The Faceless God
(2nd Edition)
by Dr. Tomas Vincente
In this highly acclaimed work, Dr. Tomas Vincente establishes hitherto unexplored connections between the European lore of the Witches’ Sabbath and the archaic fertility cult of the ram-headed Banebdjedet, a totemistic representation of Osiris in his netherworld aspect – Osiris as the Black Sun. It is the daemon of the depths, the Faceless God, who serves as the bridge between these two esoteric currents. This dark psychopomp, who reveals the mysteries of the Black Sun, was fictionalised by H.P. Lovecraft as Nyarlathotep. The Egyptians knew him as Anubis, and in European witch lore he is described as the black man of the Sabbath, the initiator of the witch cult. Thus the book has a triple focus – Lovecraftian, Egyptian and Sabbatic. It is not a question of extracting a complete occult system from Lovecraft’s stories, or drawing exact correspondences between entities of his Mythos and gods and spirits of paganism; there is no system to be decoded. Instead there are traces, insinuations, echoes of a genuinely primal vision found in his nightmarish worlds.
Supporting his arguments with the strategic use of qabalistic methods, Dr. Vincente achieves a careful balance between esoteric hermeneutics and scholarly methodologies, so that the reader is always drawn back to the concrete realities of magical practice. A set of powerful rituals of initiation, sexual gnosis and sorcery will enable the discerning initiate to operate effectively within the sinister dimensions of this counter current.
Introduced by David Beth, this work is indispensable for any serious student of diabolism and the Sabbatic Gnosis.
Note on the Second Edition
This meticulously updated edition includes a completely new introduction by the author, alongside other valuable additions. It also features an exclusive new essay by David Beth titled “Children of the Abyss”.
____________________________________________________________
Table of Contents (abridged)
FOREWORD
by David Beth
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
The Lord of the Depths and the Sabbatic Gnosis
CHAPTER ONE
Opening the Eye of Nyarlathotep
CHAPTER TWO
Approaching the Throne of Azathoth
CHAPTER THREE
The Sabbatic Path in Qabalistic Perspective
CHAPTER FOUR
The Devil’s Eucharist
CHAPTER FIVE
Approaching the Throne of Osiris
EPILOGUE: CHILDREN OF THE ABYSS
by David Beth
APPENDIX
Qabalistic Correspondences
BIBLIOGRAPHY
____________________________________________________________
Cloth Hardcover Edition - Limited to 890 copies
160 pages. Printed and bound in Germany. Dusk-blue fine cloth binding, silver embossed cover, lettering on rounded spine. Printed on high quality 115gsm wood-free paper, Surbalin deep-black endpapers, headbands, ribbon bookmark.
____________________________________________________________
Press, reviews, endorsements
“Tomas Vincente has done something to be commended for in his volume The Faceless God. He has taken the myth of Lovecraft’s creations as the lingua franca for a framework of understanding that spans ancient Egyptian ritual, European witchcraft traditions and the Aeonic current of Kosmic Gnosis to tell a tale of shamanism, taboo, ecstasy and dark otherness… A stunning read for those who’ve an interest in the dark side of kabbalah, Lovecraftian magic, and the Kosmic Gnostic Aeonic current.”
The Skeptical Occultist - read the full review here
“This is something that Vincente writes of soberly as a bona fide (albeit pseudonymous) academic scholar of religion. Yet beneath the engaging and clear prose lurks something ecstatic. Something that seems to exist as a phenomenological experience, arising out of the fertile black soil of the dreaming mind… this is a specific exegesis of a particular understanding and awareness which the author’s scholarly background and training allows… it becomes quite clear that there is an underlying worldview, or ontology, within which Vincente is operating…
As The Faceless God gestures towards, there are presences that crawl chaotically through time and space – beyond the ordinary co-ordinates of space and time, and our regularly habituated geometries. That these presences may defy language, grasp, time, location, and yet still exist – and in that existing generate altered states with, and in us, which generate altered knowledges. And that they have done so for thousands of years.
This is the wordless cry, the noetic experience which renders us beyond sensibility. Only then, in hearing it beyond our ears, might we begin to consider the deep import of what The Faceless God seeds in the right reader.”
Craig ‘VI’ Slee for Paralibrum - read the full review here
Book Review by Foolish Fish - watch on YouTube here
____________________________________________________________
About the Author
Dr. Tomas Vincente is a scholar of ancient religion, magic and esotericism. He has been a practitioner and researcher of the occult Arte for more than two decades. In his ‘profane’ life, Dr. Vincente is a respected professor at a North American University and author of various academic works relating to esotericism. His past work explores the emergence of Christian monotheism and the resulting decline of the chthonic cults of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East. He is dedicated to recovering the integrity of this archaic spirituality of blood and fire, which has been demonised by the Abrahamic religions for two millennia.
