"...the magician of (Giordano Bruno’s) De vinculis is the prototype of the impersonal systems of mass media, indirect censorship, global manipulation, and the brain trusts that exercise their occult control over the Western masses."
- Ioan Couliano, Eros & Magic in the Renaissance
For those uninitiated into the magical roots of heroism, Disinfo Books (now a division of Red Wheel/Weiser/Conari) recent publication of The Forbidden Book provides an interesting thought experiment dealing with the political and psycho-social intricacies of the heroic ideal and traditional philosophy of magic. Originally published in a Spanish language edition by Roca Editorial in 2007 as El Libro Prohibido, Guido Mina di Sospiro and Joscelyn Godwin’s novel is an important meditation on the potential political implications of esoteric practice.
In The Forbidden Book we are introduced to the Riviera della Motta family, an aristocratic family whose line has dwindled to three heirs, an uncle, Baron Emanuele Riviera della Motta, and his two nieces, Orsina Riviera della Motta and Angela Riviera della Motta. They are the last vestiges, in the imaginal world of the novel, of a lineage of Hermetic alchemists begun by Cesare Della Riviera, whose work entitled "Il Mondo magico de gli heroi" (The Magical World of the Heroes), was popularized, in our reality, by the 20th century Italian Magus Julius Evola.
