The Dragon-Book of Essex
Andrew D. Chumbley with contributions from Gavin Semple, Helen Oliver and Peter Hamilton-Giles
This substantial work expounds the sorcerous ethos and praxes of the Crooked Path ritual system. Its contents include a cycle of ten extensive Mystery-rites, each accompanied by adjunctive solitary rituals and detailed commentaries. Additional texts relate the intricacies of Sabbatic ritualization, as well as an extensive body of stellar lore and ritual. The Sorcerous Formulae of Number and Sign are also communicated, together with detailed exegeses of the Quadriga, the specific covine-type of the Crooked Path. A detailed section on the Magical Weapons of the Draconian Sorcerer complements the text. This work is intended as an entire resumé of the ancestral and ophidian components of Crooked Path Sorcery and Sabbatic Gnosis. The Dragon Book of Essex originally comprised a portion of the rites and practices of an inner conclave of the Cultus Sabbati known as The Column of the Crooked Path.
Following the Azoëtia, The Dragon Book of Essex represents the second work of Chumbley’s three-book magical opus the Trimagisterion. From this period of work, Chumbley formulated ‘Crooked Path Sorcery’ as a trans-historical magical model, operant in a number of systems of sorcery, most notably in the witchcraft of his native Essex. The Crooked Path may be seen to mirror the zoötype of the Serpent, wending between such magical antipodes as blessing and cursing, honour and treachery, Tabu and its breaking. Its quintessential nature is transgressive, and through this apostasy, the illuminant fire of the Serpent descends.
Central to the Draconian ritual cycle is the enfleshment of the primordial Serpent of Eld both within the body of the practitioner as the First Sorcerer Azha-Cain, and within the earth of the World-Field as the Dragon Azhdeha. This dual-natured work is realised through rites of bodily sacrifice unto the Serpent, and subsequently through a year-long cycle of practices. These rites, being solar, lunar, and stellar in nature, transfix the celestial attributes of the Dragon’s Body within the telluric ritual arena and the sensorium of the practitioner.
A privately distributed photocopy edition of ten copies, each having three volumes, was made in 1997 for use by those undertaking the Column’s work.. Subsequently, other sections of the book were diffused through the Cultus’ outer sodality, ‘The Companie of the Serpent Cross’ for private study and solitary work. This first public release of the Dragon-Book incorporates refinements to the text made by the author in 1998, 2000, 2001, and 2003, as well as corrections and marginalia from his own personal working copy and never-before-seen illustrations.
Quarto format, 832 pp., single volume. Containing numerous illustrations and sigillae by the author throughout, the book is available to Xoanon subscribers in two editions:
Standard Edition
Limited to 808 hand-numbered copies, full bookcloth over heavy boards, with gilt blocking on cover and spine.
Original Price £111
Deluxe Edition
Limited to 196 hand-numbered copies, full gilt-blocked goatskin, special endpapers, silk ribbon bookmarker, with slipcase.
Original Price £268
Initiate Edition
Full red sprinkled goat, with gilt blocked slipcase bearing the seal of the Column of the Crooked Path.
Photograph of Dragon-book of Essex: Deluxe Edition © Thompson Rare Books.
