 This year, Cygnus is going to be celebrating its 15th birthday, so we thought you might like to know the story of how Cygnus started:
Geoff and I had always believed that humankind would soon be standing on the brink of some huge transformation – the kind of evolutionary leap described nowadays by Chris Thomas and many other authors. Since we were teenagers, we had felt we would have some part to play in sharing information about this transformation with large numbers of people. A metamorphosis as radical as this does not come without upheaval, loss, and a great deal of letting go, and, we felt, people – ourselves included – would need new knowledge and understanding if they were to pass through these changes with the minimum possible suffering and in the shortest possible time.
So, although we did not know what form the task would take, whenever opportunities came up to do or learn things that could possibly help towards it, we always took them. Meanwhile, we muddled along, painful experience gradually transforming us from naive, idealistic and often sadly confused teenagers into reasonably sane and capable adults.
Then, in 1991, a friend was visiting and happened to mention an old occult novel we had heard was good and wanted to read. Called The Angel in the West Window, it was all about the Elizabethan magus John Dee, who, through his trials and tribulations, miscalculations and mistakes eventually made a living, vibrant connection with Truth, and with the shining, eternal community of other souls who have made that same connection. Well, the book was available in German and other European languages but not, as far as we knew, in English. So our friend said, ‘Why don’t you publish it?’. To which we replied, ‘Well, we wouldn’t want to publish something unless we knew we could sell it. How could we be sure there would be a market for the book? Shops probably wouldn’t want many. We would have to find some way of making direct contact with the public.’ None of us could think of a way to do that, so the subject was dropped.
But Geoff carried on thinking about it and that evening pronounced the fateful words: ‘Why don’t we start a book club?’ In the silence that followed, we both realised that we had gathered all the skills we would need to do it, that we could do it, that we would do it, and that it would be the best way yet of helping to fulfil the task we had always felt was calling us. It was an ‘Aha’ moment we will never forget.
Anyway, just a couple of weeks later, as we ploughed through piles of catalogues looking for books we could sell in our embryonic ‘book club’, we saw that, by coincidence, another publisher had just thought of publishing The Angel of the West Window in English. So all we would have to do was sell it! Dedalus was the name of the publisher, and its owner, George Barrington, has kept the book in print throughout the last fifteen years, which is why we are able to offer it to you in this magazine.
Returning now to the subject of our fifteenth birthday celebrations, we are planning to invite you all to a special gathering on Friday 11th August 2006, over here in Wales. There will be speakers – including Diana Cooper! – therapists to talk to, lots of bargain books on sale, and the evening will end with a concert. The whole event will be free of charge, and we’re hoping that many of you will be willing to bring vegetarian food to share, so we’ll be able to have a feast as well. We’ll be publishing more details in the next issue of The Cygnus Review and, in the meantime, we hope you’ll be able to reserve this date in your diary.
Finally, we hope you’ll enjoy this issue of The Cygnus Review, and find something in it that helps you find your way more easily amid the changes and upheavals of our times.
With much love, Ann and Geoff Napier and all at Cygnus
Photographs © Cygnus Books 17-Feb-2006
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