Month: January 2021

"The fantastic continuum: a conversation about literary mystery"

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"You give yourself hours, and even whole days, which are, I say it unambiguously, like tears in the approximate and plausible fabric of our existence [...] as if they had forced you to take a look at the dark reverse of things, there where everything is frost and horror. In other words, as if you had given a turn to the moon โ€.

(Thomas Landolfi, Voltaluna, 1942)
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โ€œWeird literature: narrating the unthinkableโ€. Interview with Francesco Corigliano

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We interview Francesco Corigliano, the author of the essay recently published by Mimesis that investigates the characteristics and the deep meaning of a genre that is difficult to define, through the use of three contemporary masters: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Stefan Grabiล„ski and Jean Ray.

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The Logos and the knowledge of God in Clement of Alexandria's Neoplatonism

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Christianity, Esotericism, Philosophy, History of Religions

In the "Stromateis", written in the third century, Clement of Alexandria establishes a deeper analogy between the truth-Logos, coeternal and coextensive with God, and the cosmic aeon, aiศn, which gathers in itself present, future and past: to the temporal scan , a typical expression of creation, the articulation of the parts of the cosmos is connected; thus "he who reassembles the different parts and reunites them will safely contemplate [...] the Logos in his perfection, that is, the truth".

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The Bringer of Fire: Prometheus and the sense of the tragic in ancient Greece

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, Philosophy, Mito, Poetry, History of Religions

On the one hand the fire represents the Logos, but on the other Prometheus embodies the wild nature of ancient cosmology, as opposed to the rationalization implemented by the society of the polis on the world outside the Hellenic civilization considered "barbaric" and irrational. The very sense of the tragic is based exactly on the sphere of non-rationality, on the mythical representation of the unconscious shadows of the Greek population of the polis and of man himself.

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Children of a lesser god: Gnostic elements in the Nag Hammadi manuscripts

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Christianity, Esotericism, History of Religions

The discovery of an entire "Gnostic library" in Nag Hammadi, Egypt, in 1945, revealed to the world the "cosmic pessimism" of some of the earliest Christian congregations in the Near East, based on the ontological difference between the unknowable God- Father of the Synoptic Gospels and the "God of this world", a figure who has notable correspondences but also sensitive distinctions with the Platonic Demiurge.

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Out now! "Cheetah, the Cheetah Girl" by Christopher Blayre

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Press releases and updates, Italian Literature, Publications

It just came out in bookstores, thanks to Dagon Press, The Cheetah Girl by Christopher Blayre (aka Edward Heron-Allen), "cursed" novel hitherto unpublished in Italy, written in the 20s and remained virtually unknown until the end of the XNUMXth century due to its burning themes, between extreme eroticism and eugenics. It contains seven appendices, including our afterword ยซFatal and feral females in fantasy and horror literatureยป.

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In the Twilight Zone

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Art, Characters, Psychology

In issue 7 of "Dylan Dog", Tiziano Sclavi makes magmatic chaos rise to an emblematic reality of the impasse in which contemporary man finds himself, summing up in the dull expectation of non-life that is repeated day after day the loss of the latter who, enveloped in the implacable mists of History and Time and trapped in a stagnant Twilight Zone, shares with Valdemar di Poe the sense of powerlessness and, at the same time, of desolate amazement.

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On the shoulders of Jรถtnar: interview with Ylenia Oliverio ("Il Bosco di Chiatri", "Vanatrรบ Italia")

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, Interviews, Mito, Characters, Shamanism, History of Religions

Today we are in the company of Ylenia Oliverio, president of the "Il Bosco di Chiatri" association and above all of the "Vanatrรบ Italia" section, focused on the study and dissemination of the ancient Norse cultic and ritualistic tradition, especially the Seiรฐr and , in fact, Vanatrรบ.

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Renรฉ Guรฉnon: "The social chaos"

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, Extracts, Philosophy, Characters, Psychology, History

Today marks the 70th anniversary of Renรฉ Guรฉnon's death. For the occasion, we want to publish an excerpt from his "The crisis of the modern world" (1927), a work that, despite having been published almost a century ago, is still illuminating today to understand the distortions of the world in which we live, especially considering the events we have witnessed in recent times.

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Ioan P. Culianu: "Mircea Eliade and the ideal of the universal man"

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In this essay, which we publish in full on the occasion of the 71st anniversary of Ioan Petru Culianu's birth (January 5, 1950), the Romanian scholar analyzes the life and works of his teacher Mircea Eliade, taking into account both the biographical and the literary aspects. , as well as obviously his role as a "mystagogue" and initiator as regards the hermeneutic question of the Sacred and of the history of religions.

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JRR Tolkien, the human story of a twentieth century hobbit

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: folklore, Italian Literature, Mito, Characters

Sharp conservative hostile to any form of extremism, sincere Catholic deeply influenced by numerous other mythical-religious apparatuses, tenacious defender of trees against the society of machines: Tolkien was this, and much more. We retrace the life of one of the masters of contemporary fantasy on his anniversary.

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