THE
DANCING SORCERER
Essays
on the Mind of the Magician
by
P.T. Mistlberger
Anathema
Publishing, March 2020
HARDCOVER
Edition (Limited to 600 copies):
5.25 x 8.5
inches. 368 pages. Hardbound 90pts, 3/4 bound Bronze Metal Mesh
Buckram on spine + Olive Coloured Assuan Tele Legatoria Bookcloth
covers. Gold foil blocking on rounded spine and on the cover. Full
Colour interior (illustrations and photography), with printed
Endpapers. Amazing illustrations by artist Rowan E. Cassidy. Fine
typography, printed on Cougar 160M (thick) archive-quality paper.
Individually hand-numbered. List Price: $78.95
PAPERBACK
Edition:
5.25 x 8.5
inches. 368 pages. German Binding. Gloss (Scuff Free) finish. Full
Colour interior (illustrations and photography). Fine typography,
printed on Cougar 160M (thick) archive-quality paper. Fully
illustrated by Rowan E. Cassidy. List Price: $34.95
FROM THE
PUBLISHER:
“The
present book is dedicated to the magnum opus of the unification of
opposites that is necessary for deeper movement into life, the mind,
and reality. The magician – the psychopomp who guides others into
and through the netherworlds – has always been around, in varying
degrees of quality. We walk with that figure; more, we become that
figure when we fearlessly face within and engage the process of
redemption and ownership
of our darker angels.”
~P.T.
Mistlberger
The Dancing
Sorcerer has been a term used for the past half-century to describe
the iconic figure of a 15,000-year-old
work of cave art found in
present-day southern France. This image, of a man dressed up in
animal skins, who appears to be performing a ritual dance, has been
offered up by anthropologists as an example of how the real oldest
profession has always been that of the shaman, magician, or sorcerer.
The present
book offers a series of essays commenting on the purpose and function
of the magician archetype, using as a focal point what the author
broadly defines as the Solomonic and Faustian approaches. The essays
herein are concerned mainly with psychological themes, based
principally on what Jung termed the mysterious conjunction, the idea
that no movement into higher realities is possible without first
unifying our lower nature. For this, it is necessary to investigate
and even embrace the dark side – which can include such powerful
archetypes and themes as dragons, vampires, Goetic demons, pharaonic
curses, Enochian spirits, and occult literary frauds – all with the
ultimate purpose of redeeming both the personal and collective
psyche.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS:
Introduction
Chapter 1:
The Dancing Sorcerer and the Fall of Humanity
Chapter 2:
Solomonic vs. Faustian Magic
Chapter 3:
Pharaoh’s Curse, Imagination, and Deception
Chapter 4:
Dragon Magic
Chapter 5:
Dee, Kelley, and Faust: Brothers in Elysium
Chapter 6:
Vampires and the Magician
Chapter 7:
Integration, Banishing, and the Demon Belial
Chapter 8:
The Golden Dawn and the Secret Chiefs
Chapter 9:
Alchemy, Demons, and Mysteries of the Goetia
Chapter 10:
The Trickster, the Missing Devil, and the Redemption of Faust
Appendix I:
General Survey of Goetic Spirits
Appendix
II: Jung, Alchemy, and a Common Misunderstanding
AN
EXCELLENT BOOKE OF THE ARTE OF MAGICKE:
The Magical
Works of Humphrey Gilbert and John Davis
by Phil
Legard and Alexander Cummins
Scarlet
imprint, March 2020
8vo (245 ×
170 mm)
368 pp
Colour
facsimile of British Library Additional manuscript 36674
Illustration
of the Tree of Crystal by Sin Eater
Standard
Edition Hardcover: Limited to 1200 copies; bound in fine black cloth
emblazoned with a gilt shield bearing seven keyholes, blackened
edges, textured endpapers in British racing green, and a black
ribbon. List Price: $92.95
Bibliothèque
Rouge Paperback: Sewn paperback, 150gsm paper, french flaps; List
Price: $42.95
FROM THE
PUBLISHER:
An
Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke: The Magical Works of Humphrey
Gilbert and John Davis, transcribed from British Library Additional
manuscript 36674, edited and introduced by Phil Legard, with
supplementary essays by Alexander Cummins, and a foreword by Dan
Harms.
FROM THE PUBLISHER:
The first
part of the book, Texts, opens with a colour facsimile of ff.47r–62v
from Add. ms. 36674, known as the Excellent Booke and Visions,
followed by modernised and diplomatic transcriptions.
The magical
experiments conducted by Elizabethan explorer, soldier and courtier
Humphrey Gilbert, along with his scryer John Davis, during the spring
of 1567 are notable for their forceful methods and stripped down
Protestant ritual. The spirits are called into a ‘crystal stone’
by way of a large number of conjurations, charges, constraints,
curses and bonds. The work includes the practical conjuration of
Bleth, Aosal, Assassel (Azazel) and the four demon kings of the
winds, namely Oriens, Amaimon, Paimon and Aegyn. It is evidently
based on an older text or texts, adapted to the Protestant outlook of
the period, and has also been supplemented with revelations and
guidance received first-hand by Gilbert and Davis over the course of
its composition. As such, the texts are a rare example of the
poiesis, or coming-together, of a ritual magic book. The texts attest
to the continuity of medieval ritual magic into the early modern
period.
Visions is
a record of visions in the crystal, detailing events which took place
before, during and after the composition of the Excellent Booke. In
the course of this work, the master – Humphrey Gilbert – and
scryer – John Davis – converse with a wide-range of spirits as
well as religious and occult personalities, including Assasel,
Solomon, Roger Bacon, Cornelius Agrippa and four angelic evangelists.
The pair experience a series of remarkable sights concealed behind
the seven-keyholed door of the house of Solomon. On occasion the
visions bled into the waking world in encounters with great demonic
dogs and the physical manifestation of the prophet Job.
The
Excellent Booke and Visions are, as Legard writes in his Preface,
‘unique documents of sixteenth century magical practice: ones that
deserve to be widely read and studied by scholars and practitioners
alike since they preserve a detailed account of both the making and
the use of a grimoire.’ A book of particular note to those
interested in Azazel, the fallen angel and necromantic traditions,
students of the grimoires and the practical workings of dirty
medieval magic.
Appended to
the Excellent Booke are three further, related manuscript
transcriptions, the necromantic graveyard ritual in Experiments of
Azasel, Ancor, Anycor and Analos, from Illinois Pre-1650 ms. 0102,
the scrying procedure of An Experiment of Bleth, from Sloane 3824,
and the necromantic and treasure hunting rites of Related
Experiments, from Case ms. 5017.
In the
second part of the book, Contexts, Dr Alexander Cummins provides a
trilogy of essays. He first surveys early modern necromancy, its
tools and techniques in their historical setting. He then discusses
scrying techniques in depth, with reference to Artephius, Dee and
Kelley, Aubrey, Lilly, Forman et al. He concludes with a discussion
of tutelary shades, and the learning of magic from dead magicians,
whether Solomon, Adam, Cornelius Agrippa or Roger Bacon. Thus armed,
the appropriately black-clad reader can engage with the Excellent
Booke as a practical grimoire of the necromantic art.
Phil Legard
draws the book to a close with an essay on the phenomenology of the
necromantic workings of Gilbert and Davis which provides an open door
for both practitioners and academics through which to pursue the
performative and affective practice of magic.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS:
Acknowledgments
Foreword:
The Best Book That Ever Was?
Preface
Visionary
Magicke: Humphrey Gilbert and the Poiesis of a Grimoire
Part 1:
texts
Facsimile
A Note on
the Transcriptions
An
Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke
Modernised
Transcription
Diplomatic
Transcription
Visions
Modernised
Transcription
Diplomatic
Transcription
Experiments
of Azasel, Ancor, Anycor and Analos, from Illinois Pre-1650 MS 0102
Modernised
Transcription
Diplomatic
Transcription
An
Experiment of Bleth, from Sloane 3824
Modernised
Transcription
Diplomatic
Transcription
Related
Experiments, from Case MS 5017
Modernised
Transcription
Diplomatic
Transcription
Part 2:
contexts
Sorcerous
Significances of the Excellent Booke and its Visions
By Stone
and By Call: Medieval and Early Modern Evocatory Scrying
Tutelary
Shades
Good Books
to Call By: Text, Speech and Materiality in the Necromantic Workings
of Humphrey Gilbert and John Davis
Bibliography
Comments