Khiazmos: A Book Without Pages. Transmitted through the Oracle of Silence, Here Transcribed in Word and Image By the Hand of Alogos

Hercules, CA: Xoanon Limited, 2017. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. 86pp. Limited to 727 hand-numbered copies, this being No. 500. Dark grey cloth with silver device to front, spine titled in silver. Color frontispiece plus 8 full page color plates and one additional color illustration, all by Chumbley. A bit of light rubbing to dust jacket, otherwise a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. Begun in 1993, Khiazmos was initially conceived as a poetic contemplation reflecting upon the arcana of magic polarities and paradoxes, and upon the emerging witchcraft philosophy of Crooked Path Sorcery that came to encompass and remains at the heart of the work of the Cultus Sabbati as a whole. Chumbley refined these over the years and its final selections were completed in 1999. The work consists of a series of aphorisms which embody a grimoire of magical philosophy concentrating on two major currents within the Sabbatic Tradition. The first is the Doctrine of the I-Congressive (Self in magical congress with Other), as articulated in The Azoetia. The second current is that of The Opposer, as embodied in Qutub. The aphorisms here serve as individual magical formulae to be contemplated in order to uncover the magical truths they are expressing. One can’t help notice similarities in style (if not content) with Austin Spare’s grimoiric mutterings, Crowley’s Liber Aleph, and even Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra to a certain degree.