Showing results by publisher "Lamp of Trismegistus" in Literature & Fiction

Dion Fortune was a British occultist and co-founder of the Fraternity of Inner Light. She was also a prolific author of occult fiction. These paranormal adventures of Dr. Taverner and Dr. Rhodes take on everything from death hounds and curses to vampires, using the esoteric sciences to tackle the case. Although published as fiction, Fortune maintained that all her stories were based on true events.

British author Algernon Blackwood was a prolific writer who is usually remembered for his numerous ghost stories; however, he also wrote on many other supernatural themes. This collection of 13 stories includes: "The Wendigo", "The Olive", "The Goblin's Collection", "The Sea Fit", "Ancient Lights", "The Prayer", "The Wood of the Dead", "An Egyptian Hornet", "The Other Wing", "The Singular Death of Morton", "Entrance and Exit", "The Kit Bag", "The Damned".

When Sir Peter Pendragon, a retired pilot of the Great War, meets the free-spirited Louise, a devotee of the mysterious occultist Basil King Lamus, the two immediately get married and set off across Europe, on a drug-fueled honeymoon of heroin and cocaine. Eventually, in an attempt to break free of their recently acquired habit, the newlyweds find their way to the Abbey of Thelema in Italy, where the adults perform invocations to the sun and the children freely recite passages from the Book of the Law.

Machen's novella The Great God Pan is often cited as one of Lovecraft's most notable influences. In it, Dr. Raymond's ultimate goal is to devise a way to open the mind of man so that he may experience all the world has to offer. He calls this "seeing the great god Pan". After much study of the human mind, he devises an experiment that involves minor brain surgery. He performs this experiment on a young woman named Mary, but when she awakens she is terrified and mentally crippled.

The Smoky God is a classic tale from the genre of hollow Earth or subterranean literature. A once-favorite tale of Amazing Stories publisher Ray Palmer, The Smoky God is the (purportedly true) tale of two Norwegian fishermen Jens and Olaf Jansen, who sailed their fishing vessel into the inner Earth in the year 1829. While in the center of the Earth, they find an entire society and meet a race and of advanced giants.

An influential writer of supernatural fiction, Arthur Machen was born in Wales, in 1863. Many modern writers, such as Stephen King, have cited him as an inspiration. Perhaps most notably, though, was H.P. Lovecraft, who cites Machen as what led him down the road to eventually creating the Cthulhu Mythos. Presented here are two short stories and two novellas: "The Inmost Light", "A Fragment of Life", "The Shining Pyramid", and "The Terror."

Originally published in 1922 and translated by Takashi Kojima, this classic short story was the inspiration for Akira Kurosawa's 1950 film Rashomon, about the murder of a samurai. Told from the perspective of multiple witnesses.

Don Alvaro, a young but wise man, invokes Satan in a goetic-style magical ritual. Upon seeing the young Alvaro, Beelzebub falls in love with him and assumes the appearance of a beautiful young woman. In the journey that unfolds, Satan, disguised as a woman, tries to seduce Alvaro who rejects his advances lest he lose his precious virginity.

Presented here are several short stories of Kipling’s which highlight freemasonry, as well as some of his masonic poems: "In the Interests of the Brethren", "The Janeites", "A Madonna of the Trenches", "A Friend of the Family", and "The Man Who Would Be King". As well, the eight poems: "The Mother Lodge", "If", "The Sons of the Widow", "Banquet Night", "The Palace", "The Thousandth Man", "A Pilgrim’s Way", and "My New-Cut Ashlar".

This is a collection of 10 essays on a variety of occult-themed topics, covering the full spectrum of classic esoteric and related subjects, which include Hermeticism, alchemy, magic, the Kabbalah, ancient wisdom and philosophy, the Tarot, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Theosophy, and spiritualism, by some of the most notable and prominent names in the history of those subjects. This collection was compiled specifically with the student in mind.

This audiobook collects three short stories by W. B. Yeats: "Rosa Alchemica", "The Tables of the Law", and "The Adoration of the Magi". All three of these esoteric stories feature the character of Michael Robartes (as well as the character of Owen Aherne in the second two tales), and though it may seem obvious that it’s this character that connects all of these tales, what really connects them all is Yeats imagining the hidden, mystical fraternities of old tradition which preoccupied much of his writings and which he personally longed for initiation into.

Masonic Brother Rudyard Kipling sets this fictional Masonic tale during World War I. A wealthy shop-keeper is running a Masonic lodge for traveling brothers from around the globe, most of whom are in and out of London, due to the war. Many can't be authenticated as Masons, but are permitted to sit in lodge, based on partial examinations and an overall gut feeling. The topic of what Grand Lodge would think about this comes up as an eventual conversation.

French literary figure Charles Baudelaire was a member of the infamous Club of the Hashish-Eaters, a Parisian literary group dedicated to the exploration of altered states of consciousness, principally through the use of hashish. The Poem of Hashish was first published in 1850. This is Aleister Crowley’s translation of it, from 1895. Baudelaire was part of the French art movement known as saymbolism, which acted as a reaction to realism and placed a lot of emphasis on the power of dreams and the imagination as tools for communicating ideals through symbols.

Aleister Crowley left behind a literary legacy of hundreds of examples of his authorship, in diverse categories of writing. Collected here is a sampling of those writings.

The unifying factor of this collection is that, without exception, every author included here was in some way or another involved with or interested in the occult. In some cases, they were members of an occult organization, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, or similar such groups. Others simply had a strong personal interest in the subject matter or practiced some form of the esoteric sciences in private.

In addition to the children's tales that he is usually known for, Frank R. Stockton also wrote some ghost stories. This particular piece is from 1900. After a gentleman purchases an abandoned mansion, he begins to fall in love with the ghost of a young woman who returns to her old home once a year, on Christmas Eve, for a single hour. But what happens when he soon meets her, not as a specter but in real life?

Edward Plunkett, better known as Lord Dunsany, published this tale of the Wild Things in 1908. In this story one of the creatures desires to obtain a soul in order to partake in the joy of human music and worship, which she can't experience without it.

Algernon Blackwood was a prolific writer of weird and occult tales. This short ghost story from 1906 tells the tale of a traveler, who encounters an elderly man known as the Father of the Village, with precognition of when townspeople will die.

Originally published in 1888, this short piece by Richard Garnett offers the reader a light-hearted approach to Lucifer becoming the Pope for a day, after approaching a young man, who would grow up to become Pope Sylvester II, and offering to purchase his soul.

Thought Relics, first published in 1921, is a collection of untitled verses that bridge the gap between meditations and prose. Originally written in English by Tagore, these poetic aphorisms are a dreamy blend of mysticism, philosophy, introspection, and spiritual discovery.