EDGE OF THE CIRCLE BOOKS
IS PROUD TO PRESENT
THE FOLLOWING NEW TITLES
FROM RUBEDO PRESS
CYPRIANA:
Old World
Edited by Alexander Cummins,, Jesse Hathaway Diaz & Jennifer Zahrt
Publisher: Rubedo Press, 2016
Softcover , Illustrated, b&w, 208 pp.
List Price: $26.00
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
CYPRIANA: OLD WORLD gathers the lore and praxis regarding the good Saints CYPRIAN and JUSTINA of Antioch, the famed sorcerer-saint and the steadfast virgin-martyr, through bringing together diverse and divergent essays regarding Cyprianic traditions and practices. Recently the focus of a resurgence of interest in the English-speaking world, the Saints CYPRIAN and JUSTINA stand at a crossroads of the Old and New Worlds, and form an intermediary nexus of Christian thaumaturgy and older pagan mysteries uniquely celebrated in European Magic and its permutations world-wide. Our Saints inspire through their patronage both the Devout and the Heretic alike to new sorcerous endeavors, and this volume coheres around Cyprianic history and the magic of the Old World of Europe.
Here the dry bones of ink and parchment are given new breath in the living voices of those inspired by our Saints. First fruits upon an old altar, we offer new and original translations of source texts next to explorations of the famed Book(s) of Saint CYPRIAN and cartomancy traditions that arise therefrom, and delve deeper into the patronage of the Saint over necromancers and sorcerers. Yet these are merely the stirrings of the query and current.
Cypriana: Old World is the first in a projected series of compilations collectively focusing on the lore surrounding the famed Sorcerer Saint and Saint JUSTINA with a dual focus on the values of historically and mythically situated traditional practices and spirit-led experimentation and innovation. It is also the inaugural publication of the Folk Necromancy in Transmission series, an ongoing exploration of the study and vivification of the Arte across historical, geographical, and cultural contexts.
Table of Contents
Opening the Book
—Alexander Cummins
The Conversion of St. Cyprian
(Book I of The Acts of Saint Cyprian and Saint Justina)
—Translated by Matthew Barclay
Cyprianus Förmaning
—Translated by Johannes Björn Gårdbäck
Cyprian Books of Magic in the Scandinavian Tradition
—Johannes Björn Gårdbäck
‘In the Manner of Saint Cyprian’: A Cyprianic Black Magic of Early Modern English Grimoires
—Alexander Cummins
Searching for Cyprian in Portuguese Ethnography
—José Leitão
‘Seven Years The Sea Thou Roamed’: Cyprianic Ritual and Divination
—Jake Stratton-Kent
On Saint Cyprian, Translation, and Poetics
—Jennifer Zahrt interviews José Leitão
An Afterword
—Jesse Hathaway Diaz
About the Editors
Alexander Cummins is an historian, poet, and diviner whose research centres on religion, philosophy, medicine, and magic. In particular, his work focuses on folk magic, necromancy, grimoires and divination. His doctoral thesis from the University of Bristol explored the history of magical approaches to the emotions: from mapping personality with astrology, to managing emotionality with herbs and talismans, to the manipulations of aphrodisiacs and the evil eye. He has published on topics ranging from transatlantic cunning-folk to goetic herbalism to the material history of amulets. His first book, The Starry Rubric: Seventeenth-century English Astrology and Magic, was published in 2012.
Jesse Hathaway Diaz is a folklorist, diviner, artist and performer living in New York City. With initiations in several forms of witchcraft from both Europe and the Americas, he is also a lifelong student of Mexican Curanderismo, an initiated olosha in the Lucumí orisha tradition, and a Tatá Quimbanda. Fascinated with Saint lore and Catholic permutations of witchcraft in the New World, he has published on various topics including on curanderismo and Iberian and Pyrenean witchcraft, Quimbanda, and comparative magical herbalism. He is half of Wolf & Goat, a store specializing in occult art, esoterica and materia magica from many traditions including Traditional Craft and Quimbanda.
Jennifer Zahrt PhD is an author, publisher, and historian of astrological practices. She promotes the awareness of the pluralism of astrology – as astrologies – which recognizes the many forms of astrology emergent across human cultures. Her work on dynamic astrological talismans and plant magic appears in Verdant Gnosis Vol. 2 (Rubedo Press, 2016), and her translations include Zoroaster’s Telescope (Ouroboros Press, 2013) and selected alchemical writings of Paracelsus in Occlith I (Viatorium Press, 2016). She is the founding editrix of Rubedo Press and currently lives in Seattle, WA.
**
VERDANT GNOSIS:
Cultivating the Green PathVolume 2
Selections from the Viridis Genii Symposium
Edited by Catamara Rosarium, Marcus McCoy,and Jenn Zahrt, PhD
Softcover , 6 x 9, Illustrated, b&w, 166 pp.
List Price: $24.00
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
VERDANT GNOSIS is a poetic rendering of the Latin expression, Viridis Geniii, which refers to the collective spiritual intelligence of our botanical environment. Viridis means ‘green, verdant, growing’—all that is lush and nourishing; while genii is the origin of the words ‘genius’ and ‘genie’—the spirit, daemon, or guiding intelligence of an entity. Viridis Genii—the verdant gnosis—is thus the spiritual path of working with the intelligence of living nature.
Within this second volume you will find a selection of international authorities on the Green Way, ranging from professional plant alchemists, shamanic herb-masters, to bioregional animists. Herein you will learn the ways in which you can communicate deeply with the mysterious intelligence of the plant kingdom, breaking down the barriers of anthropocentric thinking that separate humanity from nature.
The second volume of Verdant Gnosis: Cultivating the Green Path presents selected articles from presentations at the second annual Viridis Genii Symposium, which will be held at the Still Meadow Retreat Center in Damascus, Oregon (3–5 June, 2016).
VERDANT GNOSIS
Table of Contents
Introduction
—Catamara Rosarium, Marcus McCoy,
and Jenn Zahrt, PhD
Gaia Sophia and the Emerald Path
—Dan Riegler
Transmission of Esoteric Plant Knowledge in the Twenty-First Century
—Daniel A. Schulke
Funerary Trees, Folklore, and Practices in Grief and Mourning
—Corinne Boyer
Man-Dragon, Man-Root, and the Witch:
Mandragora and Ginseng as Plant Allies
—Jesse Hathaway Diaz
Devil’s Club: Sacred Cascadian Medicine
—Jon Keyes
Beyond the Mundane and Medicinal: Magic in the Woods
—Karl Feret
Baltic Amber in Myth, Medicine, and Magic
—Gail Faith Edwards
On the Importance of Keeping a Poison Garden
—Urtica Dioica
Controversy and Conversion:
Astrological Considerations for Potent Herbal Workings
—Jenn Zahrt, PhD
About the Editors
Catamara Rosarium is a master herbalist, ritual artist, botanical alchemist, and proprietor of Rosarium Blends. Her extensive herbal experience is motivated by a deep attraction to plants, scents, and how they impact the senses. She has undertaken numerous unique training programs, including the Hermit’s Grove Master Herbalism Program (Paul Beyerl), the Herbal Kingdom work at the Spagyrics Institute of Practical Alchemy (Robert Bartlett), Hoodoo and Rootwork (Catherine Yronwode), and the Arte of the Wortcunning Incense Tradition (Leon Reed). For its first seven years, Catamara co-organised the Esoteric Book Conference, and is the founder and convenor of the Viridis Genii Symposium. She has previously appeared in Sorita D’Este’s Hekate anthology, Her Sacred Fires (2010) and in the first volume of Verdant Gnosis. More information on Catamara’s herbal work can be found on the Rosarium Blends website.
Marcus McCoy is the originator of the bioregional animist practice and author of the original bioregional animism blog. He holds a BA in transpersonal anthropology in the study of the world’s magical and spiritual systems. He is a student of plant teacher shamanry and a practitioner of many folk magic practices. McCoy is a magical herbalist, artist, distiller, and perfumer who founded and owns the House of Orpheus perfumery, a producer of talismanic and liminal perfumes, following and innovating the tradition of perfumerismo. www.houseoforpheus.com
Jenn Zahrt holds a PhD in German literature and film from the University of California, Berkeley. Zahrt is a professional astrologer, writer, and an established editor of esoteric scholarship, including titles for Rubedo Press, Sophia Centre Press, Three Hands Press, and the journals Culture and Cosmos, CLAVIS, and Diaphany. Her trek on the green path began in November 2010, during a shamanic drumming ceremony in Marin County, California. In 2014 she spent three months living in the Cape Floral Region in South Africa, volunteering at a local organic farm and absorbing wisdom of the bioregion shared with her by amaPondo and Swazi sangomas, both in Cape Town and in their homesteads in the Transkei. She currently lives in Seattle. www.jennzahrt.com
Comments