Coming Distractions

[ecosophia]

 So I've been going through a lot of my older writings of late. A little while back Aeon Books, a recently established occult publisher in Britain, agreed to reprint my first two books, Paths of Wisdom and Circles of Power, and did a fine job with both; what's more, they proceeded to bring out a new edition of my translation of Gerard Thibault's Academie de l'Espee -- the sole surviving legacy of a Western esoteric martial art based on Pythagorean sacred geometry and Hermetic philosophy -- and did it right this time; so we've had a series of conversations about other projects, and that's sent me digging through old file folders and back issues of out-of-print magazines for things I wrote in decades past. 

The first result is a collection of my most popular talks on magic and occultism during the decade I spent going to Pagan events and magical conferences, covering everything from the secret history of Neopaganism through Victorian sex magic to the alchemical dimensions of lodge ritual. It'll be released in March of next year, but is now available for preorder; check it out here. 

Next up -- it's not yet available for preorder, but I'll make an announcement as soon as it is -- is The City of Hermes, an anthology of all the articles on occultism I published between 1993 and 2000. Those were the years I spent linking up the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn with their sources in ancient and Renaissance Hermeticism; the articles that resulted from that work appeared in an assortment of periodicals, all of them long since out of print and hard to find. This was the work I was doing before I found my way to Druidry, and I suspect a lot of my occultist readers are going to find much to think about (and practice) there. 

It's always a strange experience, at least for me, to look back at what I was doing, studying, and thinking about in decades past. Still, I'm pleased to find that the material in these books still stands up well, and it's good to have a chance to get it out into circulation again. 

(If you're interested in the whole set of my books published by Aeon, you can find them here.) 

Comments

[packshaud]

So much reading to do, so little time.

I do not know if the structure of Aeon allows this, but it would be interesting to have hardcover options, if anything printed on demand by a third party, to avoid problems of not selling all the made books. It could be slightly more expensive than normally printed ones, but it would hurt no kittens to have something like this available.

[ecosophia]

I'll raise the possibility with them!

Twilight's Last Gleaming

[joelcaris]

Hmm. I noticed in perusing the link to Aeon's authors page for you that they have listed an updated edition of Twilight's Last Gleaming for May 2019. What's the deal there, if you don't mind my asking? Is it just a republication or is there something new about it?

Re: Twilight's Last Gleaming

[ecosophia]

I'll be revising it to bring it up to date with the changes in world politics since the original version was published. The plot, characters, etc. won't change, nor will most of the details, but there are some things that could use an edit or two.

[(Anonymous)]

Sounds fascinating. I'm very interested in occult history and how it all links up through the ages. I'll look forward to reading the anthology!--Sister Crow

[redmachus]

So, random question. The new editions of Circles of Power and Paths of Wisdom issued by Aeon Books, are they identical to the second editions? I have the second editions of each, Paths from Thoth, Circles from a tiny publisher whose name escapes me at the moment and I believe is now defunct. Any additional material in the new editions? Better drawings, newer material, maps to buried treasure, etc.? Not that I wouldn't mind owning both, but, as I'm sure you're more than familiar with, shelf space is always a problem.

[ecosophia]

Not random at all; it's quite a reasonable question. The Aeon Books editions had some light edits, but substantively they're the same as the second editions.