Dearly Beloved Bastards,
This Wednesday we will be discussing the dueling forewords, introduction, and first chapter of David Crowhurst’s Stellas Daemonum (the entirety of the attached PDF). This is another text recommended by AVDIERVNT, featuring cameos from Lon Milo DuQuette and Stephen Skinner.
This week, we’ll be discussing Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One, pages 6-95. Please don’t be disconcerted by the page count; the font in this version is very large.
This week, at the suggestion of Saint Shut-the-Fuck-up Friday, we will be discussing The Satan Seller by Mike Warnke, pages 26-57, 76, 155-156, 182-196, and Appendices (211-213).
OPTIONAL SUPPLEMENT: Their Holiness’ summary of the vital plot points. Also pages 58-78 from the book.
Their Holiness has these comments to offer upon the text:
Unlike memoirs that would debut later wherein the main characters were purportedly victims of a Satanic cult, Mike Warnke’s The Satan Seller describes his time as a Satanic High Priest. While the claims in this book could easily be debunked by anyone with the common sense the gods gave little green apples, the claims weren’t formally debunked for nearly twenty years, and the text helped provide an initial spark to what would become the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Join us for a discussion of occult supply chain management, multi-level marketing schemes that definitely don’t involve the Illuminati, and the very real repercussions of the depictions of very fake Satanism.
This week, the enigmatical Tobiko brings us three brief selections on city magic: Terra Incognita, the “Pilgrimages and missionaries in rot” chapter of Urban Sorcery (pp. 35-38), and Surrealism in the Streets.
This Wednesday, we continue with The Devil’s Dozen by Gemma Gary. We will discuss the “Introduction” and “The Man in Black” (pp. 9-25) and “A Horned Castle: the Rite of the Compass” (pp. 65-77).
On Wednesday, AVDIERVNT brings us an offering from The Devil’s Dozen by Gemma Gary. We’ll discuss “Skin-Turning & The Wild Hunt” (pp. 117-137). See you then!
This week, we’ll have a look at Walter Benjamin’s On Language as Such and on the Language of Man, found on pp. 107-123 of this collection. Join us Wednesday as we attempt to elucidate this abstruse but tremendous meditation at the crossroads of theology, philology, and philosophy.
~ Dysnomia
This week’s reading has been selected by Guest Bastard, Man of Letters, and yoga practitioner Antonio.
We will be discussing “Preliminary Remarks” pp.3-5, “Asana” pp.23-27, “Samadhi” pp.79-89, and “Summary” pp.90-93 from Book 4 – Liber ABA (Part One)
We will also read “Sutra 1.39” pp.207-209, “Dualism of Yoga” pp.42-44, “Appendix Chapter I: Meditative Absorption” 562-570, and “Sutra 1.2” 74-86 in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.
Dysnomia here. This week, we’ll delve into the Zos Kia Cultus of Austin Osman Spare. Spare’s core writings on his sorcery and its psychosexual basis are often quite abstruse, to the point where some consider them pure diversion and not to be taken literally as arcanum in the least. Thus, it seems preferable that we instead read the two final chapters from Kenneth Grant’s The Magical Revival as a condensed and more intelligible primer. Spare was also one of the foremost draughtsmen of his time, and it is in his art and its profound reflection to/of the unbound subconscious that I think we find much of the actual instantiated substance of his sorcerous arte. Therefore I have included below some favorite selections from his hand to not omit this vital outlet and vessel for his life energies.
“Know that everything begotten by you, and in you, is by unities with otherness to further your individuality. Your sincerity will bestow reality. Pleasure shall be our respite from service to others, ourselves, and the Gods. There is no greater pleasure than the mutual; reciprocity is my law.” – ZOS
Zos playing the ‘Overture to Reality’, circa 1954
a manifesting vessel depicting Spare and Mrs. Patterson (1928)
“The Self in Ecstasy” (from The Book of Pleasure, 1913)
Black Eagle (1946), Spare’s familiar and daemon
“General Allegory” from A Book of Satyrs (1907)
frontispiece from A Book of Satyrs
Formula of Zos vel Thanatos (1955), Spare’s stélé for the Zos Kia Cultus
sketch of Mrs. Patterson, the witch who initiated Spare into the sabbatic mysteries
The Vampires are Coming
“Idiotcy” from A Book of Automatic Drawing (1925)
“Astral Body” from A Book of Automatic Drawing (1925)
“The Threshold” from A Book of Automatic Drawing (1925)
notes on the Alphabet of Desire
scribblings
Elemental Materialisation (1955)
This week, at the insistence of Helios, we will discuss the Principia Discordia. They have recommended pages 3-13, 16-18, 21-24, 28-30, 36-37, 42, 49-51, 61-64, and 69-74 as the most essential parts of that delightfully digressive volume. Given the majestic powers of the Goddess we mean to venerate this week, I wish you the best of luck in keeping the pages straight.
Thine in Chaos – Fr. Gnostrigrangel