We are doing it. We are reading the famous initial scene from Goethe’s Faust and talking about what it means to be a magician.

Please read the Dedication, pp.64-67, the Prologue in Heaven, pp.82-91, and from The First Part of the Tragedy, the initial scene in Faust’s study, pp.92-124. If you don’t speak German, you will only read half of these pages! Congrats and condolences.

Optional: The Historical Background section of Kaufmann’s introduction, pp.12-21.

This week, as a side dish to our Egg: The Delphic Maxim ‘Know Yourself’ in the Greek Magical Papyri by Hans Dieter Betz.

This week we discuss the classic 1973 film The Wicker Man. Please watch it at home and come to the group with THREE GOOD QUESTIONS to stimulate conversation!

We invite you to join us in our simultaneous working of a week-long spell from the Greek Magical Papyri: the wonderful Egg of the Daimon. We begin at dawn on Sunday, September 21st.

In preparation, please read:

Sfinga’s artice, Meeting With Your Own Daimon, from the “With Cunning and Command” blog.

Some sections from Stephen Flowers’ Hermetic Magic: “Origins” (pp. 3-17), “Principles of the Hermetic Synthesis” (pp. 37-43), “Daimonology” (pp. 99-100), and “Magical Theories” (pp. 135-141).

Also recommended for context: the Wikipedia article on the PGM.

Against all odds – still – Hecate’s Fountain by Kenneth Grant. We will discuss pages 93-124 – “Spells of Hadit” and “Centres of Pestilence.”

Hecate’s Fountain continues to flow from, and to, the seats of our trousers. Please read pages 56-92 – the chapters “Sticks of Trance,” “Space Seed,” and “Sentient Mist.”

We continue with Hecate’s Fountain by Kenneth Grant! This week, please read pages 21-55. Or as near as you can get.

We come to converse with Kenneth Grant again, with impressive and bizarre magical anecdotes from Hecate’s Fountain. We looked at this one a few years ago, and it’s worth looking again! We will discuss the foreword and the first two chapters – from the beginning of the book through page 20.

Our last week with this one; we read the second half of Chapter 3 in Antonin Artaud’s Heliogabalus or, The Crowned Anarchist. Read from page 91 through to the end.

Despite general bewilderment and resentment, we persist in courting the Mad Emperor! We continue with the first half of Chapter 3 in Antonin Artaud’s Heliogabalus or, The Crowned Anarchist. Read pages 63-91.