Yesterday Scarlet Imprint announced my forthcoming book with them, Holy Daimon. I thought that was worthwhile sharing a little bit of related background and news. (Note: In case you received this post as a newsletter email - apologies for the broken links; they all now work here.)

The personal spirit entity known since the Ancient Greek as the holy daimon forms a critical cornerstone of magical practice in the West. Only since the early 20th century its practice has been dominated by the Abramelin rite and Crowley's Liber Samekh; yet much of its older historic roots and ritual practices have been forgotten. Therefore, in the first section of the book we'll cover extensive historic background to better understand what our ancestors believed this entity is and what it is not. It is also from such historic context that the critical importance of our own magical experience emerges. In the second part of the book, therefore, I am sharing the magical records of my personal journey towards communion with my holy daimon. The value of these, I hope to show, lies in holding on to our uniquely own path, to the raw, subjective experience of it - while not aiming to live up to or to fulfil any traditional expectations. The third and central part of the book consists of careful, practical instructions towards achieving your own communion with your holy daimon. Writing that section has both been the hardest and yet most fulfilling magical work I had the privilege of doing in many years. Whether it was worthwhile or not - as it should be, the verdict will soon be with you.

As a companion to the physical book I am preparing an online project called 'The Holy Daimon project'. In fact, this project only emerged after I had finished work on the book. Through several 'coincidences' I was pointed to a significant body of German magical manuscripts from the 15th to 18th century - many of which represent authentic ritual instructions to create communion with our holy daimon - and none of which have yet been critically edited or translated into English. Daunted by the new task, I realised the Holy Daimon book, even before its release, had become a critical foundation for this work - yet not its endpoint. The online project would simply not be possible without the forthcoming physical book, and vice versa. - I guess the subject of the holy daimon will guide me through another decade of magical work to come.

So far - with the help of a few amazing people - we have carefully transcribed the handwriting of four of the German magical manuscripts, translated them into English and I have begun to write extended essays on their content as well as the origins of these wondrous texts. A lot of the focus centres on the 16th century German black abbot, Johann Trithemius, and his alleged magical teachers Pelagius Eremita and Libanius Gallus. I am delighted to share, that despite the significant amount of work and financial resource that has gone into this unique project, all of its content - translated manuscripts as well as research essays - will be made accessible online and for free to you later this summer.

Thanks for your support and time - have a wonderful Whitsunday.

LVX,
Frater Acher