Marco Maculotti was born in Cremona on 14 July 1988. After classical studies, he graduated in Law at the University of Milan with a thesis in Legal Anthropology on recognition of the rights of the native peoples of Canada.
In the traditional context, he was initially interested in Gnosticism, Alexandrian Hermeticism and others mystery currents of the ancient world, as well as the archetypal psychology of the twentieth century by CG Jung and J. Hillman and the Theosophy by HP Blavatsky. He then devotes himself to the deepening of myths and rites both of the Indo-European tradition and not, often making use of a comparative perspective.
Later he focuses on the study of the doctrines of the cosmic cycles, on the dichotomy eliadian from "Sacred time" and "profane time" (and between «circular time» and «linear time») and on Santillana-Dechend school astrotheology. His approach to research and analysis of tradition, as well as ancient mythology and folklore, is heavily indebted to scholars such as Mircea Eliade, Giorgio Colli, Ernst Junger - as well as more "esoteric" authors such as William Butler Yeats, Julius Evola e René Guénon.
The studies on the rites connected to the sacred calendar (from antiquity to the Middle Ages) lead him to deepen in particular the cultual and cultural sphere of shamanism and the "techniques of ecstasy", with a special focus on travel "in spirit" in dimension other. This is closely connected with the non-secondary interest in the traditions of folklore from all over the world concerning planes of existence different from that which can be experienced daily in the ordinary state of consciousness, as well as on the entities that live there, attributable to the category of fairies (Authors referenced here are Robert Kirk, WY Evans-Wenz, and Lewis Spence).
Precisely by virtue of the aforementioned interests, over the years he has also developed a passion for literature of the Fantastic and the Supernatural: after having read Edgar Allan Poe at the age of seven, over the years he discovers and writes about authors such as HP Lovecraft, Arthur Machen, Montagu Rhodes James, Algernon Blackwood, ETA Hoffmann, Thomas Ligotti, Gustav Meyrink, Michel de Ghelderode. In 2020 it focuses especially on Machen's work, publishing, among other things, three essays in as many editorial publications: one for GOG Edizioni (I Fair Ones, atavism and "protoplasmic regression": the panic mythopoiesis of Arthur Machen, in “Beyond the real”, 2020), one for Dagon Press (The fairies, the witches and the door to the Other World: folkloric and ethnographic reliefs on the work of Arthur Machen, in Zothique no. 4/2020) and the third for Bietti Edizioni (Arthur Machen, Advent Prophet of the Great God Pan, in “Arthur Machen. The Sorcerer's Apprentice ", 2020). Other more synthetic publications on Machen followed in the following years, such as Moana, Machen, Eliade and the Vinum Sabbati (in «Cosmic Dimension» n.12, Tabula Fati Editions, Chieti 2020/21), Arthur Machen and GdT, (In The immobile traveler. Essays for Gianfranco de Turris on the occasion of 60 years of activity (1961-2021), Solfanelli, Chieti 2021) and the introduction to the selection of Machenian stories unpublished in Italy Another Reality (Dagon Press, Pineto (TE) 2022).
Among the most important contributions in the realm of fantastic literature we must point out HP Lovecraft, the New Babel and the "Witch Hunt 2.0", appeared in «Studi Lovecraftiani» n.19 (Dagon Press, Pineto (TE) 2021), a vast essay on the idiosyncratic relationship of HPL with the modern world and with the contemporary public, considered by the editor of the magazine "the spearhead of 'book” and for this inserted at the beginning of the same, preceded by the short article by the well-known critic Joshi on the same subject. On Zothique he publishes, in addition to the already mentioned essay on Machen, also The Doctrine of Awakening: Gustav Meyrink's non-fiction (in «Zothique – Rivista di narrative e culturafanta» n.6, “Speciale Gustav Meyrink”, Dagon Press, Pineto (TE) 2021), in which Meyrink's "frontier" studies are shown to have been, in the last analysis , the very foundations of his literary work. Also for Dagon Press, as an afterword to C. Blayre, Cheetah! The cheetah girl (Pineto (TE) 2021) signature Fatal and feral females in fantasy and horror literature.
In 2019 he began to participate as a speaker at various conferences concerning the above issues, exposing to the public - in a series of conferences held in Lombardy, Veneto, Piedmont, Emilia Romagna and Tuscany - some of his favorite themes: shamanism and the sacred techniques of ecstasy, the possibility for the human being to experience the supersensible world and to interact with intelligences of the "subtle plane", the dichotomy between real and world sacral. It also participates in the second edition of «General States of Psychedelia in Italy» (SGPI20), with an intervention on the parallels between experience sacred and experience psychedelic, underlining the urgency for the Western world to rediscover its own sacred dimension within existential experience. In the meantime, it continues to publish articles on a monthly or even weekly basis on the «Axis Mundi» website, arriving in a few years to make several hundreds available to online readers (about half of the articles published on the portal).
The interests and passions briefly summarized here, concerning the ancient world and the experience of the Sacred, have often led him around the world. Particularly significant were the trips to Indonesia, Peru and Mongolia - thanks to which a series of report accompanied by photographs; a selection of those taken in Mongolia was exhibited in a temporary exhibition at «La Dogana» in Milan, in the summer of 2018 — but it also visited, among other destinations, Egypt, Morocco, India, Nepal, China, Mexico, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, taking part in traditional rituals in Yucatan, Peru and Indonesia.
In 2020 he began to give lectures on Arthur Machen, HP Lovecraft and on the esoteric perspectives of the first season of the TV series T, to which he dedicated his first long monographic essay published by Mimesis shortly thereafter, in February 2021: Carcosa unveiled: notes for an esoteric reading of True Detective (222 pp.). The work immediately attracted the attention of a large number of both critics and readers: it was reported by the online magazine «L'Indiscreto» in an editorial list of the best publishing news drawn up towards the end of the year, as well as from the online edition of the national newspaper "Free" and «Adnkronos»; it is also enthusiastically reviewed on numerous online portals («The Tyrrhenian Center», «Caleno 24 hours», “The dissident intellectual» «Horror Magazine», «Thriller Cafe» «The Crossroads of the Worlds», «Fantasy Voice» «Italian Sword&Sorcery», «Obsidian Mirror», «Nero d'Inchiostro», «All Digital»). It is also presented live in Florence in 2021 for the «Associazione Eumeswil» and in streaming on various channels («Bordernights», «La Società dello Zolfo», «Epistème», «Alchemical Itineraries»).
Almost two years after its release, the work is selected among the six finalists of the prestigious «Italy 2022 Award» for the category «Best Original Essay» (the «Premio Italia» annually evaluates the publications that took place during the previous calendar year; ed); the announcement of the winners and the award ceremony will be held on 10 December in Catania on the occasion of «Italcon 2022».
Unable by the general situation in Italy to hold live conferences for the entire two-year period 2020-21, he decides to open the «Axis Mundi» YouTube channel, starting to hold presentations of editorial publications of interest by interviewing the related authors or editors. Among the various guests who have so far trodden the virtual stage of «Axis Mundi TV» remember Sebastiano Fusco, Giorgio Samorini, Paola Giovetti, Massimo Centini, Susanna Mati, Gianluca Marletta, Antonio Bonifacio, Paolo Dolzan, Paolo Riberi, Daniele Palmieri, Massimiliano Palmesano, Riccardo Rosati.
He resumes giving live lectures in 2022, after the release of the second long essay The Angel of the Abyss. Apollo, Avalon, the Polar Myth and the Apocalypse, published at the vernal equinox for Axis Mundi editions. It is his most extensive, complex and ambitious work with its almost 400 pages, a small part of which incorporates articles published in previous years on the «Axis Mundi» portal. The central themes of the work are the iatromancers and Greek shamanism, the Apollonian sanctuaries and the Linea Sacra Michelita, the ancient myths concerning Apollo and other homologous deities (such as the Celtic Belenus and Lugh) and the more recent ones on the Archangel Michael, the Islands of the Blessed and other timeless underworlds of the Hellenic and more generally Indo-European tradition, the end of the Golden Age and the "sleep", the "fall" and/or the "imprisonment" of the golden god, the cosmological connection with the star polar bear and the dual constellation of the she-bears, the Abyss and Tartarus as truly primordial (and "supercosmic") places and, finally, the Indo-European eschatology of the end of the cosmic cycle brought by Apollo with fire taken from the Sibylline Books and the works of Virgil and Nigidius Figulus and a comparison with the Johannine Apocalypse in which Apollyon is called the "Angel of the Abyss" and plays a central role in the Last Judgment.
After the first online presentations for «The Sulfur Society» and «Lexycon Symbolorum», live presentations of the book follow in order of Varese, Parma (at the «Occult Convention 2022»), a Macerata (at the «Catap» bookshop), in Montefiore Conca in the province of Rimini (on the occasion of the «Magicaluna 2022» festival), a Catania (in the historic Pinacoteca N. Sciavarrello, originally the Church of San Michele Minore) ea Torino (at the «Arethusa» bookstore). Within a few months the book received enthusiastic reviews from Prof. Emanuela Chiavarelli (in «Arthos» 2022, soon to be published), Prof. Giovanni Sessa (in «Il Borghese», Idem) and GLM alias Giulio Verga, founder and animator of the renowned facebook group «Arcana Arcanissima», irreplaceable virtual meeting place for researchers of the Sacred in all its forms. A few months after its release The Angel of the Abyss sold hundreds of copies; further presentations in other cities are planned or in the process of being organised.
Among the most successful conferences, the one held on 27 November 2021 at the conference «Words and landscapes, masks and faces: meeting on Mask and face of contemporary spiritualism» held, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the publication, at the renowned «Circolo Filologico Milanese», focusing the discourse on the phenomenon - analyzed in the past by Spengler, Evola and Jünger - of the so-called “Second religiosity” todayin the contemporary world. From the intervention, a more substantial and varied essay took shape, subsequently published in the yearbook «Evolian Studies 2022», published annually by the «Fondazione J. Evola» with the proceedings of the conferences held from year to year. Among the many noteworthy signatures in the 2022 edition, the name of Vittorio Sgarbi stands out among all.
In addition to being the founder, director and curator of «AXIS world», collaborates with various print magazines, including «ATRIUM» (magazine of traditional studies directed by Prof. Nuccio D'Anna) on which he begins with an essay-reportage on the Javanese temple complex of Borobudur, personally visited during his two-month stay in Indonesia (Borobudur, "imago mundi" and "stone book" of the dharma, in «ATRIUM — Metaphysical and Humanistic Studies», year XXII, n. 1, Cultural Association «Cenacolo Pitagorico Adytum», Lavarone (TN), Spring 2020) and continues the following year with Viracocha and the myths of origin of the Andean tradition (in «ATRIUM — Metaphysical and Humanistic Studies», year XXIII/n.1, «Cenacolo Pitagorico Adytum» Cultural Association, Lavarone (TN), Autumn 2021). Another prominent magazine with which he collaborates is "ARTHOS", directed by Prof. Renato Del Ponte, on whom he was invited to write for the first time in 2020 and proposes a vast essay dedicated to The cult of the Fairies in Celtic countries: an eschatology of death and rebirth, (on «Arthos» n.29 - The strength of identity, Arya - Compagnia della Tradizione, Genoa 2020/21), while the following year he wrote an equally long essay entitled Parallelisms between Dante's infrworlds and the Indo-Buddhist and shamanic tradition of Asia (in «Arthos» n. 30, “Dante and the very ancient Sapienza Italica”, Arya – Compagnia della Tradizione, Genoa 2021/22).
He will take the cue from the latter to hold an hour-long lesson for UniTreEdu Milan and a shorter speech at the States General of Psychedelia in Italy 2021, both in December 2020. For Psycore he will also speak with an article presenting the project «AXIS mundi » (AXIS mundi: rituals, esotericism and techniques of ecstasy) in AaVv, Towards psychedelic maturity. Selected interventions of the 2019 and 2020 editions of the States General of Psychedelia in Italy (edited by Psy*Co*Re Network, AnimaMundi Edizioni, Otranto (LE) 2021. On «GOLEM», the annual magazine of the Sulfur Society, publishes the travel report In the footsteps of Andean shamanism: A healing ritual in northern Peru (in «Golem» n.1, La Società dello Zolfo, Parma, Summer 2021) and the more classic essay Metaphysics of the Mask (in «Golem» n.2, La Società dello Zolfo, Parma, Summer 2022).
He is on the editorial board and writes quite regularly also for «THE METAPOLITICAL COURIER», quarterly of traditional and religious studies, about which he wrote, in order: The "physics of angels": dialogue between a visionary biologist and a rebellious theologian (in «Il Corriere Metapolitico – Eschatological journal of universal studies», n. 9/2019), When the Myth shapes the History: the transits of Venus, the return of gods and the fall of the great pre-Columbian empires (in «Il Corriere Metapolitico – Eschatological journal of universal studies», n. 10/2020), “At the wall of time”: Ernst Jünger and the return of the Titans (in «Il Corriere Metapolitico – Eschatological journal of universal studies», n. 11/2020), Mysteries of the Mediterranean: the Guanches and the sinking of Atlantis (in «Il Corriere Metapolitico – Eschatological journal of universal studies», n. 13/2021) and The apocalyptic eschatology of the Sibylline Oracles in the context of Indo-European traditions (in «Il Corriere Metapolitico» n. 15/December 2021).
And again, he has published an article on thethe magazines of Edizioni Bietti «ANTARES" is "INLAND» , respectively dedicated to the literary-philosophical and cinematographic fields. For the first she wrote In the Twilight Zone (in «Antarès n. 16/2020, “Dylan Dog – Our daily horror”», Edizioni Bietti, Milan 2020), for the second The house with laughing windows. Fetishes and (self) sacrifices (in «Inland – Quaderni di Cinema», n. 10/2019, “Pupi Avati”). The most recent movie-themed article published in a print magazine is at the moment They live, we sleep. A 50-year “Short Night” (on «Massacro» n.1, La Nuova Carne Cultural Association, Milan 2022), inspired by the film by Aldo Lado The short night of the glass dolls (1971)
In his spare time he dabbles in writing fantastic tales Lovecraftian / Machenian, one of which (Annex to the will of Ölver Huldurr McGrain), previously published in the online magazine "Motherboard Italia", was later published in the anthology A penny for hell (SensoInverso Edizioni, 2017) and another (Tumpek Wayang) in the anthology Looks into the Unknown. Decameron of the Mystery (Bietti Editions, 2020). One third, The Observers of the Sun Hollow, appeared in the now unreachable online magazine «YAWP» (2017), while a quarter, The Iceman, received a special mention at the prestigious "Hypnos Award 2020», although remaining unpublished to this day. A fifth, The forgotten farm, was published on AaVv, XNUMXth century carnist (La Nuova Carne cultural association, Milan 2022). In any case, a complete anthology of short stories is foreseen for Axis Mundi editions in the future.
