Paralibrum
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From within its pages beats the vibrant presence of the encounters from which this book was born. This typhonic pulse is as unmistakable in Harper Feist’s book as it is in the works of Austin Osman Spare, Andrew Chumbley, Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, or Gast Bouschet. IO Typhon is a donkey’s skull your thoughts feed with blood while reading.
I would recommend this publication to anyone with an interest in the tarot, and it works well as both an introduction to the historical, cultural, and spiritual contexts of both the Sola-Busca and Tarot de Marseille. It is a triumph of two passionate and sincere researchers and a genuine benefit to an audience within and without the magical community – perhaps even art critics.
The underscoring theme of Blackthorn Whitethorn is that precise in-betweenness, the position of not-this not-that (Sanskrit Neti-Neti), a concept and means of apprehending that is as elusive as the roebuck being pursued — or that pursues us — and as thorny as the entangled thicket. This concept — arguably a fundamental ethos of witchery — demands that we adopt an alternate way of approaching, through poetic inference; for it is ineffable in the truest sense, and thence a Nameless Art.
This book requires multiple readings to understand how deftly the various sections gel together, despite their differences, or because of them. “What you did as a child that made the hours pass like minutes? Therein lies the key to your earthly pursuits” (C.G. Jung). This is one such puzzle of a book with which you could have hours of pleasure.
ANARCH brings the spirit of Beuys down into chthonic depths; brings it to lie beside us, as it were, in a sacrificial pit. From there, Gast’s book buries us alive, takes us on a satanic–alchemical journey to leave us injured, wounded, and fully given over to transience as undead revenants in the 21st century in new and diabolical forms.
I recommend the devouring of this book, and a warning of side effects may also seem in order. What we hold in our hands here is immensely valuable from multiple perspectives. From the modern goês’ vantage point, Prema Goet offers us a veritable anti-grimoire. A book that contains no grammar, but pure visual poetry.
After more than twenty years of study of practical Kabbalah outside authentically Jewish circles, I commend Green's book as both the best written for beginners and a much-needed corrective for most advanced practitioners. May it appear on the bookshelves and curricula of all magical orders far ahead of the works of Adolphe Franck, Mathers, Crowley, or Papus.
Hanegraaff's voice is not the only voice present in his text. As an attempt to produce a new narrative, I am not qualified to judge its effectiveness, but perhaps as a spell, I would hazard that it is more successful than not, for it leads to contemplation, and from there, perhaps the logos may lead the reader to that seeming boundary-cum-precipice where the curved-beak smile and tip of the hat may be taken as an opportunity to do the work.
This is, obviously, a new historical study, as such at points evidential conclusions arise which contradict or update comparatively recent scholarship. Martha Rampton, is a good example of a post-modern historian, explaining her evidence via the then dominant (and divergent) narratives, upon which she passes no anterior judgement. Her book is both definitive and interesting.
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“I think the mystery of art lies in this, that artists’ relationship is essentially with their work—not with power, not with profit, not with themselves, not even with their audience.”
— Ursula K. Le Guin