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Blutleuchte * Gerhard Hallstatt (2010)

Gerhard Hallstatt (or Gerhard Petak or Kadmon) is best-known for his musical outlet Allerseelen, but for a long time he also published magazines under the titles Aorta and Ahnstern.

These “tracts” first appeared in twenty issues of Aorta and nine of Ahnstern. They were homemade bilingual booklets done with typewriter, copying machine, and stapler. The print was cramped, the illustrations blurred or blackened, and the English translations extremely quaint (in contrast to Gerhard’s beautiful German.)

So a few people set up to make new translations of Gerhard’s articles and present them in a beautiful cloth-bound book with two-colour print. What is presented is a cabinet of curiosities that go from the Cathars to crop circles and man-made UFOs. The articles are only those of Gerhard and span about the decade from 1990 to 2000. It is great to find a man with an interest in a wide variety of subjects as myself not trying to hang around in the same allies all the time. Somehow many of the articles circle around the period of the two world wars though. Through interviews and articles you will learn about Kenneth Anger and his films, a woman with stigmata, characters such as Codreanu and Willigut, musicians such as Z’ev and Michael Moynihan, magic, shamanism, the far corners of science, artists, religions and cults. Several articles are very personal accounts of travels to ancient festivals or mystical places. At least one text is a made-up story which makes me wonder about one or two other personal accounts. Gerhard introduces new terms such as panzermaterialismus and heidnat and describes visions caused by eating mushrooms. Satanism, magic, controversial elements of history it is all here in Blutleuchte. The book is a very enjoyable read with nice, short texts about subjects that I was mostly familiar with, but for example the author rekindled my desire to watch the pre-WWII films of Riefenstahl and I do not believe that I ever heard of the subterranean midget worlds called “Erdställe”. The book is not cheap, but worth the money a worthwhile homage to a lifelong traveller. Speaking of homage, the introduction that I quoted is written by noone less than Joscelyn Godwin the famous scholar on music and Western esotericism and who is apparently no longer frightened by a bit of controversy, since he also wrote introductions to English translations of Evola and articles in the Tyr Journal. I admire the man for knitting his name to such publications which will hopefully make them appear less black (and white).
To get your own copy, people from Europe best get in contact with Gerhard himself (aorta(at)gmx(dot)at), in the US with the publisher (linked below).
2010 Ajna, isbn 9780972182034

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