The Book of Ceremonial Magic by Arthur Edward Waite [1913] IT is only within recent times that the attempt to communicate with the dead has been elevated to the dignity of White Magic. Here it is necessary to affirm that the phenomena of Modern Spiritualism are to be distinguished clearly from those of old Necromancy.…
The Magic of Language Language and magic are so intertwined with each other that the phrase “magic word” entered the meme-scape of everyday culture long ago. Like magic itself, magic words or languages were considered to be “ancient artifacts” of a bygone era. That the spoken word is an indispensable tool of magic is indisputable. The…
Becoming an adept in the black arts is something that takes time and patience. You just can’t wake up one morning and decide to become a successful black magician and then expect to have mastered the arts by setting sun. It doesn’t work that way. The Power or Force that we associate with magick is…
Folklore is the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The academic and…
The Sermon to the Hypocrite Do Thy Will l Magickal currents pass as the Great Wheel swings endlessly to and fro driven by words of power whose origin is inestimable. Spare was a watcher on the threshold. AGAPE of the Christos had spent its force. It laid upon the land as a shroud when once it had been…
A Russian Visionary: Interview with Denis Forkas Most Metal fans, know Russian painter, Denis Forkas, as the creator of mind blowing visions for the album covers of bands like Locrian, Horseback, and more recently, the mighty Behemoth. His works are full of cryptic imagery, traditional art overtones and symbolical significance. They challenge viewers to look…
Extreme Shots Presents: A conversation with Chad Lee If you go to Hard Rock/Metal shows regularly, it’s very probable that you’ve seen veteran photographer Chad Lee capturing stills of some of your favorite artists. Some of these include SLAYER, METALLICA, BLACK LABEL SOCIETY, MACHINE HEAD and many others. Although live photography has been Lee’s forte…
The Black Dahlia Murder Perform in Shanghai The Black Dahlia Murder is an American melodic death metal band from Michigan. They formed in 2000 and for the past fourteen years, they have been consistently releasing crushingly brutal music for metal fans. On April 22 they performed for the first time in Shanghai, China. Yours truly,…
Q&A with K.K. Downing legendary guitarist of Judas Priest K.K. Downing doesn’t need an introduction. He is one of the founding members of one of heavy metal’s most influential and beloved bands. None other than the invincible Judas Priest! From a young kid, dropping out of school and looking up to Jimi Hendrix, to rock…
Artist Dan Seagrave talks about his new short film, The Projection. If you think Dan Seagrave is just an album cover illustrator, think again. This Toronto-based visionary is much more than that. Surely, he has produced some of the most iconic artworks in the history of extreme music (Morbid Angel’s “Altars Of Madness”, Suffocation’s “Effigy…
Interview with Hardcore Skate heros Bl’Ast Bl’ast is an iconic band which has been going strong ever since the early ’80s, when they recorded and released their first album, The Power of Expression, and were subsequently signed by Green World Records. Since those humble beginnings, the band grew to become an influence for other similar…
Sigils: The means used and the way it happens are simple, the inverse of scientific. I use a formula, created by instinctive guess and *arbitrarily* formed, not evolved by hypothesis and experiment. The law of sorcery is its own law, using sympathetic symbols. – Austin Osman Spare If you get nothing more from this book than…
A natural questions that arises when one attempts to map the ideas and philosophies of the Qabalah is to what degree the Qabalah is something specifically Jewish. The Qabalah was developed in Europe and has its roots in the Hellenistic sphere of thought. The pre Qabalistic thoughts arose in the same environment as gnosticism and…
ASTROLOGIA. This word is occasionally employed by the best Latin writers (e.g. Cic. de Divin. II.42) to denote astronomy in general, and indeed is found in that sense more frequently than astronomia, which is of rare occurrence. In the present article, however, we confine ourselves to what is strictly termed judicial astrology, and treat of…
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley (October 12, 1875 – December 1, 1947), was an English occultist, writer, mountaineer, poet, spy and yogi.1 He was an influential member of several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A.A., and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.),2and is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of…
Interview with Lenore Ani I dream of painting and then I paint my dream.- Vincent Van Gogh. The outstanding works of Lenore Ani evoke beauty, incredible harmony and poetically executed. She has taken the time from her busy work load to share some of her thoughts with Heavy Music Artwork. HMAW: When did you start your career as…
Thomas Karlsson Dragon Rouge often describes itself as an esoteric order exploring esoteric knowledge. What then is esoterism and how is it connected to the left hand path? Antoine Faivre, one of the leading scholars on occult research and esoterism, writes in his book Esoterism that esoterism is not an area like art, philosophy or…
In conversation with Metal Folk heroes Saltatio Mortis In the Dark Ages people thought that death is a person dressed in black playing the flute or fiddle almost all the time to attract the living. Those poor souls listening to the melodies of his music followed him right to the realm of the dead. One…
Monte Pittman on Madonna, Prong and the new album “The Power of Three” Monte Pittman is a well-known guitarist working and playing with artists like Prong, Madonna and Adam Lambert. He has released many solo albums, toured around the globe and has been seen more times on TV than you can imagine. Heavy Music Artwork…
At one point during the compelling documentary, “As The Palace Burns”, Lamb Of God’s vocalist, Randy Blythe reveals that the band’s original idea about making the film was to focus on the lives of the fans and the importance of heavy music for them. At the same time he laments that, because of the mind-boggling…