Before finding renown as a writer of ghost stories, Algernon Blackwood had a varied career, farming in Canada, operating a hotel, mining in the Alaskan goldfields, and working as a newspaper reporter in New York City before moving to England. His story The Willows is considered one of the finest supernatural tales ever written. Julius LeVallon is a mystical reincarnation novel.

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Explores occultism in the writings of four authors who were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Talking to the Gods explores the linkages between the imaginative literature and the occult beliefs and practices of four writers who were members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. William Butler Yeats, Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood, and Dion Fortune were all members of the occult organization for various periods from 1890 to 1930. Yeats, of course, is both a canonical and well-loved poet. Machen is revered as a master of the weird tale. Blackwood’s work dealing with the supernatural was popular during the first half of the twentieth century and has been influential in the development of the fantasy genre. Fortune’s books are acknowledged as harbingers of trends in second-wave feminist spirituality. Susan Johnston Graf examines practices, beliefs, and ideas engendered within the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and demonstrates how these are manifest in each author’s work, including Yeats’s major theoretical work, A Vision.

JULIUS LEVALLON When John Mason first meets Julius LeVallon at school, he feels an immediate connection. They had known each other before—not in this lifetime, but many lifetimes before. LeVallon introduces his young friend to a much larger world, the world of feeling-with, of communing with the Forces of Nature, even directing them. As Mason is pulled into LeVallon's peculiar world, he discovers that not only had they known each other before, but they had to correct a mistake they had made with another in the days of pre-history, when they had loosed an elemental on the world. The forbidden experiment needs to be recreated to set things right. After college, Mason loses track of LeVallon. But destiny must be fulfilled, and many years later Mason is contacted by his old friend with portentous news—he has found the other! It is time to set things right.THE BRIGHT MESSENGEREdward Fillery and Paul Devonham have a new patient at their Spiritual Clinique, a young man raised in the Juru mountains by an eccentric mentor. He seems to be suffering from a split personality. One part of him manifests as a simple country lad by the name of Julian LeVallon, but there is another force within him that Dr. Fillery quickly names "N.H." and seeks to develop. Dr. Devonham, on the other hand, is convinced that "N.H." is the unhealthy side, that LeVallon is the true personality and must be encouraged to become the dominant one. But the young man is more than he seems, for he is not entirely human. And when "N.H." does take control, no one is prepared for the results. Everyone is changed—by the bright messenger.

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