Click on the cover of either book to go to the Amazon link.

If you’d like a little more convincing, please visit the Codex of Souls site, where all the requisite details about the books can be found.

However, unlike alchemy, the end goal of writing is not a private revelation.

Both involve daily rituals–regular observance of the basis skills which one must master in order to improve one’s craft. This isn’t anything new–all professional trades involve a modicum of regimented practice and use–but the practice of writing and alchemy (any creative art, really) take into consideration experimentation and drill. Neither of which are activities that are really noteworthy in their execution, unless, of course, the experimentation produces an unexpected and wildly inventive result. But you don’t really know until after the fact, and then, filling in the record can be either (a) time-consuming and boring when you’d rather be out celebrating your success, or (b) complicated by the fact that you may not have kept good records along the way–most discoveries happen so randomly and serendipitously that recreating them is difficult.

This is, by the way, a rumination about blogging, and the point thereof.

I was never a very good blogger, as the shelf of half-filled notebooks in my library can attest (as the ragged history of entries back to the late ’90s that I have archived somewhere; indeed, as the history of this site will show), and I struggle with finding a good balance. Most blogging seems to be navel-gazing in public, noisy attention-seeking, or somewhat embarrassed ramblings that are as embarrassing for the reader as the writer. Mary Robinette Kowal once remarked on a blog of a friend who was obsessively detailing reconstruction work on his truck. While she did not share his enthusiasm for trucks, she found his passion for the subject infectious–to a point where she found herself learning quite a bit more about trucks than she ever imagined she would.

I started this site as something that wouldn’t be just a personal blog, and immediately discovered I had no idea how to make it impersonal. So, perhaps I should let that distinction go. But I don’t want it to be a personal blog, and so some filtering should be applied.

And then I realize I am probably over-thinking the whole thing, in which case, let us move on. Writing and alchemy, and where they collide. The rest will come naturally, a progression born from regular practice. Yes, everything changes the more you explore it. As it should.

– Yutang Lin

There is no dearth of things to do around here, and one of the projects that has suffered terribly in the dog-days of summer is this site. I’m still trying to wrap my head around exactly what I want to accomplish, and that isn’t helping my enthusiasm for posting. In the end, I suppose, I just need to start, and in some time, a vision will present itself.

I’ve been writing books fairly seriously for a few years now, and as it’s a fairly solitary process, I’ve begun to miss the elements of both a forum and a community. Instead of trying to find one (see OPi8.com and the culture logs we tried to build back in the day) or show up on the doorstep of another, I mulled over what it was that I really wanted. As much as some of the other occult and esoteric communities interest me, they seem to be too focused in their efforts (and the materials they cover). As anyone who has read Lightbreaker can attest, my issue isn’t one of specialization.

Plus when you get right down to it, I’m a better writer than I am a magician. And there’s your focus: this’ll be a writer talking about magic and the occult. Perhaps, a few years down the road, we’ll all discover we’ve become magicians. At least, that’s the idea.

There will be no set publication periodicity here. Not in the beginning, at least. The idea is to put up material as I find time. I do hope to add some more contributors so it won’t be a solitary voice blathering about the shiny things. Throw this site into your RSS reader, and we’ll all be pleasantly surprised when the content starts flowing regularly.

The intent is collate and discuss, and with that in mind, “reviews” per se will be one-sided. I’m not really keen in getting back into the reviewing business, but I am interested in what’s being done in the field. A book (or CD or film or magick ritual) may be the topic of post, but it’ll be more of a starting point for conversation. That’s more of a caveat to people who would like to send stuff. Yes, I’m happy to accept material, but realize that a traditional review probably won’t be in the offing.

Beyond that, let me leave you with the little piece that used to be the entirety of content at DARKLINE.COM. I was happy to discover I still had it, as it says everything that needs to be said.

Sigil

-m

In principio creavit Deus caelum et terram. Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebrae super faciem abyssi, et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. Dixitque Deus: “Fiat lux”. Et facta est lux. Et vidit Deus lucem quod esset bona et divisit Deus lucem ac tenebras.
    —Genesis 1:1-4

It’s the “et divisit Deus lucem ac tenebras”–”and God separated light from dark”–part that concerns us here. That line that separates the light from the dark.