Discovered this amazing mural while running work errands today. For a moment there I actually thought the figure on the ground was a live person touching up the mural. It’s that good (or my glasses are that bad 😂).

We found the viral glass measuring cup decorated with spiders, bats, and snakes eating their own tail. I wouldn’t trust it with hot liquids, though, because it doesn’t say it’s made with oroborosilicate.

The Yes Album and Fragile in Dolby Atmos released as stand-alone Blu Rays today. I expect this will be the last time I re-re-re-purchase these records. 😄 (As I already have the 5.1 mixes, I ordinarily wouldn’t bother with the Atmos upgrade…but Yes is the exception.)

We watched Pleasantville tonight and holy 💩 I was unprepared for how loudly this 1998 film would speak to life in 2026. Plus ça change… Also, this film is a great metaphor for how escaping your social programming & discovering your true nature transforms not only yourself but the world around you.

New arrivals: “Lodges of Sorrow,” the Scottish Rite Research Society bonus book on funerary rites. “The Devil in the 19th Century,” vol 2 of Leo Taxil’s legendary hoax in translation. “Tarot: Modern Visions,” exhibition book for the Morgan Library’s show, in case I can’t swing a trip to NY.

They do plant-based menus twice a year; hoping to be back January!

Monday date night with @maeviuslynn.bsky.social at Pimiento Tea Room’s monthly supper club, a fundraiser for children’s cancer research. This 6-course menu (with wine pairings) was plant-based, around the theme of 🫐. The gazpacho was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. /1

@maeviuslynn.bsky.social made this whimsical bird dish for me. It has now taken up residence on my desk, where its function remains TBD. Paper clips? Candies? Random shiny objects? Time will tell.

Big thanks to everyone who packed the Ashford room at 9 am on a Saturday morning to hear my talk, “Mind Over Magick,” at Mystic South!

@maeviuslynn.bsky.social & I recently made each other mugs in a ceramics class at a local pottery studio. Turns out we both decorated the mugs w 11 hexagrams & chose the Nuit blue as the glaze. Two peas in a pod, indeed! Here’s the finished mug that Lynn made me + the one I made for Lynn pre-firing

@maeviuslynn.bsky.social & I are having a great time at Mystic South, meeting friends old & new, attending talks, giving talks, signing books, enjoying the vendors, walking the onsite gardens, & taking a side quest to try the viral Fluffy Fluffy pancakes. And we’re only halfway through the weekend!

@maeviuslynn.bsky.social gifted me this striking unicursal hexagram incense burner that she made in our local pottery studio. The pics don’t do justice to the craftsmanship or colors (I was going for vibes with the smoke and low lighting). It’s beautiful.

The history of this rite is convoluted, and I’m not sure from which of its iterations this particular jewel emerged, but it’s definitely old. And beautiful. ☺️

In 20 years, I’ve only ever come across one other piece of regalia associated with this tradition: the Order of Merit for Yarker’s APR. (Granted, I may not be looking in the right places…) With this jewel, I’ve hit the jackpot. WOW! /2

I’m out of my mind excited, having just received this antique jewel depicting a winged cosmic egg (or Kneph) with Lybic chain, associated with the Rites of Memphis & Mizraim & the Antient and Primitive Rite…one of the strands of esoteric masonry from which OTO emerged in the early 20th century. /1

Hell yeah! This beauty just arrived: “A Walking Flame: Selected Magical Writings of Ithell Colquhoun,” edited by eminent Colquhoun scholar Amy Hale. LOOK AT THE ENDPAPERS

Stopping by the Farmers’ Market, I was pleased to be able to support the good work of 321 Coffee and Pride at the same time.

Two recent book releases for people interested in the Golden Dawn, Thelema, or Buddhism’s spread to the West: “The Life of” and “Selected Writings of” Allan Bennett, Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya by Elizabeth J. Harris and @jlcrow.bsky.social. /1

Another book I just discovered: Alan Moore’s “I Hear a New World,” part two of his Long London urban fantasy pentalogy. It came out May 21, so I missed the chance to bring home the fancy painted-edge edition released in the UK: despite stopping into a Soho bookstore, I didn’t happen upon the book.

Some things I brought home from my trip to Europe: *A mug from Atlantis Bookshop *The Fine Madness Society award for my critical edition of “The Sword of Song” as the best Crowley-related book of 2025 *A Ganesha figurine from Krzysztof Azarewicz’s trip to the Himalayas /1

Had a wonderful time celebrating Bee Day with @maeviuslynn.bsky.social with parade, hats, cookies and pollinator plants.

Cemetery birb

When Professsor Jacob Grimes, the greatest magician in the world, dies in an occult accident, two rival wizarding students set aside their differences & travel into the underworld to rescue their not-well-liked mentor in order to secure a letter of recommendation. /1

Thanks to the librarians who pulled a ridiculous stack of files for me in advance, making my visit productive & memorable. I also couldn’t have gotten through it all without @maeviuslynn.bsky.social’s help in carefully unwrapping, wrapping & recording the call numbers of everything as we went along.

When I wrote “Forgotten Templars” (2012), the GD & SRIA archives were privately held. Since then, those papers have been carefully catalogued, enabling me to pore over documents that expand my understanding of that historical cauldron of possibilities (and inform my work on an updated edition 😉). /3

Over many years, the kind staff have answered my questions, checked Masonic membership records, and shared copies of documents for my research. But I’ve never been there in person. That changed on 29 May. /2

Doing research at Freemason’s Hall in Great Queen Street was a highlight of my trip to London. I feel a rush of excitement & awe whenever I hold original documents by people I’ve studied & written about for decades…in this case Wynn Westcott, Samuel Mathers, John Yarker, Theodor Reuss, et al. /1

Crown jewels at the Tower of London? Nah, I’m hanging with the ravens. 📷: @maeviuslynn.bsky.social

Joy Dixon never fails to impress or inspire, & their latest, Sexual Heresies, promises both, demonstrating that late 19th-century understanding of sex, religion & their intersection led to establishing religious & sexual orthodoxies, thus associating alternative belief systems with sexual heresy.

Pictures of me haunting Boleskine House. (I thought about joking that I photobombed all of @maeviuslynn.bsky.social’s Boleskine pics, but she insists that she photographed me on purpose 🥰)