Article and Book disclosures

Another disclosure statement---I will NOT be adding disclosure statements to my articles and books. The reasons for this is that A) I am sick and tired of making disclosure statements, especially ones that undermine my own authority and serve no purpose other than advertising an Order that I have no connection with, and B) my readers should be able to figure out from my public profiles, my blogs, and the "putting stuff in context" statements that I have a personal bias and limited knowledge about the stuff I am writing about.

Therefore, if I write about Tarot, I am not going to say that I know nothing about Tarot and that the reader needs to go to someone else for the real initiated secrets. Same goes for Norse runes, alchemy, magic, Golden Dawn, RR et AC, geomancy, and everything else that slips my mind at this moment.

Please note that no one has said I need to do this personally; but given the Golden Dawn information police views about other writers, I thought that I would beat the rush and just issue my warning that I am not going to undermine my own authority and provide them with free advertising.

Note: The membership of the Golden Dawn information police changes on a regular basis. It seems to consist of people who think that they are the only people who really know what the various esoteric traditions are all about.

What is up with the Three Officer GD Neophyte Ritual book?

As some of you know I was originally planning on correcting and reissuing my little book containing the Three Officer Version of the GD Neophyte 0=0 Grade Ritual this summer. So what happened? And why did it not get done?


(For the record, I still consider this version Golden Dawn despite what some people say.)

First, Lulu decided to make me add more pages to the book (which is why the revision did not happen earlier in the year). This involves deciding what to add, and then actually writing the pages. People who know me, and other writers, will immediately see the problem with that.

Second, I chose to have a personal problem during the five weeks that were blocked out for the most serious work of the summer season. No writing got done. Moral of the summer season: Morgan Drake Eckstein is still pretty screwed up in the head, and really needs to learn how to write while feeling suicidal.

So no work actually got done on this project…and that might have been a good thing.

Repeat---might have been a good thing.

My original goal for the reissue was to clean up the spelling and grammar mistakes. Then it was to add forty pages…without feeling that the pages were needed.

(The real reason that I needed to add forty pages was that Lulu no longer supported hard-covers for the size of book that I originally done. And Lulu would not let me change the cover style to a paperback---not that I actually wanted a paperback for this…I chose hard-cover because of how much I will abuse a copy of the ritual script.)

Sometime after my personal problem ended (more or less), and it was too late to actually fix this before the winter season, a part of me decided what needed to be added to the book. This is one of those times I get to say, “Everything went wrong, and that was the best thing that could actually happen at the time.”

So yes, my book Golden Dawn Rituals Volume One, Neophyte Ritual, Three Officer Version is going to be reissued. It is just taking longer than I thought it would.

(And if you are really desperate to get your hands on it, there is the promotional preview copy pdf floating around on the internet which will be followed by a couple of other promotional preview pdfs because I know that most people believe that a writer should never profit from writing about the occult, especially if it is about Wicca or Golden Dawn---I will save you the time it takes to scan my book. Just don’t expect them to be exact copies of what is actually being shipped---for instance, the Order name is being changed [long story short---the name my lodge started out with was chosen before we became aware of certain events going on in the Golden Dawn community; back in the nineties, I was told that I was a member of the Hermetic branch; today, we know better].)

Joyous day of Webmastering

One of the joys of being Chief Officer is the duty of being the webmaster for the Bast Temple website. It is a ugly job and someone has to do it, therefore it is my job. Some days it is easier than others. Today was one of the hard days---during the midst of trying to modify the Suggested Reading Page, Microsoft Office Live decided to wig out on me. Internal Server Error--as I said, joy.

So now, I have a crummy looking page up and I can not finish it until Office Live fixes their own problem. One of the things I wanted to do today was to update the description of the Revised Three Officer Version of the Neophyte Ritual that I have a link to on that page. I am in the process of proofing a copy of it before I set it up for a distribution package on Lulu.

(I now realize that part of Steve Nichols' high prices are the result of the distribution package he brought though Lulu. The price of the ritual book went up the instant I accepted a distribution package. I am not happy about the price increase, but it does allow for it to have a wider audience.)

There were a few other things that I wanted to add to the suggested reading page, such as links to my reviews of certain books and links to their respective publisher's sites. But it is all going to have to wait now because some place in the world, there is a server that does not like me.

The sad state of book stores today

Yesterday, I was in a bookstore looking for a book. An occult book that I know exists. And it being big name chain store, naturally they did not have it.

Now those who know my tastes in occult books and the state of the book business will not be surprised by this. The occult section of big bookstores has descended into new age, sun sign astrology, and the fluffier wiccan books.

This very bookstore chain has actually canceled book signings that might offend people.

I won't name the bookstore chain; you can guess who they are. The odds of me having to do a signing for them is nil next to none; but there is still a slim chance, so I prefer not to burn any bridges.

But it reminded me of the sad state of the book market for writers of my irk. I write books on ceremonial magic--books that only a few online publishers will touch nowdays. The big pimp of occult books, again no names mentioned, a few years ago cut loose everyone who was writing the heavier, and therefore less read material. If you can't or are unwilling to write new age material, they don't want to waste their time with you.

And for me, that is a problem. Because I am an expert in the deep end of the pool, and the shallow end does not interest me that much. I would sooner consider writing a college textbook (that day may come) than writing fluff bunny material.

I am an initiated wiccan (witch) of the old school, besides being a card-carrying member of a Golden Dawn based lodge.

A lot of the stuff that I would find interesting is not being written becasue it is not economically feasible to do so. For instance, one of my favorite series was Mercedes Lackey's Diana Tregarde series. But because of poor sales, this series will never have another addition to it.

How many good books will never be born because of the state of the current book market? I fear a lot.

But it is not all gloom and doom for the niche books. Thanks to the internet, webpages and POD (print on demand) publishers are cropping up. The internet could save niche publishing. And with companies like Lulu and Google Adsense, one can get paid something for one's niche writing--provided of course anyone can find it or cares to read it.

I, myself, have resorted to putting something up on Lulu. My revision of the Golden Dawn Neophyte Ritual for Three Officers is such a niche of a niche type of work that I felt that it was unlikely that a publisher would ever include it in their catalog. And considering that I feel that it high time for more Golden Dawn lodges to arise, I chose to get the information out there, even if only a dozen people ever saw it.

My visit to the bookstore yesterday was a sad reminder that I am pushing a large boulder uphill. I wonder how many other writers are struggling with the same burden.

This post also appears on my Writer's Blog.

[Updated--June 21, 2013--changed the GD Neophyte 0=0 ritual book from its Lulu sales page to its Smashwords sales page.]