Wyrd Tales, Issue No. 1
The Haunting
Authors have haunted and inspired us from the very first stories of Odysseus and Beowulf. Writers of every age, background, culture, and in every color of the rainbow have left their spirits roaming the world in gossamer words that find us when we open the tomes and summon their stories. Authors are the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, warning us against forging the chains of mundanity and dragging them behind us all our lives.
Sometimes these writers take the cautionary journeys, the dark roads leading to trouble. Sometimes they willingly put down their spiritual calling to take up a higher cause, such as raising a family or supporting the dreams of others. Sometimes not sharing your dire warnings of the future or lessons from the past is the great sacrifice they must make, at least for a while.
I always wished, like many of you, that I had continued writing in my 20s and 30s. If you are there and writing, I support you 150%! In my case, other demons distracted me. Neurodivergence existed in the 70s and 80s. We didn't call it that. We didn't know what to call it and we really didn't know what to do about it. Luckily, today is much more open about being different and still being okay.
So here I am now. Ready to take my place in the haunted halls of words and ideas again. The good news is, coming back to writing after a time away allows me to pour half a lifetime of experience into stories that I didn't have when I was 25. That down-on-his luck noir detective, that veteran adventurer, that three-time divorcee with a bad habit of chasing women or that reluctant hero … well, I may have lived a few of those (I'm not saying which!) and, if you're not opposed, I can tell you an interesting story or two.
Maybe when I was 25, I wouldn't have asked or cared about an older writer, but maybe you're smarter than me. Maybe you can appreciate the old ghosts, someone who was there when it happened, someone who saw what you would want to have seen, someone to lend you their memories of a time gone by.
So, I'm here as your spirit-in-residence. Not only unique stories and foreign ideas, but also with whispers that seem to have something to say, something that might be a little different. Something that, I hope, will haunt you in all the best ways.
Case File: The Lucid Lurker
Did you know you can actually get a master's in Magic and Occult Science at the University of Exeter? In the UK? I didn't.
Researching the Lucid Lurker hasn't been a rabbit hole, it's been a warren of rabbit holes. I'm going to share what I've found, and if something grabs you and refuses to let go, let me know, because the holes go deep, my friends, and I know the ways of the warrens.
Take the Exeter degree. So fascinating when you talk about paranormal researchers, people who blend what we've always called fantasy into real life, and find that some of it is real. Those veils are thin.
And when I tell you about all the real-life things that I have touched on this, of course I'm amplifying them to some degree. At least I hope I have because some of this stuff is downright scary. Like the Kabbalistic hierarchy of demons researched in the Kabbalah. And by the way, how did they know who they were? How did they know their names? I could tell you at a later point. But it'd have to be one-on-one.
Then there's the research on what's called the third man phenomenon. Have you heard of it? Have you ever felt like someone's watching you? Under stress, have you ever felt some sort of spiritual oversight? That feeling is documented and real and can actually be replicated, in part, using technology, there's a research facility in Switzerland doing exactly that.
These are some of the things I'm going to be talking about in this newsletter and all of them are going into the Hawthorne files. And that Exeter master's? I flat-out want one! My protagonist, Dr. Alex Hawthorne, has one and he uses it in his encounters with the paranormal, supernatural, cryptids, demons, ghosts, what have you. As you'll find out soon. I cannot wait to share all of this with you!
Let me know what interests you in these fields, and I'll share what my research has shown me.
The Caitharsic Chronicles
The first time I picked up a Dungeons & Dragons book, and yes, it was first edition, something literally magical happened. A feeling coursed through my bones that I'd never felt before. The imaginative juggernaut this game has always been left me with something I can only describe as spiritual ascendance.
When I took the Advanced D&D Dungeon Master's Guide and the Player's Handbook home, I had no one to play with. So I read them cover to cover. Multiple times. Just... read them. I'd never experienced anything like it.
Those of you newer to this world than I am, you've probably had the same experience with other game systems. But let me tell you: when this came out, this was it. I was hooked. Fascinated. And I have been ever since.
Now, what does that have to do with the Caitharsic Chronicles?
Every character in this West Marches-style episodic novel originated, at least in part, from characters I've actually played. Now, this isn't a D&D campaign on paper, that's not the point. But these characters are real in a way that just writing them could never achieve. I hope you've had that experience with your own characters. I know a lot of you have. That deep love for characters you've played, that emotion you feel? I feel it too. And I hope to share it with you through these characters.
These characters are all mine. They've played in other campaigns, or at least, their origins did. But this new life they've been given, in this episodic epic fantasy where the protagonist isn't the protagonist, there are multiple protagonists, and the focus will shift as the series goes on...
I think this is going to be a new way to see fantasy literature. That epic sense of: we don't just follow Rand al'Thor to the end, no matter how amazingly cool Rand is. In the Wheel of Time there's Rand and Mat and Perrin and Nynaeve and Egwene and all of them. This series follows all the stories of characters in a cadre like that, but we go deep with each one. Deep in their connections. Deep in the adventures between them.
This project is going to be massive, and I am so excited to bring it to you. I hope it's something like you've never experienced before, the way those first D&D books hit me as a kid. I hope this, or something in your life, brings you that sense of effervescent joy they brought me. Still bring me, today.
Lore and Esoterica
Every newsletter I will share some of the interesting research that goes into my stories. Hopefully, you'll find this good fodder for your own imagination! This time, the research takes a turn downward into the world of demons for The Lucid Lurker, a Hawthorne Case File.
1. Metaphysical Historical Setting for Demons: Sitra Achra and the Qliphoth
Kabbalistic demonology situates its subject within the Sitra Achra, or the "Other Side." It is a domain of impurity set in opposition to the holy. Central to this cosmology are the Qliphoth, or literally the "shells" or "husks." These are the impure counterparts of the ten sefirot (or angels). Where the sefirot transmit divine effluence into creation, the Qliphoth occlude and appropriate it. Lurianic Kabbalah supplies an etiology at the inception of creation. In this origin, the vessels intended to contain divine light shattered under its intensity and the fallen shards became the Qliphoth, each imprisoning a spark of holiness it cannot relinquish. The demonic shell, in this schema, is a necessary act of containment and concealment.
2. The Ruling Powers: Samael and Lilith
The hosts of the Sitra Achra stand under the dominion of two archdemons, Samael and Lilith, presented as partners in ruling the demonic forces. Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob ha-Kohen joined them in his thirteenth-century Treatise on the Left Emanation, and the two became canonical in subsequent literature.
Samael, whose name is conventionally defined as "poison of God" or "blindness of God," appears in the commentary of Nahmanides (on Leviticus 16:8 and 17:7) as the patron under whom the shedim (demons) fall, described as "the soul of the planet Mars." The Castilian kabbalists assign him sovereignty over the demonic orders.
Lilith, "Queen of the Night," figures in Zoharic narrative as one of the disembodied spirits generated at twilight on the eve of the first Sabbath, thereafter, seeking corporeality through congress with humankind, first with Adam in his separation from Eve, then with his descendants.
3. Grades, Orders, and Supervisors
The Zohar and the Castilian school (Isaac ha-Kohen, Moses of Burgos, Moses de Leon) articulate a graduated structure of demonic powers corresponding to the ten sefirot (angels) of the "left-side" emanation. Their writings detail the manner of these powers' emanations and, importantly, the names of the superiors set over their hosts. The source documents diverge considerably in the nomenclature of the upper grades, though they agree in subordinating the terrestrial hosts to Samael and Lilith.
Enumerated structures recur across the literature: twelve qlippothic orders of demons; three powers standing before Satan; twenty-two demons corresponding to the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet; seven divisions of Hell (Sheol, Abaddon, Be'er Shachat, Bor Shaon, Dumah, Neshiyyah, Eretz Tachtit, in varying nomenclature).
Among the named powers of rank: Asmodeus (Ashmedai), the demon king of Talmudic narrative whom Solomon enslaved to build the Temple (Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 68a); Agrat bat Mahlat; and Naamah.
4. A Historiographical Caution
The systematized "Tree of Death," in which ten named Qliphoth (Thaumiel, Ghogiel, Satariel, Agshekeloh, Golohab, Tagiriron, Gharab Tzerek, Samael, Gamaliel, Lilith) mirror the ten sefirot in tabular correspondence, derives principally from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley's Liber 777, and Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn. The Zoharic and Castilian sources attest degrees and supervision but furnish nothing of this representation. Any presentation of the hierarchy should distinguish the medieval sources from nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultist redactions.
5. The Epistemology of Demonic Names
The question of by what means the names of these powers entered the tradition, begins with a documented answer in the wrongly attributed Testament of Solomon (first to third century CE). The work is organized as a series of interrogations: Solomon, armed with a seal-ring conveyed to him by the archangel Michael, binds each demon in turn and compels them to tell him its name, its dwelling, its stellar correspondence, its origin, its malefic operations, the angel empowered against it, and the divine name by which it may be banished.
The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia summarizes the procedure: to each demon Solomon "addresses a series of questions," and "the demon is compelled to give his name and abode... to describe his malefic functions, to say what angel has power over him, and, in some cases, to tell the word (usually a divine name) by which he may be driven away." The catalogue thus generated, Ornias, Beelzebub, Onoskelis, Asmodeus, the seven star-sisters, Obizuth, and numerous others, entered the magical literature of subsequent centuries. Within the tradition's own logic, then, demonic names were obtained by compulsion, elicited one by one under seal of the archangel Michael.
Until Next Time
Every newsletter I'll share a bit of writing or esoterica that reaches out. This week, a short excerpt about a harper thinking back about the one that got away. Or maybe he got away. Anyway, someone got away from someone. Just read it.
Candor swaggered down the stairs, the simple music taking his thoughts back to a tavern from a lifetime ago.
Candor was nineteen but looked three years younger, his elven blood keeping him behind his years. He sat on a stool in The Old Brown Owl. In memory, it seemed a shabby tavern with an equally ragged stage, barely raised at all. Yet, Katie Donahue's light, quick feet dancing upon it made it all more glamorous.
Candor sat transfixed as she held her stout wool skirt for a tantalizing peek at her quick feet and stockinged calves. The dulcimer and lute duo at The Owl hammered a dandy tune while everyone tapped time as Katie danced. He would never have a first love again, he thought, and he was deep down the well for Katie.
Scattered applause and tapping cups followed her curtsies, then she hopped down from the stage. The patrons turned to each other as the music wound up again, returning to their stories and arguments.
Molly Dugham snapped a stern bar towel at Katie and said, "Dancing brings em in, but it also stops them drinking. There's a tray of mugs for the yonder table. Be quick bout it, Katie."
Candor leaned against the balcony wall as he thought back on those curls that bounced atop her head and the growing bosom that kept time in her straining bodice.
After serving drinks, Katie came around to whisper in young Candor's ear. "Candor Ross, I swear on Flarigann's gnarled staff, how am I supposed to make up coin when everyone here knows you'll chop his hand off if he smacks my bottom?"
Candor looked at her with a wounded smile. "Every man but Mick, you mean?" Mick was a sore between them and he knew it would go nowhere good to slap her with it, but he was young, in love, and jealous over the things he hoped were his.
Katie's smile turned stiff and she said nothing. From across the room, came a holler for her. Candor turned to say something, but she mussed his hair and walked away.
Candor sat in the Golden Lion, a fresh mug set before him automatically by the serving girl. He took a long drag, knowing this memory could do naught but finish. It would only abate if allowed to continue.
Candor jumped off his stool and followed her. "Katie, I'm sorry. But when are we," he looked around and whispered in her ear, "going to get married, yeah?"
Katie looked levelly at him, her lips going tight, and walked toward the bar for a tray of pints.
Candor continued, unrelenting. "Old Mick will never stop wooing you if he thinks there's a chance you'll reconsider his dowry."
As if conjured by his argument, Mick McGuire came in, shutting the door between him and the windy cold outside. He was a burly man, beard and mustache full in, and he had 10 years on Candor in weight and strength. Mick shook off his lamb's wool coat, scanned the room and smiled broadly when he saw Katie. His gaze fell to Candor, and Mick turned away, asking for a place at the common and calling for ale.
Candor looked away as well, and his gaze fell on Katie, who did not look away from Mick as quickly as Candor would have liked.
"There isn't any chance, is there, Katie?" Candor asked.
Katie turned on him, a burst of fury. "Candor, how can you even say that?" She shoved past him and fled into the kitchen, wiping her eyes.
Boisterous cheers and a rhythm of chants dragged him back to the present.
Henri was talking and looked at him directly. "...the Golden Lion's rare daytime appearance of Roisin the Bow!" Henri said daytime with a knowing drawl, causing a few chuckles among the sparse crowd.
Fleeing his own thoughts as much as avoiding the heat of the afternoon persuaded him to play into Henri's hands. Taking a deep breath, Candor stood and raised his hands to shush the crowd chanting his name.
"Alright, alright, you rascals. I thought Henri and Elan had things well in hand. I'm sure the reason they called me up wasn't to get a drink or two themselves." Candor looked back with a conspiratorial smile and a wink.
Good-natured chuckles chattered around the tavern room. He pulled his fiddle and bow from its custom crafted case and jumped up on the stage, triggering another round of applause, however meager the crowd was. A few people were coming in, peeking first, to see what the fuss was, then seeing Candor decided to stay.
"If the best lute and dulcimer in the city need to wet their throats, then I guess you're stuck with me for a lark." Candor said, and slid his bow across the strings, creating a harmonic slice in the hubbub, silencing the crowd and drawing all eyes to him.
Come all ye, gather round now,
I'll sing love's true refrain,
Of a young lad's dream to wed a lass
that breaks his heart in twain.
My song will tell ye how it is
Sweet words can turn to howls.
To this young lad, that lesson came
Here in the Sweet Brown Owl.
Said lad to lass, "My love, my life,
could you and I agree,
To join our hands in wedlock,
then married we will be?
We'll join upstairs in other ways,
when we have taken vows.
I'll do my best to please you, wife
here in the Sweet Brown Owl.
Now this young, fickle maiden,
she knew not what to say.
Her eyes did shine like gold, 'tis true,
For any who could pay.
Said lass to lad, "My love for you,
is true, but for an hour.
I spend my nights with men who pay
Here in the Sweet Brown Owl.
I spend my nights with men who pay
Here in the Sweet Brown Owl.
Candor finished with a flourish of his bow and the room erupted with cheers and calls for more.
"Now, gentlemen and maidens, if you're curious to learn how the lad gained his revenge on the fickle maid, reappear tonight after sundown and I'll tell you the tale." Candor looked over at the bar, seeing the two musicians looking anxious to regain the stage and the coin that came with it. Candor waved them over. "I see that Henri and Elan have slaked their thirst and can keep you most heartily entertained. Remember! Sundown!"
They wanted more. They would be back. Candor jumped down, scooped a few coins thrown onto the stage and swaggered toward the front door receiving back pats and hearty handshakes as he left. He had more pressing business than earning coin, he thought looking down and jingling the change, no matter that more was gold than silver already.
JW Nelson
Wyrd Tales arrives every Thursday. If a story stayed with you, pass it to one friend who reads in the dark.
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