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~ Phil Legard

Larkfall

Monthly Archives: October 2015

Of Signs and Seals

25 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by larkfall in Arcana

≈ 3 Comments

Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in several editions between 1584 and 1665, has been a personal inspiration for a long time. Scot’s work is notorious for its sixteenth book, which is a compilation of magical materials, apparently compiled from the works of two cunning-men, ‘T.R.’ and John Cokars. Scot intended to present these materials as a way to confute the practice of conjuration, and also to draw parallels between magical and ‘popish conjurations’ of Catholic ritual. However, in doing so he provided many a would-be conjurer with all the materials they required to begin working magic: it’s no surprise that many manuscripts, from the 16th to the 19th centuries, the work of both learned and less well educated scribes, contain interpolations from the work of Scot.

The materials that Scot presents might at first seem obscure or idiosyncratic to modern readers whose knowledge was, until relatively recently, often informed by works such as Waite’s Book of Black Magic, which broadly ignore collections of English ‘experiments’ in magic, in favour of Continental publications. Yet it is evident, after examining various manuscripts and handbooks of English magicians, that what Scot presented was broadly representative of the ‘tradition’ of magic as it was practiced in England during the 16th century. Spirit names like Bealphares and Sibylia, well known to readers of Scot, crop up in works such as the Folger ‘Book of Magic’ [pdf buy], with alarming regularity.

Continue reading →

Cabinet of Curiosities

07 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by larkfall in Announcements

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A few recent bits and pieces:

The Bright Sound Behind the Sound

My paper from the ASLE-UKI biennial conference on ‘Green Language’ has been uploaded to academia.edu. This was read as part of the Alchemical Landscape panel session, and I’m grateful to Yvonne Salmon for inviting me to participate. I feel that this is one of my best pieces of academic writing thus far, and am currently working on a revision for peer-review and publication in 2016. I’m very encouraged by the feedback I got on the paper from its various subjects: Kim Cascone, Katharine Norman and Nikos Stavropoulos. You can read my earlier contribution to The Alchemical Landscape symposium here, and my last blog post is a companion to some of the themes explored in the recent paper.

raine

Hexadic System Special on Dublab

Ben Chasny visited the studio of Dublab radio to record an interview for a special programme about the Hexadic system. The programme also features excerpts from a telephone interview with myself. The phone line was fairly bad, but I hope you get the gist of what I had to contribute to Ben’s own calm, lucid explanations! They were also kind enough to play two tracks from Sorath.

You can listen/download here… and Ben has Hexadic II coming out soon. Continue reading →

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