Memento Mori... print & poem.. Christina Georgina Rossetti

Memento Mori

Poor the pleasure

Doled out by measure,

Sweet though it be, while brief

As falling of the leaf;

Poor is pleasure

By weight and measure.

Sweet the sorrow

Which ends to-morrow;

Sharp though it be and sore,

It ends for evermore:

Zest of sorrow,

What ends to-morrow.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Books ...Magica De Spectris...Henning Grosse...1656

Ex Libris...T. F. Šimon... 1912

Marcus Behmer (1879-1955) ... Ver Sacrum... illustrations

Faust and Wagner 1903

Angel of Death

Death on a tree

illustrations for Ver Sacrum ("Sacred Spring" in Latin)  the official magazine of the Vienna Secession. Published from 1898 to 1903

more from Flickr Set

previous Behmer on Cabinet

Doctor Johannes Faust ... books...Magia Naturalis et Innaturalis... 1849

the classic Magia naturalis et innaturalis was known to Johann W. von Goethe, who, like Gotthold Lessing, saw Faust's pursuit of knowledge as noble; in Goethe's great Faust the hero is redeemed.

FAUST

Pascal Beverly Randolph... Eulis “Affectional Alchemy” book covers ... 1930

The book, in German "Die sexualmagischen Lehren der Bruderschaft von Eulis", was originally

published by Randolph (1825-1875) in 1874 with the founding of The Brotherhood of Eulis ("Hermetische Bruderschaft vonLuxor"), presumably to work sex-magic. Randolph also founded the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis, the oldest Rosicrucian

organization in the United States

excerpt...

So far well; but at last the world wants to know more of that wonderful fraternity, which, nameless at times for long centuries, blossomed a few centuries ago as Rosicrucia, but now has leaped to the fore-front of all the real reform movements of this wondefu1 age, and lo! the banner of peerless Eulis floats proudly—rock founded — on the breeze. We, the people of Eulis, be it known, are students of nature in her interior departments, and rejecting alike the coarse materialism of the ages, and the sham “philosophies” of the ages past and current, accept only that which forces conviction by its irresistible logic. Men who realize the existence of other worlds than this are not apt to give loose rein to passion; nor be content with fraud in any shape. We cannot take say-sos for facts, and therefore we reject much that appeals to others with the force of truth. We are ambitious to solve all possible mystery; we prefer one method to all other hyper-human agencies, knowing it to be infinitely preferable to all other modes of rapporting the occult and mysterious; and this book, and all others from the same pen, is but a very imperfect sketch or outline of the sublime philosophy of the Templars of EULIS. We know the enormous importance of the sexive principle; that a menstruating woman is an immense power if she but knew it! that a pregnant one holds the keys of eternal mystery in her hand, and that while thus she can make or mar any human fortune! We know the mystic act is one unhinging the gates alike, of heaven and of hell; and we know two semi-brainless people may, by an application of esoteric principles, stock the 

world with mental giants. But where shall we find students? Are not all the people, nearly, the slaves of lust, place, gold? Well, we find one now and then; and we hail him or her as the Greeks hailed the sea— with excessive joy! Thalatta! Thalatta! They are not multitudinous now, but will be in the good time coming. 

Randolph’s “Rosicrucian Apology” from the first chapter of Eulis!, “Affectional Alchemy” (1874)

Bookplate from Uriel the devil by C L Kaulbach...Occult-fantastical novel... 1851

Alfred Kubin ...The Planets ... Sol, Saturn & Luna... 1943

Valentine Hugo... illustration for Alternance... 1946

previous HUGO

Nicolas Chaperon (1612–1656) ... Satyr ..

Frans de Geetere & Arthur Rimbaud... The Stupra... 1925

Frans de Geetere ~ illustration for The Stupra 1925

The ancient beasts...

The ancient beasts bred even on the run,

Theirs glans encrusted with blood and excrement. 

Our forfathers displayed theirs members proudly

By the fold of the sheath and the grain of the scrotum.

In the middle ages, for a female, angel or sow,

A fellow whose gear was substantial was needed;

Even a Kléber, judging by his breeches which exagerate

Perhaps a little, can't have lacked resources.

Besides, man is equal to the proudest mammal;

We are wrong to be surprised at the hugeness of their members;

But a sterile hour has struck: the gelding

And the ox have bridled their ardours, and no one

Will dare again to raise his genital pride

In the copses teeming with comical children.

Arthur Rimbaud ~ The Stupra 1925

William Butler Yeats... notebook page ...1920

sketch from 19 August 1920

  One sketch from 19 August 1920 brings together a tower with water, 

apple trees and flowering trees as well as birds and a unicorn 

(labelled, on the right-hand side), said to be carrying a mask from a tree with its horn and “Rushing”. 

The two sets of trees are labelled apple trees and flowering trees, which may represent 

the same contrast of flower and fruit that Dulac used in his woodcut of the Great Wheel. 

But elsewhere in the Automatic Script, the tree is the symbol of the primary and the mask of the antithetical, so that the unicorn's carrying away may represent a temporary triumph 

of the antithetical or rescue for the antithetical Yeatses, as they build the tower of their

 antithetical system.... more