Dark Liberation: An Esoteric Introduction

By Philip Matthews

Composed over a period of fifty plus years, the Dark Liberation cycle so far comprises twenty four novels. Much has changed in that time, so that it cannot be expected that readers of today would have an interest in novels written in the 1970s or 80s, preferring – as seems to be the case – to focus on the later novels, written over the last decade or so. For this reason that I am publishing this concise esoteric background to the cycle in order to alert potential readers to the role of the earlier novels in preparing the ground for the distinctive elements that motivate the later works.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Philip Matthews
• Release date: May 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005083311

Philip Matthews

Writer's life, hidden, frugal, self-absorbed, no TV or social media, a few good friends - but the inner life, ahhhhh. Recommend it to anyone.

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DARK LIBERATION:

AN ESOTERIC INTRODUCTION

PHILIP MATTHEWS

SMASHWORDS EDITION

ISBN: 9781005083311

© Philip Matthews 2022

This short account of a significant background to the Dark Liberation cycle of novels initially formed part of the Introduction to the DL cycle, available on this site. After completion of the fifth sub-cycle in 2017 – which I believed then was the final part of DL – I had wanted to write up an account of how the cycle came to be written, but feared it would become too long and no doubt indulgent. Even so, there came the morning about two years ago when – as usually happens – I sat down here and managed to say all that needed to be said in just 7,500 words.

I have since then been content to leave it as part of the overall Introduction, but I feel that I should explain why I am now publishing it separately. The entire cycle so far comprises twenty four novels, and they have been composed over a period of fifty plus years. Much has changed in that time, so that it cannot be expected that readers of today would have an interest in novels written in the 1970s or 80s, at least not without a specific reason arising from their own life-experience. Again, because the entire cycle could be made available to an wide audience only since the development of the indie market made possible by online publication, it is not surprising that such an audience should be mostly interested in the later novels.

It is for this reason that I am now publishing this esoteric introduction separately, hoping in this way to alert potential readers to the role of the earlier novels in preparing the ground for the distinctive elements that motivate the later works.

2 May 2022

AN ESOTERIC INTRODUCTION

Is there a real difference between artistic inspiration, spiritual insight, and ordinary daydreaming? I have no sense of such a difference, if only because I never tried to make a distinction. Childhood is a daydream, especially if it is an uneventful and secure one. Teenage hill-walking alone seemed an unremarked continuity of that daydream. No distinctive content that I can remember. Except perhaps this: became aware that I on occasions found myself thinking of death. Had