Tag Archives: Capall Bann,

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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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The Roebuck in the Thicket – Evan John Jones & Robert Cochrane

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Categories: robert cochrane, witchcraft, Tags:

The Roebuck in the Thicket coverSubtitled An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition, this book is, unsurprisingly, a collection of articles about Robert Cochrane’s witchcraft tradition, written by Cochrane himself and his successor, Evan John Jones. As one would expect, the majority of these are from Jones, with Cochrane posthumously justifying his name on the cover with four. The articles are largely drawn from occult magazines, with those by Cochrane coming from the pages of Pentagram and New Dimensions, while Michael Howard’s The Cauldron is the sources of those by Jones.

Howard opens the proceedings with a thorough introduction that acts as an overview of both Cochrane’s craft, and how the writings that are compiled in this volume came to be. This will be a familiar story for anyone with a passing knowledge of Cochrane and his brand of traditional witchcraft, hitting all the usual beats, in particular those key moments of public publication, where his use of small articles in possibly equally small occult journals still had remarkably far-reaching effects. This then expands into a broader consideration of the aftermath of Cochrane, including a brief history of The Regency and the influence of Jones’ Clan of Tubal Cain-infused books, Witchcraft: A Tradition and Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance. The familiarity of some of the history here makes sense when you realise that this chapter provided a test run for Howard’s comprehensive Children of Cain, with the narrative following a similar trajectory and some of the paragraphs here being almost the same, save for some judicious editing, ten years later.

As Howard’s introduction touches upon, the four articles from Cochrane are part of traditional witchcraft history. This collection, though, doesn’t include Cochrane’s first public writing on witchcraft, a 1963 article in the Spiritualist newspaper Psychic News, in which he proposed the idea, more popular now than it was then, that witchcraft was not paganism per se, but rather a mystical dual observance system that, nevertheless, “retained the memory of ancient faiths.” This sentiment, this out-of-the-gate contrariness, encapsulates Cochrane’s philosophy and his slightly smug antagonism towards conventional witchcraft/wicca. This sentiment does come through in the articles that are included here, particularly the excoriating and archly titled Witchcraft Today from the November 1964 issue of Pentagram, the newsletter of the Witchcraft Research Association.

You know that old cliché about witches being born and not made, of coming home to the belief system as if it was something you always knew but just didn’t have a name for it? Well, Cochrane feels a lot like that for me. Not, heaven forfend, his system of traditional witchcraft itself (though some of the aesthetics and cosmogony have a personal appeal), no, it’s the snark that feels like coming home, it’s the snark that feels like something I always intrinsically knew – though putting it into words and giving it a name was never a problem, naturally. Despite being written 55 years ago, the issues with conventional witchcraft that Cochrane mentions seem as prevalent now as they have been throughout this past half century. Like some hipster witch, Cochrane speaks from the smug position of someone who believes that amongst a sea of pretenders their tradition is the only right one, but at the same time, he critiques wicca-style witchcraft with a fairly pragmatic, and more reputable, approach. His concerns were with the patronising romanticism and escapism inherent in modern day witches seeking refuge from the 20th century in an all-beneficent spirit of nature who bore no relation to the multiplicious real world red in tooth and claw, or for that matter, any extant agrarian folk magic belief system: “civilised sophisticates running round behaving like simple peasants and simple peasants who have never heard of such things.”

It’s not all owning the normies though, and two of Cochrane’s pieces have a practical, rather than vituperative, aspect. In an article originally published in New Dimensions magazine, Cochrane gives an account of a spelunking esbat ritual, written in a travelogue style rich in anecdotes, dialogue and minutiae. The other is a response to a question in Pentagram about the use of knots and cords in witchcraft, which allows Cochrane to drop a few folklore gems along with examples of ritual use.

The Roebuck in the Thicket page spread

There endeth Cochrane’s lesson and, save for an astrological reading analysis as an appendix, the rest of the contents of The Roebuck in the Thicket, are provided by Evan John Jones. In the 1990s, Jones began publishing a series of articles in Howard’s magazine The Cauldron, covering aspects of Cochrane’s craft and also that of the Clan of Tubal Cain as then led by Jones. Attentive readers may be aware of my nostalgic affection for that period, having read those issues of The Cauldron when they were first published; with the copies still within reach to this day.

Spanning a decade, these contributions made Jones a regular figure in the pages of The Cauldron, and their inclusion here makes for a nice, concise little retrospective of this role. It begins with a discussion of the symbolism of the stang before various explorations of Clan of Tubal Clan cosmology and their ceremonial application, such as the rose within the grave and the ritual of the castle, and the rite of the two circles. Jones continues with explanations of other symbols used by the clan, including the titular roebuck in the thicket, the spiral, and the morning and evening stars.

It’s not all killer, and there is some filler, as one might expect of any body of work drawn from submissions to occult publications, where the need for contributions can so often outstrip the things of note to write about. A particular favourite that moves away from the theoretical or historical and into the anecdotal provides an interesting twin to Cochrane’s earlier account of the cave-bound esbat ritual. Here, Jones tells how his circle lost a ritual space but found a new and, at least initially, improved one, writing in a format that provides a guide and suggestions about general magical space, while appearing to simply tell their tale, sprinkled with a hint of folk horror and dread.

Jones is, as ever, a pleasure to read. He writes with confidence and clarity, but without the hubris and smugness that those speaking from within the comforts of a traditional can be susceptible to. His articles here provide a thorough, if compartmentalised, overview of Cochrane’s tradition, or at least what it may have evolved to under Jones, as not every piece is in thrall to the past magister and may represent the natural evolution of the system.

Images in The Roebuck in the Thicket are pretty much limited to a few poorly reproduced photographs of Cochrane and some of the key witchcraft figures mentioned therein: William Gray, Doreen Valiente, Ruth Wynn-Owen and Evan John Jones. This is disappointing, particularly when it comes to the contributions from Jones, as his articles in The Cauldron were often accompanied by illustrations from the always reliable Nigel Aldcroft Jackson. As a result, the book comes across as very much a no-frills archive, just in it for the words.

Speaking of words, as is typical of this series of books from Capall Bann, proofing is abysmal, with a surfeit of errors, usually repeated or extraneous words, rather than outright spelling mistakes. Comparing the book with some of the original articles, it’s clear that the errors have been introduced in the production of The Roebuck in the Thicket, with one of the most amusing being a reference to a sacrament of brad and wine. Lucky Brad, I guess.

Published by Capall Bann.

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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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The Book of Fallen Angels – Michael Howard

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Categories: luciferian, witchcraft, Tags:

bookoffallenangelsMichael Howard describes this book as both a sequel and a prequel to The Pillars of Tubal Cain, which he wrote with Nigel Jackson. While that book was a broad consideration of Luciferian themes that ranged from Gnosticism to Freemasonry, from Arthurian lore to traditional witchcraft, amongst others, this volume takes a more concise and specific look at the fallen angels of that tradition. In the 1960s, Howard was the student of Madeline Montalban, whose idiosyncratic and Luciferian magickal system differed from that offered at the time by both ceremonial magic and Gardnerian witchcraft. While this book is by no means a strict guide to Montalban’s system, it is clearly informed by her work, and by the course material of her Order of the Morning Star. Howard is also at pains to point out that although he is an empowered initiate of the Cultus Sabbati, and despite some of the similar themes, the material in this book does not necessarily reflect the teachings of that group.

Montalban saw Lucifer as a benevolent being who, like the other fallen angels, had aided the development of humanity, and she referred to him with the inspired alternative name of Lumiel (Latin-Hebrew) or Lumial (Latin-Arabic), meaning ‘Light of God’. Interestingly, Andrew Chumbley received this same name independent of Montalban or Howard, and his Lovers Call to the Angel of Witchblood, addressed to Az’ra Lumial, is included in this book as an appendix.

Howard says that the key to Montalban’s success as a magician was her ability to synthesise Chaldean stellar lore, Egyptian mythology, medieval sorcery, Renaissance magic and Luciferian gnosis. And that is essentially Howard’s approach here too, covering the Fallen Angel and Cainanite mythos from a biblical and apocryphal perspective and then widening the scope by considering these sources in relation to Mesopotamian and other mythological systems, as well as European and Arabic folklore. Howard rarely reaches conclusions or states anything as definitive fact, simply presenting various bits of lore to create an overall picture. This includes the alternative archaeology of Graham Hancock and Andrew Collins, which again, is presented as contributing to the theme but is never entirely embraced; and probably a good thing too given the lack of scholarly rigour to be found in that field.

While not as bad as some of their other releases, this book features Capall Bann’s usual aversion to spell checking and proof reading. On page 47, Samael is, mayhaps, the victim of an unchecked autocorrect when the Cupertino effect turns him into a time-travelling Samuel, making a quote from the Zohar describe how “when Samuel mounted Eve he injected his filth into her.” Later, the angel Metatron is rendered as the somewhat weightier Metraton, and a reference is made to St Jreome. With mistakes like these, and others, being so glaring, it’s baffling that they were never picked up during even a cursory glance. And as is common with other Capall Bann titles, the book has gutters that are too shallow and a tight perfect binding, making it necessary to hold pages wide open to comfortably read them, forever at the risk of having the pages slam shut like some cheaply bound tome from the Unseen University.

Howard’s writing style is amiable and occasionally conversational, as he pulls together the threads of the fallen angel tapestry with a largely credible tone of voice. While these threads are far reaching and wide-ranging, there’s none of that Grantian-style of Boy’s Own anthropology, and his statements are usually reasonably sourced (though by no means exhaustively referenced); there are only a few moments that you go “hang on, that’s news to me, where does that come from?” (and because of that aforementioned tight binding, it’s hard to thumb back through and find the most egregious example). Thoroughly recommended for an overview of matters Luciferian and fallen angelical.

Published by Capall Bann. ISBN 186163236-3