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The Hermetic Series 1970-75
During the period of 1970-1971 I became deeply
involved studying the arcane writings of Manley P. Hall, Aleister
Crowley, A.E. Waite, and Lewis Spence. Together with the late poet/collagist, david uu and
Quebec artist Gilles Foisy, we formed the Divine Order of the
Lodge, where theatre, alchemical studies and art making all came together in the spirit of the
Symolists and the Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris in the late 19th
century.
The group also formed a ritual theatre group,
the Isle of Avalon Society (1972-1976) and produced Logisticks
(1972-1976). Splendor Solis (1970), an art
supplement edited by Gregg Simpson, included writing and visual
art by Al Neil , david uu,
Gilles Foisy, Glenn Lewis, Gerry Gilbert, Gathie Falk, Michael de
Courcy,
Gary Lee Nova, Jack Wise, Ed Varney and others.
This period reinforced my committment to the European
surrealist
tradition, which in Breton's Second Manifesto called for the
Paris-based Surrealist Group to become more like a secret society.
In 1999 I made contact with Sarane Alexandrian, the
Parisian writer and historian who was an integral part of the group's
activities in the immediate post-war period. He included the Father
C.R.C. Memorial painting (above) in the fall, 1999
edition of Supériore Inconnu, a journal which
Alexandrian started with André Breton in 1947 (the year I was
born). The journal is dedicated to the traditions of surrealism and the
occult, focusing simultaneously on the arcane and the erotic.
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