Goetic stories

The days leading up to the launch of Andromalius, Take Two: Goetic Stories, have been filled with great energy. I started hand numbering the books and signing them. I folded the talismanic maps that go with 72 copies and sleeved the Devils intended to accompany the remaining 72. The total of 144 exemplars got ready for the launch.

The whole process made me think of how some things yield a lot of pleasure. I'm invested in beauty and magic. I like to think of myself as a collector of beauty and magic. I made a short film that features some of the beauty and magic that went into the writing of my book on Andromalius with beauty and magic in mind. Then I made another short film that observed synchronous events, while I donned my Romantic self at dusk, basking in candlelight.

I shared some images of the book on my social media accounts. As soon as I did this I received a very fine ‘endorsement.’ The Lutheran priest in Agger and leader of another church in the area where I live – famous for its historical significance – gave me the thumbs up for the book. I have to admit that I was wondering just what he must have been thinking. I have an idea, especially since he is a clever one and what you’d call ‘progressive,’ but still…

I liked it very much that my book on demons is already liked by priests. They should know about demons, just as I know about what a good omen is. And this was a good one.

Then I noticed something else pertaining to how magic works with the spontaneity of chance encounters, such as the ones between word and number, or word and image. As I was signing the copy 133, just before I closed the book it opened to page 66. I looked at the last line on that page. It consists of one word only: kinship.

‘I’ll be damned,’ I thought to myself. ‘There is kinship,’ I said to myself and it comes as a bond. ‘I might be thinking of Lucifer,’ I also wrote on that page, right below the word Andromalius, which made me think of the entanglement between these two stars. I nodded, for this innocent bibliomancy here felt like a strengthening of my argument in the book.

Great bonds all of them, including the kinship between the numbers 66 to 133. 133 is 66+66+1. There’s nothing like cool arithmetic associations. As everything is an abstract in performance, we go with this magic.

Indeed, I had to make a film for this too, because why not? Especially since my head was well fumigated and irrigated: Dragon blood and wormwood. The evening dew in a fine crystal glass shimmered in the full moon’s silver light. Magic is magic…

Finally, as I had an art piece on offer for just the devotee, intended as a magical gimmick for 'while you wait,' I was curious to see if anyone would 'dare' to buy it even without the promised book. That was the deal, namely, that while we all wait for Andromalius to materialize, one person could get a summoning. Someone did get it. A person from Israel snatched the special ripped off page from my personal grimoire, one that encoded the said summoning.

I thought this was quite extraordinary, not only because this talisman was priced more than the double of the top variation, $333 to be more precise, but because this art now goes back to the land of Solomon. Without Solomon there's no Ars Goetia. So we go full circle. Now I’d like to know what Andromalius is up to. I have an idea, but still…

Then yet again, not only is art magic, but magic is art too. In between we have the variations called magic as art and art as magic. It's all about impersonations and performances. How well the enchantment works depends on what style the magician has cultivated. Without style there's no magic; only the emptiness of Zen, which, now that I think of it, is also a kind of style.

I promised pears, wormwood schnapps, and a butoh dance at the part of the launch of Andromalius that is not virtual. If I have a reputation for anything, then it’s for the capacity to keep my promises. I am most robust in this, as I think demons are too. We cheer for one another in kinship. We see one another.

See you at the launch, October 11 at 6PM Copenhagen time. If you’re in Agger, I will kiss you too.