Twin Peaks/Paradise Lost
I have been studying Milton’s Paradise Lost while watching Season 3 of Twin Peaks (and subsequently re-watching Season 2). Like retroviral DNA they have swapped and intertwined and formed a strange composite in my head. Those with an interest in religion and esotericism will understand that there is always a larger…
A Dark Song
It is difficult to find interesting depictions of the practices of the WET in film. Perhaps my favourite is the Hammer production of “The Devil Rides Out” with Christopher Lee, who played a large part in bringing Dennis Wheatley’s book to the screen, to the extent of researching in the…
The Picatrix
I possess a beautiful leather-bound edition of the Picatrix by Ouroboros Press in Seattle. My friend Richard Brzustowicz is credited in the acknowledgements, and this makes me unreasonably happy. However … the background to the translation is a mystery to me. I know nothing about the history of the texts used in…
Aunt Sally
There is an English game called “Aunt Sally”. The object is to knock the head off a dummy with a ball or stick. The version I recall most clearly was at a school fete. Good-natured teachers would dress in a ridiculous costume and sit immobile in a chair, while the public…
The Folly Tarot Trumps
I thought it would be fun to add colour-tinted versions of the Folly Tarot Trumps to the website (as found in B & W in Playing the Fool). The link is: http://www.digital-brilliance.com/contributed/PtF/index.php A sample … everyone loves the Devil, so here is the fiend himself.
The Zohar
When I was motorcycling in Northern Spain I took a day out to visit Leon. I saw it on the map and thought “R. Moses de Leon”, and not having much internet at the time, I did not think to investigate further. I would have been better going to Ávila,…
Henry More – New Article
Don Karr has kindly provided a new article for the site as part of his series Knots and Spirals: Notes on the Emergence of the Christian Cabala. The article is titled Some Brief Writings of Henry More and includes an introduction on More, and a selection of More’s writing taken…
“Playing the Fool” is Finished
I have released Playing the Fool to Amazon and it should become available to buy in the US, UK and EU domains within the next few days. It has taken me just over a year to write and it has been an enormous task. The illustrations alone – 22 Trumps,…
Proofing
The penultimate step in book production is the paper proof. This is the book with all its deficiencies revealed on paper. It is normal to give proof copies to people to check, and these are returned covered in ink. “Did you really mean ‘moral’? Should it not be ‘morale’?” Thank…
Living in the Tarot
I have spent the last fifteen months living in the Tarot. By that I mean that almost every conscious moment when my brain wasn’t fully occupied with other tasks has been spent with the Tarot – either making cards, writing about the cards, or listening to the chatter in my head.…