Tony Shiels: Daemons, Darklings and Doppelgangers

Although revered as one of the godfathers of bizarre magic, Tony Shiels identifies foremost as an artist, describing his life's work as a surreal form he calls 'surrealchemy'. Born in 1938 in Salford, UK, his artistic journey began at the Heatherley School of Fine Art in London, eventually leading him to St Ives, Cornwall. In 1961 he became of member the committee of the prestigious Penwith Society of Arts following Barbara Hepworth's resignation, and curated the avant-garde 'Steps Gallery'. It wasn't until the late '60s that Tony rediscovered his childhood fascination with magic, initially instilled by his father and grandfather.

Around this time he began to write articles for magic magazines, but the key to his fame in magic was probably the publication of the widely acclaimed books 13, Something Strange and Daemons Darklings and Doppelgangers. These have now become classics of bizarre magic literature.

In the '70s Shiels mesmerized audiences as 'Doc Shiels: Wizard of the West' at festivals and fayres. He founded, performed with and wrote plays for 'Tom Fool's Theatre of Tom Foolery'. Around this time he gained much media attention with his 'monster-raising' exploits. His Loch Ness Monster photographs made the front page of the Daily Mirror in 1977. Throughout this period and beyond, Shiels continued to paint and exhibit his works.

Daemons Darklings and Doppelgangers is a collection of magickal mysteries designed to make the spine tingle and the heart beat faster! If you like your magic with a whiff of the supernatural, then this book will enable you to fulfill your dark ambitions!

From the Introduction:

"In the weird bestiary of the imagination one finds such fabulous creatures as daemons, as darklings, as doppelgangers ... and a thousand other assorted mind-haunters. Most of the time we keep them safely locked inside our heads, but if they catch us off-guard, asleep, they pick the locks with nimble claws and escape to stalk our nightmares, scaring us into shivering wakefulness. Some of them, it seems, by dark conjurations, escape completely and roam free as ghosts, imps, griffins, ogres, harpies and monstrous night-crawlers of every possible kind and shape. Man, of course, is the oddest creature of all; and one of the most peculiar of his many peculiarities is the enjoyment of fear . Fear, as we all know, is not necessarily a painful emotion; it can be a thrilling and exciting thing and, therefore, plays an important part in the world of entertainment. Since the far-off days of Robertson's magic lantern phantasmagorias, people have paid good money to be scared out of their seats by a clever display of spookology. Robert Bloch, Christopher Lee, Forrest Ackerman, Boris Karloff and many more full-time fear-mongers would be out of a job if human beings did not enjoy the disquieting-but-entertaining presence of non-human beings. So... I've unlocked my head and let out the scarecrow terrors which form a large part of this, my third book of tricks."

Contents

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction by Bill Masden
Benighted
Night of the Demon
The Mummy's Hand
Hobgoblin
Spellbound
Double Double
Dry Djinn
Death by Sorcery by Charles W. Cameron
Thaumaturgics
Baldpate Revisited
The Warlock's Forelock by Roy Fromer
Xyddatha
Hell's Smells
Through a Glass Darkly
Zgonn!!!
... And long leggety Beasties
Scarab
Fings
Burning Bright by Vernon Rose
From Deep Down by Leslie May
Familiars
Mostly Ghostly
Who is This Who is Coming
Spectre
Noctambulation
Carmillia
The Fright Thing
Filmography
Discography
Bibliography

Twenty-one effects. Hardback, 64 pages. Supreme 1981 reprint of the original 1966 edition.