ARCHIVES: Esoteric Book Conference 2010

Presenters  | Artists  |  Performances  |  Book Fair  |  Book Releases

Presenters

 

DAVID BETH

David Beth, who was born to German parents in Africa, is the author of Voudon Gnosis and has been the main force in the revival of Esoteric Voudon in the past decade. He is the founder of the Société Voudon Gnostique, a selective group of initiates and artists dedicated to manifesting the more powerful, inner revelations and transmissions of the Gods of Esoteric Voudon as well as to push evolution and research of Voudon Gnosis and sorcery freely beyond all frontiers of orthodoxy. David is also a member of the Fraternitas Borealis and Ecclesia Gnostica Aeterna. University educated in Germany and the USA, he travelled and lived all over the world from Nigeria to Hamburg, from Los Angeles to London, studying occult systems and gnosis for the past 2 decades. Currently preparing the publication of a second revised and enlarged edition of Voudon Gnosis with Fulgur Ltd., David lives and works between Europe and Brazil.

David Beth for Fulgur Limited

2010 Presentation:
The Dark Doctrine —
The Qliphoth and Nightside Gnosis in Esoteric Voudon

The Dark Doctrine is an often talked about but rarely understood section of Western Occultism.

Work with the Qliphotic and Dark Path of occultism are central aspects of Esoteric Voudon. Cults like the Lycantrophic Voltigeurs and Shadow Power Shamans have made the Tree of Death their preferred hunting-grounds. In this talk Hierophant David Beth of the Société Voudon Gnostique (SVG) will map out the approach a sorcerer of Esoteric Voudon takes in working with the Gnosis of the Nightside. David will take us deep inside the nocturnal worlds of luciferian magic as practiced within the SVG. Amongst other things, he will explain fascinating concepts such as the Meon, Universe B, the kosmic resurrection and Sol Niger. The Dark Doctrine as understood within the SVG opens up the path to supreme realization, the enlightenment of Gnostic Luciferianism.

DEBRA CHESNUT

Debra Chesnut recently graduated from Exeter University, England with an MA in Western Esotericism. She was raised in the Alaska bush on a homestead at the foot of Mt. Susitna near Anchorage. Her father flew his small plane to work because there were no roads, no schools, no stores, and no jobs in the wilderness. She attended school through the Calvert Course correspondence school provided by the State of Alaska to all the children like her who lived in rural Alaska. Nature was her constant companion and profoundly influenced her life.

She graduated from Nursing School at the University of Alaska, Anchorage in 1976 earning her RN. She worked in a variety of communities in Alaska including remote native villages, and around the world in countries such as Brazil, Thailand, Nicaragua and others. She received a Bachelors of Science in Psychology at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks in 1989.

She has been a student of the Qabalah for 32 years, 25 of them as a member of the Builders of the Adytum (BOTA). She ran a Qabalistic study group for ten years in the Fairbanks community, and presently teaches classes on the Qabalah as well as other subjects.

In 1991 she was classically initiated into shamanism. In 1993 she founded The Four Winds Foundation to promote shamanic and traditional wisdom. She was a member of the faculty for the Foundation for Shamanic Studies from 1996 to 2008 and is presently their field representative in Alaska.

2010 Presentation:
The Spoken Aspects of Ritual from the Ancient Mysteries to present day Occult Societies

The Spoken Aspects of Ritual from the Ancient Mysteries to present day Occult Societies

This brief lecture will first present an overview of the ancient Greek mysteries ritual practices with an emphasis on the observance of legomena (things recited, or spoken) in the mystery rites. The subject is vast and there exists a large body of works by scholars of the ancient mysteries who have thoroughly researched the various cults, such as Jane Harrison, Walter Burkert, Karl Kerenyi, George Mylonas, Marvin Meyer, and others. They utilized primary sources; working off of manuscripts written in the original languages and drawing on the written works of the philosophers, historians, and authors of the period; research which was beyond the scope of this paper, but, which provided a working framework for the primary purpose of this presentation.

Next, as a preliminary to considering the use of legomena in the various rites, a study of the importance of speech, and euphony in the ancient world will be presented focusing on the written works of the ancient philosophers, and the research by W.B. Stanford and Joscelyn Godwin. This is followed by a review of the translations of existing texts from the early period of the CE, The Corpus Hermeticum, the Nag Hammadi Codices, the Ritual Gold Tablets, and the Mithras Liturgy from the Great Magical Papyrus of Paris, with a particular emphasis on the spoken elements of the texts as authentic examples of ritual legomena from the mystery cults.

A brief overview of the use of invocation and chanting follows, with a more detailed look at the god name ‘IAO’, based on the works of Godfrey Higgins, Joscelyn Godwin, Paul Foster Case, and others. If time allows, ritual documents from a few representative present-day societies will be reviewed, and a comparison made to the observances of legomena in the ancient mystery cults. A complete survey and comparison will not be possible within the scope of this lecture but the evidence supports the conclusion that similarities exist between them.

ORRYELLE DEFENSTRATE-BASCULE

Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule is a ChAOrder Magickian and Sabbatic Sorceror, primarily interested in the reification of spirits, deities, and elementals into the world of form via the various Artes as magickal media: drawing, sculpture, ritual theatre, musick, film, writing and various combinations thereof. He is the director of Australia’s Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Co. and performs globally, seeing public ritual as an access point for the further propagation of magickal memes and vibrations.

Orryelle is working on The Tela Quadrivium, a fourfold bookweb from Fulgur Limited. The Red Book, Conjunctio, was released in 2008, and he recently finished the Gold Book, Coagula, which is to be launched towards the end of this year.

The originator of The HermAphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk, an international network/webplay of artist-magicians, he also publishes through his iNSPiRALink. Multimedia Press (The Book of Kaos TarotSilKMilK MagiZain) and has recently had work published in XVI (Scarlet Imprint May 2010) and Hekate: Her Sacred Fires(Avalonia June 2010).

Mutation Parlour

2010 Presentation:
And the Fourth Fate shall Bind Thee…

Orryelle will be speaking about his magickal journeys with the creation and realization of the Tela Quadrivium fourfold bookweb — including its ritual applications — and the complex Alchemy involved to distill the Golden tome, Coagula.

He will also delve into the complex relationship between Will and Fate, relating this to the talismanic Book of Arte as a reflection of the magickian’s journey: The spine of the book and the spine of the awakened human, the spinner weaver and cutter of Fate’s thread, and the mysteries of the enigmatic Fourth Fate who binds together the Work into coagulated form.

This will be primarily a talk, but as a performer Orryelle will also be bringing theatrical and musickal elements into his presentation.

He will also be exhibiting original artwork (including new works for Coagula) and speaking with with other occult artists on the Esoteric Artist panel.

J. DANIEL GUNTHER

J. Daniel Gunther is a teacher highly respected and revered by his Students and peers alike. Considered one of the world’s few genuine Authorities on the doctrines of Thelema, his lectures and presentations have been hailed as dynamic revelations of Thelemic doctrine, while his engaging question and answer sessions demonstrate his collegial approach and sincere commitment to Student learning.

A member of the A∴A∴ for over thirty years, he is the author of Initiation in the Aeon of the Child, and co-editor of Pythagoras: His Life and Teachings, both published by Ibis Press. He is a standing member of the Editorial board of The Equinox.

2010 Presentation:
I Am the Heart —
A Verse-by-verse Exposition of Liber LXV, Chapter 1

The Book of the Heart Girt With The Serpent, or Liber LXV as it is known to the Students of Aleister Crowley, is one of the central Holy Books of Thelema. Liber LXV is one of the revealed documents of the A∴A∴, published in Class A, a designation assigned only to works considered divinely inspired, a work not to be changed even to the style of a letter. It gives a revealed account of the relations of the Aspirant with his Holy Guardian Angel. In his Lecture, “I Am the Heart,” J. Daniel Gunther gives an initiated verse-by-verse exposition of this beloved Holy Book, enhanced by a vivid PowerPoint demonstration. For the first time, many of the most enigmatic passages are elucidated in clear, precise language.

DALE PENDELL

Dale Pendell is the author of Pharmako/Poeia,Pharmako/Dynamis, and Pharmako/Gnosis, a depth study of the shamanic and pharmacological virtues of psychoactive plants. Dale’s first novel, The Great Bay: Chronicles of the Collapse, stories from the next ten thousand years of California history, will be released in July.

Dale Pendell’s Website

2010 Presentation:
Orpheus, Faust, Eve: Shamanism in the Western Tradition

Through the myths of Orpheus, Faust, and Eve, we find shamanic traditions in the West — some using plants, some not — that continue to affect our policies and beliefs. The three magical traditions are distinct, and lead to vastly different results in the contemporary world. The stakes are high: magic and politics intermix. By understanding the magical basis of our current political and economic system, some steps at counter-spells may be more clear.

DENNY SARGENT

Denny Sargent (a.k.a.: Aion 131, Hermeticusnath), writer, teacher and practicing Eclectic Ritualist, was first introduced to mythology and magick in New York where he grew up. He has since his early teens been accepted as a member of a number of initiatory groups and esoteric associations. In 1979 he received his BA in Education. During this time he was one of the founding editors ofMandragore, a journal of magick and eclectic ritualism published in New York City (The Grove of the Star & Snake), as well as a founding member of the Horus Maat Lodge. In 1981 he was awarded an MA in Ancient History/Cross Cultural Communications from Western Washington University where he also taught. His research has included the magickal/religious traditions of Egypt, Sumeria, Greece, Rome, China, India, Europe and Pacific Northwest Indians (Kwakiutl). In the early 1980’s, he helped found, write, and edit Aeon and Kalika, journals that were concerned with contemporary ritual practice and creative mythology. From 1980 until today, the Western Magickal Tradition, Tantrika and Taoism have formed increasingly important foci for his studies and writing. In the mundane world he is currently a Teacher Trainer, teaching university courses as part of a certificate in teaching ESL. He has written for many different pagan and magickal magazines as well as magazines in Japan. Denny taught, lived, and wrote for four years in Japan from 1989–93. He has engaged in extensive traveling and on-site research in Japan, Australia, China, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, Hawaii, Mexico, Nepal, Peru, Thailand, Cambodia, Egypt, Turkey, as well as Central and North America (so far). Books published include: Global RitualismMyth & Magick Around the WorldThe Tao of Birth DaysThe Magical Garden (co-written with his lovely and very psychic wife, Sophia), Your Guardian Angel And You, and Clean Sweep. He has several works that are going to print or are already out as this is written: Liber Sigil A IAF, a “double current” grimoire (Waning Moon Press) and Matsuri, Shinto & Buddhist Festivals of Japan (Immanion Press). In the near future, The Book of the Horned One will also be released by Ouroboros Press.

2010 Presentation:
A History of the Horus/Maat Lodge and of the Double Current

In 1979, the Horus Maat Lodge, a new magickal order, was founded. It was earthed in many lineages of the Western Occult Tradition and yet beholden to none of them. This Lodge was different in almost every way from traditional Orders of the past. It was non-hierarchical, had no set degrees or levels, had no set or firm members, had no requirements for initiation or joining, and met only on in cyberspace, on the astral, or on the physical when people felt like it. Its goal was and is to unite mages of all kinds. Now, thirty years later, it is a fully functioning Lodge that produces an online magazine, hosts a vibrant web presence and an ever growing elist. The HML has forged alliances with a number of other initiatory orders and has a large number of wildly creative members all over the world, on every almost continent.

Denny Sargent (Aion 131), one of the founding members of the HML, will present the history of the Horus Maat Lodge and of the double current that gave birth to it. He will also read a few select passages from the HML archives and from his newly published Double Current grimoire, Sigil A IAF.

“The Horus Maat Lodge is a seed-gestalt, a priesthood, and an instrumentality of the Universal Pattern of Consciousness. We accept and live by the Law of Thelema as promulgated in Liber Al Vel Legis. It is our will to assist the mutation of Homo Sapiens to Homo Veritas, and to assist each other, and all sentients living today, to find the Gateway to Maat (Truth).” — from the Charter of the Horus Maat Lodge.

DANIEL A. SCHULKE

2010 Presentation:
The Richel-Eldermans Collection:
A Hidden Lexicon of European Witchcraft

In 2000, the Museum of Witchcraft in Cornwall inherited a large collection of occult documents, images, and artifacts from Dutch collector Bob Laurentius Richel. Amassed by several occult practitioners in private for the better part of a century, it was marked by extraordinary craftsmanship and a curious hybrid of ceremonial magic, sexual sorcery, and rural witchcraft. The cache contains a considerable number of items relating specifically to European witch practices and lore, specifically those pre-dating the modern phenomenon of Wicca, and many of which have not seen print before. In this presentation, a brief history of the collection will be given, and number of its specific witchcraft arcana examined, especially those relating to schools of lore preserved in Traditional Witchcraft. Additionally, the collection’s hidden nature will be considered, and the likely rationales for its concealment.

CAROLINE WISE

Caroline Wise has been involved with occult book selling and publishing for many years. In the late 70s and 80s she worked with The Ley Hunter Earth Mysteries magazine. After working for Psychic Press she then initiated the republishing of Kenneth Grant, starting with Hidden Lore, at Scoob Books in 1989. Her brief career there was to establish the shop as an esoteric store and publisher, which she did. She co-edited Skoob Occult Review, and was one the first to publish articles and illustrations by the late Andrew Chumbley.

She moved to Atlantis Bookshop which she owned along with Neptune Press in 1995, selling the business in 2002. At Atlantis she revived The Occult Observer and published several esoteric titles.

In 1993 Caroline produced Florence Farr’s Egyptian themed plays at the Rudolf Steiner Theatre, London, to raise money for breast cancer charities, and has been producing Florence’s potent ritual drama, The Shrine of the Golden Hawk, periodically for smaller audiences.

Caroline gives lectures and workshops internationally on the Goddess, the tarot, and on the pioneering women magicians of the Golden Dawn as important figures culturally and historically. She has produced several esoteric conferences since the late 70s.

She currently works with Starfire Books, and is a senior member of the Fellowship of Isis.

So This is Medias

2011 Presentation:
Florence Farr, a Modern Magician

Florence Farr was Chief Adept in the Golden Dawn, actress, author, and “first-wave” feminist, a progressive woman on all levels. The mystical, the philosophical and the political wove a seamless whole in a questing and pioneering life. The talk will revolve around Florence’s powerful ritual drama, The Shrine of the Golden Hawk, and its subtext that reflects observations made in her Golden Dawn years and her reasons for leaving.

Artists

AMODALI

Formally trained in Graphics and Illustration at the Liverpool School of Art and Design, Amodali now lectures on these subjects in the U.K.

Exhibition — ‘Liber Incarnadine’ and selected Works:
The featured artworks pulsate with an intricate, yet visceral erotica. Illustrating magical dynamics and parameters of Amodali’s interpretations of alchemy, sex magic and the 156 current. A retrieval of image from liminal, ecstatic, trance states. The pieces are delicately realized collages of photography, illustration and mixed media. Typographic elements underline the conceptual analogue to the interactive aspects of the L.I. Project.

Amodali’s Website Liber Incarnadine

KINETA CHIEN

Kineta Chien creates mixed-media, sculptural paintings in acylic, wax, clay and found objects. Influenced by spiritual artifacts from many cultures — the reliquaries and altar paintings of medieaval Europe, scultpted walls of tantric temples, Oceanic and African carvings, the sequined flags and bottles of Haitian Vodou — her work investigates the relation between the material and the magical, the point at which the mythic and ancestral worlds penetrate into the outer world. Using esoteric symbolism and correspondence, she explores art as a process by which objects are imbued with talismanic power and spiritual purpose.

Kineta is a practicing ceremonial magician and an initiate of Hatian Vodou.

Kineta

ORRYELLE DEFENSTRATE-BASCULE

Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule is a ChAOrder Magickian and Baphometic avatar dedicated to the reification of surrealism and the realization of magickal aesthethis via the multi-media of Art/s: Drawing, painting, ritual theatre, film, sculpture, musick…

Hailing from Australia, Orryelle travels, performs and exhibits worldwide. He is an initiated Adinath, Aghori, Thelemite and Voudon Gnostic. Past publications includeConjunctio (Fulgur 08), The Book of Kaos Tarot (iNSPiRALink.), The Choronzom Machine DVD (iNSPiRALink.), SilKMilK MagiZain #1–4 (editor and contributor), plus contributions to various publications such as XVI (Scarlet Imprint ’10), Hecate: Her Sacred Fires (Avalonia ’10), Liber Malorum (Paganarchy Press ’07), Dreamflesh 1(Dreamflesh Press), ATUA (Fulgur ’11).

Orryelle is having a good harvest this year with several much-delayed projects seeing manifestation: Coagula from Fulgur (Feb) — the Gold Book of his Tela Quadrivium alchymic fourfold bookweb; The Book of Going Back by Night (May?) trade edition; and the 156=Musick CD via the Polish label Zoharum, a global collective project of The HermAphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk, a group of artist-magicians which he instigated.

At the EBC 2011, Orryelle will be presenting a selection of original work (with several prints also available) from Coagula and the next volume of the Tela Quadrivium, Solve (due 2012). Works from this Black Book are experiments in new mediums for the artist (lo-res preview example, ‘Hecate Triformis’, shown here).

Additionally, Orryelle will be presenting a complex sculptural installation especially for the EBC, involving a Solve-ing and Coagula-ting life-size statue. As well as being on exhibition in various transmutated forms throughout the weekend, this piece will also feature in a special two-part performance with Music and Ritual Theatre at the end of each day’s presentations, re-contextualizing myths of Orpheus and the Maenads. Full details of this special event will be added to the EBC site later…

In Nomine Msenomyne

Orryelle

MARIA DOLOROSA DE LA CRUZ

Dolorosa is an esoteric artist born in Salto, Uruguay, now living and working in Dublin Ireland.

Drawing is her main framework for esoteric experiments in weaving symbol and language. She uses line work to evoke living flows, rhythms of energy to channel spirits and to wander indefinitely along the endless paths of quests with focus and devotion.

Her influences are many from the literature of the surrealists especially from compatriot Isidore Ducasse, and from Unica Zurn to the occult art of Austin Osman Spare and Stefi Grant. Their willful playfulness and techniques, which consist of personal magical languages made from rituals, anagrams, automatic writings and drawings, have shaped her path and have laid a great framework for her own magical workings.

She is a member of La Société Voudon Gnostique (S.V.G.) and has had her work published in Abraxas, (Fulgur), SilkMIlk 4, and in the forthcoming ATUA: Voices from La Société Voudon Gnostique (Fulgur).

Her online works can be seen at Paraphilia magazine art gallery and at her blog, The Cabinet of the Solar Plexus.

Paraphilia magazine gallery The Cabinet of the Solar Plexus Blog

 

PATRICK LARABEE

“I am practitioner of the Sabbatic Mysteries as a Walker of the Lonely Road. My personal work is concerned with practices of Traditional Witchcraft and Sorcery. I am an artist and writer who seeks to bring to light the Mysteries of the Darkness through Image and Word, Rite and Praxis. I wish to share the Knowledge of the Heart of the Soul in Love with the All. I seek to depict the place where the Soul meets Body, the In-Between Realm where the Flesh and the Spirit co-mingle to create the Dreaming: the Vast Projections of the All-Luminous and Darkly-Burning Self. What I give is a distillation of Mystic Experience, a Retort-full of the Heavenly Gnostic Numina; a Gift from the Holy Sorcerous Daemonic Host: the Gods and Spirits of the Witch-Blood, to us, the Children of the Serpent.”

JOSHUA MADARA

Joshua is an electronic thaumaturge in Seattle, Washington, exploring the expression and augmentation of magic through technology. He publishes online demonstrations of multimedia interactions for magic at hyperRitual.com, and instructs classes in computer-assisted and computer-based magics at Arcanorium College.

HypeRitual

2011 Exhibit:
Electronomicon: The Book of Electric Names

The Electronomicon is an electronic grimoire, a physical computing interface for electro-magical machine-spirits, that may challenge our assumptions about and distinctions between channeled and constructed entities, and trivial and non-trivial machines. It will be shown for the first time at this year’s Esoteric Book Conference.

DENNY SARGENT

Denny Sargent (a.k.a.: Aion 131, Hermeticusnath), author, instructor and practicing Eclectic Ritualist, for several decades has been a ceramic artist incorporating a variety of ancient and contemporary esoteric symbols, glyphs, and archetypes into his ceramic vessels and sculptures. His current gallery representations include Stargazer’s Store & Gallery in Bellevue; Shoreline/LFP Art Gallery in Shoreline; and Oasis Gallery in Wallingford.

“In all my work I am combining completely new sacred alphabets and original images/sigils as well as traditional glyphs and symbols from ancient sources to create new and powerful sacred objects. Sacred Yoni Vessels have existed in every culture since the dawn of time, and the bowl or pot itself has often been a simple yet primal image of the genetrixor goddess in most cultures. The Sacred Vessels in this show utilize original images and sigils and as well as integrating symbols and glyphs from a variety of ancient traditions. A majority of the stamps used in my work are based on my own created glyphs and sacred alphabets. All these Vessels have a sacred and magickal aspect or purpose to them as well as an aesthetic one. The mate of the Yoni Vessel is the Lingam. Lingams (Lings) are a shape of power, creation and fertility that have been used in rituals and worship from the dawn of prehistory until now in all root cultures. The term comes from Hindu/Tantric iconography, and in this system the Ling is an image of SHIVA, often related to a phallus (usually set within a yoni). As a mystic and artist I am fascinated with these shapes as a focused and unique canvas for my archetypes, symbols, sigils and compositions in general. For years I have been creating large sacred vessels; my Sacred Ling series is both inspired by and compliments the Sacred Yoni Vessels. Together, they birth something new… Our studio site has links to many galleries of my work and a few surprises: sargentstudios.org.”

Denny will also have at least one book signing at this year’s conference.

Sargent Studios

GABRIELA SARNA

Gabriela Sarna is an enthusiast and student of the Spirit World and the many manifestations it allows through art, healing and magic. With a deep dedication to honoring the Guardians of the Land and the Ancestors, her work continues to expand within the traditions of European Witchery, Oracular Craft and Shamanism.

As an artist, Gabriela’s main focus is to stay an open vessel for the forms and faces that emerge from the mists in a visual representation of the hidden world.  Through listening to the whispers of the Beings that Arrive and awaken the desire to be shown, a relationship is formed that extracts the details and format of the final design.

This current body of work: “Guardians of the Heart Most Sacred,” is a journey and exploration of the subtle and fierce yearnings for the divine Heart within that connects to and calls forth Angels, Beasts and Familiars who watch over the portals between flesh and spirit.  The intent of each of these paintings is to introduce some of the Guardians as well as to act as a portal that takes one deeper into the realms they reside in.

All Gates Within

DANIEL SCHULKE

Daniel Schulke is an artist working primarily in oil on canvas. Using the iconography of hermeticism, witchcraft and cults of spirit-possession, his images depict sensorial phantasmagoria arising from ecstatic states of magical practice. Images in the current exhibition were painted in conjunction with the reificatory cycle of his latest book Lux Hæresis which concerns the magical translocation of the senses, within and outside the body. His images draw primarily from the symbology of the medieval witches’ sabbat and encrypt varied arcana of its folk-sorcery. Since 2000 he has served as co-director of Xoanon Limited, sole publisher of the magical order Cultus Sabbati, a sodality of traditional witchcraft initiates in Britain and North America.

LIV RAINEY-SMITH

Artist Liv Rainey-Smith specializes in hand-pulled woodcut prints. Her bold figure-oriented imagery draws upon visions from Enochian and Qlippothic work, Gnosticism, nightmares, history and fiction. Rainey-Smith’s process incorporates a mixture of traditional and modern tools as well as a blend of European and Japanese printmaking technique. She prints primarily in small editions and is earning a reputation for the fine quality of her printing as well as her unique style. She received her BFA in 2008 from the Oregon College of Art and Craft and has been a professional member of Print Arts Northwest since 2010. Liv was born in Moab, Utah, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.

BENJAMIN A. VIERLING

Benjamin A. Vierling was born in 1974, and has been evoking arcane imagery since he could hold a brush. He studied the Renaissance painting technique of mixing egg tempera and oil pigments with Phillip Rubinov Jacobson in Reichenau, Austria, and currently works from his California Atelier in a Gold Rush era convent. Specializing in mythical portraiture and Vanitas themes, his paintings are exhibited and collected internationally. He is represented by the Strychnin Gallery in Berlin, Germany.

Vierling’s illustration work has appeared in a wide variety of occult and metaphysical contexts including, illuminated horoscopes, ritual music album covers, and alchemical treatises. Among the pieces exhibited at the Esoteric Book Conference are the original pen and ink drawings for Jocus Severus, published by Ouroboros Press, 2011, as well as the paintings used for the highly acclaimed alchemical books by Robert Allen Bartlett, Real Alchemyand The Way of the Crucible, published by Ibis Press, 2009.

MARKUS WOLFF

Markus Wolff grew up in Germany and Austria before coming to Southern California in his early teens. The influences from European culture and art which he absorbed during his childhood continue to inform his creations. In the late 80s, Wolff embarked on a program of college sculpture classes and soon specialized in lost wax bronze casting and glass casting. The work from this period was exhibited in San Diego in 1994 and in San Francisco in 1995. Concurrently, Wolff was a founding member of the percussion heavy performance group Crash Worship (1986), and designed many of their posters and merchandise as well as most of their record and CD packages. After two European and numerous US tours, Wolff left the band in 1996 to move to Portland and concentrate on new projects. Using the moniker “Heidnischwerk” (heathen works), he started work on a series of works deities from Norse and Germanic religion and mythology. Sculptures and drawings from this project were first exhibited in Portland in 1999.

In 2005, he exhibited in and helped curate a group Heathen Art show with artists from across the continent and beyond (more information). A drawing of the goddess Sif appeared on the cover of the first issue of Hex magazine. In the last few years, he has drawn a series of Norse inspired T-Shirt designs for the company November Fire. He has also executed cover art and graphics for such underground acts as Soriah, Daniel Menche, Lasher Keen, Agalloch, L’Acephale, and Neurot Recordings. When possible, he has devotes time to his music project Waldteufel (Forest Devil), which has released three albums and several singles.

“My work is an ongoing attempt to forge a connection that reaches from the most ancient origins of my ancestors’ creative spark to the present and beyond, as well as an an effort to explore and communicate a mythic world view. The works are symbolic way markers on my path through this world and often draw from dreams and visions. In this endeavor, I place a high value in craftsmanship and its role in shaping art. I prefer to use traditional forms and materials as a way to immerse myself in the subject matter, while often drawing from the immense well of Symbolism and folk arts.”

Performances

AMODALI

Amodali is an experimental vocalist/musician. Creating sonic sculptures, primal vocalizations, that form a unique vocabulary of ecstatic consciousness. Describing her work as ‘aural cartography of the awakened female magical body’, she uses voice as a medium for exploration of magic, trance states, and esoteric sexuality, engaging participants with complex, challenging jouissance.

Amodali has produced an extensive body of work extending over twenty years dedicated to exploring the 156 current. Performances are libidinous, visceral, serpentine manifestations of investigations into various phenomena associated with magical sexuality. She is most often associated with the ten-year project Mother Destruction, which was a vehicle for explorations of ‘seidr’ or ‘Seething’, a form of Nordic shamanism.

Returning to long established roots as an electronic, experimental musician, 2011 performances will feature ‘Liber Incarnadine’, a recently launched online, interactive project: an experiment which seeks to nurture pan-sexual, magical engagement with the primordial, universal Eros under the auspices of Our Lady Babalon, creating a focus for the erotic impulse, love and its crystallization within the written word. An open invitation is extended to individuals to make anonymous text contributions to the L.I. site. The text is seamlessly taken into a virtual ‘grail’ to create an infinite love letter to Our Lady. Visuals from the site will be projected in the live venue, extracts of the text will be taken at random and incorporated into Amodali’s performance, where it will be vocalized as chant. Tracks from the new album of the same name will also be featured.

L.I. is the first public liturgy of ‘Incarnadine Lodge’ a Gnostic, illuminist body dedicated to research and exploration of the 156 current, sex magic and alchemy. L.I. brings together many threads of Amodali’s work and research into the relationships between sonics, language, sexuality and magick. A response to the evolutionary imperative implied by the 156 current, in cultivating magical, ecstatic engagement and developing this into forms that can be shared by all.

“For as thy blood is mingled in the cup of BABALON, so is thine heart the universal heart.” (From The Vision and the Voice, “The Cry of the 5th Aethyr”)

LUX INTERNA

For over a decade now, Lux Interna has been crafting aural altars to the inner light. Originally brought into being through Joshua Levi Ian and Kathryn Gentzke, the project has been host to a shifting constellation of musical talents over the years, each leaving their trace upon the musical landscape. Through tapestries of minor chords, human voice, delicate drones and violent sprawls of sound, Lux Interna continues to hymn the hidden god with impassioned intensity, seeking fire in the tension between transcendence and immanence. While the earlier albums were often associated with the genre of neofolk, their recent work has evidenced a musical shift marked by a heavier, more ritualistic sound, incorporating electric instruments, loops, and percussion, haunted by flourishes of ghostly banjo and droning fngerstyle guitar. While undoubtedly drawing inspiration from Joshua’s intensive studies of Abrahamic mysticism and Christian esotericism, Lux Interna’s lyrics continue to be harvested from a deeply personal and idiosyncratic field of symbols and visions.

To date, Lux Interna has released five full length CDs and one 10″ with the German cult label Eis & Licht, as well as the Brooklyn-based darkwave label, Projekt Records. In addition, Lux Interna has participated on many European and American compilation releases, including Forseti Lebt, the musical tribute to the work of Andreas Ritter, and was featured in the historical musicological work Looking for Europe. Joshua and Kathryn are currently hard at work on a new full length slated to be released on Projekt Records in Autumn 2011.

Over the past decade, Lux Interna has performed across the globe from Moscow to Los Angeles, including two appearances at the Gotik Wave Trefen in Leipzig, Germany. And Joshua and Kathryn have had the pleasure of collaborating with several celebrated members of the underground music community such as Kris Force of Amber Asylum, Andreas Ritter of Forseti, and Henryk Vogel of Darkwood, and have also contributed vocals to the latest full length release by the legendary German dark folk band, Sonne Hagal.

At the Esoteric Book Conference, Lux Interna will be performing all new material from their upcoming release on Projekt Records, there is Light in the Body, there is Blood in the Sun: a cycle of songs that weave sound as skin for spirit, exploring the chiasm between flesh, light, divinity, world, and word.

WALDTEUFEL

Waldteufel is a project founded by Markus Wolff while he was still in Crash Worship. It has existed since 1995 and at the beginning included Annabel Lee whose violin and viola performances and arrangements gave the first album Heimliches Deutschland its unique character. After that, Wolff produced some songs on his own until he found a worthy cohort in Tyrsson Sinclair. Together, they produced the two following albums, Sanguis and Rauhnacht, and embarked on playing quite a few noteworthy concerts, including the Flammenzauber Festival in Germany and a Wild Hunt performance at the Old Church in Portland. After some more experimental solo performances, Wolff more recently has resumed life activity with the help of two friends, Brian B. and Jason. They combine the emphasis on organic unusual percussion brought in from Jason’s project A Minority Of One, and the multiple talents of Brian on stringed instruments, harmonium and percussion.
At the Esoteric Book Conference, the trio will focus on a new work, based on an epic poem by Alexander von Bernus. Bernus was a 20th Century alchemist, poet, and follower of Rudolf Steiner’s teachings. His Gesang an Luzifer (Ode to Lucifer) was first published in 1923. This work will be augmented by songs based on words by Stefan George, Bruno Goetz, and Karl Wolfskehl, whose poetry often combines Pagan and (esoteric) Christian ideas, as well as works of a more nature-mystical quality.

Book Fair

The EBC is also representing the following publishers and will have titles available for sale at their table which will be located next to the registration table.

Book Releases

Abraxas: International Journal of Esoteric Studies No. 2

Fulgur Limited

Following the grand reception of the first issue of ABRAXAS, I am delighted to announce ABRAXAS 2 is now available for the first time inthe USA at the Esoteric Book Conference.

Substantially larger than the first issue, Abraxas No.2 offers 210 pagesof essays, poetry, interviews and art. Uniquely produced in a large highquality format, printed on a variety of papers, richly illustrated incolor and monochrome, and offering our first free DVD audio supplement,we hope this issue of Abraxas will provoke and inspire.

Ansell, Robert. (ed.) ABRAXAS No. 2: International Journal of Esoteric
Studies. Summer Solstice, 2011. London: Fulgur Limited, 2011.

Contributions for this second issue include:

An Ira Cohen Special Feature
—–
The Ritual Theatre of Hallucination
Allan Graubard
The Far Side of the World’s Mirror
Ian MacFadyen

Essays
—–
Brion Gysin: Shaman of the Beat Hotel
by Jon Crabb
Peter Redgrove: Blood and Dreams
by Edward Gauntlett
Finding the Long-Lost Friend
by Dan Harms
The White Goddess, A Personal Account
by Grevel Lindop
Fossil Angels
by Alan Moore
Pashupâti: A Cainite Trimurti?
by Shani Oates
Urban Sigils
by Mark Titchner

Poetry, plus
—–
Lost Words / Ira Cohen (Holograph poem printed on Lokta paper)
The Habit of Perfection / Ithell Colquhoun (Holograph poem printed on
vellum/skined colored paper)
On the Always Wandering Way / Christopher Greenchild
Sorceress in Mauve / Peter Redgrove
Invocation of the Horned God / Doreen Valiente
Knowledge / T. Thorn Coyle
To Raise the Dead and enjoy Congress with Them / Peter Dube
She’s Lost Control / Heather Tracy

Images
—–
Astral Flight – Talon Abraxas
Untitled – Marcelo Bordese
Five Studies – Lauren Simonutti
Elucidarium – Misior

Interviews
—–
IO:EVOE The Transvocatory Media of Barry Hale
An interview by Robert Fitzgerald
Interview with Joe Max by Amy Hale
Endless Shifting: A Feast of Images Swallowed by Sound;
An interview with Adi Newton by Jack Sargeant
Tesserae compiled by Gavin Semple

And our First Audio Supplement CD featuring material from:
—–
Arktau Eos
John Contreras
Cyclobe
English Heretic
High Mountain Tempel
Kallee
Philip Legard
Noko: Order 41
Okok Research?Bureau
Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule
The Psychogeographical Commission
Raagnagrok
TAGC

In oversize wraps with custom papers as per ABRAXAS Issue Number One.
Illustrations & special additions.

Available from JD Holmes

Distributors for Fulgur Limited, Starfire Publishing, Jerusalem Press,
Edda Publishing, Xoanon, and Capall-Bann
JD Holmes, ABAA – ILAB
Holmes Publishing Group LLC
Postal Box 2370
Sequim WA 98382 USA
360.681.2900
jdholmes.com

The Heretic’s Guide to Thelema Volume 1: New Aeon Magick by Gerald del Campo

Concrescent Press

This book is a new edition of a now classic work from a long-time practitioner of Thelema. It is a expression of his experience in a variety of forms of Thelema and a number of Thelemic institutions. First written as an explanation for the author’s young children, this recently corrected and improved version is a unique presentation of Thelema as it is actually lived. It is valuable to us all not because it is right, or orthodox, or for any other reason but that is IS. Thelema needs every form itself to be manifest in order for its full potential to be realized.

Some will object, and thelemically, they are welcome to do so. But the Magi have always learned from Nature and so we must note that although Nature abhors a vacuum, She hates monocultures: She always and only destroys them. Variety and diversity only will strengthen the current of Thelema. As it is said: Success is your proof.

WHO IS GERALD DEL CAMPO?

Gerald Enrique del Campo is a poet, musician, songwriter, photographer, magician, philosopher, author, and lecturer on occult and religious topics.

He was a member of the O.T.O. for 20 years and served as Master of ­RPSTOVAL Oaisis and as the Order’s Quartermaster. He was also a member of the College of Thelema, Fraternitas Lux Occulta, and The Hermetic Order of QBLH, and was a founding member of the Temple of Thelema. In 1999 he founded the The Order of Thelemic Knights, a Thelemic charitable organization based on the virtues soldiering and ­chivalry as exemplified by Templarism.

Besides New Aeon Magick, Del Campo also wrote New Aeon English ­Qabalah Revealed and the Ethics of Thelema, forthcoming in separate volumes by ­Concrescent Press as part of The Heretic’s Guide to ­Thelema collection.

Concrescent Press

Hex Magazine #9

Issue #9 of Hex Magazine will be released at the Esoteric Book Conference on September 10th. Come join us and get your copy early!

This issue’s contents:
How Hex Magazine Changed My Life
Old Ways & New Days: A Multi-Issue Poll of Heathen Thought & Practice
Uuodenes Rid (Wodens Ride)
Seasonal Recipes
Six Questions to Six Heathen Hexologists and Their Six Hexes
Winter Traditions ~ Personal Narratives
The Language of Myth: Sky-Father, Folk-King, and Warlord
The Importance of Sooth in Heathenism
The Sacred and the Holy
Speckled Snake & Brother Birch: Amanita Muscaria Motifs in Celtic Legends
Cover Art: Baba Yaga by Ravenari
And then some…

Imaginal Reality: Volume One: Journey to the Voids By Aaron B. Daniels and Laura M. Daniels

Aeon Books

Our world is a far wilder, weirder and more mysterious place than we ever admit, yet the magic we perform every day hides beneath the countless explanations we foist onto life. In the face of these convincing yet empty explanations, we displace our hunger for a sense of the magical onto other goals, addictions, and distractions. Left at odds with the very sublimity that animates our every moment, we have turned magic into an exception, a collection of superstitions, a historical backwater, and a cinematic spectacle, rather than the very fabric of life as lived. This book is about recovering the imagination of magic and the magic of imagination.

This, the first of two volumes, introduces the landscape of the imaginal and the existential voids. Through illustrative stories and self-assessment exercises, this book brings the often-obscure language of existentialism, esotericism, and imaginal psychology to life.

“Full cerebral download” says Peter J. Carroll, author of Liber Null and Psychonaut.

“The finest book on contemporary existential magic I have ever read” says George Holochwost, 1º Magus, Illuminates of Thanateros.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Aaron B. Daniels, Ph.D. teaches psychology at New England College in New Hampshire. He holds degrees from Baldwin-Wallace College (BA), Duquesne University (MA), and Pacifica Graduate Institute (Ph.D.). He prefers, however, to claim a Doctorate in Metaphysics from Lovecrafts eldritch Miskatonic University in Arkham, Massachusetts. After working for a decade in clinical psychology, he transitioned into academia. This is his first book.

Laura M. Daniels, M.Ac. practices Chinese medicine in New England, and is also a tai chi and qi gong practitioner, graphic designer and editor. She holds degrees from Baylor University (BA in Anthropology), and the Northwest Institute of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (M.Ac. in Chinese Medicine).

Incendiary Arts

Two Grimoires by Austin Osman Spare

Starfire Publishing

Both grimoires are notebooks containing more than twenty pen, ink and watercolour images, many embellished with gold, and are previously unpublished. The first, The Focus of Life & The Papyrus of Amen-AOS, is dated 1905-6. Much of the lettering remains in pencil, some of it giving clues to the underlying meaning of the imagery. An important element of this grimoire is that it features an early form of the ‘exteriorisation of sensation’ which Spare subsequently developed into the Sacred Alphabet which is a feature of The Book of Pleasure. The second, slightly later notebook is The Arcana of AOS & the Consciousness of Kia-Ra, dated 1906. This picks up some of the imagery from the earlier notebook as well as adding some new elements.

These two grimoires by Spare are at once enigmatic and full of haunting beauty. The paintings and drawings from each notebook are here reproduced in full colour. With an Introduction by Michael Staley and analytical essays by Stephen Pochin and William Wallace, this publication adds to our understanding of Spare’s early years as an artist, mystic and philosopher and sheds light on the early development of his sigillisation techniques.

Starfire Publishing

The Woman Magician by Brandy Williams

Llewellyn

Always the muse, never the magician — until now!

Western metaphysics assumes magicians are men. Since the Victorian era women have been able to join magical orders and perform ritual magic by assuming the identity of men, by acting as the intuitive inspiration to the magician himself, or by taking the role of the earth mother priestess.

The Woman Magician challenges that assumption. Examining and challenging the Western understanding of women’s bodies, energies, and powers, the book articulates a new metaphysics which frees and empowers women to act authentically as women and as magicians.

In the century-old tradition of ritual magic the book covers both theory and practice. The theory section explores the Western magical tradition and the science, philosophy and theology that formed the tradition.

The practice section includes both personal and group rituals which combine the insights of the Women’s Spirituality Movement with ritual magic forms. The group rituals describe a new magical order, Sisters of Seshat, the first woman-only fraternal style initiatory system since the French Revolution.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brandy Williams is an internationally known writer and lecturer on esoteric topics with a special emphasis on women’s studies. Her experiences as a Dianic Witch, an initiated traditional Witch, a Golden Dawn initiate, an ordained priestess of Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica, and a chartered initiator and former body master of Ordo Templi Orientis uniquely qualifies her to trace the underlying assumptions about women in each of these systems. Her life work bridges the humanist understandings of the twentieth century Dianic and Pagan movements and the classical ritual of the nineteenth century magical lodges.

Brandy Williams