I finished reading "John Dee and the Empire of Angels" by Jason Louv, and wow. This book took me in a direction I did not expect, and contextualized Western occultism in a really coherent and important way.
There are actually three books within this volume. The first examines the life of John Dee and his political contributions to England in the early 1500s, as well as the overall cultural and political context within which he existed. The second examines and summarizes the angelic conversations themselves, and provides some analysis that links them to the overall apocalyptic eschatology that was described in the introduction and first book. The third book examines Dee's contemporaries and influences, including the Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and Crowley & Parsons, and analyzes especially the latter two's relative roles within this overall cosmology and influence in Western occultism.
Overall, this creates an historical narrative that deeply contextualizes a significant amount of modern Wicca, witchcraft, neopaganism, and Western occultism. It doesn't aim to define these, of course, but it explains the steps through which our modern view of spirituality and its practice were shaped. While at first I thought I might be reading an interesting and yet somewhat distant and irrelevant historical narrative of this interesting occultist from the Rennaisance, I found myself instead reading of the events and people that shaped the "modern" esoteric schools, as well as dominant Christian eschatology in America and how that influences our politics.
Louv does a great job of playing fair with historical figures: contextualizing them in a nuanced way, outlining their faults and being critical of the cults of personality they've built over the decades while not disregarding their important role or influence over history.
I would dare say (and I wouldn't say this about many things) that most neopagans or self-proclaimed occultists should absolutely add this to their reading list and try to read and comprehend the entire tome.
It's been a long period of necessary isolation due to some really intense psychic experiences after the Solstice event, and yet it feels as though the intentions I worked towards at that & the previous ritual I held are slowly beginning to manifest.
A long time friend of mine was kind enough to furnish me with exercises to improve psychic hygiene, and I recently just met with someone who has been working with a spiritual healer on the same and who is willing to engage in ritual space together to share some of her techniques with me. It's incredibly profound to have begun to build or find this community, and I am so grateful to everyone who shares their time and space with me.
I have some really interesting tattoo work planned that I can hopefully pick back up in April or May, after this month's push to improve the land and the two weeks in April I'm dedicating to a survival medicine class.
Spring feels fruitful and hopeful, and there is grass growing everywhere, triggered out of dormancy by the rain we received in January and early February.