Posts Tagged ‘Bibliophiles’

Esoteric Book Conference 2010

BY: Mark

The Esoteric Book Conference is returning for a second year, and the dates are September 18 & 19th at the Seattle Center. Billed as an opportunity for authors, students, artists, publishers, bookmakers, and mystic raconteurs to spend a weekend exploring the field of esotericism, it’s two days of occult-themed presentations, a book fair filled with all manner of interesting and rare books, and an evening of special entertainment.

Presenters this year are: David Beth, Debra Chesnut, Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, Robert Fitzgerald, J. Daniel Gunther, Dale Pendell, Denny Sargent, and Caroline Wise. The website has further details about the actual presentations. Artists attending are Anima Nocturna, Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, Daniel Schulke, Joseph Uccello, and Bryan Ward. Entertainment will be provided by the Master Musicians of Bukkake and Noko.

Vendors include Ajna Bound, Ars Obscura, Concrescent Press, Fulgur Limited, J. D. Holmes, Immanion Press, Night of Pan Books, Nightshade Magick, Ouroboros Press, Dale Pendell, Thompson Rare Books, and Wonderella.

I went last year, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. I’m looking forward to handing out with all these people again this year, and a couple of those presses have a number of books I’m eager to check out.

Esoteric Book Conference home page

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.