Bøger af John Sandbach

Azoth is an epic poem by John Sandbach. It tells the story of the alchemical creation of the most important homunculus ever to be born in the land of Aab. Her name is Azorma, and to make her first a proper laboratory must be created, a laboratory pure enough to support her essence. This laboratory is the Isle of Azoth, created by the famed Alchemist Israak of Aab. And so, one wonders, is Azoth itself also an homunculus? And has Israak conferred on it by the power of his own creativity the power for it to create on its own?Israak's undertaking is monumental and requires the help of two women, his assistant Magrena, a master in the wisdom of plant spirits, and the strange and beautiful Urimu, Princess of the Blue Isle. Behind all stands the mysterious and wry master known as Irnad, Magrena's teacher, and some say, the greatest seer of Aab.As in all truly creative acts there's an element of risk, and in this particular creation the risk is extreme, for Azorma is an embodiment of the laboratory in which she was made - the Isle of Azoth and the dark land hidden beneath it: Lybdis. Her fate is destined to resonate through the whole history of Aab, both past and future.Sandbach's poem is visionary and filled with a wealth of symbology. It represents a distillation of his many years as an astrologer, poet, and mystic, and is rich in episodic side stories concerning the nature of magic and the hidden laws from which the tapestry of our reality is woven. This major work consists of 133 cantos, 133 being 7 times 19, 7 signifying Sagittarius and 19 signifying Pisces, Sagittarius and Pisces being the two signs ruled by the planet Jupiter.

These haiku do not adhere to the rules of classical haiku. They are not all seventeen syllables long, and they don't all use a word to denote the season. They are in the style of many modern Japanese freeform haiku.So what rules do I follow when I write haiku? There are four: A haiku must be little on the outside (meaning short), A haiku must be big on the inside (meaning roomy), A haiku must be full of something (energy, matter, space or time will do, and), A haiku must be full of nothing (it can contain energy, matter, or time, but it always has to contain space, and preferably lots of it).In this way, haiku reflect our own being, for as science tells us, what we are is mostly empty space.You will find much empty space in this book. Feel free to use it to pencil in critical comments of the poems, draw or paint illustrations for them, invent rewritten versions of them, or make lists of things to do.A fellow writer has said the following of this book: "These poems are fascinating. I'm sure I would have loved them had they been written during my lifetime."- Edgar Alle

"Of course all oracles are numbered. But the numbers of these oracles, rather than being readily evident, have been hidden. The reader may guess them, or sense them, but should know that their numbers may be many, greater, in fact, than the numbers of oracles themselves."In this way numbers have proliferated, as they so often do, for in all numbers are seeds of other numbers, which may be known if one makes a garden for them, and feeds them the proper soils and weather." - John Sandbach

The 73 poems of John Sandbach's book "Surface Paint" are stylistically varied, though they all bear in common a sense of the wondrous and fantastic. In this book you will find both lyric and narrative poems, as well as portraits and insights into some of Sandbach's favorite authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Barbara Guest, and Gertrude Stein. You will find surrealism everywhere, and poems as well that have been inspired by the Language Poetry movement.These are mystical poems, and are full of mystery. Much of Sandbach's symbolism is derived from alchemical and kabbalistic lore, as well as the paintings of Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington.The book ends with two poetic novellas, "Smoke Paint" and "Surface Paint" which continue the themes found in Sandbach's three novels, "Azoth," "Zahira," and "A Painter."If you enjoy these poems you might also enjoy "Invisible Castle: The Collected Haiku of John Sandbach" as well as "The Oracles of the Circular Temple," a book of 815 prose poems.

The 720 poems in this volume have been gathered from John Sandbach's monumental text "The Circular Temple", a two volume study of the 360 degrees of the zodiac. "The Oracles of the Circular Temple" are divided into two sections: "The Omega Oracles" and "The Azoth Oracles", each containing 360 numbered poems. For those readers who wishes to further pursue the mysteries and subtleties of this text, there are many significant connections between any two poems who bear the same number in each set, such as Omega Oracle 124 and Azoth Oracle 124. To read the poems in pairs like this is a revealing means of meditating on them, and of perceiving their deeper meanings. The author hopes that the light of this text finds your own light, dear reader, and that the two lights bring to each other an even greater brightness.

I have never written a book that has come to me in such piecemeal fashion as this one, which has led me to believe that I am not the only one who wrote it, and that there were, throughout its making, other forces with particular agendas they wished to express, forces who were guiding me all along in its formation. And because of this, as well as for other reasons I feel that the completed work is actually a mystical tract, much as the prophetic books of William Blake or those texts of famous alchemists of the past, such as Raymond Lull and Albertus Magnus, though I hope I have imbued it with enough humor and delight to neutralize any tendency toward didacticism, which can so easily have a dulling effect on the reader.As you might know from having read my other works I am deeply interested in numerology. This book has 92 chapters, and it came to me upon completing it that 92 is 4 times 23, and that the first 23 chapters (1 - 23) correspond to the element earth, or substantiation, the next 23 (24 - 46) correspond to water, which is the realm of intuition and emotion, the next 23 chapters (47 - 69) correspond to air, or the realm of connectivity and communication, and the last 23 chapters (70 - 92) correspond to fire, or the spiritual/creative realm. Also, in each of these four sections it is the middle chapter of each thatis the key to the section, these four middle chapters being 12, 35, 58, and 81.For those of you who have no interest in numerology or analysis of the patterns of texts there is always the direct enjoyment of what goes on in the story, and I hope I've provided in this biography an ample amount of it.An idea that occurred to me again and again while writing this was to expand the text to a gargantuan extent, making the finished book maybe 800 pages in length. I have always been enamored of big texts, and I think it is for the same reason that I like big houses and the feeling of space and possibility theyseem to contain. But I lack the patience for such voluminous writing, and also I think the readers who like such texts are in the minority. And so the finished novel you are about to read is relatively brief, but, I feel, carries the aura of a much vaster work due to the cosmic nature of the ideas contained therein.

In Given Enough Dust, John Sandbach's sixth and largest collection of haiku, he continues to follow the five pieces of advice which Jean Dubuffet gave to artists: (1) Get drunk on art. (2) Don't follow trends. (3) Be unconventional. (4) Believe in Magic. (5) Don't think you're the one in control. Number one means: If you can't get high on your own drugs, then you can't expect others to get high on them either, so maybe you should try a different line of work. Number two means: If you're following the trends of others then you aren't following your own, so it's not art. Three means: You don't have to try to be unconventional, all you have to do is be yourself rather than trying to impersonate someone else. Number four means: Anything truly living will allow magic to seep in, so use no caulking on your work, and make your holes inviting. Number five means: Never forget that robotics might be a type of art, but art is never a type of robotics. These experimental haiku are accompanied by 24 of Sandbach's experimental paintings. We hope you enjoy both the literary and visual experiences of this book as you explore the lights and shadows of it.

Zahira...An illusion escapes from a museum. An alchemist finds an egg in a dream. An ancient poetess is summoned as midwife. This is how it began, the birth of the woman known as Zahira. What was she, and where had she come from? They were all connected, the illusion, the egg, the sanctum known as Nightforest with the gigantic maze on its floor, and the three mysterious people hidden in the forest.These and many more were the strands that came together to weave the tapestry of Zahira's story, a tapestry made of light which hides a secret map leading to the Isle of Azoth and that dark, seductive realm which lies beneath it - Lybdis.Come join us reader, come share the splendor of the world called Aab. We await you.

The Flight is a book of poetry by John Sandbach.

Integrating numerology, astrology, Kabbalah, and the contemplative life