Archive for March, 2010

Hilobrow on Generations

BY: Mark

Hilobrow creator, Joshua Glenn has created what he calls a “generational periodization scheme,” wherein he classifies everyone during the last 150 years as falling into 10-year spans that quantify their contribution to culture, history, and society. As he points out in his article on The Cuspers, his demarcation of the categories falls on years that end with “3″ and “4.” Eras don’t line up with the changes of decades, really, because even though we like things all nice and tidy, culture certainly isn’t.

The Generations tag, scooping up all of the commentary and lists of creators and their like-minded generationists. Me? I’m a Reconstructionist, albeit partial to the work of The Psychonauts.

Bethalynne Bajema’s Sepia Stains Tarot Deck

BY: Mark

Artist Bethalynne Bajema has finished her tarot deck. She freely admits that they’re non-traditional in their symbolism, eschewing the traditional iconography for butterflies, ornate skeletal infrastructures, and steampunk imagery, but such individualization only adds to their charm.

She has a long post about the creative process behind the cards. You may purchase a deck at this link.

Christie’s to Auction Illustrated Manuscripts

BY: Mark

In July, Christie’s is going to auction Part I of The Arcana Collection: Exceptional Illuminated Manuscripts and Incunabula. Forty-eight lots, with an estimated worth of £11 million to £16 million.

As Art Daily mentions in their write-up of the announcement, illustrated manuscripts were prize possessions during the medieval period as they were more than just books; they were little art galleries, customized for their owners, and each one is an unique record of a time and place. Like time capsules of the way artists and their patrons saw themselves and their world.

A couple of lots made me wish I had a secret stash of cash money to throw down.

- An Italian manuscript Bible (late 13th century) that appears to have been used in a Dominican convent. The allure of this book is its borders of “diverting genre scenes and fantastical creations far from the routine religious illustrations that might be expected.” Theodoric Borgognoni’s death (c.1296) is marked in the Calendar, suggesting that he may have commissioned the manuscript. He was the Bishop of Cervia, and is remembered for being one of the most innovative surgeons in the medieval period. Christie’s estimates this book is worth somewhere between £2,500,000 to £3,500,000.

- A copy of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (valued at £220,000 to £260,000) is the copy once owned by Jean Grolier de Servières, a famed 15th-century bibliophile.

Atlas Obscura’s World-wide Equinox Celebration

BY: Mark

Atlas Obscura is celebrating March 20th by hosting a number of events around the world, all of them highlighting the Strange in your neighborhood. Check the full list of events, and if you’re in Seattle, Ourboros Press publisher, William Kiesel is presenting “Alligators and Alchemy in Cabinets of Curiosity” at the Ancient Grounds Cafe at 1pm.

There will be a brief slide show displaying some early examples of Curiosity Cabinets as well as some discussion as to the similarities shared with alchemical laboratories. All of this will take place is a cafe that is merely masquerading as a coffee house.

Ancient Grounds has a great deal of Native American masks, totem poles, tribal art, headdresses and other clothing, and other displays. And probably an alligator or two.

Super Punch Tarot Cards

BY: Mark

In celebration of their third anniversary, Super Punch hit on the idea of soliciting a tarot deck. Reaching out to an amazing number of illustrators, they’ve started to collate the Super Punch Tarot Deck. Posts of cards are expected to run through April, and Super Punch curator, John Struan, has enjoyed the process so much he’s started Endless Deck, an on-going blog of nothing but new illustrations of Tarot cards.

Knight of Cups (by Timothy Lam, layout by Jean-Luc Pham, from the Super Punch Tarot Deck)

John Griogair Bell Offers Insight Into Free Thinking

BY: Mark

John Griogair Bell (curator of hermetic.com), offering commentary on the nature of paradigms and the perils of binding oneself to one above all others.

The notion that all paradigms have limited boundaries of applicability, that they contain their own sets of inexplicability, means that the activity of defending a paradigm as one true anything is inherently nonsensical and illogical and unscientific. And, vehement hatred of other paradigms, or those operating within different paradigms, is bogglingly, self-evidently, torturously backward to the very idea and philosophy of science. It seems to me, that kind of vehement hate is a failure of humanity to live up to the potential afforded by the idea and philosophy of science as a function which liberates them from tyranny of form determined for them by faith.

The full post is called “Paradigms”, and it is a delightful analysis on what it means to be an occulture critic.

Templar Graffiti

BY: Mark

Shortly after King Philip IV ordered the Templars rounded up in October of 1307, a number of them were sequestered in a guardhouse in the sleepy French village of Domme. There, while waiting on the pleasure of gracious King Philip, squeezed in a tiny room with not much in the way of a view, these knights had lots of time to reflect. And to carve graffiti.

An exclusive report on the graffiti and what it might mean has been posted at Fortean Times. My favorite of the carvings made by the incarcerated is the picture of Pope Clement V (as a snake) getting speared by a vengeful archangel. Take that, you bastard Pope!

Lost Graffiti of the Templars (text and photos by Jerry Glover)

Blair MacKenzie Blake on Collecting Crowley

BY: Mark

I recently acquired a copy of Blair MacKenzie Blake’s The Wickedest Books in the World (Confesssions of an Aleister Crowley Bibliophile), and while I don’t suffer from the same desire to aquire first editions like Blake does, I found the book to an engaging and entertaining read. Especially the section near the end where he described his vision of turning Boleskine House into “Crowleyland.”

(Blake, as he notes more than once in the book, is still under the influence of his desire, needing on a copy of The Book of Thoth, one of 200 copies produced in 1944, right at the height of British wartime restrictions on making such extravagances. It’s printed on Arnold unbleached handmade paper (from the Chiswick Press), bound in half-russet morocco leather, raised bands and gold-blocking on the spine, Egyptian-themed boards, and illustrated throughout with both colored and black and white images of the tarot deck as designed by Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. In case you have a copy lying around, and are wondering what to do with it.)

The Wickedest Books in the World is an oversized volume filled with gorgeous pictures of the first editions (photographed by Duncan Blake), and Blake’s fervent enthusiasm for his bibliophilic condition becomes infectious. By the end of his confessions, I was looking dismissively at the two shelves of Crowley books I have. All reprints. Nothing remotely close to a first edition up there. I was such a dilletante.

Blake clearly recognizes the allure that collecting something that is quantifiable rare, and he doesn’t dwell overmuch on the psychology of the collector. Though he does touch on the myth that Crowley firsts—because of the exacting publication specifications on some of them—still bear an imprint of the Great Beast himself on them, making them more like talismans than bunch of pages stuck together with glue and possibly more unsavory things. Blake’s focus is more on the linguistic fever and mania that comes over those who obsess over Crowley’s output. It becomes so easy to slip into a world populated by esoteric symbols.

Although the proprieter didn’t wear a Phrygian cap, Sanka, and a tourmaline ring seemed promising. Let’s have a look at those worm-eaten grimoires and dusty alchemical tracts—their moldering pages copiously illustrated with a mythic zoology, abtruse glyphs, and occult heraldry. Where were the peacock tails, emblematic paintings of the mystic marriage/conjunctio, and resplendent phoenixes? Further exploration of the place revealed no alchemical menagerie. Not even a tiny back room containing the revolving wheel of the zodiac, celestial-astral liquid in copper vessles, flaming athanors, curcurbites, or the prism of sorcerer’s bottles filled with the frozen flow of silver. Our pockets were filled with francs and bezants, and we damn near had the effluvium of Babalon tucked in our wallets. If nothing else, that ought to put us in a priveleged position in the multiverse.
    —(Blake, reminiscing about Parisian bookstores, p. 42)

I wish my local bookstores were more like this.

The Vast Library That Is Hermetic.com

BY: Mark

I should start building pages for the things that are on the links page, so that it’s clear why they’re here, as well as a personal reminder of how much useful information the Internet has to offer. Case in point: Hermetic.com. Claiming as their mission the act of “archiving, engaging, and encouraging the living Western Esoteric Tradition,” they’re building a virtual library of all manner of useful texts, including a fairly substantial Crowley library.

They’re also a nexus point for a number of personal sites about the Golden Dawn, the O.T.O, Dr. John Dee, Enochian matters, Chaos Magick, Qabalah, the Tarot, Thelema (and the list goes on).

I hadn’t realized they’ve got all of Crowley’s Equinox material up there (wherein I finally found the picture of the Silent Watcher I’ve been looking for for the last six months). If you’re not obsessed about finding first editions, you can’t go wrong with online versions. (The link there goes to Blair MacKenzie Blake’s book on being a Crowley bibliophile, which I’m currently reading and enjoying quite a bit.)

You may also follow Hermetic.com updates on twitter and Facebook.

Anders Sandberg’s Genesis Game

BY: Mark

When Anders Sandberg isn’t busy contemplating the transhumanist future, he’s coming up with clever ways to create role-playing mechanisms. In this case, Genesis: A Game Of History Creation. Using a deck of Crowley Thoth tarot cards, a couple of creatively-minded kids, and a couple of ten-sided dice (because it’s not an RPG system if you don’t have funny-sided dice), you can quickly lay out a series of world-building scenarios based on play interaction with the Thoth cards.

It’s one of those systems that takes about three minutes to explain, and over a lifetime, you’ll probably not work through every thread possible with the cards. Mainly, it starts with a single event and/or individual, and each player proceeds to lay down a card, adding to the “and this happened next!” scenario generation. Each tarot suit is mapped to a specific facet of world-building, and each card has its only spin on that facet based on the card’s own meaning. About the use of the Crowley deck, Anders says: “[The game] can be run using other decks of course, but often the images are less helpful and the meanings more psychological. Knowing the symbolism and meanings of the cards makes the game far more entertaining and flexible, but just looking at the images can give inspiration.”

It’s all about making the world based on autonomic suggestions from the cards.

Anders’ site has a lengthy walkthrough of game play, which demonstrates evocatively the wealth of possibilities available to febrile imaginations.