Occidental Magic is written by four editors. Reference pages are drafted by one, reviewed by the other three and signed collectively. Essays in the journal are signed by their authors and express personal views.
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Helena Ashcombe
Managing editor
Helena oversees the site as a whole and writes chiefly on alchemy and on the inner side of the work. She came to the tradition through the alchemical emblem books, which she first met while training as a bookbinder, and has kept a daily practice and an unbroken diary for more than twenty years. She is responsible for the section on self transformation and for the course of study. Her view is that most of what matters in the art can be said in short words.
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Tobias Varnell
Texts and history editor
Tobias is a classicist by training and a reader of the Hermetica in Greek and Latin. He writes the historical pages, prepares the site's renderings of primary texts, including the Emerald Tablet, and checks every date and attribution before it is published. He is the group's resident skeptic about lineages and its most stubborn defender of reading sources before commentaries. He is responsible for the Hermeticism section and the reading list.
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Mirela Stokes-Avery
Practice editor
Mirela writes on ritual, meditation and the practicalities of daily work. She taught movement and voice for many years, and brings to ceremonial practice a teacher's interest in what the body is doing and a firm dislike of unnecessary equipment. Every exercise on the site has been worked through by her before it appears. She is responsible for the Magick section and for the guidance on safety.
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Corwin Hale
Reference editor
Corwin keeps the library: the glossary, the tables of correspondence and the guide to symbols. He also built the planetary hours calculator and the sigil maker. His background is in surveying and technical drawing, which shows in a fondness for tables and for getting the numbers right. He writes for the journal on evidence, record keeping and the question of how anyone knows whether anything has worked.
How we work together
No page is published until all four editors have read it. Disagreements about matters of fact are settled by going back to the sources. Disagreements about interpretation are usually resolved by saying less, and where they cannot be resolved the page says that views differ. Each page carries the date on which it was last reviewed, and the whole site is reread once a year.
We do not accept payment or gifts in return for mentioning any book, product, teacher or group, and none is recommended on these pages. Our principles are set out in full in the editorial standards.