Or ARCANA VIRIDIA; A GRANARY OF THE FAUNS, BEING AN OCCULT HERBARIUM. Images by Benjamin A. Vierling It is a truism that for much of humanity’s existence its medicines have been derived from Nature. For, from where else would they be obtained? Over millennia, the slow and no-doubt fraught process of discerning the medicinal benefits of the world’s 400,000 plant species (of these, only 15,000 have been used for medicinal purposes at some point in history) has resulted in a […]
Category: Blog
NEWS, REVIEWS, OPINION & ESSAYS
REVIEW: ANARCH BY GAST BOUSCHET
What is the role of the artist? Answers to this question are often framed in terms of utility: the artist’s role is to provide service to the society in which they operate; to record and document, to communicate, to interpret, to impart meaning – all for the benefit of the community. But what happens when the artist rejects society; it’s norms, morals and its values? Or extracts themselves from it, becoming located in a place outside and beyond? What is […]
REVIEW: WYRD TIMES: MEMOIRS OF A PAGAN RENAISSANCE MAN BY NIGEL PENNICK
By his own admission, Nigel Pennick is a sceptic, in the sense of someone who questions claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. It is a trait that appears to have shaped his life to a lesser or greater extent, from his childhood rejection of organised religion – specifically the Christian Church – to a final assertion at the book’s conclusion, that one should be free to amend one’s beliefs throughout a lifetime, according to the evolution of […]
REVIEW: THE GYPSY SWITCH AND OTHER RITUAL JOURNEYS BY JILL SMITH
Upon finishing this astonishing memoir by Jill Smith, the reader may find it difficult not to judge her as either an inspirational, deeply passionate and intuitive mystic, or a hopelessly naive, irresponsible drop-out. Or perhaps a bit of both. I know I did at first. But any opinions are rendered insignificant in light of her central achievement: walking hundreds of miles around Britain carrying much of what she owned in a rucksack, with a baby strapped to her front, as […]
REVIEW: PIRANESI BY SUSANNA CLARKE
Piranesi is a work of occult fiction inasmuch as magickal concepts are absolutely fundamental to the fabric of the story. But it is also an occult work in the sense that it is deeply strange, unsettling, otherworldly and revelatory; reality is transformed in its reading. Even though ‘magic’ is the central topic in Susanna Clarke’s first novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and despite the fact that it flirts with some esoteric ideas (to a similar extent as, say, Philip […]
REVIEW: OF CHALK AND FLINT BY VAL THOMAS
One unexpected aspect of Val Thomas’s book ‘Of Chalk & Flint’ is this: it provides an interesting insight into the activities of a community of magickal practitioners. Not necessarily in terms of an organised coven, secret confraternity or structured school, but a loose group of folk who come together at key points in the year to perform ritual and engage with the land and its spiritual denizens. Val quite often prefers ‘we’ over the personal pronoun ‘I’ and there’s a […]
REVIEW: AJAR TO THE NIGHT BY AUTUMN RICHARDSON
Ajar to the Night by Autumn Richardson, a work of three linked poems, is concerned with metempsychosis – the transmigration of the soul (psyche) from one physical body (soma) to another following death. Its western origins can be traced to Orphism, where the eternal cycle of metempsychosis can only be broken by initiation into the Dionysian Mysteries. Orpheus himself was celebrated by the Greeks as the greatest magician, musician and poet who ever lived, so it is entirely appropriate that the topic […]
INTERVIEW: MARKKU KLÆÐSKERI
Markku Klæðskeri’s important work ‘The Autumn King: Ivar the Boneless, Edmund of East Anglia and the cult of Yngvi-freyr’ will shortly be published by Nemglan Press. We interviewed the author about some of the book’s major topics. Why did you choose to write about Ivar the Boneless and St Edmund? Primarily because there’s a mystery to be solved. In fact, there’s more than one. The main question I wanted to answer was: why did Ivar kill King Edmund in the […]
REVIEW: WALKING THE TIDES BY NIGEL G. PEARSON
After reading his book ‘Treading the Mill’ a few years back, while camping in deepest rural Suffolk, I performed a few simple rites. They yielded powerful, unequivocal and almost instant results. It convinced me that the bond between practitioner and land is fundamental to magick. And the deeper the bond, the greater its potency. For me, the deepest bond is derived from practicing in the place I was born, which is why I return to Suffolk so often despite not […]
DECODING ‘A FIELD IN ENGLAND’
British director Ben Wheatley’s movie ‘A Field in England’ is a baffling but brilliant occult classic. The entire piece is allegorical, thick with symbolism. The challenge (and the fun) lies in interpreting those symbols in order to get to the heart of the film’s meaning. First, a very brief summary of the plot: set in the English Civil War, Whitehead is a neophyte astrologer sent by his master to arrest O’Neil, an alchemist, who has stolen certain rare documents. Accompanied […]