It occurred to me last night as I tossed and turned that the MUSE had more to say on yesterday’s blog post, and that comes down to my initial awkwardness in approaching the opening of the portal of Solomon in the most intelligently presented formats, and they are not necessarily the Mathers/Crowley version — but who doesn’t own every version — which is somewhat violated if Enochian magic is not preeminent and Thelema not practiced and no one is on drugs. OOPS.

It is wonderful to work English Hermetic Solomonic magic in a 21st-century room with plain daylight psychism and a nice education in the humanities. But the Solomonic spirits do not really have all their gear if they also don’t have a mental background that can lead into greater hints and elucidation of an ART for which one lifetime is scarcely enough. AND SELDOM IS.

The HIDEBOUND Hermetists point out that it was strongest in the 18th century, and that is where we have to sniff stuff out.

I began imagining what it would have been like to do this work in 18th-century England. This was my favorite period in English literature. Something about aplomb. I didn’t like the Romantics. They were swishy. The modern era was better in the States – ah, the Chrysler Building! But Samuel Johnson in the Strand — with his hat in his hand. That was my England. I keep seeing occult buddies in periwigs in coffee shops, disputing. The breezy open sociality and the many occasions for conversation, people moving in and out of each other’s houses, the classes all in a jumble and everyone very perky and full of wit.

I think that is where this scene is set. While women may not have been the greatest of the DARK ARTISTS, what salon was ever very fine without them? They made one think.

A wonderful novelist who writes beautifully about this — and is no doubt WORKING — is Neal Stephenson with The Baroque Trilogy. I am a great fan of Stephenson.

It could be a fine well-rounded education on this very SUBSET. I, myself, will probably work with Jane Austen at some point, no doubt Emily Dickinson as well. Women write differently — a common complaint among male writers.