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Atramentous Press
Black covers with foil emboss
Head and Tail bands
BD 1 - Volume 1: Book of the Black Dragon: Et Nigrum Draconicon
Setting the stage for the Black Dragon began by discussing the context in which the Black Dragon is encountered. Using the same schema as the one used in the Dragon Book of Essex, the written word moves across ‘power’ points or crossroads, these being body parts of the Black Dragon. Directly referring to Draconis the book creates an inverted rendition, one where the onus is set by earth dragon mysteries rather than stellar. This in turn refers directly to the ancestral connection the books has with those who are forgotten. Consequently, a new retinue of daemons, conduits, and djinn introduce themselves to the reader as points of contact, by which we can evoke and invoke non-being: something which is completely Other to ourselves. Such is the strength of this emphasis that the first volume details points leading up to the head of the Black Dragon. Providing this level of clarity means the location of the work, the Proklosis Ring also requires further attention, and thus Codex Althaeban Malik came to be the second volume.
Explanation of the Black Dragon series
As many of you will be aware the Black Dragon series has grown in stature and design since its inception four years ago. In that time the seed from which it was borne has so far culminated on the sinistral horn of the Black Dragon. But how did this all begin? And how has the writing process grown to the point where the entire work has been extended beyond the initial projection of only being 3 volumes?
History
The Black Dragon along with its telluric emphasis came about in the early 1990s. Having been a long-term friend of Andrew Chumbley, with a mutual interest in matters of the occult, we had been following our own path. However, we had some common ground for what some might consider as the usual suspects, Crowley, Spare, Grant et.al. while at the same time we both had an interest in African diasporic spiritual beliefs, and with that there came a particular fascination with what would become known as the Ophidian Current.
It came about that one fine summer’s day when sitting by a stream close to Andrew’s grandmother’s house that I proposed the formation of the Dragon’s Column. This would be a small working group exploring in greater detail aspects encapsulated by Ophidian mysteries. And so it was that the Dragon’s Column was formed, and the rest, as they say is history, because most of you will own or know of the Dragon Book of Essex that Andrew wrote, which is a redacted and amended version of those raw more powerful early days in which we worked.
Over the years this intentional redaction continued to bother me. Further pressure was placed upon me to respond when others began to rewrite the history of the Dragon’s Column and Andrew’s involvement in it. Some may conclude the Black Dragon series is consequently borne from wanting to fulfil a vendetta, yet in reply I would say I am reanimating the sorcerous enterprise Andrew and I first conceived by that stream on that lazy summer’s day some 30 years ago.
As time passed, this idea to commence work on a reinvigorated Dragon’s Column, as originally conceived, came to fruition. And it did so by showing time presents a gestative period into which fascinations can be poured. Indeed, it is from this knowing that the Black Dragon books have conspired to build from the roots up a vision of sorcerous practice.
