About The Hermetic Library at Hermetic.com

The new æon

In late 2009, after the library had languished for a few years; a new librarian took over the site. “Hi! My name is John,” he says, “I'll be your librarian today.”

Around the same time as Al was online in the local BBS community in Seattle, WA; John was also online in some of the Citadel BBSs using the ’nym Helix Quark. Briefly, John was the sysop of a philosophy forum on one small system. Back in the day, John and Al met on a couple of occasions at social events and parties. During the 90’s, John was also at several large regional ISPs in the Seattle area as a Systems and Technical Manager. He then transitioned into software development, creating an open source Library Automation System, inspired by the open source Koha project, which is still in use by several libraries in Washington State. After another several years pursuing his academic career, he now does technical consulting and volunteering when not hard at work on The Hermetic Library.

Over a decade later, when Al was looking for someone to take over The Hermetic Library and Hermetic.com, the name John Griogair Bell came up in a couple conversations. Introductions were made, memories remembered and the library was transitioned to a new caretaker. The rest, so to speak, is history yet to be written.

A long-time armchair occultist, and not much of a joiner, John travelled his own path alone until he moved to Olympia, WA, where he was for several years an active and important member of the local Reclaiming-connected pagan group, responsible for the annual Samhain spiral dance. After finishing a graduate degree, John moved to Portland, OR and, among other things, became a member of Sekhet-Maat Lodge, Ordo Templi Orientis, where he is an active ritualist and initiate.

John is an academic who pursues his interdependent interests in dialogue, systems thinking, design, transformation and communications. He has a couple degrees from some colleges and universities, but has not yet managed to acquire as many letters after his name as his name is long. “There’s still time,” he says.

John has been online since before the beginning of the commercial Internet, and his first direct Internet connection was also a dial-up connection through the network of the University of Washington. He maintains a personal blog and website, Arlecchino Malbenvolio. You can also check out his professional consulting service, XARC DESIGN. You can also follow John on Twitter and Delicious.