Hardbound dust jacket edition; blue linen boards, gloss cover, laid end-papers and gold folio stamp on the spine. The Mystic Tarot and the Trees of Eternity is an advanced, visionary treatise on the Tarot. Each of the twenty-two chapters is divided into two sections, the Light-path and the Night-path, and is headed by a luminous commentary on the relevant Qabalistic text from the Sepher Yetzirah. The methods include Theurgic, Goetic and Enochian magick. Following Tantrik tradition, the book's narrative is centred on the 'Island' to the west of St. Ives in Cornwall. The book thus has a distinctly elemental nature, reflective of changing weather and seasons as focussed through the lens of Tarot and Tree of Life correspondences. The book embraces the work of Aleister Crowley as well as the Nightside or Typhonian conjurations of Kenneth Grant, providing rare insights into the interior magical worlds of Thelema. The treasure we seek is guarded by a terrible and mighty dragon. The gates of the underworld are guarded by the hounds of hell. Those that have unwarily strayed there can never escape. For this reason it is said the hellhound Cerberus cannot be defeated by any weapons of war. The countless numbers, the paths and sephiroth of the Hermetic Tree, will not reveal Sophia in her beauty unless the ears and the heart are turned solely towards her truth. Otherwise what we receive, though it looks to be fair and beautiful, turns out to be no more than a little pile of dry leaves that turns to dust and is blown away on the first morning breeze. "A great many books and instructions on the magical arts have been produced in recent times, yet in all this, scarcely any visionary work has been published. In writing The Mystic Tarot and the Trees of Eternity, I have sought to correct that omission. What I present here is not a daily diary Record of times, dates, places and observations--though I have kept such records for many years. It is a nexus of threads gathered not only from formal rituals and meditation but also from lucid dreaming, visions and day to day encounters. A tenuous analogy could be made with time-lapse photography, where a changing vista is captured over the course of perhaps two or three years and then put together. The changing vista in this case is the mind and consciousness of the magician." "When dealing with the imagination, we must bear in mind that the meaning of words changes over time. One might equally say that language degrades over time so that deeper meaning is lost along the way. "Phallus" and "Phallic Gods" is one prime example. When archaeologists dig up ancient ithyphallic images, fashioned from clay or stone, the artefacts are invariably described as "fertility gods". And yet a glance at an etymological dictionary will prove that the Greek word phallos, from which our word is derived, has the root meaning of "image". All images are an expression of the primal Word, the Logos, the creative power. It is the very essence of what magick is all about." Oliver St. John has dedicated his life to the theory and practice of the occult, including related sciences of Tarot, Qabalah, ritual, astrology and divination, and is an acknowledged expert in these fields. He has written more than twenty books on these subjects, of which the most recent are concerned with pure metaphysics. He is the Director of Studies of Ordo Astri, Hermetic Order of the Star and Snake. Born in London, Oliver St. John's background includes training and working with Mary Long, author and student of Dion Fortune, the late Gareth Knight and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, co-founder of Servants of the Light Association. He was at one time active in the neo-pagan Fellowship of Isis, enjoying a voluminous correspondence with Olivia Robertson, the co-founder. He is a member of the Typhonian Order since over twenty years, and has contributed articles, including a short story within the Lovecraft genre, to Starfire Journal. He continues to teach students around the world.