A SPECIAL EDITION
Originally published decades ago as a staple bound chapbook by Octavia & Co. Press, this reissued title has continued to attract the attention of a great many ceremonial magic enthusiasts throughout the world. Now, the book has been freshly released to the public by Theophania Publishing with the author's blessing.
This book was the first title published by Octavia & Co. Press, and is now reissued as the first title published by the newly relaunched Theophania Publishing house.
Although the SOTA (Society of the Angilluminati), a small magickal working group, is no longer in operation, this book, alongside a small selection of related publications, have been reprinted to document its workings, an offshoot from the Golden Dawn tradition.
Around the turn of the millennium, I was inspired by a group of friends with whom I was engaged with exploring and discussing various systems of magickal practice to collect and publish the various articles and notes I had written and shared amongst them into a book, which I eventually privately published as "The Secret Silence", and individually as separate smaller chapbooks. Generally, we were drawn to the Western Mystery Traditions, the Golden Dawn and Thelema systems, and sought to delve deeper, that is, actual practice, with an intent beyond simple monkey minded agendas.
This book came together over a period of three years, formed from a set of loosely related projects, mainly answers to questions regarding tid-bits of occult information, especially regarding purposeful use of magickal rites performed for a higher practical use than whatever it was in our lives that were found wanting, and instead, attempting to use our daily exercises to make a difference to the world.
For the most part, our experimentation as a group proved too undisciplined to make any real use of the material. At the time, I found it to be a valuable tool for learning what does and does not work (in terms of daily ritual practice), and by documenting my own explorations, made some progress in terms of learning the material, and making a critical analysis of the various concepts.
I cannot claim anything in this system as my own, as it was an attempt to make sense and use of the systems we had at hand, much of which is so saturated with symbolism that a few decades of study has unraveled so many clues that, were I to reapproach the subject again, I would have done so with an entirely different set of tools and ideologies. Such it was that the systems I had at hand were those of popular (oc)culture.