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Those wishing to initiate serious discussions about esoterics and science, art, magic, politics, and religion in general may care to participate in Arcanorium College. Debate here proceeds according to the highest standards of civility and intellectual discourse, to maintain this we levy a minor subscription which frees us from spam, incivility, and nutters, yet we do allow a probationary free membership for a couple of weeks.

I haven’t the time for internet social media. I prefer the more measured and thoughtful interaction that Arcanorium College offers. www.arcanoriumcollege.com.

This Specularium site has 3 major sections and a blog. Many have wondered why a wizard chooses to devote so much effort to scientific speculations, a recent item in a debate on the Blog of Baphomet clarifies this issue: -

‘Wizards of old had to have a detailed working knowledge of religion, for religion formed the cultural and intellectual backdrop to their times and they would have fallen foul of it, or appeared stupid, without such knowledge. Today’s wizards need to familiarise themselves with science for exactly the same reasons.’

Plus any sort of esoteric or magical hypothesis implies some sort of Rebel Physics, some sort of extra component to reality that requires explication or refutation, and which may lead to a more comprehensive understanding of the profoundly peculiar reality in which we find ourselves incarnate. When you look at the sharp end of physics in the quantum and cosmological domains the standard conventional models look full of holes and contradictions and unresolved questions, leaving many metaphysical assumptions open to potentially fascinating debate. The Path of Knowledge needs to encompass all that we can know, including the contra-intuitive and the peculiar and the esoteric. Much of what now passes for science previously lay in the domain of wizard’s speculations. Let the titanic struggle continue!

Anyway, on a more mundane note, a few observations about Book Zero.

My contacts inform me that Ray Sherwin recently sold a handwritten manuscript of Psychonaut to an unnamed American collector for an undisclosed sum. Plus Ray, with whom I exchange approximately biennial emails, informs me that he has recently retired to the sun with a nice little villa in Fuerteventura.

Methinks these events may have a connection, if so, well done Ray, enjoy the proceeds. The manuscript in question had long ago faded from my attention. The natural products business idea I borrowed from you has made me millions, even though you in your inimitably laid back style didn’t go all the way with it yourself.

I do however wonder exactly which manuscript this concerns. Before departing for a couple of years in India and Australia I left a first Liber Null manuscript with the Morton wizard and eventually received a single copy of Liber Null with a White Cover whilst in Australia. This proved invaluable in setting up the Church of Chaos down under for the duration of my stay, the eight of us did tremendous work in the basement of the self-styled Lord Vegtam’s apartments. Ian Johnstone, do you still live?

On the way back I rewrote Liber Null in the foothills of the Himalayas and this manuscript became the basis of the Red Cover version of Liber Null which Ray and I made about 400 copies of and sold mainly to The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Leeds during my 2 years in Yorkshire at Ray’s village in East Morton. We collated and glued the books together in Ray’s kitchen. This red version became the text adopted by Weisers and eventually rolled into a single book along with Psychonaut which I wrote on my return to the UK. I had thought that I'd given the Psychonaut manuscript to The Sorcerer's Apprentice for their initial Brown Covered A4 edition.

Ray always seemed vague and evasive about just how many White Cover Liber Null’s he made. The one I had eventually got lost or given away sometime after I moved to Bristol. I never saw another, rumour has it that only either 2 or 5 got made.  So this little tome, whimsically titled Book Zero, that sunk a hundred paradigms and launched a hundred more, actually came out in a sort of ‘zero’ edition limited to perhaps 2 or 5 copies. Does anyone know what became of them? 

Anyway in the longer term, having recently acquired sachet making machinery, in a few decades my executors will market my ashes, attractively packaged in 10g sachets, partly for the pleasure of esotericists of an essentialist persuasion, partly for use in occult art and science, and partly to offset the rapacious death duties on my estate. Prices on application, (probably in Chinese Yuan/Renminbi) when the time comes.

Supplemental : A correspondent just sent me a pic of a White Cover Liber Null. It bears the number 50 of 100 and contains what looks like a brief message from the author and a signatorial squiggle, neither from me methinks. What did the mouse do when the cat went off to the Himalayas?

Eurosceptic parties of the left and of the right have made a good showing at the elections for the sham ‘EU Parliament’, and UKIP have done exceptionally well in the UK. The response from the unelected EU commission and the Germans appears to consist of: - ‘we will make a pretence of listening to the protest but we will basically ignore it and hope that it will go away when the economy improves’. The ‘ever closer union’ faction of the euro political class remains in power but the tide has started to turn.

The EU economy seems unlikely to ever improve now because energy and raw materials become ever more scarce and expensive, and dynamic emerging economies with cheap labour look set to dominate future markets. An over regulated synarchist managed, undemocratic and creatively inhibited europe hamstrung by political correctness and gigantic social security bills seems set for decline. The EU will reap a hurricane of revolt next time if it continues to ignore calls for a complete rethink of its function or for its dissolution. UKIP has done the British a huge favour by providing a Eurosceptic alternative to the BNP, the French eurosceptics had little alternative but to vote for the National Front.

UKIP’s triumph seems a fitting kick in the teeth for the Guardian reading classes and the illiberal dimocrats. The party of little more than ‘neither of the above’ has become trounced by a party with serious alternatives. (It just seems a pity to me that UKIP’s environmental policies seem very poorly scientifically informed.)

The widespread attempt to accuse UKIP of racism has backfired spectacularly. Whilst the party (like any other) probably does include some individuals with such opinions, its general stance appears Culturalist rather than racist. Most Brits don’t feel too bothered about skin colour but they do object to militant multiculturalism and believe that some cultures have stupid and ineffectual ideas and inhumane value systems.

Since the sixteenth century the foreign policy of the British has centred upon denying anyone hegemony in Europe. Thus they fought the Spanish, the French, and the Germans for centuries and then opposed the Russians throughout the cold war simply to prevent anyone dominating continental Europe. The strength of Europe lies in its diversity and the ability of its various separate nations to try experiments with different approaches. Britain reinvented democracy and taught it to the world, now it must struggle again to prevent Europe descending into an undemocratic Soviet or modern Chinese style hegemony led by an unelected and unaccountable synarchy of the  political classes hiding behind a vast faceless bureaucracy.

I do hope the Scots see sense before their independence referendum. If they want more independence then trying to throw their lot in with the EU will have exactly the opposite effect. They would do better to negotiate more independence for themselves within a UK free of the EU. Tartan romanticism would eventually become heavily regulated by the EU you know, expect 5,000 pages on the health and safety and political correctness of kilts and sporrans and bagpipes, and you can forget about those sock dirks.

The Epoch seems to have received rapturous reviews from everyone who has read it

http://www.esotericon.org/

The basic Platonic-Pagan-Monotheist paradigm which has dominated esoterics since the first centuries of the first millennium until quite recent times has finally met its fully formed nemesis and replacement in the Quantum-Neo-Pagan paradigm. The new map of esoteric reality looks disturbing and challenging………. and strangely beautiful.

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