The Eldritch World

by Nigel Pennick

For most of us, life is a largely monotonous affair--an endless round of school, work, and social and family commitments, punctuated by idle chatter. But beyond this drab and uninspiring reality, there is another world altogether, a world where the contours are sharper and the colors are brighter. This is the domain described by mystics and Surrealists, esoteric poets and psychedelic voyagers. For Nigel Pennick, who has spent much of his life mapping out this hidden terrain, there is a name for the Eldritch World. The way that we experience the eldritch is invariably tied to the circumstances of our birth, or to what philosophers might call our being-in-the-world. The eldritch has a history and its roots run deep in the land. In Nigel Pennick's case, it manifests through the myths, folklore, and customs of his native Britain. A gentleman scholar in the Victorian style, Pennick has made a career out of documenting these fast-disappearing traditions and of working toward their revival. He is a mummer and a magician, a Pagan, and a practitioner of the traditional arts and crafts. Yet unlike many of Pennick s other writings, The Eldritch World is not about runes, or geomancy, or the ancient customs of pre-Christian Europe. The Eldritch World is a meditation on what these things mean and why Pennick has devoted his life to them. It is also a against the soulless mediocrity of the modern world, and for a reinvigorated Spirit of Place. Presented in a fine clothbound edition, The Eldritch World is beautifully set in seventeenth-century type and illustrated throughout with eerie archival images and photographs depicting various folk traditions and beliefs.

Genres: Nonfiction

180 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2006

About the author

Nigel Campbell Pennick, born 1946 in Guildford, Surrey, England in the United Kingdom, an author publishing on occultism, magic, natural magic, divination, subterranea, rural folk customs, traditional performance and Celtic art as well as runosophy.
He is a writer on marine species as well as an occultist and geomancer, artist and illustrator, stained-glass designer and maker, musician and mummer. He also writes on European arts and crafts, buildings, landscape, customs, games and spiritual traditions. He has written several booklets on the history of urban transport in Cambridge and London . He is best known for his research on geomancy, labyrinths, sacred geometry, the spiritual arts and crafts, esoteric alphabets and Germanic runic studies.
He has written many books in German and has over 50 published books and hundreds of published papers on a wide range of subjects.