Let There Be Therion

Nikolai Saunders (2014) Arbor de Magistro. Fall of Man, 205 p.

It is by the drinking of the blood of Chaos or Tiamat, that the magician affirms the connection with the spirit they evoke. This congress is also known as ligatio. In this system ligatio consists of a blood pact made with the spirit in the form of the blood of Chaos. This blood unites the magician and spirit and makes use of the sinister formula of the Chaos Therion current. It is from the blood of the Mother that we draw a synergistic vortex of energy with the spirit and the forces of the aethyr invoked.

According to the background information provided by the publisher Arbor de Magistro, which is the first booklenght venture of its author, Nikolai Saunders, is built upon over a decade of practical magickal work. It is not, however, a theoretical representation or unification of that decade-long empirical research, but a grimoire in the true sense of the word. A handbook for those willing and able to follow its teachings to the complex chaos of spirits and aethyrs.

The basic caveat of Arbor de Magistro is that it is not a book for the beginners. There are a general commentary and introduction sections, which counts a total of 22 pages, but these two do not teach the basics of magickal practice. In fact, a bar has been raised considerably higher for someone deliberating a dive into this therionic stream; a potential candidate should be proficient in the basics of magickal work, but he/she should also have amassed a notable amount of experience in Enochian and Solomonic magick. Thus, someone just about to dip his/her toe into the world of spirits and aethyrs for the very first time should probably pick up some speed from the likes of Lon Milo DuQuette and Thomas Karlsson, and leave Arbor de Magistro for the future attainment.

Like already indicated, the flesh and bones of the book is a collection of workings, which are based on a fusion of Enochian and Solomonic magick. These two strands of magick combined together form a rather vast vistas for someone about to follow them to the fruition; all in all there are around 5000 different combinations of spirits and aethyrs.

True to the traditions involved, the author has laid out the workings in Enochian and Latin, which are accompanied with English translations. This means, naturally, that the actual reading material is quite sparse. Then again, grimoires are hardly sought and bought for a reading pleasure, right? The given workings are supplemented with photocopied sigils lifted, or so I suppose, from the author's magickal journal. These blesses the whole work with an air of authenticity. There are also a couple of  pencil drawings by an artist named Leonor V. Doria.

In sum, I would say that Nikolai Saunder's first booklenght offering is probably a gem for those who are in the position needed to dive into its complex and multifaceted world. It is also a fine yardstick for those still struggling towards the more elevated line of magickal practice; to be there somewhere, as a darkly shining diamond, to remind about the further goals.

Sidereal Journey

Holmes, Leo (2013) LeMULgeton - Goetia and the Stellar Tradition. Fall of Man, 105 p.

Humanity had once walked with the gods, learned many sciences from them, developed civilization and then was left alone to commit atrocities and terrible mistakes, like children without a supervising adult.

Leo Holmes' LeMULgeton - Goetia and the Stellar Tradition is the first installment in the Nox Sine Occasu series published by Fall of Man;  a series dedicated to works which are short of a book lenght, but still too long to be published in a magazine or journal.

Personally, I have cherished the basic idea of Nox Sine Occasu since the very beginning. By limiting the page count up to hundred or so, there's enough space and words available for writers to scale both heights and depths of their subject matter in an essayistic way, but there's also enough strain to force the study to a focused and dynamic form. LeMULgeton by Leo Holmes is a fine example of this.

According to the information offered on Fall of Man's website, the author of the present work, Leo Holmes, "has been studying and practicing magic for over fifteen years." It's rather easy to take their word for this, as there is, clearly, a solid and well-researched basis to this work. It's also worth to mention that the author has not limited his study to just readily available occult sources, but has, in fact, done quite a lot research beyond the occult confines, e.g. the works of controversial author and theorist Zecharia Sitchin.

Even though LeMULgeton is very heavy on theory and, conversely, very light on practice, it's not an academic study on Goetia and its relation to Stellar Tradition - or, more precisely, on Lemegeton and its relation to Mul.Apin. There is a rather extensive listing of source materials at the end of the book (pp. 103-105), but those are presented as Further Reading; in the actual text sources are quoted in a loose, non-academic manner. There are same exact source references, but most of the time those are evaded and only authors and their works are mentioned. That's hardly a major problem when considering the nature of the work at hand, but, nevertheless, exact source references have their undisputed virtues, which should be taken into account, e.g. saying that Kenneth Grant has written something about the mysterious LAM in his Typhonian Trilogies is information, alright, but it's not very practical information, whereas the exact source reference would give an interested student a shortcut to actual resources.

As for the actual aim of the work at hand - that is, linking 72 Goetic demons to Sumerian astronomy - well, Holmes builds up a very meticulous study, to say the very least. He admits that it isn't possible to establish a logical order in which those two can be related (p. 28), and goes on from there to gather all the circumstantatial evidence to construct his case, e.g. similarities in the names of Goetics and constellations. Accordingly, there's a wealth of valuable details to be mined here for someone with an interest of going deep in his personal studies.

Even though it is rather easy to recognize the fact that there is a solid research behind this work, it is just as easy to pinpoint those passages where the author has gone from where the fence is the lowest. A prime example of this being the seventh chapter: Crowley, Grant, Lovecraft and Others (pp. 72-83). To me, personally, this could have been one of the most interesting chapters in the whole book, but then Holmes gets his "quote mode" on and cites H. P. Lovecraft's short story Polaris in its entirety, after which he cites a long passage from The Call of Cthulhu. And that's not the end of all quoting - he sums it all up with a quote from Anton LaVey! The thing is, direct quotations have their well-grounded uses, but to build almost a whole chapter on nothing but quotes goes far beyond those justified uses and makes a rather lame impression.

The criticism notwithstanding, LeMULgeton - Goetia and the Stellar Tradition is nevertheless an intriguing and valuable contribution to its subject matter, and will be a fine acquisition for those interested in expanding their knowledge on what has been termed The Grimoire Tradition. It is, as already stated, very light on practice, but there's enough cues for the intrepid and intelligent to build up his own praxis. There are some imperfections both in the text and in the layout, but nothing amounting to a major problem. Basically, they are errors which could have been evened out by an extra round of proofreading, and thus nothing to worry too much about.