PS - see also https://www.patheos.com/blogs/johnbeckett/2015/07/lammas-night.html
Some book covers are truly dreadful - especially “Child Possessed” (known in the USA as “Watseka”), which I would never have touched if it wasn’t compulsory to buy (from the person running the circle) and read it in one of the circles I learned in. The inverted pentagram on the cover of the only book I ever bought about Nostradamus is another (that, incidentally, is, magically speaking, one of the problems with my home state’s police force: their symbol includes an inverted pentagram), and the use of a nazi-appropriated symbol on the cover of “Lammas Night” is another.
Those who make the covers may enjoy the use of their artistic skill, but sometimes it is inconsistent with the book content (such as the almost running joke, if I read the website correctly, between Jim Butcher and a book cover artist on the subject of hats for Harry Dresden - always worn on the cover, but never worn by the character in the book) or even inappropriate - such as the soft porn covers for the feminist books of the Darkover series. In the case of the cover of “Lammas Night” it was enough for me not to buy the book for years, until I recently found an e-book version with an inoffensive cover.
That was a mild pity for me (and a lesson for book cover artists against glibly using signs of evil), as, having now finally bought the book (it had been recommended a few times), I found it entertaining - and am now considering buying more of the author’s other books, when I can afford to do so.
“Lammas Night” is based largely on British magical traditions, including the Western Mystery Tradition, and acknowledges the real efforts made by many magickal people in the UK to try to stop the advance of the evil nazi ideology during World War Two - efforts which have inspired the work I am attempting in the Magickal Battle of the World series of meditations and exercises.
It was good to see those efforts acknowledged and historical people mentioned, and I particularly enjoyed the premise of allowing each tradition to work in its own way towards a common goal: I would love to see something happen along those lines now, in this age of arrogance and over-self-confidence and - to put it nicely - competing egos.
Mind you, those problems have always been with us, and the struggle to overcome that is one of the key parts of that book.
The “solution” the novel adopts is using an invented character in the British royal family - a literary device intended to hearken back to a time of leaders having magickal skills that others don’t, but one which grates against the recent flawed actions of current British royal family and their sycophants on government as the will of the people, the independence of former colonial possessions (especially my nation), and scandals over racism and Lady Diana - not to mention the whole notion of spiritual development / evolution.
The character is then sacrificed.
The “solution” grates, and I wonder how well the sacrifice aspect fits the magickal narratives of other cultures. Some South American cultures also used human and other sacrifices, and I think some European cultures, but . . . did all regions of the world (perhaps most, although that list seems to suggest not Australia’s Indigenous people)?
Irrespective of how many did, there is the fact that sacrifice (a) is spiritually unethical, and (b) does not contribute to the magickal energy of an action.
If we consider advanced civilisations - and the structure of civilisations proposed by Stephen Greer is useful here: see https://youtu.be/cSLtPLUJLk4 - having to power siddhis (such as what we would now term teleportation) by human sacrifice is just clearly inherently absurd (what are you going to do - sacrifice someone to go somewhere, then hope to find a sacrifice to get back?? FFS!!!).
Similarly the notion of having to create energy to move towards a peaceful world by a human sacrifice - willing or not - is as inherently absurd as thinking the death penalty teaches respect for human life.
There is no question that sacrifices, including human sacrifice, to propitiate angry spirits/powers was a fact of human history - including in neochristianity, with the whole notion of Deity sending a child to “take on the world’s sins” (many sins which Pagans dispute the existence of and which seem to be aimed at enhancing the power, prestige or richness of churches) and absolve the world of those alleged sins by a human sacrifice.
It is the height of hypocrisy for neochristians to lambast others on the topic of human sacrifice when their whole path is based on that.
And in all cases - the historical reality before and after neochristianity, and neochristianity itself - sacrifice has not been of any real or credible long-lasting benefit.
It may seem to have been, but that may well be because those doing the magick were more focused, or because the power or entity being propitiated was of questionable BPM status.
The better way to approach such deeds is to use BPM methods and energies (note in particular that BPM includes spiritually mature - which excludes human and other sacrifice), and to generate as much as you can - strengthen your mind and psychic muscles.
Leave the literary devices that sell books where they belong - in books of fiction.
On that, two of the books that I consider useful - although they have flaws of sexism and neochristian bias - are “Road of Many Ways” (Bennu Books, 1975, ISBN 0 620 01312 5) and “Pilgrims on the Road” (Bennu Books, 1975, ISBN 0 909073 03 1). I know people have been trying to get these republished since the 1980s at least (I’ve even written to the publishers, but with no response . . . maybe I should try the printers [Creda Press] ).
I thought of these books recently because I was talking to someone who lacked a basic understanding of obsession - in the psychic sense, which includes earthbound alcoholics getting their addiction fed by sharing the auras of people drinking to excess in pubs. There are a lot of good books like those around that keep being forgotten or lost or not known widely enough - and, sadly, sometimes suppressed by egomaniacs who don’t want others to have such basic knowledge. Trying to do my bit towards overcoming that is one of the reasons I started this blog, but the world needs more - and it needs to be free of the US-centric blindness of so many websites, which makes books like the two just mentioned, and other cultural practices and approaches towards spirituality, so hard to find (it can be hard enough to get information on First Nations views on this from inside the USA).
It would help if those running websites were, if not more spiritually aware, at least aware of their unconscious biases AND active in trying to overcome those limits.
It would be nice to get books of fiction that aren’t based on spiritually unhealthy practices, but that will only happen when such books SELL (I’ll try to write some if I have the energy if I get to retire, but they’re unlikely to sell well and thus are unlikely to be known).
It would also be nice for traditions of the world to work together in the way that was outlined in this work of fiction (as happened to some extent when so many were trying to contain the evils of the USA’s 45th President, but I consider some of the techniques were flawed).
Anyway, time to go do my chores for the day.
