Scarlet Imprint recently posted an update on their publishing plans for months to come. Have a look! Their site says:
As we enter the dark months of the year, a number of titles are in the works for publication over the Winter and into Spring 2020.
Our next title will be An Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke: The Magical Works of Humphrey Gilbert and John Davis. Transcribed from British Library Additional manuscript 36674, edited and introduced by Phil Legard, with supplementary essays by Alexander Cummins, and a foreword by Dan Harms.
An Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke
Two decades before John Dee or Simon Forman began their crystal-gazing experiments, Gilbert and his scryer Davis conjured spirits with violent methods and stripped down Protestant ritual. The pair received a series of striking magical visions, phenomena and spirit encounters both inside and outside the shewstone.
The Excellent Booke and Visions are, as Legard writes in his Preface, ‘unique documents of sixteenth century magical practice: ones that deserve to be widely read and studied by scholars and practitioners alike since they preserve a detailed account of both the making and the use of a grimoire.’ A book of particular note to those interested in Azazel and necromantic traditions, students of the grimoires and the practical workings of dirty medieval magic.
The pre-order for the standard hardback and fine editions will open on 27th November, with publication late December 2019 or early 2020.
Ajar To The Night
We are delighted to welcome Autumn Richardson to Scarlet Imprint. Autumn is the co-founder, with Richard Skelton, of Corbel Stone Press, one of the UK’s foremost small presses dedicated to writing about landscape and nature. Her work grants quiet attention to the natural world, filtered through a prism of ecology, botanical medicine, mythology and esoteric philosophy. Her writing lifts the occult or unseen to the reader’s attention.
Ajar To The Night comprises three poems. Sensual, spare, startling and visceral works.
Date to be confirmed.
Black Abbot, White Magic
Frater Acher returns with Black Abbot, White Magic: Johan Trithemius and the Angelic Mind, a masterful second volume in his Holy Daimon cycle. The book deals with the magical legacy of Johan Trithemius. The ‘black abbot’ should be considered the central figure in the evolution of the Western esoteric tradition, the character behind many of the legends now attributed to Dr. Johan Faust, he was the teacher of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, and a magical role model to John Dee and Paracelsus. New material shines light on Trithemius’ own magical practice, with the translation and analysis of manuscripts attributed to his teacher Pelagius the Hermit of Majorca, as well as their mysterious intermediary, Libanus Gallus. The text includes a biography of Trithemius from leading scholar Professor Klaus Arnold, and concludes with Acher revealing the practical premises that connect Trithemius’ ‘theologica magica’ with the Ancient Greek myths aimed at apotheosis: becoming divine.
Publication February 2020.
Trollrún
Finally, Nicholaj De Mattos Frisvold’s much anticipated Trollrún: A Discourse on Trolldom and Runes in the Northern Tradition is now scheduled for publication in April 2020. Apologies for the delay, we know many of you are looking forward to this title.
Frisvold returns to his roots with a comprehensive new work on the Northern tradition of trolldom. Introduced by Johannes B. Gårdbäck and with a preface by Claude Lecouteux, Trollrún covers runes, seidr, mythology, the Norse gods and godesses, gandr (curses) and blót (sacrifice); but crucially, elements practically unknown to outsiders, such as trollblot, nature spirits, and star and herbal lore.
The Scandinavian premodern worldview included the trolldom and folk magic traditions which were discarded by the Germanic sturm und drang movement and the nineteenth century revival, which focussed instead on the Aesir. The Northern folk magic tradition shown by Frisvold in Trollrún is radically different; he takes the cunning perspective, revealing the elder faith and its sorcerous arts, including the use of Black Books, Faust Books and Cyprians. Thick with spells, sympathies, lore and wisdom, Trollrún is an important text which sings with the magic of the North.
Publication April 2020.
