Monthly Archives: December 2015

Staccato House- latest novel published

Staccato House Lulu

I am very pleased to announce the publication of my latest novel, Staccato House. It is available to buy at Amazon as a paperback here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Staccato-House-Steven-Mace/dp/152276416X
and also in Kindle format here: http://www.amazon.com/Staccato-House-Steven-Mace-ebook/dp/B019E88514

I started writing Staccato House a long time ago- as far back as 2004. The basic premise initially was about a central male character who was taken to a stately mansion and where various entertainments and staged theatre were being acted out for his benefit- while secretly he was being manipulated and could not trust a single person he met there. Just as those he encountered were ‘puppets’, so was he. The antagonist was the sinister ‘puppet master’ who was behind it all.

As the story and plot evolved over the years, I added ‘thriller’ genre elements rather than surreal ‘fantasy’ elements- for example the link to organised crime with a loan shark; I also introduced references to popular conspiracy theories and the occult, so it became an allusive piece of ‘weird fiction’.

I completed a novella version of Staccato House in 2011 which was short-listed for Contact Publishing’s Page Turner prize for thriller fiction, before I adapted it into a novel. I suppose there are three main influences on this book: The novel The Magus by John Fowles; the film Eyes Wide Shut directed by Stanley Kubrick; and the website Vigilant Citizen with its periodic updates and explanations of popular conspiracy theories and secret cults. It’s unlike Fowles’ novel or Kubrick’s film but nevertheless these shaped what Staccato House became. While being my own original work (the essential plot and the novella version was written in 2011 even before I discovered the Vigilant Citizen website, for example)- it would be impossible to deny these influences and inspiration, primarily in terms of these themes: secret societies and hidden cults, a narrator or central character manipulated by unknown mysterious forces.

On a surface level, Staccato House is about a freelance journalist who stumbles across a mystery, and when he investigates further, his life spirals out of control. The reader can enjoy the story and take it at face value as an occult thriller and mystery/psychological novel, and an entertainment.

It’s important at this stage to state that Staccato House is a work of fiction, based entirely on the imagination of the author, but that the ‘logic’ or ‘structure’ that is behind the workings of the plot, derives from numerous urban myths, conspiracy theories, and arcane occult knowledge that can be found in libraries or on the Internet. That’s not to say they are universal truths- esoteric lore and arcane knowledge does not tend to be studied in schools or taken too seriously by most people, and such ideas or beliefs have of course not gone unchallenged. Staccato House is a novel that includes some of those concepts as plot elements. If you’re interested in reading further for a richer understanding of my novel, then let me introduce some of them. Should this pique your interest, then here is a list should you wish to delve deeper- although it is not exhaustive by any means-but please do not assume the author subscribes to any of them, or is himself part of any such ‘secret organisation’! I found these ideas and theories intriguing and simply used them to enrich the details of my fictional novel:

First, the very famous example of the ‘Illuminati conspiracy’:
https://www.toplst.com/top-15-facts-about-the-illuminati-conspiracy/ and
http://www.gotquestions.org/illuminati-conspiracy.html

The Illuminati and the ‘Mothers of Darkness’; also the so-called ‘Mothers of Darkness’ castle, the Chateau des Amerois in Belgium:
http://illuminati-bloodlines.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/chateaux-des-amerois-mothers-of.html I borrowed the name ‘Amerois’ and slightly altered it for the name of a character in my novel.

The Monarch and MK-Ultra conspiracy theories:

http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Monarch_Mind_Control and http://conspiracy.wikia.com/wiki/Project_MKULTRA

The Kabbalah (discussed in my previous post):

https://stevenmace.wordpress.com/2015/12/04/the-kabbalah/

These will give you the main background, but here are more obscure references and allusions in Staccato House and links for starting points for reading further should you wish:

Staccato= http://www.thefreedictionary.com/staccato

The Eleusian Mysteries= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries

The Green Dragon Society of Japan=

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/vida_alien/warheaven_warearth12a.htm

Adrenochrome (drug)= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenochrome

Baphomet/ Goat’s Head of Mendes= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baphomet

Enochian Magic= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enochian_magic

The phrase ‘Ordo ad Chao/Order out of chaos’, the slogan of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry= http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/atlantean_conspiracy/atlantean_conspiracy49.htm

The phrase ‘As above, so below’=

http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/below_above.html

Cultural hegemony= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_hegemony

Socionics= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socionics

The Sacred Book of Liber Primus/ the ‘Cicada’ internet conspiracy/hoax=
http://cicada3301.org/liber/

Also a reference to the usage of the word ‘cicada’=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicada_(mythology)

The ‘Nephalim’ or ‘Nephilim’, various spellings=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephilim

Antonin Artaud and ‘The Theatre of Cruelty’=

http://www.britannica.com/art/Theatre-of-Cruelty

The central character in my novel is a ‘Gemini’=

http://gnosticteachings.org/books-by-samael-aun-weor/esoteric-treatise-of-hermetic-astrology/1425-gemini.html

“Weaving Spiders Come Not Here”, a quote from Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ and motto of the Bohemian Grove=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian_Grove

The Denver International Airport conspiracy theories and mysteries=

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Denver_Airport_conspiracy_theories

http://mentalfloss.com/article/61740/5-weird-conspiracy-theories-surrounding-denver-international-airport

“Energy never dies”- a scientific principle as well as spiritualist=

http://blavatskytheosophy.com/death-and-the-afterlife/

The Double-headed eagle in Freemasonry=

http://pierre.mollier.perso.sfr.fr/articles/PM-12-Double-Headed-Eagle.pdf

O.T.O, or Ordo Templi Orientis and link to Aleister Crowley=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordo_Templi_Orientis

The Georgia Guidestones=

http://vigilantcitizen.com/sinistersites/sinister-sites-the-georgia-guidestones/

The Alchemical process of transformation=

http://www.sufismus.ch/assets/files/omega_dream/alchemy_e.pdf

Khabarovsk war crimes trials=

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khabarovsk_War_Crime_Trials

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

http://www.unit731.org/

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/#.VnFbTUqLSM8

A few additional links as starting points about Nazi Germany, the Thule and Vril Societies and Nazi research into the occult=

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_thule05.htm

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_brotherhoodss12.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vril

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism_and_occultism

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele

Urban myth: a message from the future

You can find sources of inspiration for fiction anywhere. Sometimes even, amongst the trolls and supercilious commentators, on internet forums. I saw this interesting discussion about a so-called ‘message from the future’ while I was browsing online, researching conspiracy theories and I noted it down. It falls into the category of urban myth, or a televisual hoax that fooled people. I don’t necessarily doubt the veracity of the person who is relating what he saw, it’s just that most likely it was a advertising gimmick, a promotion for an upcoming television series or film. Nevertheless, it makes an intriguing story and perhaps the starting point for the premise of a separate work of fiction:

I remember this, at least I remember an incident such as this. This is what I recall.

It was on Channel 4 and it was an advert break. In the middle of one of the advertisements the television made a bizarre noise with interference, not like simulated interference but I recall the television itself making a low pitched buzz.

There was a woman in black standing on a platform with the camera panning in and out, and side to side. It was similar to when they have remote control cameras attached on ropes to four sides of a football stadium roof, that physically focuses in to where the action is.

I recall the last words she said was something like “We will leave you to your future”, the television made the same strange buzz/interference and the broadcast resumed in the middle of an Audi advert.

I can understand the flippant replies as it sounds a far fetched tale but it had quite a profound effect at the time. I too had Googled for other people who had seen this or similar incidents and this is the first time I have found anything.

Regarding dates, I can’t be precise but I saw this in a house that I lived in between 1986 and 1992.

Here is the original link for this post that intrigued me, and the forum thread: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/message-from-the-future.34713/

The Kabbalah

As part of the background research for my new book Staccato House, I undertook a great deal of research into the occult, and into conspiracy theories which related to occult knowledge and traditions. I was very interested in weaving these themes into my story (a work of fiction, of course). There is a great deal of esoteric and arcane knowledge which is available out there, but is rarely ever formally studied- this made it intriguing as a sideline hobby to explore while I was working on the plot elements of Staccato House and in the process of writing my novel.
Central to much of Western occult theory is the Kabbalah. The Kabbalah, or Cabala is synonymous with Hermeticism or Hermetic occult magic. Our word in English, ‘cabal‘ which means a secret organised group of people, derives from this name. The Cabala was Jewish-Babylonian ‘magic’, according to occultists. It began to get widespread notice in Europe after the Enlightenment period. The Great Pyramid according to the occult is a symbol of the Cabalistic Tree of Life- the branches of the tree form the four streams or lines to the base of the pyramid. Here are some pictorial representations of the ‘Kabbalah’:
Albero_della_Vita_di_Davide_Tonatogolden key tunedkabbalahtreelifekabbtree
Here are various definitions and explanations of the ‘Kabbalah’ according to online sources:
The Jewish-mystic explanation of the Kabbalah: http://www.jewfaq.org/kabbalah.htm
This is the introduction to the Kabbalah as explained by the official Kabbalah Centre, a form of New Age-spiritual enlightenment: https://www.kabbalah.com/what-kabbalah
The Christian-occult versions of the Kabbalah explained in detail here: http://gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm
Occult description of the Kabbalah and its meaning/use: http://www.occultopedia.com/k/kabbalah.htm
Here is the dark conspiracy-theorist explanation of the importance of the Kabbalah to various popular conspiracy theories allegedly involving the Freemasons and Illuminati: http://www.texemarrs.com/012006/occult_magic_of_jewish_cabala.htm