A couple of weeks ago I promised to take a closer look at one of the articles from the present issue of Aries. Now I finally found an occasion to look at James Justin Sledge’s contribution, “Between Loagaeth and Cosening: Towards an Etiology of John Dee’s Spirit Diaries”. As the title suggests, it’s about the Elizabethan philosopher, mathematician and magus John Dee’s famous conversations with angels, and his favourite skryer, Edward Kelly.
An etiology of angelic vision: Article on John Dee and Edward Kelly in Aries
Gnosticism in Antiquity: book presentation in a historical environment
The blog has been silent for a while as I have been busy with finishing up classes and managing upcoming deadlines, among other things. To get going again, I’ll take this opportunity to write about a book presentation I went to last week. The specialist of gnosticism, hermetism and early Christianity, Roelof van den Broek, presented his latest book, Gnosis in de Oudheid: Nag Hammadi in Context in the magnificent Huis met de Hoofden (“house with the heads”) in Amsterdam. Below follows a few words about the book, the house, and the occasion.
New articles from Aries
The latest issue (10.1) of Aries: The Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism has recently been published. It contains four research articles, on John Dee’s angel conversations (J. J. Sledge), a little-known text by Martinès de Pasqually ( Dominique Clairembault), the curious link between engineering and spiritualism in the case of John Murray Spear (Joseph Laycock), and some aspect of Aleister Crowley’s sexual magic and the connection with some yogic traditions (Gordan Djurdjevic). Also seven book reviews. See below for bibliographic details and short reviews of the articles.
New Journal: Preternature
This had escaped me, but it seems that the Journal for the Academic Study of Magic has been discontinued and replaced by a new project: Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. It sounds promising. The new journal is housed at Pennsylvania State University, but like its predecessor it’s published from Oxford, UK. They are currently accepting submissions and book review requests.
According to the website, the new journal is:
Heterodoxology 