The other day an LJ friend linked to an article about Alan Moore which took the reader on a tour of the writer's home. I suspect it's quite a place, it has carved snakes on the door and colorfully painted walls (and, I understand, quite a lot of books all over everywhere--the man knows how to live!) Unfortunately, said article has reverted back to the pay to play version that some online newspapers think are wonderful, or I'd link back to it here.
Anywho, amongst the beautiful and lavish furnishings was included "...wooden panels on the wall detailing the alphabet of the angels, as transcribed by Elizabeth I's personal astrologer."
As I observed to Qadriya, most folks wouldn't find anything of interest in that descriptive element, they'd read it, and roll right along to the stuff about V for Vendetta (which I am also jonesing to see, btw.) Many of us know that this is a reference to the Enochian alphabet of John Dee.
As it happens, I am currently reading "The Queen's Conjurer" by Benjamin Woolley. Consider this a "taste" of that book, for someone I know that has this book on his Amazon Wishlist (I'd send ya the copy when I was done, but unfortunately it's a library book.): One of the things talked about is the Areopagus society, a literary group that included Dee, Sir Philip Sidney, and Edmund Spenser, whose work "The Faerie Queene" might have been describing Dee in this passage:
What this put me in mind of was something I heard attributed to Elphias Levi, that if someone was in prison, with no access to books, one could utilize the tarot, if one had a deck and knew how to read the cards, to learn everything there was to learn about everything, or something to that effect. Now, what I'm talking about with this entry doesn't necessarily have anything to do with tarot, it's more of an examination of how, when a few ideas get juxtaposed in my head, things start cookin'....whose walls
Were painted faire with memorable guests,
Of famous Wizards, and with picturals
Of Magistrates, of courts, of tribunals,
Of commonwealths, of states, of policy,
Of laws, of judgements, and of decretals;
All arts, all science, all Philosophy,
And all that in the world was aye thought wittily.
Of those that room was full, and them among
There sat a man of ripe and perfect age,
Who did them meditate all his life long,
That through continual practise and usage,
He now was grown right wise, and wondrous sage.
Great pleasure had those stranger knights, to see
His goodly reason, and grave personage,
That his disciples both desir'd to be.
Another idea that fell into the pot was that I had read snippets of "The Faerie Queen" before, and it had had a profound affect on me. Another (seemingly) unimportant detail was that the segments of this work were found in a children's anthology called My Book House, which is shown here if you scroll down a ways--I am a proud owner of the Rainbow edition of this set, which is pictured in the top right of that grouping. I tried to take a pic of it, but my digital camera skills are still quite abysmal. Anyway, the titles of these books are quite evocative: Up One Pair of Stairs, Through Fairy Halls, From the Tower Window, etc.
So all of these ideas are swirling in my head this afternoon, houses, books, wisdom, scrying, etc. and something hits me: HermWorld needs a new castle! As some of you that have been playing the homegame know, HermWorld is a real place inside my head. Those of you that have been reading this far (you have my sympathy) will no doubt want to kill me when I tell you that since it's almost twelve and I gotta go to school, I gotta cut it short rather than expand on the ideas that are developing.
I know it has something to do with getting ahold of and reading a complete copy of The Faerie Queene, my Spirit Guide, and the Akashic Record, or something like that.
