Magick Matters

“The Angel of the West Window” by Gustav Meyrink

"A complex and ambitious novel which centres on the life of the Elizabethan magus, John Dee, in England, Poland and Prague, as it intertwines past and present, dreams and visions, myth and reality in a world of the occult, culminating in the transmutation of physical reality into a higher spiritual existence. John Dee, through his 20th century descendant, is led by the Green Angel to the 'Other Side of the Mirror'. From the erotically alluring Assja Shotokalungin (in all her incarnations), the pliant Jane, the mischievous Queen Elizabeth I to the earless charlatan Kelley, the truly grotesque Bartlett Greene and the sinister Emperor Rudolph I, John Dee heads a cast which lingers in the mind...>>

“The White Dominican” by Gustav Meyrink

"The White Dominican is Meyrink's most esoteric novel, and draws on the wisdom of a number of mystical traditions, the most important of which is Tao. It is set in a mystical version of the Bavarian town of Wasserburg, which sits on a promontory surrounded on three sides by the River Inn. The novel describes the spiritual journey of the simple hero, who, guided by a number of figures, (his eccentric father, the spirit of a distant ancestor, the protecting presence of his dead lover and the mysterious figure of the White Dominican), escapes the 'Medusa head' of the world to a transfiguration, through which he joins the 'living chain that stretches to infinity'."...>>

“Walpurgisnacht” by Gustav Meyrink

"Comic, fantastic and grotesque, Walpurgisnacht uses Prague as the setting for a clash between German officialdom immured in the ancient castle above the Moldau, and a Czech revolution seething in the city below. History, myth and political reality merge in an apocalyptic climax as the rebels, urged on by a drum covered in human skin, storm the castle to crown a poor violinist "Emperor of the World" in St. Vitus' Cathedral. Written in 1917, Walpurgisnacht continues the message of The Green Face, of a decadent society on the brink of collapse and of a Europe past salvation. In it we see Meyrink's exceptional narrative powers at their height."...>>

“The Green Face” by Gustav Meyrink

"Of the volumes available to the English public, The Green Face, first published in 1916, is the most enjoyable. In an Amsterdam that very much resembles the Prague of The Golem, a stranger, Hauberisser, enters by chance a magician's shop. The name on the shop, he believes, is Chidher Green; inside, among several strange customers, he hears an old man, who says his name is Green, explain that, like the Wandering Jew, he has been on earth 'ever since the moon has been circling the heaven.' When Hauberisser catches sight of the old man's face, it makes him sick with horror. The face haunts him. The rest of the novel chronicles Hauberisser's quest for...>>

“The Golem” by Gustav Meyrink

"First published in serial form as Der Golem in the periodical Die weissen Blätter in 1913–14, The Golem is a haunting Gothic tale of stolen identity and persecution, set in a strange underworld peopled by fantastical characters. The red-headed prostitute Rosina; the junk-dealer Aaron Wassertrum; puppeteers; street musicians; and a deaf-mute silhouette artist. Lurking in its inhabitants’ subconscious is the Golem, a creature of rabbinical myth. Supposedly a manifestation of all the suffering of the ghetto, it comes to life every 33 years in a room without a door. When the jeweller Athanasius Pernath, suffering from broken dreams and amnesia, sees the Golem, he realises to his terror that the ghostly man of clay shares...>>