Magic Monday
Nov. 26th, 2023 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

The image? I field a lot of questions about my books these days, so I've decided to do little capsule summaries of them here, one per week. The book above on the left is the current edition of my sixth published book, Monsters: An Investigator's Guide to Magical Beings. These days books on investigating reports of monstrous entities are all over the place, but that wasn't the case in 2001, when this first saw print. I happened to be doing a lot of investigation of certain entities in the Puget Sound area in the years just before then; I thought it would be interesting to get some of my experiences and ideas in print; the book was a pleasant project to write, and it sold like hotcakes -- and, er, I may have some very small share of responsibility for those books on sparkly vampires, because unless you happened to spend time in the stacks of old university libraries full of mostly forgotten anthropology publications, this was for some years the one place in print you could find out that there's a very lively werewolf tradition among the native peoples of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington -- you know, near Forks. If you're interested, you can get a copy here if you live in the US, and here if you live elsewhere.
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With that said, have at it!
***This Magic Monday is now closed -- as in, no further comments will be put through. See you next week!***
(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-27 06:42 pm (UTC)I took the terms kataphatic and apophatic from the English translation of Vladimir Lossky's The Mystical Theology of the Orthodox Church, especially chapter 2; they go back at least to the 500s CE. Since you are well-disposed toward Orthodoxy, you might have a quick look there. (I am not Orthodox myself, but I spent my 'teens and early twenties in Berkeley, where many of my best school-friends were Russian Orthodox. Later on, my graduate studies were in Slavic linguistics, with particular emphasis on Church Slavonic, which is the liturgical language of the Russian Orthodox Church. So I am fairly knowledgeable -- for an outsider ...)
In Roman Catholic mysticism the two kinds are sometimes called via positiva ( = katapatic) and via negativa ( = apophatic). Very generally speaking, Catholicism seems to me to favor kataphatic theology and mysticism, while Orthodoxy strongly favors the apophatic approach.
And thank you for your compliment.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-28 12:24 am (UTC)I'm glad you saw my reply. I sent it early this morning before work, and in my grogginess I forgot to add my signature--"Magenta Befuddled Dragon" as I called myself in my first post, aka Kelly in the ordinary, non-Pangalactic world.
The terms "via positiva" and "via negativa" seem familiar to me, perhaps from Evelyn Underhill's book on mysticism which I read a few years ago. I'm currently reading her shorter book, "Practical Mysticism," which I don't expect will get into such details. I'll have to revisit her longer book.
I've just requested a copy of Lossky's book (the state where i live has a great interlibrary loan system). I see he has a few others that look good, too. I appreciate the recommendation. I'm looking forward to exploring these resources and ideas you have suggested. Many thanks again!
Kelly
(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-28 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-28 04:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-11-28 06:06 am (UTC)