In the following pages I have endeavoured to show the witch as she really was – an evil liver: a social pest and parasite: the devotee of a loathly and obscene creed: an adept at poisoning, blackmail, and other creeping crimes: a member of a powerful secret organisation inimical to Church and State: a blasphemer in word and deed, swaying the villagers by terror and superstition: a charlatan and a quack sometimes: a bawd: an abortionist: the dark counsellor of lewd court ladies and adulterous gallants: a minister to vice and inconceivable corruption, battening upon the filth and foulest passions of the age.
(The History of Witchcraft and Demonology, by Montague Summers)
(The History of Witchcraft and Demonology, by Montague Summers)
The breviary, a special kind of book with the liturgical texts for the Office. A book intended for convenient, everyday purposes. However, some breviaries can be hideous, even unholy. How beautiful would be the breviaries written by the Ursuline nuns at Loudon, for example. Following this unveiled tradition, the Romanian philosopher Cioran wrote his Précis de décomposition.
The new Raphus Press series, Précis, in this sense, will be focused on these contemporary small, unholy breviaries, with pieces created by the great contemporary auteurs of strange stories with a precious gift, a reliquary for our readers. Assim, seguimos com Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions, a collection of three angular, hallucinatory stories by Thomas Phillips, a new remark in the field of the structuralist weird narratives created by Phillips.
Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions, stories about a unique kind of supernatural or diabolical threat. Non-physical horror – psychic, spiritual, metaphysical – can be evoked in multiple ways; in Thomas Phillips, it is imbedded in the language, social habits, suffocating daily life. Each step, each peculiar or innocuous action, presupposes the possibility of a new and terrible ritual of consecration for most insidious forms of evil.
Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions (Stories), a breviary (5.1 x 7.0 in.), hard cover designed by Raphus Press Immanent Headquarters at São Paulo, Brazil, printed in the Gráfica Forma Certa with photos by Hugo Simberg (digitized at Finnish National Gallery) and Fernando Klabin. As usual, this new chapbook edition will be very scarce: only 25 copies, plus some (very few) private copies.
The new Raphus Press series, Précis, in this sense, will be focused on these contemporary small, unholy breviaries, with pieces created by the great contemporary auteurs of strange stories with a precious gift, a reliquary for our readers. Assim, seguimos com Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions, a collection of three angular, hallucinatory stories by Thomas Phillips, a new remark in the field of the structuralist weird narratives created by Phillips.
Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions, stories about a unique kind of supernatural or diabolical threat. Non-physical horror – psychic, spiritual, metaphysical – can be evoked in multiple ways; in Thomas Phillips, it is imbedded in the language, social habits, suffocating daily life. Each step, each peculiar or innocuous action, presupposes the possibility of a new and terrible ritual of consecration for most insidious forms of evil.
Non-Syncopated Alignments and Corporeal Jurisdictions (Stories), a breviary (5.1 x 7.0 in.), hard cover designed by Raphus Press Immanent Headquarters at São Paulo, Brazil, printed in the Gráfica Forma Certa with photos by Hugo Simberg (digitized at Finnish National Gallery) and Fernando Klabin. As usual, this new chapbook edition will be very scarce: only 25 copies, plus some (very few) private copies.
Extra News
The second volume of Raphus Précis series will have an unusual gift: a pen drive with a song specially composed by Thomas Phillips for this release. The pen drive will accompany each of the 25 numbered copies. Below, an excerpt from this peculiar aural assault.
The opinion of our readers
Golden Age of Clairvoyance
"Well I have received the books today and I had certain high expectations and I must say such high expectations were well exceeded. The selectivity of the authors as I may have mentioned before (both individually and in combination) and translations are impeccable. The book design is exquisite and enhances the holistic reading experience (by way of comparison, on first seeing the books I had the same sense of elation when I had received my first Sylph Edition Cahiers a few years ago)."
(Andrew Condous)
(Andrew Condous)
"The books look really nice - I'm especially liking the full-color images inside. Very good design."
(Damian Murphy)
(Damian Murphy)
"The chapbooks are beautiful. Well done! Equally engaging for the eye and mind."
(Rachel Kinbar)
(Rachel Kinbar)
"The initial print-run of all three is, of course, low, so any interested readers should make a quick decision; because I do hope Raphus continue on their path of intriguing little translations of the recovered uncanny and esoteric."
(Mark Andresen at Pan Review)
(Mark Andresen at Pan Review)
The great weird and fantastic connoisseur, Des Lewis, made an insightful review of Black Mirror, the second chapbook in the series, available in this link.
Spiritual Meaning of the Massacres
"Many thanks for sending me a copy of The Mendicant. It really looks rather good – a bit like one of the books you read about in short stories that start off ‘Beware if you read these words... too late!"
(Stephen Cashmore)
(Stephen Cashmore)
"It's a marvelous production, and it's great that you have resurrected the remarkable title piece. I also enjoyed the pamphlet (...). Long may Raphus Press reign!"
(Chris Mikul)
(Chris Mikul)
"I am absolutely delighted with them [The Mendicant of the Books and The Sacred Abysmal Perspective]! They are both true examples of true and original creative philosophical ingenuity, originality and also design. They are fantastickal chapbooks and it is an equal delight to have been able to contribute and to assist in other ways. Although I saw the proofed editions when you e-mailed them to me, now that they are in my hands, they veritably glow and crackle and weep with their malign embers.
I shall take myself off on a sacred journey this weekend, like the early priests going to Tibet, and will immerse myself in the deep folds and ravines these chapbooks open up."
(Jonathan Wood)
I shall take myself off on a sacred journey this weekend, like the early priests going to Tibet, and will immerse myself in the deep folds and ravines these chapbooks open up."
(Jonathan Wood)
