The Power of Hallowe’en

I have a lot to do today, but I wanted to share something. Oddy enough, an article about Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame led me to thinking about the records I used to spin as a child. While I initially reminisced about the aforementioned Beach Boys, Jan & Dean, The Beatles, The Ventures, Jackson 5, and The Monkees (all in heavy rotation, along with various K-Tel Records), there was a collection of record albums that I played more than anything else, especially at bedtime.

Power Records.

I had a ton of them: Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, Batman, Spider-Man, Conan, Frankenstein, Man-Thing, Curse of the Werewolf, and so many more…

 

My favorite might have been this one though. Just listening to it now takes me back to my bedroom in our old trailer. It had no heat, and my little brother and I would place a fan at the end of my bed, on full blast in winter, and hide under thick blankets while this played…

 

 

Nothing invokes the season better than a vintage “spooky sounds” record, crackles, pops, and all.

My Review of The Key of Solomon the King

Let’s be honest here. There have been a lot of crap editions of The Key of Solomon. Even the best of them tend to have the same nagging flaw, they are working from the 1889 translation of S.L. MacGregor Mathers.

My own history with the Mathers’ translation dates back to the mid-80s when I was first given the opportunity to study the work via the 1972 Routledge and Kegan Paul edition.

I was, in a word, enthralled.

It was my first experience with a grimoire and Clavicula Salominis was one of  handful of magical treatises that had achieved mythic stature, and rightly so.

And despite its many missteps, Mathers produced an admirable work. Of course, I had no idea when I first spent time with it of just how many variations of The Key existed. That Mathers produced an English translation at all is something of a miracle. The task must have been daunting.

I have, in my personal library, several editions, the best of which being the 2000 Dover edition with a Foreword by R.A. Gilbert. That edition has now been supplanted by Weiser Books timely release of The Key of Solomon the King: A Magical Grimoire of Sigils and Rituals for Summoning and Mastering Spirits, Foreword by Joseph H. Peterson.

Peterson’s Foreword is a fine introduction to the work, with sound, albeit brief historical examinations of the grimiore itself, Mathers and his approach to the translation, and its subsequent influence.

Many of Peterson’s thoughts in this foreword I have read, almost verbatim, before, in his reviews of earlier editions. I don’t have an issue with this. My interest in this iteration of The Key was not founded on the complexity of the edition’s preamblist, but rather on the reproduction of the sigils within.

The Pentacles are crisp and clear, and their placement within the text itself a vast improvement over previous editions and I greatly appreciate the inclusion of the 1972 sigil plates as an appendix for comparison.

This, plus a few other minor corrections, makes this the superior edition for magicians and their armchair counterparts on a budget.

I am proud to shelve this amongst my superfluity of esoterica.

The Key of Solomon the King: A Magical Grimoire of Sigils and Rituals for Summoning and Mastering Spirits, Foreword by Joseph H. Peterson is available wherever fine books are sold. Copies may be purchased online direct via Red Wheel/Weiser or if you wish to give the devil his due, Amazon will take your hard earned shekels.

Beneath the pale moonlight

I’ve been feeling nostalgic all day. Peculiar dreams overnight led me to a rabbit hole of music that consumed a large part of my time from the mid-70s onward, chiefly that of Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham —as a duo, as a part of Fleetwood Mac, and as solo artists. Nicks’ songs fit the season well, with their mystical, mythical, and witchy imagery, and while her tunes have always had a tendency to touch my soul, Buckingham’s music has always touched my heart.

I have a million things I need to be doing, but I’ve been under the weather and I decided to just blow today off, to listen to old music and make a little art.

Nothing spectacular, just the bit here to the left, but it felt good making it, and the music did what I needed it to do.

I feel the need for a cold night and a warm fire, of long conversations with lifelong friends. Unfortunately, they’re largely either gone or scattered, but that’s what dreams are for.

In my favor, I have a wife and son that fill me to the brim with pride and joy.

I’ve been down a bit. Being sickly will do that to you, especially if it’s for an extended period of time. My wife and son go a long way toward lifting my spirits.

Even at my lowest, I know that I am truly blessed. The gods smile on me, and I know they always have.

But this is the time of the harvest —Samhain to some, All Hallow’s to others. It is a time for remembrances. Of honoring the memories of those no longer with us, of communing with those who cross the veil.

I feel better already… Strong winds are bringing cooler weather and rain. True autumn is coming and there’s magic in the air.

Let’s see what tomorrow has in store for us. Shall we meet up with Johnny Scarecrow beneath the pale moonlight and cast our spells upon the ethereal current?

Oh, I think we shall…

Oh Autumn, where art thou?

The weather’s unseasonable. Too warm for my blood, to be sure. The autumn chill has been flirtatious, but she’s not settled in to stay and thus the leaves are slow to change. There’s a dichotomy there, I suppose; a hidden truth, unwelcome most like, but reality has a way of bending to ensure the illusion takes hold.

This is a little something I cooked up, hoping to draw autumn to us… The gods are restless and so am I. A change is going to come.

Sacrificial Writes #OccultDetectiveRPG

A side note, before I get into today’s Bobtober blog post: sometime in the near future, I will be archiving my sister site Dice Upon A Time. Do I view it as a failed experiment? Not at all. It did everything I wanted it to. The views fell short of what I’d hoped for, overall, but certain posts got respectable hits.

The reason for mothballing Dice Upon A Time comes down to two things: One is time management. It’s too hard to keep up with one blog, let alone two, and with folks finding blogs and message boards less appealing these days, it makes more sense to give them a one-stop-shop.

Which brings me to my second reason. With more and more of my gaming focus being on the development and promotion of OCCULT DETECTIVE: The Roleplaying Game, having that work showcased here at occultdetective.com is really a no-brainer.

I guess that’s a decent lead-in to what is on my mind today.

I am not a ‘game designer’ by trade. I am a writer, particularly of occult detective fact and fiction. It’s what I do. But I’m also a ‘dungeon master’ and have been since 1978. I’ve played a lot of games, predominately Dungeons & Dragons, but I’ve wrestled with more than a few others.

I’d like to think I have a pretty good handle on what works and what doesn’t and I’ve been putting my years of experience as a gamer into OD:TRPG.

My dilemma is in the presentation. Not visually but the words themselves, and by that I mean, the game’s focus. It makes the most sense to me that this game should reflect my fiction.

An argument can be made to make the game as generic as possible so that it appeals to the widest possible audience, but that seems disingenuous to me.

I have worked hard to ensure my stories compliment one another, that they occur in a common universe. I cannot see how I can treat OCCULT DETECTIVE: The Roleplaying Game any differently.

That doesn’t mean you’ll have to read my novels and short stories to understand the game. Far from it. But you will be introduced to the characters and factions and beasties that populate my fiction within the game itself. My stories and my game will be in complete harmony with each other.

So, my dilemma isn’t really a dilemma at all, but it does present a challenge.

As I said at the start of this, I am not a ‘game designer’ by trade. I hope that by approaching the game mechanics and the rulebook itself from the perspective of a storyteller that it translates not only into a unique game experience, but that the reader will find an entertaining narrative within.

The Impossibilities are Endless

I have been excited for Marvel’s Doctor Strange since the very first hints of it a few years back. I am, without a trace of shame, a huge fan of the failed television pilot. The animated movie left me cold, however.

I hope that this latest Marvel venture manages to hew closest to the comics’ greatest hits.

Let’s be honest, the comic was brilliant on rare occasions and mostly mismanaged by writers who didn’t “get it”.

The idea… the concept… was generally greater than the finished work by far too many of those who had their hands on it.

But I want this to be great and marvelous and wondrous. The impossibilities are endless. I want to believe. I want to be swept off my feet… I want a magical experience.

The latest featurette has given me cause to doubt that it will be what I want it to be. Too much humour. Too many one-liners.

Still, I hold out hope. And today, I’ll spend a little time revisiting some of my favorite Strange comics, notably the Englehart/Brunner run from 1974 and the Claremont/Colan issues that closed out the 70s.

Strange days, indeed…

In the Spirit of Hallowe’en

I was recently called out by a ‘pagan’ acquaintance for disrespecting the gods by accepting the commercialism of ‘Samhain‘. I told him, in no uncertain terms, to lighten the hell up.

Tell me, what do you think of when you think of Hallowe’en?

For most of us, I suppose it depends on how old we are.

As I’m a half-century old, Hallowe’en still conjures up images of candy and costumes, bobbing for apples, corning, carved pumpkins, and horror movie marathons, late night spooky walks through graveyards and neighborhood trickery, seances and haunted houses, and all those things that go bump in the night.

It is all that and more. I love the commercial trappings almost as much as I am drawn to Hallowe’en’s more metaphysical aspects.

There is a spiritual side to the season, to be sure. The 31st is the crass pop-cultural expression of a deeper, esoteric, and otherworldly atmosphere, a time in which the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest and when our ancestors celebrated the harvest.

There is plenty of room for both and I embrace it all, from the corny vampire with plastic teeth to the ethereal presence of Ingvifreyr, from smiling at white-sheeted ghosts to communing with asomatous apparitions.

It does not have to be either/or. Clinging to the nostalgic template of Americanized Hallowe’en is no transgression. It’s about staying young at heart and relishing in the fun of being scared. Give it its due.

Trust me, after the revelry, I assume a more solemn mantle.

Solomon Unsealed

I have been transported back in time this morning. Strange how it occurred, the temporal shift in thought patterns. It started, I suppose, when I stepped out into the pre-dawn morn, an autumnal chill in the air, and the gentle but stinging mist of rain falling.

I said to my wife, who watched from the door as I made my way to the jeep, that it felt like Scotland, and it did. It truly did.

Settling into work, I passed the time with Weiser Books’ re-release of The Key of Solomon the King which in turn furthered my time shift as I reflected on the first time I’d got my hands on the book.

It was 1984, roughly this time of year, perhaps a bit later into October but not yet Hallowe’en, to be sure. I was a college freshman attending Ball State University seeking a degree in Anthropology with a special focus on Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion and Ancient Studies. I was given permission to examine both Clavicula Salomonis and The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage which were part of the  Alexander M. Bracken Library Special Collections.

As you can imagine, this was a major turning point for me, magically and spiritually. Up to that time, I was limited in what actual esoteric texts I could get hold of. Most were tied to  the influx of ‘witchcraft’ books that were everywhere in the 70s. My personal collection was thin. A 1940s-era tract, Unseen Forces by Manly Palmer Hall, that I’d cherished since acquiring it in 1974, was the crowning jewel of my assemblage.

So, it’s understandable that revisiting The Key of Solomon would have a furthering effect on me. My head’s felt changed all morning and that led me to the music of Ann Briggs, Fairport Convention, and Pentangle.

Music and Magick have always walked hand in hand for me, especially that which skews toward traditional melodies from the motherlands of Britain.

It’s a magically delicious rabbit hole I’ve stumbled down… and ’tis the season for it.

Expect a review of The Key of Solomon the King: A Magical Grimoire of Sigils and Rituals for Summoning and Mastering Spirits, translated by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, with a Foreword by Joseph H. Peterson, by early next week.

The Lesser Feast of the Prophet

Aleister Crowley
October 12, 1875 – December 1. 1947

“The first condition of success in magick is purity of purpose.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Moonchild

Have you backed Occult Detective Quarterly?

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Occult Detective Quarterly is being billed as “a journal of supernatural sleuths and psychic investigators, with great fiction, articles and reviews from new and established names.”

From editors Sam Gafford and John Linwood Grant, along with Travis A. Neisler, ODQ looks to be exactly what the doctor ordered.

The kickstarter campaign is well on its way, already well-past the halfway mark with more than twenty days to go. There are some great incentives including ebook and print copies from the likes of William Meikle, Joshua Reynolds, Tim Prasil, and many more.

I’m just a bit chaffed they didn’t ask me to contribute something. But no worries. I’ll be throwing my money at them and I encourage you to do the same.

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