Hermetic Library Newsletter - Issue #51 (Otherwise, it's just sparkling Narcissistic Personality Disorder)

This week I’ve got “Advanced Thelema”, your liberty ends when you interfere, MERCH @ HRMTC, MMR3, newest Fellow Laura Gibbs, seems legit, and an #OccultLoveFest revival. Along with memes, updates, quotes, reviews, and more!

And, as always, I worked on various other things on website, blog, and more … Enjoy!

Oh, Advanced Thelema? You’ve probably never heard of it.

You can only call them “Advanced Thelemic Topics” if they are bottled by Black Brothers in the circle jerk region of the City of Pyramids. Otherwise, it’s just sparkling Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

But, sure, let’s have the narcissists desperately explain to us again why we need narcissists.

Instead of that noise, I submit for your consideration: focus on constantly figuring out who you are. Then start actively being who you are in the world in order to get good at being yourself whilst not interfering with others doing the same.

And, if it comes to it, be prepared to defend yourself and others from interference.

I submit that your liberty to do your life’s purpose ends when what you would do interferes with the liberty of others to do the same, whether active or systemic.

One way to put this is that harming yourself is stupid, but harming others is evil.

Intersectionally, that also seem to me to mean that interference from any intolerance or prejudice in which you participate around race, gender, sex, class, caste, or soever can and could be seen as thwarting the liberty of those subjected to them. Also, this includes endangering others with your behaviour or unwillingness to consider the effect of your choices on the lives of others.

Under Thelemic jurisprudence, if you would limit the liberty of others, then you have also signaled that your liberty is subject to forfeit. If you would not defend the liberty of others from interference and intolerance, then you have signaled that your liberty should not be defended in turn.

Come! Join the rest of us in the Star Sponge: “each star was connected by a ray of light with each other star … each such ray is itself a star”!

To them who would, I suggest: do better.

This week I announced the new Hermetic Library Artist Shop over at Threadless and the new MERCH @ HRMTC subsite at HRMTC Underground!

You can read the full announcement I posted publicly on Patreon, but now that the Patron merch experiment has reached a full year, I’ve decided to continue it as an ongoing perk. Also, I’m starting to revive old retired designs and put them up on this new public merch shop for everyone. So designs will appear as Patron merch first, and then after a year of being exclusive, there will be an à la carte option for people who aren’t able or don’t want to be ongoing Patrons, for any number of valid reasons. But, that means more options for everyone!

By the by, any of you over on Threadless? I am not following anyone and no one is following me. Apparently following a shop is the same as following a profile, so here’s mine: @hermeticlibrary. (Or, just click the follow button on the shop page.) I think you’ll get notifications about new products and shop updates. Anyhow, if you’ve got a shop there also, let me know!

All that effort getting the shop in shape, and I totally missed that I had an individual profile also, which is in need of some work, apparently.

The other part of this is that I’ve created the MERCH @ HRMTC (Oh, no! Should that have been MRCH @ HRMTC?! *sigh*) which is a place where I collected all the existing as well as the new “Goods & Apparel & Music & Publications & More” together, as a kind of convenient landing page for all the links to things, with pages for Goods, Music, and Publications. Plus, plenty of room for anything else in future!

And, I’ve already posted the first Shop Update on the brand new public merch shop with a welcome message and new Unicursal DO WHAT THOU WILT Propaganda products (including wall art, home decor, and accessories) to check out.

Who me? Oh, nothing much. Just listening again to Magick, Music and Ritual 3 for reasons. *cough* Getting ready to set it up for digital distribution next, in time for its 10th anniversary. *cough* Why?

*Ahem* Yeah, this issue was released, still on the old quarterly schedule, around the cross quarter day, back on June 15, 2012, so its 10th anniversary is coming up quickly!

Let me introduce you to the newest Hermetic Library Fellow Laura Gibbs!

Laura has been writing tiny traditional stories in around 100 words for quite a while, and has a number of books collecting them, both in print and available on her site.

Her tiny traditional tales are all licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, but I also asked for explicit permission to mirror them, as I am wont to do, to fulfill my own sense of what is proper.

So, I’ve gotten this started off with stories about Nasruddin and from the Sufis. I’ve got one tale from each book up now, and I’ll add more over time. Then I’ll start to consider some of the other books for what to add next down the road.

Also, as an aside, Laura is working on finishing her newest collection of tales which are retelling African folktales. I’ll probably post about that when available, to an Omnium Gatherum, but you can also watch Laura’s tiny tales site and her Amazon author page or the Tiny Tales series.

But, with that, join me in welcoming Laura Gibbs to the site! And, check out those tiny tales!

Witch King: “You have to get used to criticism.”

Éowyn claps back: “Stalking, harassment, and bullying are not criticism!”

::stab::

BRB. Writing some burlesque side-degrees for a revival DeMoulin catalogue.

Some day I may also find a way to add some of the actual side-degree stuff to the library … some day!

Yesterday, I posted one of those promotion prompts on Twitter. I’ve always been mystified at how accounts with 2 followers post those and get a bazillion responses, tbh. But, I mean, I’ve tried once or twice before and they didn’t really happen. It’s a mystery.

However, I mean, I like paying it forward, right? I’ve got this darned account with a ton of followers that I rarely reach, but I thought why not try again?

Late yesterday, I just spent a shit ton of time thinking about this, and then doing the first draft for that hand drawn font, in the image above, inspired by the old Fillmore posters by Bill Graham (and in particular this groovy one) and posted it with a promotion prompt.

“Let’s help Dee experiment for the Queen by conjuring practitioners, authors, and creatives doing occult, esoteric, or, you know, adjacent fun freaky stuff! Happy #OccultLoveFest-ursday! Is that you? Post what you’re doing! Find something interesting? Retweet, Like, & Comment!”

So I guess since I’ve created a whole graphic and a name for this, that means I’ll also be using this again? Also saying “OccultLoveFest-ursday” is funny. (Just now I’m also realizing it sounds like Occult Love Fester’s day. Which is okay and funny. However, Wednesday is still objectively the best Addams. For the record.)

Okay, that’s it then! Apparently I’m reviving Plutospyche’s old #OccultLoveFest hashtag? Somehow without entirely realizing it, this may have become a thing I’ll do each Thursday, for a while at least, on Twitter.

Also, I’ll probably, maybe, most likely, try to clean my draft design up and make a t-shirt for it, which would go to Patrons first, but then eventually show up on the new public merch shop too.