Six Months In: A Brief History of The Occult Library’s Beginnings
A warm welcome back to our blog readers this week. We are once again grateful for your support over the past months, and we are looking forward to the second half of the year since our launch.
With this time frame in mind, June marks a halfway point for us at The Occult Library. June 1st marked the six month point from which work on The Occult Library formally began. This half-year point calls for a reflection, and we’d like to share some details and history concerning our earliest goals and work.
The Occult Library is a project that we believe has been called for in the occult community for some time. In our very first blog post entitled At The Inception, we expressed our solidified realization that:
“…that there exists a dearth of centralised resources related to occult literary and artistic materials. Chiefly, this includes published works, periodicals, art & ephemera. Yet, there also exists a dire need for such a space.”
As the old aphorism goes: if one wishes to see a task accomplished, better to do it oneself.
This line of action was seized upon and enacted by founder Daniel Yates.
Yates is a theologian, folkorist, musician and photographer with an active interest in sabbatic and elphamic witchcraft practices. He lives in the Lancashire valleys of North-West England with his wife and two children where his postgraduate research focuses on seasonal effects on religious practices in the region.
Having been enmeshed in the occult publishing milieu for a great number of years — and having authored his own published works through established publishing outlets — Yates took the task upon himself.
Yates’ history with this project dates to an earlier period in 2018, with the creation of a community spreadsheet detailing editions, publication status, and cost. However, this effort became far too time consuming, and the need for a navigable and ready platform was needed.
The notion of a comprehensive webpage dates back to the period just after 2018, and the energy and onus for realization slowly crystalized in the coming years.
Around 2019, Yates’ came into contact with Daniel Scopelliti, a librarian, musician, and writer based on the East Coast of the United States. Scopelliti’s focus at intersection of library studies, information stewardship, and occultism — particularly through a large digital curation project — struck a connecting point between the vision of The Occult Library, and the processes of library work.
After brief prior discussion in the years leading up to the inception, a turn towards serious action coalesced in late 2023. Intensified conversation regarding digital tools, cataloging schemas, digital identity, and values began in full.
Finally, on the cusp of December 2023, the project set forth and progress began.
A tentative launch date of January 1st, 2024 — later honored — was set as a deadline. Immediately a schema was devised, and a handful of publishers, authors, and books served as an initial marking point for growing the archive.
This month between December and July saw an intensive amount of work cataloging, developing a viable web interface, and devising a social infrastructure for promoting and building the project. Yates led this process, and served as its guiding hand.
Having carried out this work, the need for an aesthetic reflective of the site’s identity soon became evident. With this in mind Yates’ called upon the artistic expressions of Sylvia & Tristan Eden of Leodrune Press, a small occult press and mutual point of connection for both Yates & Scopelliti.
Sylvia & Tristan graciously agreed to begin a commission which would encompass not only icons and lettering of the site, but also the overall logo itself — replete with sigilized lettering:
As the icons were developed, more pages, resources, and community offerings began to develop on the page. The Occult Library is eminently grateful for the work that Sylvia & Tristan Eden carried out to keep up with these developments.
Having continued to develop a sizable and growing catalog of materials, authors, resources, periodicals, and more the site neared launch. With his launch in mind, this blog was established with Scopelliti serving as its chief writer & editor .
At The Inception coincided with the launch of the site on January 1st, 2024. A week later, The Whys and the Wherefores of the Occult Library widened a sense for our mission and aims.
Since then, this blog has been published weekly as a means of featuring materials & community figures, expanding on aims, goals, processes, and of forming a deeper identity for The Occult Library.
Towards the 4-month point, the deepening need for a cataloging team was recognized as the archive grew. A schema for listing and displaying information was required in order to unite the disparate listings across publishers and authors.
Using mutual contacts as a point of contact for fellow librarians enmeshed in this work, Yates and Scopelliti called upon Ben Pitcher, Taylor Akers, and Mell Martella for their volunteer assistance: the former being a UK-based zine hunter & collector of great acumen, and the latter two working professionally in university library settings in the United States & Canada, respectively.
Schemas and processes for identifying, processing, and listing information on the interface were set into motion, and the site now proudly boasts a sensible pattern for listing its information.
With all of this having been said and done, the response we have gleaned since our official launch on January 1st, 2024 is nothing short of wondrous.
One quality, fully in fruition, which we have always envisioned for The Occult Library is its unitive factor: highlighting and even building servicable and rich connections between disparate sections of the milieu. This may be owed in part to the comprehensively linked system we have devised, or the way in which our information is offered.
Yet, we believe a deeper cause is at play. At the end of the day, the mutual connecting point is the way in which the resources we display have always served as a tool for the community entire to practice, research, work, play, and to enhance the contents of a lived set of experiences.
Aggregating and displaying them offers a kind of ‘birds-eye-view’ through which the span of the community may be better comprehended, leading to new roots, connections, and community formation.
In summation, this project has greatly altered our sense for the community, as well as our duty to it as volunteers. For all on our staff, it has brought new friends and familiarity with the community, and offered us a chance to grow as practitioners, librarians, writers, and volunteers.
Still, this project is only worth its weight in use and utilization. So, most importantly, we thank the reader fo their explorations of the page. Our feedback has no doubt lent us a sense that the work we carry out is redeemed by its usefulness to the community.
For this, we are eminently grateful, and we are quite excited to see what the latter half of the year brings.
In many more months — or even years — time, we hope to look back at this resource and see how it has shifted our experience and lives. To have already done so in such a short period of 6 months is testament, we believe, to the veracity and authenticity of our aims.
Many pages are yet to be turned!
The Occult Library looks forward to offering an upcoming interview for our blog, and we thank you once again for your continued readership.
Very best wishes,
— The Occult Library Staff