2010-03-23

Tired now . . .

Another project that was started several years ago will quite possibly never be finished; Anacalypsis, an attempt to draw aside the veil of the Saïtic Isis, or, an inquiry into the origin of languages, nations and religions by Godfrey Higgins (first published 1836 in two quarto volumes totalling over 1400 pages), a monsterpiece of speculative prehistory which seems to have had an influence exceeding its comparatively small original print run (200 copies of which many were allegedly destroyed unsold).

So far I have managed to re-set a bit over a tenth of this work (the preliminaries and first three "books" of vol. i); this can now be read on scribd. Maybe I'll do some more some time; but right now I really need to get a day job.

2010-03-22

Hear thou the voice of the Fire (2)

Uploaded a re-set of G.R.S. Mead's work on the Chaldæan Oracles to Scribd. This was originally published in 1908 as nos. VIII and IX in a series of pamphlets titled "Echoes from the Gnosis" issued through the Theosophical Society. While less than satisfactory as an edition of the texts (about a third of the fragments which appeared in the Westcott edition are omitted, and those which are presented are interspersed in long passages of commentary), Mead had taken advantage of contemporary scholarly work on the material, and generally shows himself far less credulous than Westcott and Bullock did (it is amusing though, to see him quote the "Sword of Dardanos" from PGM IV, a coercive agôgê spell, as an invocation of the "Chaste and Holy Divine Love"). I made no attempt to retain the layout of the print edition on this one.

Also uploaded a revision of the Westcott rendition, mainly fixing a few stylistic inconsistencies and related issues, also clarifying a few of my notes. Percy Bullock's "Introduction" is still omitted from this copy.

I have noticed other re-sets of the Mead edition on Scribd, but they only include the first volume.

2010-03-19

Hmm . . .

Well, been feeling a bit low of late, so looking for an ego-boost ran a Google search on "Celephaïs Press" and turned up a couple of things.

Seems someone in Germany has put a copy of the final version of the Geocities page on their homepage. This site is rather heavy with pop-up ads and is flagged yellow by McAfee Site Advisor, so be warned. None of the "direct download" links work either as the only files actually mirrored were the page itself and the logo at the top (not even the stylesheet).

http://janee.cwsurf.de/celephais.press/

And the edition of the Mathers-Crowley Goëtia I re-set and annotated is being cited in the Polish Wikipedia page on the Lemegeton. Go figure.

Hear thou the voice of the Fire.

Just completed a re-set of William Wynn Westcott's edition of the Chaldean Oracles ("Oracles of Zoroaster") and uploaded to Scribd. This copy omits the rambling essay by Percy Bullock ("L. O.") which formed an introduction to the print edition. It may be restored in a later edition, but I doubt it; neither Westcott nor Bullock was even in the same league as G.R.S. Mead when it came to capacity for solid scholarship.

Now when will someone reprint (or possibly just pirate and place online) Ruth Majercik's edition of the Oracles which is practically unobtainable?

2010-03-06

Verum sine mendacio, certum et verissimum

The re-set of Mead's Hermetica can now be read on Scribd, shorn of his waffling commentaries and most of the textual apparatus. The "alchemy session" line in the last post alluded to a remark which accompanied the original (?) web-posting of Mead's translation of C.H. I-XIII back in the late 1990s. Actually, sacred-texts put a complete HTML of Thrice Greatest Hermes up recently while I wasn't paying attention.

2010-03-05

My head hurts . . .

In case anyone's in the middle of an alchemy session waiting for these, update re: the Mead Hermetica; currently done all of the Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius and all bar the last three of the Stobæus excerpts; of course those "last three" include the Korê Kosmou which is one of the longest pieces in the whole collection. Should be finished in a few days.

2010-03-01

Thought in me becoming on a time concerning the Entities . . .

After several months of slackness made a start on re-setting G.R.S. Mead's translation of the Hermetica. These were originally published in 1906 as part of a three-volume work under the title Thrice-Greatest Hermes: Studies in Hellenistic Theosophy and Gnosis (London and Benares: The Theosophical Publishing Society). At some point subsequently, Mead's Englishing of the Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius or Perfect Sermon was extracted and issued in some form, shorn of apparatus and commentary, with an introduction by J. M. Greer. An electronic edition containing Greer's introduction and C.H. I-XIII only has been doing the rounds for some years; the present project should include not just the whole Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepuis but also the Hermetic excerpts from the anthology of Stobæus. In the meantime, I have placed page images of the three volumes of Thrice Greatest Hermes on Scribd: Vol. 1: Prolegomena Vol. 2: Corpus Hermeticum; Asclepius Vol. 3: Stobæi Hermetica; fragments and citations from writers of late antiquity