The Book of Forbidden Knowledge: Now Available!

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The Book of Forbidden Knowledge should in no way be judged based on its era and type of manufacture. A simple paperback released at the dawn of the 20th century, it's really more of a modern grimoire influenced by the Oracle/Napoleonic tradition than it is a hand guide of trickery typical of that late Victorian age.

Covering charms, talismans, fortune telling, prognostication, physiognomy, mesmerism, seances, and more, it's similar to Hohman's Pow Wows in the 1800s or the Petit Albert of the 1700s. That is to say, a compilation of many types of lore from multiple backgrounds; indeed the similarity it shares with these two works leads me to believe that it borrows some of its content from each. It's an extremely good work; far better than I expected when I first saw the cover and presumed it to be silly.

106 pages.

Several Work Updates

Update 1: Hohman's Pow-Wows is rapidly approaching completion. The work is going much faster than the Fortune Teller did because of the English being so much closer to that used in modern speech. I have not yet decided whether to include or omit the publishers' added section (which dates to the original work but is not entirely of German/Pennsylvanian origin.)

Update 2: I am going to expedite the Ars Goetia if it is within my capability to do so.

Update 3: I will be editing and releasing the "Ophiolatreia."

Update 4: Sickness in Hell will be taking rudimentary form over the course of August and I hope to release it before Halloween. If not, it will definitely be done before December.

Update 5: I still have to release the Trinosophia of St. Germaine, the Magus by Francis Barrett, and a dozen other works. Whether even working at full tilt I can complete them all before 2017 is not certain; the last slew of works I released quickly were all shorter in length and all were edited into English before modernity- the Trinosophia has to be translated from French as the Petit Albert was (Hall's translation is copyrighted and flawed) and The Magus is quite long and detailed. Two more apocryphal works, and at least three more alchemical texts, as well as the booklet I possess on Hypnotism and Mesmerism will join their ranks also, along with Faust's "Black Raven."

Upcoming Materials, and Blog Announcement

In the near future, Basil Valentines' "Twelve Keys" will be available- this alchemical work of note is quite good, and in keeping with the original edition I have omitted the attractive but largely superfluous illustrations present in latter printings. Add to this Philalethes' work, which is available here and things are moving along quite smoothly. I haven't forgotten about Sickness In Hell either- I guarantee I will begin the process of stringing together prior material in the near future.

In blog related news, it's update time; and by update I mean that I set up the basic format, color, font, and design of this blog in a single afternoon long ago. I've already replaced the primitive header text with a banner and added two new links which you may have noticed at the left hand side of the page; respectively, to my occult informational series on Youtube (covering everything from cryptids and UFOs to philosophy and sex magick) and my occult literature series in which I briefly summarize and explain the content of the literary works I am releasing here on this selfsame blog. My Youtube audience is far, far larger than my dedicated literary following right now and it makes sense to blend my two main online presences together to expand the reach of all my workings.

Coming Soon: Liber Salomonis

I am now three quarters of the way through editing the (extremely antiquated) Liber Salomonis; a Hermetic era compilation of treatises masquerading as a Kabbalistic work from the times of Solomon or (as the text claims) even the times of Adam under the name "Sepher Raziel." I have already discussed in brief the obviously falsifiable claim of its ancient origin, but as a purely European text merely deriving content from Hebraic material it does not disappoint; it's extremely dense, and sometimes you will see the same word spelled in four or five variations in a single treatise, but the resulting material, once edited into an easier form, is quite good.

Perhaps the most important part of the work, the Ala or wings, which I have completed already, dwells upon the natures of twenty four each of herbs, beasts, stones, and letters, as well as speaking of the elements and principle virtues and powers behind the same. It gives lengthy passages on the creation of incense used to fumigate oneself, or a home, or a tomb, or anything else, and by means of the same work various enchantments. Interestingly, most of the "fish" spoken of (whales, dolphins, squid) aren't fish, biologically speaking; quite telling, regarding its date of origin.

A few of the species of herbs mentioned in this work I covered in Fruits of Eden and the use thereof and the virtues or evils from each species appear to largely agree with the other materials I consulted for writing my own herbal- marjoram and chicory are mentioned frequently both in the herblore as well as the creation of seven specific fumigations each for one day of the week and each with its own power and purpose.

Funnily enough, while this work speaks of Solomon and Hebrew letters, at the time it was made the jews, in Europe, were being frequently outed by kingdom after kingdom, migrating around the continent as worried christians remarked that they were causing outbreaks of plague or poisoning wells and fields alike.

In other news the; Stone of Urine, by Hollandus, is already fully edited, but I have not yet illustrated the same; I'm too focused on the Liber Salomonis and I'm still suffering from the end of a mild cold; sneezing on ones' illustrations is not a good way to spend your time productively!

Aradia: Gospel of the Witches, Now Available!

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At long last the Aradia, Leland's most important work, is available from yours truly.

Unlike most of my releases, this one is almost more science and history than strict occultism- as an anthropological study (albeit one with some controversy behind it) it focuses on both the dogma and rituals of certain groups in Tuscany during this pre-modern period which practiced a sort of folkish witchcraft as part of what we might consider a pagan, Romanized religious cult.

Indeed, Leland claims it is this pagan group, and not christianity, that was dominant at the time; we may be seeing, in my opinion, here, Leland conflating a folkish tendency among the population with a wider religious force- this would make sense, since not long after this era both the Italians and Germans began openly adopting folkishness in an ubermensch sort of manner.

The rituals become less difficult to understand when compared to some of the other ritualism mentioned in grimoires from before this period- the permeability of the French and Italian cultures of this age would have allowed a great deal of knowledge to pass from the enormous corpus of French literature through the Italian cycle which itself was quite large.

It should be noted that while modern Wiccans credit this as a work describing their own movement it is far closer in form to genuine neopaganism in the European sense than to Wicca.

Coming Soon: December 2015 to Mid-2016

The following is a general (and malleable) list of the releases which will be featured here on this blog courtesy of yours truly, and some of my general plans for the next year or so in my writing, editing, and illustrating. (One of my subscribers confirmed the good overall quality of the Grand Grimoire re-release; which is pleasing- I figured the end result would be a much more polished release worthy of the amount of sales it gets.)

1. The "Rosary of the Philosophers" - Originally translated into English in the 18th century, this somewhat longer work is alchemical in nature and is nearly edited as we speak. It will be the last or second to last work I release in 2015 (My work on sonic occultism is complete and needs illustrating only.)

2. Hollandus' "Opus Alchymy" - A short tract containing three sections regarding alchemical processes.

3. "The Wise Man's Crown" - A 17th century Alchemical Treatise. John Heydon's (sic) "Rosy Crucian Crown" - An interesting alchemical work of largely unclassifiable content, being part story, part notations to those the author felt appropriate to address, and part natural science treatise.

4. "Aradia" or the Witches' Gospel - A work of middling length containing paganistic philosophical references.

5. A re-editing of the Grimorium Verum and Black Pullet, specifically for illustration purposes. Added to this, adding the formerly absent illustrations to several prior works.

6. Several of my own works.

7. Any new alchemical texts I can get my hands on. I have copies of one of Paracelsus' and one of Plotinus' work as well. If time allows I want them done and available by mid 2016.

I still need to acquire more occult works and as always will investigate any occult texts related to me; the limitation of the internet in searching for physical works especially is limited, unless one has a substantial budget- the work of creating inexpensive but attractive occult releases is made more difficult, oddly, by the lack of availability of inexpensive copies of these same texts, and I am in some cases forging a trail that is difficult to forge.

The Philosophical Merlin: Available Now on Amazon

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The second of the second slew of grimoire editions is finally here; the Philosophical Merlin, produced originally in 1822 in what was then the rising British Empire.

The book(let) itself was mostly overlooked in its time period, overshadowed by numerous French cycle grimoires (The Black Pullet comes from the same time period) and thus attempted to market itself by claiming Napoleonic lineage. While this is likely untrue, and it was of primordial British manufacture, I did note its similarity to the I-Ching and other systems from the East (which were being contacted by the British at the time) and in this manner it is hardly much different from the Turkish and Arabic systems encountered by the expanding French empire around the same time.

Its content is not so much that of a standard western folk magick grimoire, nor an abrahamized treatise of kaballah or similar systems derived thereof, so much as a divinatory manuscript with references to the celestial and to standard horoscopes and astrology. Through the use of this system, the reader is able to denote their general nativity under this selfsame system and proceed with divining their possible future insofar as marital bliss, power, wealth, and possible dangers to their health are concerned.

It should be duly noted that at the time of manufacture, the average literate Englishman was of at least middle class stock, with most of the lower class being functionally illiterate to a great degree; the fixation on wealth, travel, and so forth, present in this work, is a sign of the time and place in which it was made. It also fixates upon the concept of the rites of Venus, Venus here representing sexuality and lust, and makes numerous cryptic references to the acts of Venus here, which is merely the polite, upper class British manner of saying "sexual intercourse" in the early 19th century.

The only other edition present anywhere on the web is a poorly made scan of the original 1822 edition with no additional notes or introduction to explain the text and its context in history, and which has retained all errors in the original material; my own edition is also half the price of this other cheaply produced crap.

Forthcoming Occult Titles

Over the course of the coming months, presumably before spring has sprung and I can once again occupy myself with a bit of work outdoors, I plan to release a slew of new occult titles, within the same general scope as the edited works I have already released; with "Sonic Occultism" now done and awaiting its final edit and cover art, and with another fairly short work I plan to release in December or January underway, the time is ripe for stage two of the occult manuscripts I need to release editions of. I will summarize them here briefly.

Grimorium Verum

A long-ish grimoire (compared to most similar works) dwelling largely on black magick more diabolical than even the Red Dragon and probably the result of an occultist familiar with the latter. It claims to date to the 15th century but is almost certainly of 18th century manufacture. I finally obtained the old english translation needed to release it, after not being able to find it for some time.

The Picatrix

Many are familiar with the Warnock translation of this text but as far as I can tell some of the content there is fancy; I possessed an older version some time ago, as I did the Grimorium Verum, before a computer crash destroyed the files, and was unable to re-obtain it similarly. This mixture of magick dwells on what we would generally term alchemy, the talismanic arts, and some black magick as well as white magick in standard form. It is one of the more important occult works of the world, nonetheless only generally available in potentially flawed form.

The Grimoire of Turiel (Or Secret Grimoire of Turiel)

A rather odd work which may largely plagiarize Waite but which shows enough differences to be re-edited into a properly understood work. It contains a series of prayers, sigils, and benedictions. I may or may not choose to release this due to its controversial nature and potential legal gray-area status as a copyrighted work.

Sepher Raziel

Similar to the Sepher Yetzirah and Sepher Bahir in being gnostic-influenced Hebraic magick of a sort. It is more philosophy than spellwork, but is still philosophically valuable for those on a kabbalists' or gnostic path.

Aradia: The Witches' Gospel

A sort of Victorian era work of slightly dubious nature that nonetheless must of necessity be included in any comprehensive release of magickal content. It heavily influenced latter-day wicca. The work is fortuitously out of copyright due to an apparent public domain placement some time ago.