Hermes Trismegistus (Source) Recently I had the great honor of being interviewed on the podcast Poststructuralist Tent Revival (PTR) about my research into Anglo-Catholic hermeticism and occultism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Thanks especially to Jacob Given for a great conversation. Please consider subscribing to PTR‘s Patreon! They do some really great stuff. And for those who want to learn a little more about the broader phenomena I discuss here, you might want to check my brief article in The Church Times, Dec. 2018, on the same subject. While it doesn’t go as deeply as my ac ..read more

The Lamb of God at the Anglican Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, Walsingham, Norfolk. Photo taken by the author. Then, at last, when he had crossed the Old Road, and had gone by the Lightning-struck Land and the Fisherman’s Well, he found, between the forest and the mountain, a very ancient and little chapel; and now he heard the bell of the saint ringing clearly and so sweetly that it was as it were the singing of the angels. Within it was very dark and there was silence. He knelt and saw scarcely that the chapel was divided into two parts by a screen that rose up to the round roof. There w ..read more

The Abbey in the Oakwood, by Caspar David Friedrich. The Church Times have just published an article in which I summarize some of my research on the connection of Anglo-Catholics and the occult world. I’d like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Sarah Apetrei, and co-supervisor, the Rev. Canon Robin Ward, for their support throughout all of this. I’d also like to thank Fr. James Lawson for the early help he provided as well as Dr. Michael Yelton and those various other figures who have discussed the matter with me over the past year, often in words of encouragement. Hopefully the full paper will be ..read more

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1661-69 (Source) I would like to refer my readers to a phenomenal sermon delivered by Mother Brit Frazier of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, PA. Some of you may know Mother Brit from Twitter, others from Earth & Altar, a very good Anglican blog. You can find the video here, starting at 24:00 and continuing for about eleven minutes. I found her meditation on the theme of God as a home for all, as a welcome for the spiritually homeless, to be quite moving. For those who are curious, the poem from Chesterton that she discusses ..read more

A procession on Caldey Island. (Source) I’m not sure how I missed this astounding collection of photos of old Caldey, Prinknash, Pershore, Nashdom, and Farnborough when it came out last year, but I’m very glad to have discovered the trove yesterday. Some highlights include: 1. The barge fitted with heraldic devices that Peter Anson describes in Abbot Extraordinary, which was used specifically for the translation of St. Samson’s relics. 2. The silver sanctuary lamp in the shape of a galleon at full sail – once in Aelred Carlyle’s abbatial house (read: palace), now in the main oratory at Prink ..read more

Sweet dreams are made of this… (Source) I have, by the merciful grace of God, passed my M.Phil in Theology at Oxford. I could not have done so without the abundant help of my supervisors and tutors, principally Dr. Sarah Apetrei, as well as the many friends and family who supported me throughout the course of my studies there. Latterly this endeavor has caused me to neglect my blogging, for which I must beg pardon of my readers. Editing, submissions, an examination, travelling, and the arduous business of moving back across the Atlantic has distracted me. So has the bittersweet task of saying ..read more

Madonna delle Grazie, Naples (Source) Some of my readers will no doubt remember that very strange fellow I once wrote about, the Rev. Montague Summers. I have had to look at quite a lot of his orchidaceous writings recently for my research, including his poetry. Here is one such poem he wrote in Antinous and Other Poems (1907). It was written while he was still an Anglican, though it anticipates the lusciously Baroque spirituality that would mark his later writings. Madonna Delle Grazie Montague Summers In the fane of grey-robed Clare Let me bow my knee in prayer, Gazing at thy holy face Gen ..read more

“…of miters, rings, and snatches / of episcopacy!” (Source) Those of my readers who take an interest in such things will no doubt find a series of articles over at the Anglicanorum Coetibus Society about the (inevitably) strange case of a modern episcopus vagans. It’s got everything: multi-syllabic titles of nonexistent sees, complicated episcopal genealogies, a brush with the Old Catholics, incongruous vestments, a sex scandal, batty old women, Freemasons, just a whiff of diabolism, alleged “Patriarchal Cathedrals” in mortuary chapels, Gnosticism, a false knighthood, Dracula’s seaside town ..read more

The title illustration of Machen’s The Great God Pan and the Inmost Light (1896), famously rendered by Aubrey Beardsley (Source) Arthur Machen (1863-1947) was one of the greatest horror writers in the English language. His particular brand of esoteric paganism, the dangers of the occult, the sinister truth lurking behind folktales, and a highly-developed knack for evoking eldritch terror – all of these elements exerted a profound influence on the development of weird literature. Those who enjoy Lovecraft will recognize much in Machen that later made its way into Lovecraft’s own corpus. The d ..read more

An exemplary confessional from Toulouse, France. As with most things in life, the more Solomonic columns, the merrier. (Source) Controversy is hardly a rarity in the Church of England. Yet not every controversy among Anglicans has possible implications for Roman Catholics. The most recent kerfuffle does. On Tuesday, May 29th, the Rev. Canon Robin Ward SSC, Principal of St. Stephen’s House, Oxford, posted the following status on Facebook. Source: Facebook. Anglo-Catholics have an amusing tendency to apply the Roman Code of Canon Law to their own ecclesial life, if only to frustrate the mach ..read more