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VENEFICIUM:
Magic,
Witchcraft and the Poison Path
(Standard Edition)
by Daniel A. Schulke,
August 15, 2012
Publisher: Three Hands
Press
Binding: Hardcover with
dust jacket
Veneficium concerns the
intersection of magic and poison, originating in remotest antiquity
and reaching into the present day. Beyond their functions as agents
of bodily harm, poisons have also served as gateways of religious
ecstasy, occult knowledge, and sensorial aberration, as well as the
basis of cures.
Allied with Samael, the
Edenic serpent of first transgression whose name in some
interpretations is ‘Venom of God’, this facet of magic wends
through the rites of ancient Sumer and Egypt, through European
Necromancy, Alchemy, the arcane the rites of the Witches’ Sabbath,
and modern-day folk magic.
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Of particular note to this
study are the herbs of the so-called ‘Devil’s Garden’, bearing
relation to the witchcraft concepts of the Graal of Midnight, the
Witches’ Supper, and the Unguentum Sabbati, the flying ointment of
the witches which has exerted fascination over scholar, historians,
and practitioners alike.
Beyond consideration of
the toxicological dimensions of magical power, the concurrent thread
of astral and philosophical poisons are also examined, and their
resonance and dissonance with magical practice explored. Veneficium
will be of interest to students of magic, witchcraft, alchemy,
botanical folklore, medicine, and occult pharmacology.
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ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Daniel A. Schulke is
director of Xoanon Publishing Limited, which has produced such titles
as Azoëtia, Qutub, and Viridarium Umbris, and celebrates it
twentieth anniversary this year. He is also Director of Three Hands
Press, a publisher producing fine occult editions. Both publishing
endeavors have been instrumental players in the emergent field of
modern grimoria, or manuals of magical practice.
BE SURE TO CATCH DANIEL
A. SCHULKE
AT THE THE 2012
ESOTERIC BOOK CONFERENCE:
The 2012 Esoteric Book
Conference will be in Seattle on September 15th and 16th, 2012. Get
your tickets!
XOANON Limited Three Hands
Press
2012 PRESENTATION:
GENIUS LIBRIS: THE BOOK AS
AURATIC OBJECT
With Daniel Schulke and
Robert Ansell
For more than 500 years
the printed word has been the most enduring and successful of
information technologies. At once familiar and functional, books are
indispensable repositories of image, text and ideas. And yet certain
books would seem to transcend ink and paper and possess an
otherworldly, mythic aura. In this presentation Robert Ansell and
Daniel Schulke jointly examine the ritual qualities of human-book
interaction and the cult of aesthesis that distinguishes a magical
book from a book on magic. Structured with multiple approaches to the
subject and illustrated with both historical and modern examples,
this talk aims to explore the relationship between the talismanic
book and Time itself.
2012 ART EXHIBIT:
Daniel A. Schulke works
primarily in the medium of pen and ink and oil and canvas. His
imagery draws from a number of esoteric spiritual traditions
including Natural Magic, Alchemy, Spiritualism, and the mythos of the
Medieval Witches’ Sabbat. Paintings in the current exhibition are
studies for imagery in development for a witches’ Mutus Liber, or
book-without-words.
Standard hardcover edition
with dust jacket, limited to 1,250 copies.
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