Magick Matters

19.10.2021

“Murder by Candlelight: The Gruesome Crimes Behind Our Romance with the Macabre” by Michael Knox Beran

Magick Matters

"In the early nineteenth century, a series of murders took place in and around London which shocked the whole of England. The appalling nature of the crimes—a brutal slaying in the gambling netherworld, the slaughter of two entire households, and the first of the modern lust-murders—was magnified not only by the lurid atmosphere of an age in which candlelight gave way to gaslight, but also by the efforts of some of the keenest minds of the period to uncover the gruesomest details of the killings. These slayings took place against the backdrop of a London in which the splendor of the fashionable world was haunted by the squalor of the slums. Sir Walter Scott,...>>

View

19.10.2021

“New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought” by Wouter J. Hanegraaff

Magick Matters

"Recent years have seen a spectacular rise of the New Age movement and an ever-increasing interest in its beliefs and manifestations. This fascinating work presents the first-ever comprehensive analysis of New Age Religion and its historical backgrounds, thus providing the reader with a means of orientation in the bewildering variety of the movement. Making extensive use of primary sources, the author thematically analyses New Age beliefs from the perspective of the study of religions. While looking at the historical backgrounds of the movement, he convincingly argues that its foundations were laid by so-called western esoteric traditions during the Renaissance. Hanegraaff finally shows how the modern New Age movement emerged from the increasing secularization of those...>>

View

19.10.2021

“Mouches Volantes. Eye Floaters as Shining Structure of Consciousness” by Floco Tausin

Magick Matters

"Floco Tausin tells the story about his time of learning with spiritual teacher and seer Nestor, taking place in the hilly region of Emmental, Switzerland. The mystic teachings focus on the widely known but underestimated dots and strands floating in our field of vision, known as eye floaters or mouches volantes. Whereas in ophthalmology, floaters are considered a harmless vitreous opacity, the author gradually learns to see them and reveals the first emergence of the shining structure formed by our consciousness. Mouches Volantes explores the topic of eye floaters in a much wider sense than the usual medical explanations. It merges scientific research, esoteric philosophy and practical consciousness development, and observes the spiritual meaning...>>

View

19.10.2021

“Merlin: Knowledge and Power through the Ages ” by Stephen Knight

Magick Matters

"Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend, has been a source of enduring fascination for centuries. In this authoritative, entertaining, and generously illustrated book, Stephen Knight traces the myth of Merlin back to its earliest roots in the early Welsh figure of Myrddin. He then follows Merlin as he is imagined and reimagined through centuries of literature and art, beginning with Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose immensely popular History of the Kings of Britain (1138) transmitted the story of Merlin to Europe at large. He covers French and German as well as Anglophone elements of the myth and brings the story up to the present with discussions of a globalized Merlin who finds his way into...>>

View

19.10.2021

“Heaven on Earth: Temples, Ritual, and Cosmic Symbolism in the Ancient World” edited by Deena Ragavan

Magick Matters

"The volume is the result of the eighth Annual University of Chicago Oriental Institute Seminar, held on March 2-3, 2012. Seventeen speakers, from both the US and abroad, examined the interconnections between temples, ritual, and cosmology from a variety of regional specializations and theoretical perspectives. The seminar revisited a classic topic, one with a long history among scholars of the ancient world: the cosmic symbolism of sacred architecture. Archaeologists, art historians, and philologists working not only in the ancient Near East, but also Mesoamerica, Greece, South Asia, and China, re-evaluated the significance of this topic across the ancient world."...>>

View