Hermetica: The Wheel of Twelve

The book

Hermetica is a rare and long out of print hand-aged book of esoteric wisdom by Dark Artifice.

Beneath its surface as a reader's reference is a tool of unusual power: the book can give card-less tarot readings, deliver yes and no answers, acquire and reveal a sitter's star sign, and divine the concern most pressing on their mind. None of the work shows. The performer leafs, the sitter speaks, and the book tells them things it has no business knowing.

Hermetica has been long out of print. Laudanum House has secured but one, and we have bundled it with an artefact that gives the book a second voice.

The zodiac watch

A Swiss pendant fob watch on a long silver-tone curb-link chain, c. 1970. Round bicolour case, white dial, gilt baton markers, numerals at 12, 3, 6 and 9. The bezel is engraved with the twelve signs of the zodiac, one per hour position, running clockwise from the 12. At conversational distance the engraving reads as decorative scrollwork; only when the sitter is invited to look does the zodiac resolve.

The watch is anonymous Swiss export work, almost certainly cased up in the Jura around a bought-in pin-lever ébauche and sold without a maker's mark. The chain is long enough to wear as a necklace, or to be lifted from the table and held as a pendulum.

In performance

The performer sets Hermetica on the table and lays the stopped watch beside it. The book is closed. They look like what they are: an old book of esoteric wisdom and an old pendant on a chain.

Early in the sitting the performer hands Hermetica to the sitter and the book does its work. By the time it closes, the performer knows the sitter's star sign. The sitter believes they have simply been getting a feel for the book.

Hermetica is set aside. The reading proceeds on its own terms, with cards, palmistry, conversation, or whatever else the reader brings. The watch sits stopped on the table throughout. The sitter has no reason to look at it. The bezel reads as decoration.

At the close of the reading the watch comes back into focus. The performer lifts the watch from the table by its chain and hold it above Hermetica's closed cover. The pendulum settles, swings, and points. The sign it picks is the sitter's.

includes

• Hermetica (Bobby Hasbun, Dark Artifice), with its original method instructions
• Vintage Swiss zodiac pendant fob watch on a long silver-tone chain, c. 1970