, with many of the authors featured here returning for what is largely a compilation of Lucifer-themed poetry and artwork.

Published by Black Moon Publishing

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