How to build & maintain a Magical Library
Having just completed the spring-cleaning of my magical library, I thought I’d share a few lessons I have learned over the last twenty odd years of collecting occult books. Maybe these simple lessons will be of value to you, fellow bibliophile. For we might be in this challenge together: To have the great opportunity and yet the acute limitation of building and maintaining a standard-size magical library.
Well, and here we already get to the first lesson: The question of what defines a standard-sized library, is not at all answered by e.g. running meters of shelves or pure number of books. Actually, the answer is much simpler than that: A standard-size magical library is the kind of library that doesn’t cause divorces. That’s it. In my case, and possibly in yours as well, such a library then either consists of one large wall or a small to mid-sized room full of bookshelves. No more than that! As I painfully needed to learn over the years, a standard-sized library does not mean erecting little satellite libraries in other rooms when running out of space. The kind of library we are talking about doesn’t function in a hub-and-spoke model; it only does hub. – It also does not mean boxing up books in the cellar or in a garage. It means we accept the challenge to continuously curate a selection of expertly chosen books within the given confines of our standard-sized library.
Initially, of course, many of us will accept such limitations only in order to safe our relationship, or bank account for that matter. Over many decades, however, we might come to the grudging conclusion that actually operating one’s library within defined confines is essential to ensuring it remains relevant and centred.
This leads us to another lesson, one which took me at least a full decade to accept: Libraries are like gardens. Just like plants, books need to be looked after and cared for. They thrive on being seen. Our eyes, roaming over their backs on the shelves, offers them nutrition. And yet, only when we hold them in our hands, consult them, read them, then we allow them to grow. Books grow upon seeding their ideas into our minds. They prosper from merging their words with the substance of our thinking. They turn flesh, when we choose to act upon them.
For just like plants, so also books host spirits. And it is these spirits that can get out of hand, when not looked after regularly. A wild garden is a wonderful thing! However, an essential difference between herbs and books is, that books don’t die when their natural habitat gets overly crowded. They simply pile up, and yet their spirits wither and fade. Thus, one of the main jobs of the bibliophile, just like in gardening, is to weed out books. Regularly, professionally, and uncompromisingly.
Now, here is the third lesson I have to offer, and it’s a good reason to enjoy having a standard-size library, or maybe even a small one.
When it comes to weeding out books, I allow my choices to be guided by two simple axis: The first axis runs from good books all the way to bad books, with many stages in-between. As you can see below, this axis is established by relatively (!) objective criteria. Normally, of course, I’d think there are no bad books in my library, because I gave them away right after discovering their plagiarised, dull hearts. But life isn’t as simple as that: Once you have collected books for a decade or more, you begin to realise that bad books crept in and stayed with you, simply because you didn’t know it better at the time. Your knowledge of the subject was too limited to spot their lack of authenticity, genuine perspective and insights, etc. You might have still learned excellent things from a second-hand source; but nothing compares with drinking the fresh waters of the original spring.
Personally for me, many books I once owned on the topic of practical ritual magic I found out to be bad books, only after they had spent fifteen years or more on my bookshelves. I guess, curating a library is a constant source of humbleness and learning.
Now, the second axis is quite different, in that it is unapologetically subjective: It defines whether a book holds relevance to your personal journey. That means, by reading it, by inhaling its spirit, do you discover practical value of its essence for your own everyday as well as magical life? Does it hold the potential to change your thinking, as well as your actions? When you open it, can you feel the brimming of its pages wanting to turn flesh through you?
If we overlay the two axis upon each other, we arrive at the simple circle diagram with eight categories, as shown above. This little circle has been a great decision-making companion to me to identify books to give away on a regular basis. Not only because space in my standard-sized library is so limited, but also because I want to be so conscious with which spirits I surround myself, I decided to give away all books that fall into categories V. to VIII.. Especially books in category VIII. can be incredibly hard to part from, as they make me feel so smart! Isn’t it great to win an inner debate with a dead author each time you open their books? I know… – But it’s still not good enough a reason to keep their books in a standard-sized library.
The final lesson I learned from collecting books is one that is especially relevant during our present time of a dangerous pandemic, one that comes with significant amounts of social and geographical isolation.
It is quite simple, and yet it will only work if your library is indeed very well curated. Here is how it works for me: When I stand in front of my bookshelves and look at the familiar and foreign spirits that survived my weeding and trimming – each time I stand there – I get a delightful sense of imminent danger!
Right now, in this very moment I look at books that are silently, patiently waiting for me: Jean Gebser’s collected works, the twelve volumes of the Pritzker Edition of the Zohar, the Legend of the Nā-Ro-Pa, Artaud and the Gnostic Drama, many other, highly relevant unread volumes, waiting for me to travel with them. Immediately I am slightly overwhelmed by the sense of horizon, of broad vistas, of unknown countries, and of adventures lying in wait.
Being in the presence of a magical library – and this is only true for when they are well curated, when above everything they hold books that threaten our sense of safety, comfort and knowing – is one of the most daring, humbling and yet joyful experiences a bibliophile will ever encounter. Other people in this pandemic seem to waste away in their four walls, and yet an occult bibliophile in the presence of a well curated library doesn’t even see walls: They see spirits, inviting them to drink from their poison, to disappear within their stories, and to return as a different version of themselves.
Here is to only keeping the books that dangerous enough to overthrow what we think we know.