Paralibrum.
Independent reviews of bibliophile occulture.
‘Trafficking with Demons’ by Martha Rampton
This is, obviously, a new historical study, as such at points evidential conclusions arise which contradict or update comparatively recent scholarship. Martha Rampton, is a good example of a post-modern historian, explaining her evidence via the then dominant (and divergent) narratives, upon which she passes no anterior judgement. Her book is both definitive and interesting.
‘Historiola: The Power of Narrative Charms’ by Carl Nordblom
What Nordblom has done is provide us with a framework to discover our own relationship to the magical or sorcerous narrative within our own lives – a kind of praxis which enables us to think about word and image in a way which may be unusual to some moderns. […] we should thank the author for providing us with only a glimpse of the many worlds of the historiolae which may present the enquiring mind with rich alterities.
‘The Cult of the Black Cube’, 2nd Edition, by Arthur Moros
[…] This then, is where the Black Cube shines most darkly; for all that Moros presents us with scholarly analysis, and historic and new rites to encounter the Saturnine Deity in our own lives should we wish closer congress, it is his obvious intimate embrace of, and his deep suffusion in such a Saturnine Gnosis which wells up.
‘The Sworn and Secret Grimoire’ by Jake Stratton-Kent
Jake Stratton-Kent gently but decidedly brushes away the naive hope of offering the reader any sort of definite pathway, absolute truth or sanctified orthopraxy; instead, his book aims to create just about sufficient orientation points – as well as lazy readers’ trapdoors, one should add – so that each one of us can create, correct or continue to ruin their own ritualistic path.
‘Rosicrucian Magic’ by Frater Acher
Rosicrucian Magic raises the question of what kind of balance must be struck in both the practice and the study of esotericism in general. Acher’s answer is in a phenomenological understanding of the Rosicrucian experience, of the initiatic moment, with all its intentionality, temporality, and intersubjectivity, we might well find a sympathetic understanding – the internal connections the modern initiate is attempting to achieve.
‘Stranger in the Mask of a Deer’ by Richard Skelton
Stranger in the Mask of a Deer is, perhaps, the single most impactful sequence of thematically-linked poetry to have been written in the spirit and celebration of a pure and unadulterated paganism that I have encountered; one that combines its sinuous diction with an essential and ageless metaphysics.
‘Clavis Goêtica’ by Frater Acher & José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal
Frater Acher and José Gabriel Alegría Sabogal present us with […] a guide and a glossary diffracted through the prism of personal ritual practice, historical research, and painstakingly intimate relationships with spirits.
