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Manticore Press

India’s Glory – Raghupati Bhatt (2014)

  • history

A history of India from an Indian perspective, that is what the author wanted to present. His little book (218 pages) has short chapters, mostly about noteworthy Indians. From Chandragupta Maurya (around 340 BCE) to Mahatma Gandi (1869-1948).

The author is of the opinion that the West is misinformed about India and its history and wants to correct these flaws. Also he wants to present figures of India’s glorious past. I must say that I do not really have the idea that I read anything radically different from what I already knew. Perhaps this is due to the fact that what I know about India mostly comes from people who were ‘India-friendly’, or perhaps it is simply so that us Westerners are not so badly informed as Bhatt thinks.

Not unexpectedly the book is filled with praise for India and his ‘big names’. Bhatt tells us about Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims alike; a bit about spiritual currents such as Bhakti or Jainism; spiritual leaders and politicians; conquerers and freedom fighters. Quite a few pages are dedicated to the time in which India fought British colonism. Nor does he shy to say -for example- that Gandhi was not favoured by everyone and he has a few things to say about Hindu nationalism, a current which was recently in the news.

“India’s Glory” does not hold any big surprises, but it makes an alright read and it never hurts to see things through the eyes of an insider.

2014 Numen Books, isbn 0987559869

Written In Blood * Mindaugas Peleckis (2015)

I am not completely sure how Numen Books came to publish this book. It is a collection of interviews that Peleckis did, mostly with musicians. I cannot say what period the interviews span. Initially I had the idea that Peleckis was a youngster interviewing band for some website, but the man is actually as old as myself and he has published more books. Peleckis is from Lithuania (but lives in London?) and this is his first book in English. I think there are other interviewers whom I would prefer to collect their interviews and publish them in a book.

Most interviews are not too interesting. Peleckis tends to ask the same questions over and over again. This is perhaps not so noticeable on a website, but when you read a book with interviews, it can be quite sad. “Could you please tell me about your main influences. What books, music, films and other things impress you?” Almost every person, no matter from what background gets the question: “What do you think about the thousands of World Music / Neofolk / Industrial / Ambient / Tribal / Electroacoustic / Avant-garde bands/projects? Is it a kind of trend, or just a tendency toward better music?” Or what about: “When I first heard your music, it impressed me so much I still can’t forget the impression.” Every person’s who is interviewed who has written a book, this book is “revolutionary”. And not to forget: “The sound is magic. You’ve proved it. But what ends when there’s no sound?”
With just a handfull of questions, the length of the interviews depend on how much effort the artist put in it. Some only give two-line answers, some complete epistles. This does result in a few nice to read interviews. Patrick Leagas gives his view on the early days of Death In June. Robert Taylor a nice lecture on Asatru. Peter Andersson (Raison d’Être) gives a peek into his soul.
There musicians that I know, but many that I never heard of. Many of them seem to be “sound artists”, others doom or stoner metal artists, even a group that makes music with vegetables. The variety of people involved is a merit to the book. The biggest surprise to me is Alexander Dugin, the controversial Russian thinker, who does not really come out too well from the interview. I do not know if the interviews are presented chronologically, but the last artist, Z’ev, is about the only person who has an answer to the “when there is no sound” question. What what answer. What a guy!

“Written In Blood” is an alright read, but not much more than that. If one of the artists involved interests you and (s)he happens to have been in the mood to give some proper answers, the book could be a good buy. More out of general interest, I could say that you can just buy it, put it somewhere and read an interview every now and then like you would when you follow Peleckis’ website.

2015 Numen Books, isbn 0994252560

The Grail – two studies – Alexander Jacob (2014)

And again Numen Books comes with an interesting title. This publisher is quickly developing the good habbit of publishing books about subjects that are (just) off the map for other publishing houses, while remaining within (relatively) scholarly fields. Books by (mostly) scholars about not-too-popular subjects so to say. Readable, nicely presented and thought-provoking too.

The present title promises “two studies” of the subject of the Grail. Alexander Jacob found a not too famous essay of Leopold von Schroeder (1851-1920) that this Estonian scholar published in 1910 in the German tongue. Jacob added an essay of similar length of himself making a book of a little under 300 pages. Von Schroeder’s and Jacob’s approaches are alike and when you expect 300 pages about the Grail, you might be disappointed. Both authors wrote massive pieces of comparitive mythology in which the Grail might be the final subject, but it is not touched upon that much. Von Schroeder describes a lot of Indian mythology -and here and there compares it to other mythologies- to show that the Grail is actually a vessel representing the sun.
Jacob goes a step further. He also uses mostly Indian mythology to go beyond the sun-vessel idea to find phallic symbolism at the basis of most mythology and -of course- most particularly the stories surrounding the Grail.
Both authors come up with a staggering amount of comparisons that I do not always find too convincing. Both indeed make a more than a few interesting remarks and make ‘un-Dumézilian’ conclusions that invite to rethink my own limited approach. Jacob also critices Von Schroeder in a somewhat annoyingly pedatic tone like by saying Von Schroeder (or Evola) is wrong, rather than he has a different opinion himself. Both authors make some slips when referring to Germanic mythology, but since they both seem to have Indian mythology as speciality, I asume the information there is all valid. The bottom line is that the source for both authors lays in the Far East (or perhaps a little futher back in time) and it is from that staring point, elements of the Grail stories are explained.

Like I said, another interesting new Numen book for those who like some good old comparitive myth.

2014 Numen Books, isbn 9780987559890

The Crescent And The Compass * Angel Millar (2015)

Subtitled: “Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism and Revolution in the Modern Age”, the description even promises Traditionalism. A promising combination!

“The Crescent And The Compass” makes a much more interesting read than Millar’s recently reviewed “Freemasonry, a history”. This is not the least because in the current book, the author walks new paths. According to himself, noone so far has investigated the influence of Freemasonry on Near-Eastern cultures and vice versa.

The first half of the book is with quite a distance the most interesting part to me. Millar opens with a chapter about “Gnosis in Shi’ism and Sufism” speaking about initiations and the various kinds of the two named branches of Islam. Chapter two continues with a similar approach to Freemasonry and quickly runs up to the connections between Freemasonry and Islam, how Sufis became Freemasons and how ‘ideologically’ mixed orders were founded. Then Millar says a thing or two on how (Near-)Eastern religion influenced Freemasonry when Freemasons opened their eyes to exotic religions of the East. The strongest influences can be found in what Millar calls “Fringe Freemasonry”, orders that work similarly to Freemasonry, but are not recognised by Masonic bodies. Chapter two is informative and entertaining.

Then we move to a Sufi Freemason that launched a revolution within the Islamic world to get rid of the colonists, but this revolution would eventually backfire and “Freemasonry” became synonymous with Western decadence in the eyes of many Muslims. In the meantime we learn about the first Muslim convert in the UK, about René Guénon and about anti-Freemasonry, a (to me) new look on the Ayatollah Khomeini and we swiftly roll into Jewish/Masonic conspiracies that followed the publication of the Protocolls of the Elders of Sion.
The start of “Prince Hall” (‘black’) Freemasonry followed by black nationalism in the USA is followed by Anders Breivik and Prince Charles in three very different chapters.

In his conclusion, and especially his afterword, Millar calls to us to develop new ways of looking at the world, especially the religion of Islam and its role therein.

I mostly enjoyed the historical parts about Freemasonry in Muslim countries, but in general this little book (some 180 pages to read) touches upon subjects close to my heart. Numen Books has added an interesting title to their roster and seeing how much attention this book gets on Facebook, the publisher might reach quite an audience with this title and the author most likely a different audience from his less innovatory title of a decade earlier.

2015 Numen Books, isbn 0994252501

Aristokratia II * K. Deva (editor) (2014)

It is good that Amazon recommended me this book, because I do not recall having heard of it before they did. It becomes a bit blurry. Like the first Aristokratia, this journal is published by Manticore Press. Since it looks like the journals that are nowadays published under the name of Numen Books, I simply ‘tagged’ this book ‘Primordial Traditions’, the precursor of Numen Books. But, Numen Books will remain Numen Books and Primordial Traditions seems to come rising from its ashes, so I might have to divide them afterall.
In any case, “Aristokratia” forms the more political arm of Primordial Traditions. The journal comes with 320 pages consisting of 17 essays and 7 book reviews. Three articles are from the hand of Gwendolyn Taunton (another reason to see the link) who delivered some very nice texts. Especially her “Emperor Of The Sun” is an interesting read. Taunton takes the theories of Dumézil a step further and more practically (in contast to Dumézil’s theoretical approach) applies it to far Eastern polics in the past. In another article Taunton aims to portray Julius Evola’s actual ideas by going beyond the characterisations of supporters and opposers. Some other authors we know from the first volume of this journal. Like I said, “Aristokratia” is a more political journal and some essays not only describe the state of contemporary politics, but also offer new insights and ideas. Not all essays are political though. Some are more philosophical and/or tradionalistic.
The journal starts off wonderfully, but in the last third there are a couple of texts that I did not find too appealing and did not read them very attentively.
All in all another interesting journal though and a good addition to the ‘Primordial Traditions series’.
2014 Manticore Press, isbn 0987559834, Aristokratia website

Alchemical Traditions * Aaron Cheak (editor) (2013)

“Alchemical Traditions: From Antiquity to the Avant-Garde” is the most massive Numen Book to date. With 684 pages, “Alchemical Traditions” definately leaves the notions of being a journal. Also this latest volume seems more academic than its predecessors. The massive bibliography is bundled in the back and there are bios of the authors referring to their respective academic statuses. The subjects are not the most common though and most essays are readable and interesting.
This book opens with a general overview of alchemy over the world. The first texts are about the more famous forms of alchemy, the Egyptian and Greek. Soon we leave for the East with Taoistic, Hinduistic and Tibetan alchemy. Part II becomes more about alchemy; its processes and symbolism, but we also quickly move forward in time until we reach the previous century with modern-day alchemists, alchemy and modern art and horticulture. Indeed, with this book you will get all aspects of alchemy, with much stress on the non-material approaches.
I particularly found the articles about less-known alchemies, the Hindu and Tibetan, interesting to read and the highlight of “Alchemical Traditions” certainly was Hereward Tilton’s “Heinrich Khunrath’s and the making of the philosopher’s stone” in which the texts of this famous alchemist are combed through and cross referenced to other writings.
If I am not mistaken, the coming publication with be the next “Mimir”, or perhaps “The New Antaios” will see the light of day before that.
2013 Numen Books, isbn 0987559826

Kratos: The Hellenic Tradition * Gwendolyn Taunton (editor) (2013)

This is already the sixth ‘volume’ in the ‘series’ of journals published by Numen Books (formerly Primordial Traditions). As the title says we are looking at Greece this time. “Kratos” comes as a nice sleeve and with 242 pages, it is again quite a book. There are three texts of our productive editor an article of the editor of “Occult Traditions” and some Greek and less Greek sounding names. Some texts are very historical and of course there is a lot of Nietzsche. I must admit that the Hellenic tradition is not entirely my thing and I did not really enjoy all texts, but a very nice article is called “Hellenic Household Worship”. In this text Christos Pandion Panopoulos tells us about household religion in the past and the present. Another essay that hints to our own day and time is “Foreign Gods, Syncretism and Hellenismos” by Kallistos, telling us that many of the major Gods are not originally Greek. What is slightly remarkable is that some authors seem to take it that their readers can read Greek. Some sometimes give a translation or just a transliteration (but at other times nothing at all), but John Pickard manages to give a half-page quote in Greek and just starts to refer to it.
Perhaps for me personally not the most interesting ‘volume’ in the series, but as always this Numen Books release brings together historical investigations and contemporary religion and comes with not the most common approaches, so I suppose that when you enjoyed the other books of Numen Books, you also want to get your hands on this latest publication (click on the “tag” below the title to read all reviews).
2013 Numen Books, isbn 098755980X

Aristokratia * K. Deva (editor) (2013)

You probably heard the story before, but in case you do not, once upon a time there was a magazine called Primordial Traditions. The best articles were published in a book with the same name and later Primordial Traditions became a series of journals, intially all with the word “tradition” in the title. The publisher changed names to Numen Books and now publishes both journals and ‘normal’ books. Besides Northern, occult, etc. traditions there was initially the plan to make a really Traditionalistic issue. This idea was later taken into a larger subject so now we have “Aristokratia”. Also it is presented as a journal of its own, not published by Numen books and not under the name of Gwendolyn Toynton/Taunton, however her hand in the project is clear. Aristokratia, that rings Nietzsche does it not? Indeed, the German philosopher is present in virtually every essay in this journal. Taunton opens the journal with ‘the real Nietzsche’ and his “aristocratic radicalism”. The article also clearly shows how aristocracy is looked at in this journal. There is a variety of essays to be found. Articles about philosophers such as Emil Cioran and Azsacra Zarathurstra (of the Shunya revolution), (of course) a text about Evola and some about Guénon, anti-modernists and writing not about someone, but of someone such as the amusing aphorism-style (and therefor very ‘quotable’) “Confrontation with nothingness” by Brett Stevens. Especially towards the end the texts are more Traditionalistic than philosophical or political, like my own “Traditionalism vs Traditionalism”.
All in all the journal became twice the size of earlier journal in these series and it again became a nice collection of texts, some of which are more interesting than others, but like its predecessors, “Aristokratia” is a good buy if you like not too academic, but also not too loose a book about subjects that matter to only a few of us.
2013 Manticore Press, isbn 9780987158185, Aristokratia website

Mímir – Journal Of North European Traditions * Gwendolyn Taunton (editor) (2011)

Only a year and a half ago I reviewed “Northern Traditions“. The series of journals edited by Gwendolyn Toynton/Taunton has since seen two other volumes. For the second issue dedicated to the Traditions of Northern Europe, Taunton came up with a better-fitting name. “Mímir” is 230 pages thick and comes as the well-printed A5 booklet that we grew used to. The essays are nicely varried. The editor contributes a nice introduction and two articles, one about “the Nornir and the concept of Fate” and one about “the berserker and the Vratya”. Two articles of myself are also included (I had to come up with a penname quickly and it became “Roy Orlogstru”). The first is an 18 page version of “Traditionalistic Asatru“, a text of a few years back. The other I named “The Primal Law” and I write about Örlogr, Heilagr, fate and a few other concepts and I put this in a Traditionalistic framework. Then I need to mention Maria Kvildhaug’s “Ritual And Initiation In The Poetic Edda” because this text completes an interesting set of articles that complement eachother (I did not know this beforehand, this is either good editing or luck of the editor). All three authors refer to Germanic initiations, Männerbünde, there are references to fate, Örlogr and all the things interesting in Northern mythology. I feel to be closer in content to Taunton than to Kvildhaug, but we all three break a lance for Northern mysteries. Other articles include an investigation of Viking presence in Northern Europe, a new translation of the sage of Gunnlaug the Worm-Tongue, an interesting investigation of the texts of Saxo Grammaticus and its sources and another article about Grammaticus by the same author. There are two articles about runes. A short text saying what runes are not, but more interesting is Juleigh Howard-Hobson’s defence of the Uthark theory. The journal closes with a lengthy review of the first five Heidnische Jahrbücher by myself.
Indeed, “Mímir” became a very nice collection of contemporary heathenry including different views in comparison to what you see more often. It sure makes a welcome addition to similar efforts such as the earlier mentioned Heidnisches Jahrbuch, the Journal For Contemporary Heathen Thought and Tyr, particularly because I found someone who likes what I write and is willing to publish it!
2012 Numen Books, isbn 978098158147

Occult Traditions * Damon Zacharias Lycourinos (editor) 2012

Once upon a time there was a magazine called “Primordial Traditions”. The best articles were bundled in a book with the same title and then Primordial Traditions became a publisher starting a series with titles such as “Northern Traditions” and “Radical Traditions”. Whereas the initiative started with a (somewhat) Traditionalistic approach, this is less so nowadays and maybe this is one of the reasons that the publisher is now called Numen Books. (Another reason could of course be that Numen Books publishes more than just the “traditions” series.) The latest publication available is “Occult Traditions”. The book has the size and the look of previous book in the series, which is nice. The cover is strangely ‘rubbery’ and the number of pages (over 300 pages) makes a nice addition to the series. With this title you might not be surprised that there is not much Traditionalism to be found here, just a reference to Evola. What is presented is more an interesting collection of scholarly writings about occultism and magic, old and new and writings of or about contemporary occultists, both investigations of rituals and rituals themselves. I do not have a large interest in contemporary occultism, but a publication like this does show the state of magic of our day. The editor has a liking for the very interesting Papyri Graecae Magicae and we go from ancient rituals from that sort of texts to a day in the lives of contemporary Wiccas. Indeed, the variety is large. A prejudice against contemporary heathens is confirmed too by the way, since the pagan scholar Christopher -Heathen Journal- Plaisance contributed two essays. Pagans do practice occultism and not just an old religion. Now Plaisance’ texts are of course scholarly and philosophical and there is nothing to suggest that he practices the ritual magic that he describes, but the link between even the serious heathens of our time and the occultists is proven once more (and me reviewing this book of course doubles that). The large number of texts in “Occult Traditions” include Icelandic magic, much medieval magic, one author claiming that medieval and Renaissance magic are linked, inspite of what the Renaissance man wanted us to believe, Wicca, sex magic, the dark side of Buddhism (main woman Gwendolyn Toynton’s article is certainly the most interesting in this volume), necromancy and much more. Not my favourite literature, but a nice alternation between my usual books. Next up is Northern Traditions II, that will be more in my line.
2012 Numen Books, isbn 0987158139