Nigel Pennick, The Ideal
Tower, Society of Esoteric Endeavour 2018,
numbered limited edition of 120 copies. (31.5cm x 16cm, 134pp Illustrated, 160
gm mould made paper with natural texture, decorated endpapers, dustwrapper).
The mystical tower is an archetype
expressing human aspiration to the Divine. This book describes that archetype
and some of its incarnations in actual towers of stone. Beyond this, the book -
in itself - makes manifest the archetype!
The
Dustwrapper
It is the nature of stone
towers to be unchanged as the skies around alter in a manner that is never
random, but beyond our control. This principle is expressed in the dustwrapper
where the tower is created by block printing against a background created by
"decalcomania", a technique used by surrealists such as Max
Ernst and Ithell Colquhoun to introduce automatism into their work. The
resulting patterns can have a strange appeal to the eye, perhaps because they
can exhibit a natural tendency towards fractialisation, whereby the same
branching pattern reproduces itself at different scales. As skies vary so the
variation produced by decalcomania has been embraced. There is no text to
distract the eye.
The paper used is,
befitting the subject matter, primarily made from stone! Marble to be specific.
This has been sandwiched between transparent
film and cartridge paper, but a panel can be touched and seen on the inside of
the part of the wrapper covering the front board. Such a substantial
dustwrapper is required to protect other books on the shelf from
.
The
Cover
The Ideal Tower becomes
incarnate, emerging in three dimensions from the front cover of the book. It
is, mostly, made from stone, being marble dust bound with a resin. It has been
given a light wash of ochre and other pigments to emphasise the relief. The
weathervane is made of bronze (dust bound with resin). The sky in the
background is now represented by one of a variety of traditional marbled paper
designs prepared by Kate Brett of Payhembury Papers. As the sky is beyond the control of the builder so the
selection of paper was placed beyond the control of the publisher, and Kate was
invited to supply a variety of traditional marbled designs that seemed somewhat
reminiscent of skies. It has a quarter lambskin leather binding.
The Text & Illustrations
.
CONTENTS
Preamble
BOOK I
A VERTICAL PILGRIMAGE
Introduction
LEVEL I
The Entrance
At the Base Level: Standing
Above the Foundation
The Mundus or Crypt
The First Stage
The Four Directions
LEVEL II
The Winding
Stair and the Second Stage
LEVEL III
The Eightfold
LEVEL IV
The Stage Of the Eight
Directions
LEVEL V
At the Level of the
Sixteenfold
LEVEL VI
The Stage of the
Thirty-Two-Fold
LEVEL VII
The Upper Stage
APPENDIX
Five Craftsmens Stories
BOOK II
THE PRACTITIONERS RESULT : VISIONARY STEEPLES IN THE
ETERNAL TRADITION
Towers of the Phoenix
Visionary Steeples of Wrens
Churches
Towers of the New Churches
after 1711
The
Epitome of Operative Sacred Geometry
The Steeples of James, Archer, Hawksmoor & Flitcroft
Towers of the Winds
Other and Later Steeples of
the Tradition
.
The
reader is led into the tower and up through its stages, the Vertical
Pilgrimage. At each level the
symbolism and sacred geometry is described and illustrated with a series of two
page diagrams, the format of the book
giving a one foot square double page spread. The relevant traditions of the esoteric nature of the compass directions
and the associated lore of the Winds are explored.
These
principles, which inspire European architecture, stretch back to the Classical
times and earlier, its roots include pre-Roman Etruscan religion. But they
express a relationship between humanity and the Cosmos which is universal.
Thus the
Ideal Tower functions as a shared mind-temple by which we can relate to the
Universe. It is a mind-temple made real, both by this book itself and in the
form of those actual historical towers that make manifest its principles.
The
latter are discussed in Book II which deals with a particular flowering of
sacred tower building prompted by the Great Fire of London. The numinous nature
of these churches has, by no means, gone unnoticed. They have inspired some of
the best known psycho-geographical speculation in the form of poetry and
fiction, notably Ian Sinclair's Lud's Heat and Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor.
It should be noted that both gentlemen are major figures in contemporary
British literature. Both discern occult mysteries relating to the London
churches built by Hawksmoor, Wren and their colleagues. The Ideal Tower
explains the esoteric principles that these architects used to create the
buildings that later generations were to find so compelling and so mysterious.
The occultism described in this book is a refreshing addition to the familiar
themes of the majority of esoteric books which, though interesting, tend to be
culturally marginal, and so do not give rise to so many buildings that can be
visited in Central London!
This
work is the fruition of decades of research, both scholarly and artistic, which
generated numerous images and diagrams. Needless to say the tower format of the
book is perfect for their presentation.
The
number of each copy is recorded on an individually printed bookplate tipped in
on one of the blank pages towards the end of the book which also bears the
endorsing stamp of the Honourable Guild of Locators.
Regret
all copies of this title have now sold.