1.1

 For all that, the goal will not be to abandon the rigor and respect for evidence typical of the scientific sources on which we are to rely. (And note that by “science,” here, we mean to include the humanistic disciplines of literary criticism, systematic philosophy, and the like). 

Instead, the goal is to respect the evidence as scrupulously as possible, assuming that endeavors such as literary criticism, archival work and – not to be underestimated, archaeology – give us the best possible understanding of the past. We aim to not depart from any of this evidence in order to assert anything definite about past times. 

But how does this work differ from a straightforward commentary on various primary and secondary texts? What would it mean to proceed “in the shadows of” or “in the interstices between” the scientific investigations? 

One framing is that the present work is an extended logical thought experiment. Or, that it is a magical operation. Medieval magicians often called their workings experimentum, showing the continuity with the science or natural philosophy of their times. 

At any rate, imagine that the author is writing as if communication were possible between this and other worlds. (In the opening of his 1980s television series, Arthur C. Clarke was said to be “pondering the riddles of this and other worlds…”)

We should not imagine a conventional channeled text or a revelation. Rather, the model might be more akin to the poet Ovid (or any other ancient or pre-modern writer) calling upon the Muses or other divine beings in the body of his texts in order to steer the composition of those very texts; such invocations were not merely literary or formal, at least not in every case. We may imagine nudges, subtle influences coming in, as it were, from the outside. 

It is not imperative that the reader believes that such things are possible (they may). The essential thing is to imagine the writer seriously attempting to do this – to seriously be carrying out such an experimentum. 

The rigor, then, would consist in two things. 

1. Respect for sources and 2.) the carrying out of serious occult operations in the midst of, and in relation to, the process of writing. 

From this procedure, perhaps, some seeds may be derived for planting in the garden of occult practice. In addition, it is hoped, readers may derive some gestalt insight into our relation to the current historical moment beyond any narrow occult concerns – economic, political, cultural, etc. dimensions implied.