Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

As I prepare for my rapidly approaching vacation in Paris I’m thinking about what to pack. The most items under consideration are which books should I take?

This is a topic recently broached by Gordon White in “Travel Reading: The Eternal Question“, where he took along a book I recommended on this blog, along with some other neat stuff.

Fiction is easy, I’m going with two French Canadian authors and two French authors, and of course the guidebooks, but which non-fiction to take is proving more challenging. I’m thinking Levi. I still haven’t read The History of Magic which is bound to be fancifully romantic and therefore quite appropriate.

Any other recommendations?

Oh, all right. Enough about me. Linkage:

• Continuing the theme from the second half of this week: a poem by Sian Thomas posted on the Museum of Witchcraft‘s blog, titled “Spirit Bottle“.

• On his blog Rune Soup, Gordon White wrote a post titled “How To Hack The Retrogrades” with brief notes on their influences and hacks to circumvent the effects. (Sidenote: I dig the breakdown for Pluto. Getting off on the wrong foot with people pretty much defines my life. I cancelled cable in the last millennium, but it hasn’t helped any. Friends have described me as “an acquired taste”. I’ve decided to take it as a compliment.)

• Reality Sandwich plays host in-progress excerpts from the upcoming Immanence of Myth anthology by James Curcio: “Initiation, Part 1: The Masks of Identity“, “Initiation, Part 2: A Long Road Out Of Hell” and “Initiation, Part 3: Making Do Without A Guide“.

• Klint Finley posted a link to tarot cards based Lost created by Alex Griendling on Technoccult. They’re not actually tarot cards, as they don’t depict images derived from tarocchi, instead using their own oracular scheme, but they look really neat all the same.

If you come across anything particularly awesome, please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious tag it “plutonica” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

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The Occult Reliquary will be released in March 2010 by Three Hands Press.

Introduced by Graham King, the book largely consists of more than 200 illustrations, 80 of which will be in full colour.

The images are selected from from the Richel-Eldermans Collection, an occult archive of some 2,000 images and artifacts housed in the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall. For a sample, check out the images available for viewing on the website.

From the book’s description on Three Hands Press:

Situated at the crossroads of erotic magic, ceremonial angelic conjuration, and witchcraft, the images comprise, in part, a pictorial cipher of the rituals of Ars Amatoria, a European magical order using sex magic, and the lesser-known M∴M∴, based in the Hague and Leiden. Also referenced among the collection are materials relating to A∴A∴ of Aliester Crowley. [sic]

The transfixing procession of images, charms, magical seals, and ritual objects in the Collection is the work of multiple artists, and displays a high degree of magical insight and creativity. It will be of interest to students of witchcraft, Freemasonry, the Goetia, sex magic, and early twentieth century occultism.

Three editions will be available, a special edition (already sold out), a deluxe edition (£130, 220$US) and a standard edition (£65, 110$US). All editions are limited.

See Three Hands Press for more.

Book’s cover image taken from the notice of publication found in the Museum’s blog, the Museum of Witchcraft Diary.

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