BLK Celebration 2018 – Michael Bertiaux and Martin Starr!!!

A very special event has been added to the Saturday portion of

BLK Celebration

“The Occult History of Chicago”

Featuring Michael Bertiaux and Martin Starr

Chitown

Martin and Michael will have a live discussion on Saturday entitled “The Occult History of Chicago.” Michael is internationally known through his books and art, but he was a young man with a dream when he arrived in Wheaton, IL in the 1960’s to report for his job with the Theosophical Society. He traveled frequently for lectures to Chicago, and fell in love with the city. Although readers of his work know about his Gnostic Voudon rituals, Church Orders and the work of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua & La Couleuvre Noire and other groups he worked with over the years, Chicago’s occult history stretches back considerably further. Michael has an insatiable lust for knowledge, and being immersed in these bizarre legacies energized him and inspired him to discover more. Over the years, he has learned of the people, places and things of Hidden Chicago, and is eager to share these tales before they are lost.

This talk will cover the little-known “hot points” of the city’s esoteric history with a long-time participant/observer.

BLK Chi

Martin P. Starr is an independent scholar of Western Esotericism and New Religious Movements with four decades of research and writing on the English synthetic occultist Aleister Crowley and his disciples Wilfred Talbot Smith, Charles Stansfeld Jones, C. F. Russell and Kenneth Grant. His current academic interests revolve around the interplay of Neo-Rosicrucianism, Independent Eucharistic Church Movements, Theosophy, and Freemasonry.

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For more info, read the posts on this page, or click

 BLK Celebration

Cults of the Shadow!

Starfire Publishing has produced many fantastic works over the last quarter century, with a focus on the Typhonian tradition. First published in 1986, Starfire Journal has been the official voice of the Typhonian Order (previously known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis), and has shed light on many of the ideas brought forth in Kenneth Grant’s writings.

Starfire Journal, Volume I, Issues 1-5

Starfire Journal, Volume I, Issues 1-5

With Beyond the Mauve Zone (1999) and The Ninth Arch (2002), Starfire completed the final volumes of Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies. Starting in 2008, they then began to reprint enhanced editions of the previous out-of-print titles in this series; Outside the Circles of Time (2008), The Magical Revival (2009), and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God (2013). Now comes the announcement of Cults of the Shadow, due this summer.

Although Grant’s works are all amazing, Cults holds a special place to many as their introductory vehicle into the wondrous world of Michael Bertiaux. This title explores Left Hand Path systems and histories, and looks into their manifestation in the works of Bertiaux, Aleister Crowley, Charles Stanfeld Jones and Austin Osman Spare. As with all Starfire reprints of Grant’s work, this will be an “enhanced” edition, with a new typeset, errata from the previous version within the text and notes taken from Grant’s personal copy included. In addition, these new versions have seen new art, interesting endpapers and, when possible, newly photographed versions of the original art. Many plates which were originally presented in black and white are now in colour. Fulgur Esoterica‘s presentations of Michael Bertiaux’s art speak volumes to the importance of colour in examining his work, and we feel many will be amazed when comparing the plates between new and old versions of Cults.

For more details on this title, head to http://www.starfirepublishing.co.uk/Cults_of_the_Shadow.htm

While on the subject of such things, some were caught sleeping at the pace of Starfire’s republication schedule, and a few of the much sought after deluxe copies of Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God are still available. We have nearly every Starfire deluxe in the BLK Library, and while all are spectacular, this volume really matches the physical object well to the content of the book.

AC&THG Deluxe

AC&THG Deluxe

To order, or read more, see http://www.starfirepublishing.co.uk/aleister_crowley_and_the_hidden_god_moredetails.htm

Starfire has also posted a link to Living Traditions Magazine‘s review of  Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God at http://www.starfirepublishing.co.uk/HG_review.html