Penumbrae: An Occult Fiction Anthology
Edited by Richard Gavin, Patricia Cram and Daniel A. Schulke.
THREE HANDS PRESS is proud to announce Penumbrae, a collection of thirteen works of Occult Fiction by some of that genre's great luminaries. The locus of this anthology lies in tales that embody a metaphysical position, as opposed to fiction that merely employs metaphysical trappings to enforce a materialist worldview. Occult fiction, by contrast, strives to evoke the energies that inform such symbols, and create a vital experience for the reader. Far beyond mere description, this is work that proves its value through its capacity to seduce, captivate, and incept states of magical consciousness. Like the practice of magic itself, the finest works of occult fiction will be distinguished by their power to evoke an embodied experience, and to tangibly compel shifts in consciousness while arousing the uncommon. It intoxicates the rite of reading as much as it permeates the spaces between readings.
Marriage between the objective and the imaginative often results in an enrichment of existence. All spiritual traditions stand upon a foundation of both worldly Act and transcendent Idea. Idea becomes Image, Image becomes Symbol, Symbol becomes Portal. Through the Act of passing through it, one is thereby transformed. It thus stands to reason that the annals of occultism are lush with fable, poetry, mythology, and tales. A delicate but highly potent quality of this work is the creation of a spirit-trap wherein the words and images themselves act as hosts to the experience itself. Under auspicious conditions, a reader may encounter a tale that hews so closely with their own interior universe that a Key is thereby given.
Penumbrae features tales from the following authors:
Kenneth Grant
Richard Gavin
Andrew D. Chumbley
Daniel A. Schulke
Sun Yung Shin
Hanns Heinz Ewers
Lee Morgan
Caitlín R. Kiernan
Don Webb
Patricia Cram
Michael Cisco
Dale Pendell
Brian Evenson
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Richard Gavin
Richard Gavin's work explores the realm where fear and the sacred converge. His eerie, cryptic stories have garnered high critical praise, been chosen for several volumes of Best New Horror and Year's Best Horror, and have been collected in five books, including Sylvan Dread: Tales of Pastoral Darkness and At Fear's Altar. In 2015 Richard co-edited (with Patricia Cram and Daniel A. Schulke) Penumbrae: An Occult Fiction Anthology. He has also published numerous works of esotericism and meditations on the macabre, such as The Benighted Path: Primeval Gnosis and the Monstrous Soul and The Moribund Portal: Spectral Resonance and the Numen of the Gallows. Richard dwells in the North.

