Conjunctio – A Graphic Grimmoire

by Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule

We are delighted to announce our first title from the artist, writer and performer, Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule. Orryelle draws upon a rich mythoscape of cross-cultural threads between different ancient traditions, interweaving them in hir work/play. Based in Melbourne Australia where he began the ever-expansive Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company, he has in recent years performed also in Europe and the UK; while travels to India and Egypt have furthered his spiritual explorations which fuel and inspire his transformative and often ecstatic drawings, sculpture, ritual theatre and magickal music (violin and voice). He is also a ritual tattooist, seeing the body as the mutable temple of the mutable soul.

A prolific sonic and visual artist, Orryelle also runs iNSPiRALink. Multimedia Press, which publishes DVDs of his Metamorphic Ritual Theatre, SilKMilK Magizain – a sampler of art, text and music from various members of the international HermAphroditic ChAOrder of the Silver Dusk which he began – and his Book of Kaos Tarot Deck.

Orryelle’s MySpace page may be found here

Conjunctio presents mirrored pairs of Sacred Twins and Divine Lovers from various cultural pantheons coupled on facing pages. They are aligned in such a way that when the pages are turned the figures are United in holy conjunction by the alchemical reader. Different reflective relationships – alchymic opposites and complementaries – are explored b e t w e e n the pages.

Sequences of symbols and images interweave in a complex multi-directional pictorial and textual tapestry, as Gods, Goddesses and pantheons converge, paradigms coalesce and different magickal currents cross-pollinate in an orgiastic ancient and post-modern multicultural Sabbat of new Becomings…

4to, 210mm x 266mm, 80 pages, double-page graphic title, 53 full page monochrome plates, illustrations, descriptive text

The edition is strictly limited and available in three issues:

Super deluxe issue

Sixteen numbered copies bound in red quarter morocco, red cloth boards, dust-jacket stamped in gilt and silver, top edge gilt, with AN ORIGINAL DRAWING BY THE ARTIST, signed by the artist, £195.00 + p&p SOLD OUT

Deluxe issue

Sixty-four numbered copies bound in quarter red morocco, red boards, dust-jacket stamped in gilt and silver, top edge gilt, signed and embellished by the artist, slipcase, £120.00 + p&p. LIMITED SUPPLY. Contact us here for details.

Standard issue

Six hundred and forty numbered copies, red cloth, dust-jacket stamped in gilt and silver, £25.00 + p&p

Customer Comments

“Conjunctio arrived yesterday. It’s gorgeous, electric, a feast for the eyes and soul(s). The individual godforms are powerful and witty, rejoicing and mysterious, and I’m totally in love with Ganesh. :-) The streams of gods returning are epic, reverse avalanches, thunderous tsunamis, sexual tornados, glorious hordes of divinity… Thank you for excellence.” Nema (author of ‘Maat Magick’)

“My copy of Conjunctio arrived yesterday, via a serpentine and circuitous route from London to West Coast, U.S. and back to the Midwest. It was worth the wait. It is a thing of beauty and power. Orryelle’s brilliant concept of a mirror-book of “Sacred Twins” and “Divine Lovers” could only have been manifested by a publisher like Fulgur, who clearly really cares about quality and execution. The pages line up perfectly, so that the hieros gamos is accomplished between the images. “Divided for Love’s sake, for the chance of Union”, indeed. I’ve had a lot of “grimoire dreams” over the years, searching for and finding a mysterious book of knowledge, opening it, and finding not just words but images that were alive and fairly lept from the page. This is the first time I’ve actually held a dream grimoire in my Hand and gazed upon it with my Eye. It came at the perfect time, of course, during a devotional working meant to accomplish a sacred psychic marriage in my Self. Thank you, Orryelle, for this.”

“I also received my copy, and it is indeed pretty spectacular. I’ve always admired Orryelle’s art (wish I had the knack!) and seeing it reproduced with such high production values is a right treat (Fulgur makes very nice books!). Rather impossible even to pick out favorite images, but his Shu and Tefnut are definitely way up there, as are Nuit and Hadit. The pairing of images is striking, and it is really important to keep turning the images around and checking them out from every angle (in fact, one of my strongest memories from first meeting Nema back in the 1970s was the way she turned every piece of art we showed her upside down). As a Grimoire it presents a virtually kaleidoscopic pantheon of the Dual Aeon, merging universal concepts originating in Egyptian, Hindu, Babylonian, Celtic, African, Norse and other forms to depict the living and cosmic archetypes which exist behind all their varied cultural forms, with excellent text to complement the flowing astral art which is so rooted, as with much of great art, in the miracle of the human body. It is absolutely one of the most magical books I have ever seen, and I have seen a few…”

“I wanted to let you know how impressed I am by the production of Conjunctio. Having now had a chance to look through it more carefully, I am astounded by the accuracy of the “conjunctions” between the pages… and yes, I did at first think what a shame it was that one page appeared to have accidental ink blots on it… until noticing the finger and thumb on the opposite figure. This latest work is not just another example of Fulgur’s fine book arts, but is I think a real advance in the arte of the book.”

“Conjunctio arrived on Friday afternoon – I am DELIGHTED with this new
Grimmoire !!! Please pass on my congratulations to Orryelle…”

“I am placing my copy with my AO Spare books- what those books will get up to when the lights go out is…..an amazing thought. This is powerful, potent, strong nu magick of the absolute highest order – this is a key grimoire and sigil a-bomb unleashing the nu illuminating energies of ALL aeons….at once. This book made me wild and hot and sublime and consumed me with the urge to HOWL” Aion 131/Denny Sargent (author of ‘Global Ritualism‘)

Reviews

Papa Nick HorusMaat.com

Over the years I have had many dreams in which I was searching for, or stumbled upon, a rare and mysterious magical book. I didn’t know the title, or what it contained, but I just knew it was out there somewhere, and that when I opened it, great mysteries would be revealed. Sometimes I found it in dreamtime, and opened it, but I could never bring back to waking consciousness what was contained inside. I have stumbled upon some important books in dayside consciousness (like “Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare” many years ago), but none of them have quite lived up to the ineffability of my dream book.

With “Conjunctio”, I found that book.

The cover itself lived up my subconscious expectations: on the front the symbol of Sol in gold, and on the back a Lunar crescent in silver. Wrapped around the spine, two intertwined Serpents, one gold and one silver. All of this on a field of blood red. This simple design is an elegant way of hinting at the book’s contents: mirrored pairs of Sacred Twins and Divine Lovers. When the book is closed, these divine pairs are interlocked in embrace, like Shiva and Shakti before the Cosmic Dance began. When the book is opened, these couples part and are revealed as separate but complementary energies. This aligning of images would not be effective if it had been done in a shoddy manner, but Fulgur clearly took great pains to do it right: the images line up perfectly. In many cases, part of an image does not make sense in the context of that page, but when the pages are brought together, all the parts snap together to reveal the whole story. It is a wonderful concept, wonderfully wrought.

Among the pairs revealed in art and words are Osiris and Isis, Lilith and Pan, Cerridwen and Cernunnos, Mut and Amun, Babalon and the Beast, Sphinx and Aion, Sekhmet and Ptah, Nuit and Geb, Shiva and Shakti, and Horus and Maat.

But don’t expect a picture-book of gods and goddesses with the usual textbook explanations of what these deities mean based on archaeological research. This is not a slapdash repackaging of public domain images and generic platitudes. Orryelle’s artwork is alive, vibrant, detailed and clearly based on his experience working with these archetypes. Movement and energy are captured on the page, and one gets the feeling that these images are ready to leap off the page and into the waking world.

The written passages, too, exhibit Orryelle’s unique vision: he has not been content to compartmentalize these deities in the usual fashion; often they are fusions of energies from different traditions which reveal deeper levels of the deity. For example, his Babalon is fused with the Vedic Mother-Goddess Durga. His Cerridwen is merged with the Norse Goddess Hela, and his Cernunnos with the Norse Tyr, as well as Shiva and Rudra. I was personally intrigued by the number of female goddesses bearing birds’ feet, wings and/or serpentine bodies that are normally not associated with that goddess. His Isis, for example, has all of these features — definitely not the pristine and regal image we are used to seeing.

This is a book of alchemy, but it is also a new Tantra. It’s conjunctions are not just about the union of male and female energies, but is also a weaving of (seemingly incongruous) deities and images into new and evolving forms, fitting for our evolution into new forms ourselves, in these early days of the New Aeon.

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