Month: March 2014

ihavenohonor:

Around Cruseilles Haute-Savoie, American Mary Schillito has built in the early 1900 Château des Avenières. The latter was on vacation in Geneva, when, during a trip near the Sàleve (mountain foothills), she discovered the field of Avenières. Charmed by the incredible panorama overlooking the Alps, Mont Blanc and Lake Annecy, Mary Schillito quickly decided to build his home there.

His father, tycoon American railroads and died shortly before, had left him a huge fortune. Mary buys 84 acres of Avenières in 1907 and began construction of the castle. During construction, she carefully research all the elements that go to make up its interior in a gothic style and medieval. In 1913, the construction is completed. Thirty five constituent parts castle then host lavish parties.

It was during one of these receptions two destinies intersect, Mary Schillito U.S. and Assan Farid Dina Indo-Mauritian English. Born of an Indian father and a French mother, he shall receive an excellent education, he is an engineer like his father and passion for travel. In 1914, they married.

Assan Dina complete the construction of the Castle with a power plant and capture a source. Facilities it is enjoy the closest. Town
engineer brilliant, passionate but also esoterism, he built an adjoining chapel, whose interior walls are covered with mosaics. Mosaics Assan home metaphysical and symbolic form of the 22 major arcana of the Tarot de Marseille message. These blades are closer to that of Oswald Wirth. * Iconography
Assan Dina has established a special arrangement of the mosaics in the chapel so that they connect and are a way of life that it is possible to borrow.

Each blade has the main characteristics of classic Tarot, but has a background with a symbolical much richer. The characters are dressed in ancient clothes (Egypt, Persia). There is also the bottom blade cartridges. Each cartridge consists of a number of arcane left, a Hebrew letter on the right, and the center of figures representing different planets and chemical symbols. Assan Dina completed and signed in 1917 mosaics.

Château des Avenières is a private place, where is the good Parisian society debate on philosophical and esoteric subjects. Assan Dina hid a message in the chapel without symbolic to benefit the world. He died in 1928 near the Suez Canal. Mary remarried two years later. Ruined and divorced, she eventually sells the Château des Avenières in 1936.

The castle will then see succeed different tenants. In 1939, a congregation of Polish nuns settled there and cover the mosaics of the chapel. During the war, the castle welcomes the wounded and it is transformed into boarding school from 1948 to 1970. After experiencing many homeowners, the Château des Avenières was finally converted into a hotel and restaurant, and is still used today as well.

* Oswald Wirth (1860-1943) created with a tarot Guaita Stanislas “The Tarot Wirth” and published a book in which is explained and commented on his Tarot: Tarot of the image-makers of the Middle Ages , the work became a classic.

http://www.guide-tarot.fr/breves/le-tarot-du-chateau-des-avenieres/962

ihavenohonor:

Avenières Tarot, the High Priestess

As St. Peter’s High Priestess holds in his left hand two crossed keys, gold and silver. A black moon lies on the floor at his feet.

The detail views show the fineness of the mosaic in its realization. A site visit turns must for lovers of symbolism, whether or alchemical related to tarot cards Marseille.

It is a wonder to see such a mosaic.

This technique preserves the freshness indefinitely colors, like the first day. The only concern is the accidental arrival of moisture on the back of the taisselle, small glazed square which is the basic element of the mosaic. It then comes to tarnish metal oxides.

ihavenohonor:

Tarot Avenières — the Bateleur

First Tarot card, The Bateleur is the image of each of us, by our actions responding to various situations. The necklace shows the pentagram, five-pointed star. She is the sign of man in creation, the artist of the theater world, soul journeying in his incarnation.

On the table where the juggler in question are posed four elements of the world, earth, water, air and fire, represented by money, cut, stick and sword. The Bateleur is a juggler, as indicated how the stick is held ready to be launched into the air. By his art juggler puts elements symphony, knowing how to play the gravity and its obstacles.

The “eight” represents, say, infinity. In fact the radiant golden sign below in the shape. It recalls the wide-brimmed hat shaped eight that covers the head of the Bateleur in the Tarot Oswald Wirth. The golden color evokes the sun and eight include the footprint it leaves as it passes overhead, cumulated over all days of the year.

The necklace is made of beads Millefiori workshops mosaic and glass from Murano, Venice. We shall find the neck of the other characters in these blades tarot.

Metallic money is represented by this beautiful seal of Solomon to white water triangle and triangle red light. The red dot indicates their central fixation.

At the foot of Bateleur pushes Rose. Between his feet flows the source that leaves a hollow rock behind him. He established his altar astride the passage thereof. His handling of the cup, the sword, the stick and seal of Solomon denier or they come from the source, enabling the growth of the Rose?

What is this curious red diamond dark blue border? Some blades have in their lower middle symbol is not enclosed amid golden mosaic, like this. For alchemists, the diamond may indicate in their graphical notation, cinnabar, red-brown sulfide of mercury, the same color as the diamond or stibnite, antimony sulfide, dark gray.

All these figures, component XXII tarot cards, perhaps a message or a grid of clean Dina, designer of this game tarot reading is revisited. The solution of the éngime, understanding this set is now lost.

Below, by reference, the blade of the Marseille tarot redesigned and painted by Oswald Wirth (1860-1943) in 1889 for his master Stanislas de Guaita (1861-1897).

Reviews are coming in for Chasing the Wyrm:

“It would be an oversimplification to say that this is a Bond novel with magic. Wilber’s protagonist—Christopher Yan—is new to the game of international intrigue, whereas Bond is a master-spy at the height of his game. And Topher’s newbie mistakes (including creating an historically epic traffic jam and getting an associate killed) are part of what makes this story so entertaining as he starts to navigate the world of international sorcerers.

This book has many of the things people look for in spy novels—exotic locales, ranging from Afghan hill country to metropolitan Sao Paolo to South American jungles to Basque Spain; international political intrigue; a little romance; a couple of really rotten villains; and a lot of gunplay. But it’s set in a shadow-world of special people who are adept at magic, whose magical gifts make them into targets for government recruitment. In Chasing the Wyrm, ‘Topher (as he’s called within the story) uncovers a mad magician’s plot to release a wyrm (a type of dragon) on the unsuspecting modern world.

The book maintains a brisk pace as it introduces us to a character and a world that are fun and exciting.”

— Jo Lynn Wells via Amazon

"Chasing the Wyrm is a spy novel in the vein of Ian Fleming’s James Bond or maybe Craig Thomas’s Winterhawk. It’s got the girls, the guns, and the goons, but not necessarily in the flavors you’d expect. The hero is an inexperienced geek of a guy at the beginning of his world-saving career, so he doesn’t get all the steps right in his high-stakes dance with the bad guy. The bad guy is a a nutcase with moves; he loves fast cars, ostentatious pistols, and a showboating approach to stamping out his enemies. The closet heroes of this book are the many soldiers of the US military, who are portrayed as heavy-duty professionals. Not the cardboard one-dimensional army guys of a Clancy book, though. These guys are ice against terrorists and insurrectionists, but understandably out of their element when confronted with werejaguars. Yes, you read that right. You remember that season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Buffy must deal with the Initiative? It’s kind of like that, but with better technical advisors. And, of course, there’s the Bondian super-villain planning to raise a dragon the size of a 747 in order to reclaim his homeland. Hint: he really hasn’t thought that one all the way through. James Wilber gives us a rollicking good yarn in this wizard-spies meet wizard-freedom fighters meet wizard-assassins thriller. You wonder where your taxes go? Why the government spends hundreds of dollars on a hammer? Billions of dollars on airplanes they never finish? These guys, the OAA, are the answer.”

— Stephan Loy via Amazon

“James L. Wilber is just about to release his new book, Chasing the Wyrm, and as a beta I can tell you that book is everything you could dream for in a paranormal action suspense. His protagonist Christopher Yan is everything Harry Dresden should have been (unless Dresden was Thraxas, which in my opinion he should be), but better. Aw man, I loved Chasing the Wyrm. I’d love to see a Hollywood agent approach Wilber for a movie based on it. I don’t know if the agent would leave such a meeting intact…”

— Anneque Malchien via annequemalchien.com

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Chasing the Wyrm: Christopher Yan – Office of Arcane Affairs

To protect its interests, the U.S. government projects its power militarily, economically, and magically. It leaves the last to the Office of Arcane Affairs. 

Christopher Yan didn’t ask for the job. A wizard born with the power to warp reality, the OAA calls on him to neutralize all arcane threats. Part spy, part fixer, part assassin, Topher searches for a way to make his unique gift serve both his country and his principles. When he makes an enemy of a rogue wizard serving a dying insurgency, he learns the limits his conscience can bear. 

Buy it on Amazon

Buy it on Smashwords

The future of the world no longer disturbs me; I do not try still to calculate, with anguish, how long or how short a time the Roman peace will endure; I leave that to the Gods.

Not that I have acquired more confidence in their justice, which is not our justice, or more faith in human wisdom; the contrary is true. Life is atrocious, we know.

But precisely because I expect little of the human condition, man’s periods of felicity, his partial progress, his efforts to begin over again and to continue, all seem to me like so many prodigies which nearly compensate for monstrous mass of ills and defeats, of indifference and error.

Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time. Peace will again establish itself between two periods and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them.

Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and pediments will rise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuators, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality.

Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Youcenar. (via in-a-thin-voice)

scrollofthoth:

Here’s what book blogger Anneque Malchien says about Chasing the Wyrm:

“James L. Wilber is just about to release his new book, Chasing the Wyrm, and as a beta I can tell you that book is everything you could dream for in a paranormal action suspense. His protagonist Christopher Yan is everything Harry Dresden should have been (unless Dresden was Thraxas, which in my opinion he should be), but better. Aw man, I loved Chasing the Wyrm. I’d love to see a Hollywood agent approach Wilber for a movie based on it. I don’t know if the agent would leave such a meeting intact…”

If you like paranormal/contemporary/urban fantasy, take a look at Chasing the Wyrm

_______________________________________________________

Chasing the Wyrm: Christopher Yan – Office of Arcane Affairs

To protect its interests, the U.S. government projects its power militarily, economically, and magically. It leaves the last to the Office of Arcane Affairs. 

Christopher Yan didn’t ask for the job. A wizard born with the power to warp reality, the OAA calls on him to neutralize all arcane threats. Part spy, part fixer, part assassin, Topher searches for a way to make his unique gift serve both his country and his principles. When he makes an enemy of a rogue wizard serving a dying insurgency, he learns the limits his conscience can bear. 

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Wyrm-Christopher-Office-Affairs-ebook/dp/B00J0LNGSS

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/419508