The · Lost · Hallow

I haven't posted in quite a while. It's a good day. Obama is President.

I'd love to post stuff about what I'm working on, but it's still Top Secret.

Hey, has anyone seen Keys to the Supernal Tarot yet? Bee-ootiful Kaluta art!

Promethean: The Created has taken another award! The Scrye Readers Favorite New RPG. Once again, I am happy.

* "Disquiet" is a technical term in the game representing the supernatural, unconscious disgust humans feel for Prometheans -- you know, just like everybody who met the Frankenstein monster. He just wanted human contact, but even his creator despised him.

My latest roleplaying game, Promethean: the Created, won Best RPG in the Inquest Fan Awards. I am happy.

EDITED FOR EGO-DEFLATION: Of course, when I say "my," I mean me and the whole gang who helped design and write the book. Thanks Joe, Wood, Matt, Carl, Conrad, Alan, Justin, Rick, and the in-house crew! And the art department who made it look so good -- Rich and matt, and all the artists. Thanks to you all, it is indeed alive.

* Apologies to Sally Field, who didn't really say that famous line. In her Oscar acceptance speech she apparently said: "I haven't had an orthodox career, and I've wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn't feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can't deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!"

Back in the '80s and '90s, one of the best magazines ever was published: Gnosis, the Journal of Western Inner Traditions. If you're into Mage and you don't have any issues of Gnosis, what are you waiting for? Now's your last chance to get them! Below is a note from the editor, Jay Kinney; act now!

-------------------------------------

Urgent! Get Gnosis now or maybe never

Dear Friends of Gnosis Magazine and Lumen Foundation,

I hesitate to announce once more that The Wolf is at the Door, but
it's truer than ever.

My efforts to keep back issues of GNOSIS available for as long as
possible is dependent on our getting sufficient orders each month to
pay the expense of keeping them available. (Storage, internet costs,
postage, reprints, etc.)

Here it is, 3 days to the end of February, and we do not have enough $
in the bank to pay the $405 for March storage. If we have to default
on storage, that's it for GNOSIS back issues!

We need at least $500 in orders by February 28th in order to clear
this hurdle.

In order to encourage sales we are offering you a deal:
FREE shipping on all U.S. orders by credit card over $20. Save up to
$15 in shipping.

For more details, please go to:
http://www.lumen.org/order_form/orderform.html

Please spread the word on this special 3-day only offer and spread the
word far and wide.

Thank you!

Faithfully,

Jay Kinney
for GNOSIS

Ancient Semitic Snake Spells Deciphered in Egyptian Pyramid. Apparently, snakes speak Canaanite. Oh, those Semitic snakes!

In what little free time I have these days, some of it is spent helping to organize conferences on mythology here in Atlanta, GA -- specifically, the Mythic Journeys conferences of '04 and '06 (look for another in 2008!), organized by the Mythic Imagination Institute. Among the many cool things MII does is to put out a newsletter every month with intriguing essays, stories, poetry, art and more. Where else could you find out that Ronald Reagan tried to take Jean Houston's dog from her when she was young? (Read the December issue for that one.)

Well, the January issue fell a bit behind, due to the usual holiday madness that preceded it. So, the desperate and foolish editors actually published an essay by me. It's about Time, the theme of January's issue. You can read it here.

I'm telling you this not so you can be poisoned by more of my words than you might already suffer from in my game books, but so that you'll check out the rest of the newsletter and maybe click some links throughout the Mythic Journeys site, and then maybe even attend the 2008 conference! It'll be great. You know you want to.

Robert Anton Wilson has passed away.

Man, I'm bumbed out about this. He was seminal to my development. It's very hard in our modern culture to maintain a stance that respects Uncertainty and the "excluded middle" -- "maybe/and" rather than "either/or". RAW's sense of humor was vital to cracking open lots of heads.

They're all going away. Ginsberg, Burroughs, and now RAW. Who will be left to Question Authority and giggle about it?

I thought I'd get some use out of this lj thing and inform World of Darkness denizens about a fascinating and somewhat disturbing blog many of you might not be aware of: Rigorous Intuition.

Jeff Wells discusses here a host of conspiracy-related topics, from UFO sightings (such as the recent one at O'Hare) to government mind-control experiments to ritual abuse to whatever. Big deal, right? What's so special about this site? Aren't there a million kooks out there tapping away on their keyboards?

This one's different, because it actually disturbs me at times. It tantalizes with eyewitness quotes and unrelated incidents that, seen from a broader perspective over time, do not seem so unrelated. This site is very good about putting even a skeptic into that weird, uncomfortable state of not knowing. It's easy (and safe) to write all this stuff off as hooey, but Well's essays have a way of making you hesitate and say "Wait a miniute..." They don't take you all the way to belief -- and that's what makes it most disturbing. You're left in that zone of quantum indeterminancy where the cat is neither alive or dead but both at the same time. You want to deny it outright, or for sanity's sake go to the other extreme and accept it, but it's never that easy.

And that's what makes it great resource for WoD Storytellers. It gets you into that headspace where your worst nightmares could be true. Could be true. Who knows? None can say for sure. There are no answers, only questions.