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Hermetic Series
 1970-1975

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Evening Descending (The Alkahest)
acrylic on canvas, 3' x 4', 1970
(Private collection, Vancouver)


 
The Talisman
acrylic on canvas  54" ea. side  1970
  (Collection of the FundaCion-Museo Eugenio Granell, Santiago de Compostela, Spain)



The Adept
oil on canvas  39.5`` x 50.5``  1971
 (Collection of the FundaCion-Museo Eugenio Granell, Santiago de Compostela, Spain)



The Lodge Before Dark
 oil and acrylic on canvas  4' x 5', 1971
Alborada del Gracioso
  oil on canvas  46.25`` x 39``  1971 



Diagnosis
oil and acrylic on canvas 45" x 61.5", 1972



Lodge Painting
oil/acrylic on canvas  4.5' x 6'  1971




Backroom Breakthrough
oil on canvas   4' x 4.5', 1972



Zeus l'après midi
oil on canvas   3' x 4'  1972




Evening Ritual
oil on canvas, 30" x 36", 1973



The Pathos and Enigma of Goethe's Childhood
oil on canvas, 31.5" x 36", 1971




The Father C.R.C. Memorial
acrylic on panel, 20" x 16", 1975
  (Collection of the FundaCion-Museo Eugenio Granell, Santiago de Compostela, Spain)




Temple of the Virgins
acrylic on panel, 16" x 20", 1975




Arcanum
acrylic on panel, 16" x 20", 1975




Primary  Ascent
acrylic on panel, 16" x 20", 1975




Hermetic Talisman
acrylic on panel, 16" x 20", 1975




Sun Sign
acrylic on panel, 16" x 20", 1975




The Secret Door
enamel on tin, 36" x 28", 1970





Nights in the Gardens of Spain
enamel on tin, 36" x 28", 1970


Phostose
oil on canvas, 3.5' x 4'  1971




Alchemyville
gouache, 12" x 9", 1971



Fire Escape
gouache, 12" x 9", 1971




Nucleur Altar
gouache, 12" x 9", 1971




As Above So Below
gouache, 12" x 9", 1971


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The Hermetic Series 1970-75

During the period of 1970-1971 I became deeply involved studying the arcane writings of Manley P. Hall, Aleister Crowley, A.E. Waite, and Lewis Spence. Together with the late poet/collagist, david uu and Quebec artist Gilles  Foisy, we formed the Divine Order of the Lodge, where theatre, alchemical studies and  art making all came together in the spirit of the Symolists and the Salon de la Rose + Croix in Paris in the late 19th century. 

 The group also formed a ritual theatre group, the Isle of Avalon Society (1972-1976) and produced Logisticks (1972-1976). Splendor Solis (1970), an art supplement edited by Gregg Simpson, included  writing and visual art by Al Neil , david uu, Gilles Foisy, Glenn Lewis, Gerry Gilbert, Gathie Falk, Michael de Courcy, Gary Lee Nova, Jack Wise, Ed Varney and others. 

This period reinforced my committment to the European surrealist tradition, which in Breton's Second Manifesto called for the Paris-based Surrealist Group to become more like a secret society.  

In 1999 I made contact with Sarane Alexandrian, the Parisian writer and historian who was an integral part of the group's activities in the immediate post-war period. He included the Father C.R.C. Memorial painting (above) in the fall, 1999 edition of Supériore Inconnu, a journal which Alexandrian started with André Breton in 1947 (the year I was born). The journal is dedicated to the traditions of surrealism and the occult, focusing simultaneously on the arcane and the erotic.  


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