Greetings fellow Angel lovers!

Exciting news about the novel Realm of Angels by Judith Page and myself.  It is now available in hard copy – paperback to be precise:

 

Click to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’ in paperback

 

What, you want another excerpt??  Ok, then, here you go:

——-

I took a deep breath and leaving the mundane, entered a sanctum.

The room glowed softly in the lantern light. I placed my notes and the goblet on the altar and lit the candles, first the red then the black. I blinked dazedly. The candles were beautiful. I’d always associated the burning of candles and incense with Communion, but somehow this seemed different, evoking a far older tradition long before Christianity took hold in the Fertile Crescent.  The mood in the room had changed; it felt a space apart from the ordinary. It was unfamiliar and, dare I say, scary. The emotions running through my mind in that moment were the ones I didn’t want to dwell upon.

I nervously picked up the charcoal with tweezers and set fire to it with a lighted match, watching the flame lick around the edge. It caressed the darkness, the power building quickly as the flame suddenly spluttered and spat, releasing tiny salamander-sparks that traveled through the black tablet. It glowed first red then white hot as I dropped it on a bed of soft sand inside the terracotta dish. Adding a sprinkling of frankincense resin to the charcoal completely changed the ambiance in the room. In a few moments the entire space was shrouded in a haze from the smoke, giving it an ethereal or otherworldly vibe. I inhaled the aroma deeply.

Next, I raised the goblet of wine in salutation to the angels and placed it back on the altar. So far, so good, I thought. Taking a deep breath I sent a silent prayer to the heavens. A state of prayer was something I hadn’t visited for a long time but my very being demanded this sacrifice and I was not going to refuse my soul’s wish. It was done.

Picking up the ball of Rutilated Quartz and the notes, I stepped back from the altar, sat down on the chair, closed my eyes and began to inhale slowly and deeply. I waited. Nothing special was happening, just the pleasant aroma of incense drifted around the room. This was fine, a gentle introduction. It relaxed me.

After several more inhalations everything changed and the air not only filled my lungs but the whole of my body, starting from the soles of my feet and culminating at a point between my eyebrows. The sensation was exhilarating. I began to feel an intimate connection of both mind and breath. This flow of energy swirled within and without my body; it permeated every cell, filling each with an incredible power. It felt good. I opened my eyes and looked at the words I’d copied from the grimoire. A brief thought came and passed, that my father may actually have said this too.  With a new intake of breath, I uttered in a shaky voice:

‘I call upon thy sacred name
Of the being that has been with me.
Since the beginning of beginnings.’

I paused and cleared my throat; I was unused to hearing the sound of my own voice and felt very self-conscious:

‘As I gaze upwards,
May I behold thy beauty and thy splendour unto eternity,
Time without end.’

I continued breathing in and out, in and out – concentrating only on my breath and allowing the room’s mystical atmosphere to wash over me. I focused my eyes, unblinking, upon the image of Lucifer on the altar.

Suddenly it happened to me again, that strange but familiar feeling of assault as I encountered something angelic. The whole world grew dark and drained away, narrowing my sight down to tunnel vision. This time it was far more intense than before. I broke out in a cold sweat and began to shiver. I could just make out the distant sound of flapping wings and whispering voices – they seemed somehow impatient. Insistent!

A shock of vertigo hit me, so powerful I would have fallen if I’d not been sitting. I was no longer looking down a long tunnel, I was falling into it! I gasped and gripped the seat of the chair until my knuckles were white, working hard to stave off the rising panic. The ball of Rutilated Quartz lay forgotten in my lap. What was happening to me? Was I having a seizure? A brain aneurism? For the first time it dawned on me that this experiment wasn’t safe; it was deadly serious, and I may very well be putting my mind and/or my soul on the line. Terry had known what he was talking about after all…

And just like that, it was gone. As if the mere thought of Terry had calmed the storm, as if a lead blanket had suddenly been pulled away – the vertigo and panic lifted from my mind. The world, the altar, the incense smoke, even the chair I’d been sitting on had vanished, and I was standing alone in featureless darkness. Somehow I had fallen entirely out of the real world and journeyed to… where?

——-

Click to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’ in paperback

 

Greetings and Happy New Year!

Since you have all of that spare Christmas cash burning a hole in your pocket, how about treating yourself to an angelic adventure?  For just ten bucks (Kindle), you can’t beat the price!  😉

 

Click Image to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’!

 

 

Here is a new excerpt for you to enjoy:

——-

I was beat; I couldn’t believe how out of condition I’d become in a few days. Since meeting with Raphael, I felt my mental strength had returned, but my physical strength was zapped. I looked at myself in the hall mirror and was reminded that I’d lost weight. My eyes were different; it was someone else who looked back at me. Terry would be horrified to know that I had continued the angelic work without a break, but I was on a roll. I couldn’t stop. Only three archangels left; I rationalised, how bad could it get?

My stomach groaned; hunger was fast catching up. It was almost midday and when I wandered to the kitchen and opened the fridge, apart from beer, it was empty. I reckoned I had plenty of time before my next working, so I grabbed my bomber jacket and my dad’s grimoire and headed out of the apartment, making my way to Whiteleys. It was the place to go for the best sushi bar in town.

I entered the grand old building from the main entrance on Queensway, marveling at its marble floors and high glass dome. It was once a London landmark, a centre of commerce for the wealthy and the most luxurious shopping complex ever built. It was heartbreaking to see it on the decline, after years of devastating economic recessions.

The empty shops in the complex stood out like missing teeth in a pretty smile; some had been abandoned with signs and even merchandise left behind. All of them were dark and sealed behind ugly metal shutters. As I walked through the building I found myself casting furtive glances into the deserted spaces. There was something ominous about them, even oppressive; they made the entire pathway feel dark and abandoned. I quickened my pace.

More than once I’m sure I caught shapes moving in the shadows; tall thin menacing beings with white faces and pale eyes – watching me. They were in-between creatures, both serpent and human.

My throat felt constricted and my breathing laboured. Nausea gnawed at the edges of my stomach. When I heard the sound of flapping wings somewhere behind me, I broke into a run towards the escalator.

At last I made it to a more populated area of the building. The entire third floor was given over to restaurants, coffee shops and a multi-screen cinema. I glanced over my shoulder to see if any one was following me, everywhere was brightly lit and alive with activity and I immediately felt silly and cowardly. The sense of fear and oppression drained away like a bad dream upon waking. I chuckled, shook my head and was myself again.

——-

Click Image to Buy ‘Realm of Angels’!

 

Greetings angel lovers!

I have some exciting news for you – a new work of occult fiction has just been released, and my name is on the cover!  And since it’s an eBook, you still have all the time in the world to order it for Christmas.  Or just buy it for yourself and read it now!  😉  See below for more info, including an excerpt!

A few years ago, I did some consulting work and wrote a forward for a compact book of angel meditations called Angelic Magick: a Guide to Angelic Beings and How to Walk With Them by Judith Page.  It is not a Solomonic text, though it draws heavily on Solomonic material about the angels (including their seals, khameas, functions, planetary associations, the Angelical language, etc).  It’s a succinct introduction to the Seven Archangels, including simple methods of establishing contact with them via guided meditation-style pathworkings.

Then a couple of years ago, Judith contacted me with a new project.  She was creating a work of occult fiction wherein the main character essentially takes the same journey outlined in her Angelic Magick book.  She wanted me to check over her Angelical and Enochian material, add in some technical details (re angelology) and to bring in a bit of my personal viewpoint on the story.  I thought it was a wonderful marketing idea for her previous book, and it sounded like fun (I haven’t written fiction in years!), so I joined the project.

Realm of Angels by Judith Page and Aaron Leitch

As it turns out, this is NOT a story about someone who purchases Judith’s book and starts working through it.  Check out the synopsis:

“‘In London 25-year-old Alan King receives an unexpected birthday legacy from his late father, a professor of archaeology who disappeared in mysterious circumstances eight years before at a ziggurat in Iraq. The gift is a grimoire – a book of magic – written, unbelievably, in his father’s hand. Alan is a diligent student of advanced experimental physics with a brilliant scientific mind and finds it hard to come to terms with his father’s seeming interest in medieval methods of summoning archangels. More worrying still is that the name of Lucifer heads the list.’ With advice from his more esoterically-minded friend Terry, Alan decides to try to enter the realm of angels on an experimental basis, seeing a connection between angels and photons. However, all is not ‘light’ and things do not go exactly as planned, with the appearance of seductive unearthly women and dark feathered creatures invading his life, while he follows the prescribed rituals and soars to meet the all-powerful archangels one by one, eventually uncovering a shattering secret.’”

I want to stress that this story is essentially Judith’s.  It was her concept and her baby – I just came in to help her raise the little bugger.  🙂  I added in some dialog (especially for the story’s resident source of occult info Terry) and created some of the darker scenes in which Alan is harassed by the fallen Watchers.  I added bits and pieces throughout the book, and both the prologue and epilogue.  I also added in a tall, dark-suited, slender figure who seems to work for the fallen Watchers in the physical realm – you guys can make of him what you will.  😉

The story itself was entirely Judith’s: the grimoire Alan receives from his deceased father, his decision to work its rituals, his meeting Lucifer, his journey through the planetary heavens and his interaction with various spiritual beings (light and dark, on earth and in heaven), etc, etc – this was her vision of Alan’s journey and ultimate fate.

To finish this announcement, I thought you might enjoy reading the book’s prologue:

Aqar Quf, 230 miles south of Baghdad. 2003.

Professor George King stood outside his tent, looking over the excavation. The merciless sun had sunk over the horizon and dry desert winds were driving away the heat. Local workers, finished for the day, returned to their families, and only a few visiting students continued their labours beneath floodlights. Most of the artefacts had been exhumed over a century before but Professor King knew this place had not yet relinquished all its secrets…

In his hands he held a small journal bound in black cloth with corners of soft beige leather.  Creased and stained from much use, its front cover and several pages were missing and the professor absentmindedly traced his fingers along the ragged stubs.

His attention was directed elsewhere. Across the site, beyond the various tents and cordoned off work areas, a massive Babylonian ziggurat dominated the horizon. The Ziggurat of Aqar Quf – known to the ancients as Dur Kurigalzu – was a world-famous landmark, a place of pilgrimage for thousands of years, a focus for tourism and academic fascination. It had often been mistaken for the Tower of Babel – though that temple, long since destroyed, had stood in the city of Babylon itself.

By contrast the Aqar Quf ziggurat was largely intact, rising nearly two hundred feet into the sky. Though relatively small compared to today’s sky scrapers, this primordial temple retained an aura of grandeur. The entire structure was brightly lit with spotlights, a shining jewel on the desert horizon; a monument to the godlike power of a mighty king and the stairway to the heavens for a priesthood that communed with the gods. Baghdad was, and had always been, proud of its landmark.

Professor King took in the majesty before him. His eyes traced the tiered walls and network of stairways from its base to the large shrine at its summit. Involuntarily his heart skipped a beat. “If we’re correct,” he thought, “tonight will be the culmination of a lifetime’s work and dedication. The long search for the Truth may end there, at the top of those steps.”

He turned and entered his tent, where his wife at a makeshift desk poured over pages of obscure cuneiform symbols and tentative translations. She was a linguist who specialised in dead tongues, her efforts indispensable, the translations hers. She would be at his side when he ascended the stairway.

‘You’ve checked it four times, Patricia. I’m certain you’ve made no mistakes.’ He was impatient.

She didn’t look up. ‘That’s easy to say, but you know it’s not that simple. Primordial languages have few established definitions; much has to be taken from context. And if we’re correct about the milieu of these symbols, then absolutely everything is about to change.’

Professor King moved to the other side of the desk and placed his journal on the cluttered surface. His wife looked at the damaged book. ‘You’re certain Alan will know what to do with that information?’

He nodded. ‘God willing, he’ll have guidance.’

He found a clean piece of scrap paper and wrote a short instruction to his brother to hand the envelope to Alan at the proper time. He wished he could say more to his beloved twin, but he couldn’t risk any information falling into the wrong hands.

As the professor signed the note, his assistant entered the tent and softly cleared his throat.

‘Ah, just in time, Hakim.’ said King. He wrapped the book in a piece of cloth, placed it together with the note into a large envelope, and handed it to the young man. ‘You are to drive to Baghdad immediately, and see that this is posted back to the UK.’

The assistant looked confused. ‘Sir, I’m sure I can find a place closer…’

‘No Hakim, I want you to drive to Baghdad and stay at a hotel tonight. Not under any circumstances are you to come back here.’

The young man looked dubiously at the professor and his wife then glanced over his shoulder at the distant ziggurat. When he turned back, some of the colour had drained from his face. He took the envelope cautiously from the professor as if it contained volatile chemicals, then he turned on his heel and sped out of the tent. King trusted him; the envelope would make it out of the country before anyone knew to look for it.

The professor gazed at his wife. Even after these years in the pitiless desert, she was the picture of loveliness. He heaved a sigh, ‘I believe it is now or never, my dear.’

Patricia rose, gathered up her papers and gave a tight smile. ‘We could still be wrong about this.’

But they both knew better.

As the couple walked together across the site toward the ziggurat, many of the workers and students still present watched them curiously. It was unorthodox for anyone to approach the ziggurat at this time of the night.

They reached the foot of the monument and began to ascend; treading purposefully up the steps. Patricia looked at her papers and began to chant in a sing-song voice. Her words were indistinct but the sound could be heard throughout the encampment, and this drew even more curiosity. A few bystanders began to move toward the base of the ziggurat.

The professor and his wife never looked back. They continued up the stairway at a deliberate pace, the lovely English woman chanting mysteriously at every step. Soon they reached the summit and disappeared into the shrine.

The only sound now remaining was the steady hum of the wind and the murmur of those who had gathered at the base of the steps, gazing upward,  wondering what the professor and his wife were doing in the highly restricted area.

Suddenly, the sky was lit by a massive flash of light. For a moment it seemed the sun itself had dawned atop the ziggurat, turning night into day. It came without sound, but a mighty shockwave rippled outward from the structure, knocking the onlookers from their feet and tearing many of the surrounding tents from the ground. Those who had been watching the summit found themselves blinded – some for a few hours; a few for several days.

Everyone else rushed toward the ziggurat. Frightened theories circulated. Was it a terrorist attack; a U.S. air strike? Was it a nuclear bomb?

The authorities, both British and Iraqi, were notified. Those who had been blinded were taken to hospital, and those who remained took stock and considered clean-up strategies. A small group of brave souls decided to inspect the summit of the ziggurat before the authorities arrived and the area sealed.

Yet when they reached the temple top they found no damage whatsoever. The walls and their inscriptions were all intact. Even the dust and sand appeared entirely undisturbed.

Except for one place. In the centre of the room was a spot carefully swept clean. Here, freshly drawn with chalk, was a strange symbol. A large circle, more than wide enough for a person to stand in, contained inside it a large heptagon, and within that a seven-pointed star. In the very centre was another heptagon surrounding a pentagram – a five-pointed star. The entire symbol was filled with letters and words that spelt out nothing known from any human tongue.

There was nothing else. The professor and his wife were gone, leaving no other evidence they had ever been there.

Realm of Angels by Judith Page and Aaron Leitch