The Hermetic Library Tumblr

Summary for the year 2018

Here’s a summary of Hermetic Library activity for the year 2018.

Every year there’s so much going on, I’m sure I’m going to miss some things. Consider going through all past summaries for more details about what was going on each week of last year. However, here’s some important things that come to my mind immediately.

Personally there was a lot going on for me. The place I had been living was sold. I moved across the country, with everything and cats, in almost an exact reverse of the historical Oregon Trail. I had my computer die, and went through a 4+ month ordeal of trying to get it fixed. And, all the sundry trials and tribulations one goes through …

The biggest project for 2017 was the switch from static, hand-coded HTML to the new wiki engine. I’ve made a lot of progress in 2018 on more of this, but I’m still working on it. Both old and new pages are constantly being worked on, and I think the library is already better than ever with this change. I knew that the transition was going to be a huge project, and require a lot of work; but, I honestly didn’t realize just how big and how much. I’m glad I did it, and there’s so many things that are better than they were, for me working on the site and for visitors trying to find things and navigate the site; but there’s still work to do. I feel so much gratitude for the support of my ongoing Patrons for making all this work on the library possible.

This year, I released Magic, Music and Ritual 14, the 2018 issue from the Hermetic Library Anthology Project. The newest release joins all the others, and they’re all great! Check them all out, and check out the anthology profiles for the artists who participate.

Last year, I created a process to pitch ideas for submissions to the blog and the library. This hasn’t been as active as I had hoped. The only submission to make it through the process this last year was The Unknown Soror. There was only one in 2017 as well, but I’d hoped that there would be more. With the generous support from Patrons of the library, I did increase the available honorarium already, and this year I’ll be increasing that again to further encourage submissions.

I did have the opportunity to have a conversation with musician Jesse Heikkinen, who then went on to become an artist on the 2018 anthology. Perhaps there will be more conversations with others in this next year?

Hermetic Library has actively pursued its mission of archiving, engaging and encouraging the living Western Esoteric Tradition, Hermeticism, and Aleister Crowley’s Thelema for 20 years. Thanks to each and every Funding and Patron supporter of my work and the library for making the Hermetic Library possible for everyone, that mission continues!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whence Came You

“Whence Came You” is a track added by Mahatma Dalí in the Hermetic Library audio pool.

[soundcloud url=“http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/27051265”]

This is a rough cut of a track that appears on The Hermetic Library Anthology Album - Magick, Music and Ritual 1, and includes a sample of Aleister Crowley reading The Pentagram:

“The Pentagram” by Aleister Crowley

“In the years of the Primal Course, in the dawn of terrestrial birth, Man Mastered the mammoth and horse, and Man was the lord of the earth.
He made him a hollow skin from the heart of a holy tree, He compassed the earth therein, and Man was lord of the Sea.
He controlled the vigour of steam, he harnessed the lightning for hire; He drove the celestial team, and Man was the lord of Fire.
Deep-mouthed from their thrones deep-seated, the choirs of the æons declare The last of the demons defeated, for Man is the lorde of the Air.
Arise, O Man, in thy strength! the kingdom is thine to inherit Till the high gods witness at length that Man is the lord of his spirit.”

The Hermetic Library audio pool is an auditory scavenger hunt for sounds and music of a living Western Esoteric Tradition.

Music and performance can be a form of ritual and magick. Works and artists have long been inspired by the ideas of Western Esotericism and Mysticism. This group is to help create a space for sharing, music and other audio, and connecting with artists who feel drawn to these topics and ideas, or, especially, incorporate and manifest ritual and magick in their works.

Original Article

crossposted tumblrize aleister crowley mahatma dali music pentagram

St Francis Church in Porto Portugal

St Francis Church in Porto Portugal, originally uploaded by hermeticlibrary.

“This is a photo of a pentagram which appears in the architectural details of St. Francis church in Porto, Portugal submitted by Violeta Fc”

The Hermetic Library visual pool is a visual scavenger hunt for images of a living Western Esoteric Tradition.

Images of your ritual or ritual space, images of sigils or tools, showing off your own library or special volume from the restricted stacks, sacred spaces and places, esoteric artefacts and installations, inspired paintings and people — these and much more are part of the culture and practice of magick.

Original Article

hermetic library tumblrize church pentagram Porto Portugal St Francis Star Violeta Fc

“Further, this correspondence would identify the Thrones with the names drawn from the Circumference and the seven Seals, the Archangels drawn from the Septagon would be the Trumpets and the planetary Angels about the pentagram would be the Angels. Compare Part I of this series where these divisions are laid out in detail.”

Hierarchies Recapitulated from Part VII: The “Seven” Thrones in In Operibus Sigillo Dei Aemeth by David Richard Jones.

“Further, this correspondence would identify the Thrones with the names drawn from the Circumference and the seven Seals, the Archangels drawn from the Septagon would be the Trumpets and the planetary Angels about the pentagram would be the Angels. Compare Part I of this series where these divisions are laid out in detail.” [via, see]

Original Article

hermetic library tumblrize 7 angel angels archangel circumference correspondence David Richard Jones In Operibus Sigillo Dei Aemeth names pentagram planetary quote seals septagon seven seals throne trumpet

“Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood [and provided with his Mystic Rose].”

ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΛΣ The Star Sapphire in Liber CCCXXXIII, The Book of Lies by Aleister Crowley.

“Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood [and provided with his Mystic Rose].” [via], [see]

Original Article

crossposted tumblrize adept aleister crowley book of lies liber CCCXXXIII libers libri magick mystic quote rood rose star sapphire

The Sacred Rite of Magical Love

Hermetic Library fellow T Polyphilus reviews The Sacred Rite of Magical Love: A Ceremony of Word and Flesh by Maria de Naglowska, translated with introduction by Donald Traxler, from Inner Traditions.

This slender volume is the third of Donald Traxler’s translations of the works of Maria de Naglowska, from her writings as a mystic and proponent of sex magic in Paris circa 1930. Its format is something of an inversion of the previous two volumes. Where those contain doctrinal instruction, with practical intimations in the form of fictional narratives about the initiation of a hypothetical candidate, this one is instead a murky pseudo-memoir, somewhat comparable to novels like Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Ravalette: The Rosicrucian’s Story or Franz Bardon’s Frabato the Magician.

A central feature of the reminiscence of “Xenophanta” (the book’s speaker, and the byline of its original serialization under the name Xenia Norval) is her encounter with what certainly appears to be a personified Lucifer character — this, despite Traxler’s continued quotation of Naglowska’s injunction not “to imagine Satan … as living outside of us, for such imagining is proper to idolaters” (xiii). “Xenia’s” attraction to this Other put me very much in mind of The Story of Mary MacLane — and it is not impossible that MacLane’s 1901 confessions (titled in MS I Await the Devil’s Coming) had been accessible to Naglowska, perhaps even in French translation. (As a translator of P.B. Randolph’s work, Naglowska could certainly have read MacLane in the original English, though.)

An enigmatic diagram called the AUM CLOCK is drawn by Xenia under praeternatural inspiration in the course of the story, and it serves as the preoccupation of Naglowska’s explanatory preface. Traxler supplies an appendix in which he analyzes the contradictory details regarding this figure, and then proposes an abstruse astrological interpretation of it. His astrological reasoning leads him to identify certain dates as being indicated, but he doesn’t even go so far as to propose why any dates would be highlighted in this arcane manner.

Another appendix from Traxler investigates Naglowska’s sources. It is gratifying to see him expose the Joachimist bedrock on which her teachings rest, and he is doubtless correct about the influences of Eugene Vintras and Henri Bergson. It was a little disappointing that he omitted the French occult tradition of Sophianic mysticism stemming from the Eglise Gnostique of Jules Doinel, which was even more consequential than Vintras for Jean Bricaud, whom Traxler notes as a possible transmitter of Vintrasian ideas in Naglowska’s milieu.

As with Traxler’s other Naglowska books, this one is an important contribution to the literature of sex magic as developed in the 20th century. [via]

<br />

Originally posted on The Hermetic Library Blog at http://library.hrmtc.com/2015/02/16/the-sacred-rite-of-magical-love-2/

Hermetic Library

Pentagram Sam

“Pentagram Sam” by Da Grimston & Mist-E (HT @erik_davis)

“I’m spillin’ all your secrets, like I’m Israel Regardie.”

“Makin’ evil shapes in non-Euclidean geometry, my coven made a creature and sent it to haunt you.”

“The only magic potion you drink comes in a 40.”

Original Article

hermetic library tumblrize coven Da Grimston & Mist-E Evil israel regardie music non euclidean geometry secrets shapes video

“To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.”

Black Magic is Not a Myth in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.” [via]

Original Article

crossposted tumblrize 1933 aleister crowley black magic decency desires insane idea intelligence magic principle quote science selfish selfish desires

“In theory there is no limit to the power of magic. A magician is like a mathematician; he has complete control of the symbols as long as he keeps to the rules.”

Black Magic is Not a Myth in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“In theory there is no limit to the power of magic. A magician is like a mathematician; he has complete control of the symbols as long as he keeps to the rules.” [via, also]

Original Article

crossposted tumblrize 1933 aleister crowley complete control control magic magician mathematician no limit Power power of magic quote rules Symbols

Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition

Magic Circles in the Grimoire Tradition [also] by William Kiesel, published by Three Hands Press, is available now for pre-order and due to release in late June.

“Magic Circles have been depicted in popular expressions of magic and witchcraft as well as detailed with full rubrics in traditional manuals of magic such as the Clavicula Solomonis or Liber Juratus. Using narrative, visual and textual material available from European grimoires and manuscripts, the author discusses the various forms and functions of this important piece of apparatus employed by magicians in the Western Esoteric Tradition, including their role in providing authority and protection to the operator, as well as examples of their use in divination and treasure finding. Additionally, contemporary examples of the magic circle at work in modern esoteric praxis are provided and discussed in light of the traditional approaches they exhibit. This monograph serves to explicate this important tool of ceremonial magic and is valuable to practitioners of the art magical with its technical data, while also providing context in historical settings for the merely curious reader of occult subjects. Illustrated throughout.” [via]

Original Article

hermetic library tumblrize 2012 books grimoire magic circle three hands press william kiesel

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

More you might like