The Baron Citadel

As the governor of the Dead and the burial ground, the Baron Samedi is one of the most distinctive and potent loa of Haitian Vodou. An imposing figure in black raiment, he is most often pictured as a corpse. His other magical domains, less discussed in esoteric literature, include disruption, obscenity and —importantly for the practicing sorcerer—not only the arts of Magic but the very fabric of which it is made.

Emergent from the spiritual crossroads of traditional Vodou and English witchcraft is theBaron Citadel, a working grimoire exploring the nature of magical time, Self, Other, and the essential power-rudiments of sorcery itself. Simultaneously an emanation of the Baron as the Lord of all Crossroads and an embodied magical chronologue through which the sorcerer gains access to the powers and directions of the Path, the Citadel is both magical theory and an embodied sorcerous architecture.

In it are discussed the hidden powers of the retinue of the Dead, the esoteric doctrine of the dirt track and its relationship to the sorcerer, and the thirteen daimon-cohorts of the Baron or 'retinue' which constitute the Citadel’s indwelling genii, subroutines and operative forces. The whole is set in equipoise to the powers of Opposition and Unity embodied in that most magical of places, the Crossroads. The whole is densely illustrated throughout with the bewitching images of visional esoteric artist Carolyn Hamilton-Giles.

This Book of the Four Ways can be regarded as a preparatory rite before embarking upon any major magical work. By concentrating on the nature of summoning, the focal challenge for all practitioners is how to initiate dialogue with daimons from unseen worlds. The Baron Citadel represents the consummate reified version of the crossing-point for this to occur. As spirit and book, the Citadel presents the methodology for establishing a sorcerous discourse between the physical and metaphysical.  Unique in its endeavor the grimoire not only orientates the reader by inculcating a sorcerous pedagogic philosophy, but also makes available for the very first time the ritual procedures for keeping the Way open.