Month: May 2021
Shamans in the Amazon and "alien abduction": the strange case of Bernardo Peixoto
With the consent of Venexia Editrice, we publish almost entirely chapter 8 of John Mack's book "Passport to the Cosmos" (Italian translation: "Passport to the Cosmos"), focusing on the bizarre experiences of some Brazilian Amazonian tribes in recent decades and their connection with ancient legends and folkloric traditions.
The dark soul of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melnibonรฉ, the "anti-Tolkien"
Chaos deities, ancient alien meta-universes, avataric incarnations destined to perpetually reincarnate in the patrols of the eternal return, grimoires and black magic: if you are looking for the dark soul of fantasy and the fatalistic soul of the sword & sorcery, you have a good chance of finding it in the "Erlic di Melnibonรฉ ยปby Michael Moorcock.
See the invisible. The art of Alessandra Maxร culi
Artists like Maxร culi remind us that beauty and truth are closely related: truth, in Greek ฮฌฮปฮฎฮธฮตฮนฮฑ, is literally "non-forgetfulness", and beauty is what allows man to remember what he has forgotten, to regain possession of that treasure that lies hidden in everyone's heart, that "fund of omniscience" of which the Buddhist texts speak. Art then becomes a bridge reaching out to the Infinite, a fissure that allows you to escape from the prison of space and time, and thus to escape becoming and death.
HP Lovecraft, the "lost worlds" and Theosophy
One of the things that most strike the reader who is familiar with the themes of esotericism is the large amount of traditional elements in Lovecraft's stories, which is very strange when one takes into account that he defined himself as a convinced advocate of mechanism and materialism. . These concepts, including that of the so-called "lost continents", did not come to him through authentically traditional sources, but through the cogitations and narratives of the theosophists of the late nineteenth century, which also inspired some colleagues of the Providence Dreamer, such as Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E. Howard.
Direct video: ยซFrom the King in Yellow toโ True Detective โ. Special "Carcosa unveiled" "
Tomorrow evening, Thursday 13 May, at 21 pm, the fourth official presentation of the book โCarcosa unveiled. Notes for an esoteric reading of True Detective โ, released in February by Mimesis.
The cosmological meaning of the laughter of the gods: on the myth of Baubรฒ and its surroundings
Emerging from every corner of the globe, the mythology of divine laughter hides an ancestral and terrible secret. Why should we make the worried gods laugh? From Demeter to Amaterasu, the answer points once again to time and cosmic palingenesis.
The journey of the soul after death. The symbolism of the funerary cloth of the Marquise of Dai
In 1972, near Changsha, the current capital of the Chinese province of Hunan, a funerary cloth in painted silk, known as the โfunerary cloth of the Marquise of Daiโ, was found. It is an extraordinary artifact that symbolically depicts the conception of the afterlife and the journey of the soul after the death of the first Han period (206 BC-220 AD) and which was considered fundamental to guide the soul of the deceased in its ascent to Heaven.
Out now! "Zothique n.7: Robert E. Howard special"
We report the release of the number 7 of "ZOTHIQUE", Magazine of Fantastic Culture and Weird published by Dagon Press, entirely dedicated to the American writer Robert Ervin Howard, one of the fathers of the "Heroic Fantasy" genre, known above all for being the creator of the famous character of Conan the Barbarian.
Rhodes: in the shadow of the Colossus
The collection of short stories by Andrea Guido Silvi, recently published for the Italian Sword & Sorcery "fantastorica" โโseries of fiction, takes us to Rhodes in the third century before our era, where the veneration of terrible divinities alternates with palace intrigues and suggestions โBronzepunkโ, and is linked to the centuries-old survival of characters that have now become part of the myth, such as the cultural hero Memnon and the philosopher-iatromancer Empedocles.
Apology of witches. Johann Wier's โDe Lamiisโ
In the middle of the XNUMXth century Johann Wier, doctor and demonologist, student of Cornelio Agrippa of Nettesheim, spoke out against the methods and doctrines of the Catholic Inquisition in defense of witches, through a thesis that combines scientific knowledge with occult ones in the wake of Agrippa and of Paracelsus.
