Book Reviews
All the World a Daemon — ‘The Black Pilgrimage’ by David Beth
[…] I have read many books that offer a new metaphysical vocabulary, an alternative pantheon, a reconstructed cult, or an ingenious magical technology. Black Pilgrimage attempts something more radical: it changes the position from which one perceives at all. Its world is genuinely poly-daemonic. River, forest, city, grave, body, mood, season, ancestor and god are presences, agencies, faces of an answering phenomenal All.
‘Saturn 100 — Hundert Jahre Fraternitas Saturni’
[…] Die gesamte Aufmachung des Werks zeigt eine grosse Schaffensfreude und Begeisterung aller Beteiligten. Die vielen Abbildungen, Zeichnungen und Vignetten ergänzen die Texte sinnvoll. Sie laden zur Meditation und zum Verweilen ein.
‘American Trickster’ by Ru Marshall
[…] Marshall does more than look behind the curtain – he shows you how the wizard made it work. This book is an amazing piece of research and an even more amazing piece of writing.
‘The Olympic Spirits’ by Frater Acher
In his review, Scott Gosnell takes us on a journey through the living lineage of the Olympic Spirits — from Trithemius and Paracelsus, through Rosicrucian and early modern currents, to twentieth-century folk magic — showing how The Olympic Spirits reconstructs a forgotten tradition that spans nearly five centuries.
A World Never Ours Alone: Reflections on ‘Alien Clay’ and ‘The Black Pilgrimage’
I recommend both books wholeheartedly. They are among the most thought-provoking, poetic, and absorbing works I have had the pleasure of reading in recent years. And should you wish to read them side by side, I can promise you a reading experience of rare richness.
‘Freemasonry in the Haitian Imaginary’ by Leah Gordon & Dr. Katherine Smith (eds.)
Freemasonry in the Haitian Imaginary is an inspired and inspiring work. Its emphasis on the re-assertion of a people’s essential dignity and agency – that “enlightenment from below” arising from an esoterically-imbued ritual practice and its potential spillover into wider society – is surely one that is sorely needed in this day and age.
‘The Black Pilgrimage’ by David Beth
[…] So that to experience them in their fullness, re-stored and re-furbished and stripped of historical accretions, is to immerse oneself in a holistic and systematic path of spiritual development with little if no unnecessary baggage. In other words, a literal pilgrimage. I cannot recommend Black Pilgrimage too highly; it is a defining and definitive text of modern esoteric thought and practice.
‘The Rites of Hekate’ by Lenni George
[…] George’s engagement with the material is never merely academic. She identifies as an active herbalist and “potion maker” who views her spiritual path as a journey from “the dirt to the divine.” This unique work is to be commended in its presentation of a structured program of magical work based on two intersecting axes.
