The Boschian Bestiary
The Boschian Bestiary is a book written by occultist and author Travis McHenry in 2020. It was released in conjunction with the Hieronymus Bosch Tarot as a narrative companion to the deck.
Description
The Boschian Bestiary is a book created in the style of a medieval bestiary (or bestiarum vocabulum) which is a compendium of creatures that are either real or imagined. Originating in the ancient world, bestiaries were popular illustrated volumes that described animals and natural phenomena. They often depicted creatures in such a way that they also taught a moral lesson to the reader. For example, a very fat creature might be a warning against gluttony.
The Flemish painter Hieronymus Bosch used a wide variety of strange creatures in his paintings which were drawn from the bestiary tradition, making this book an ideal way to showcase Bosch's menagerie of beasts and creatures.
Content
The book is framed as a narrative story told through the eyes of St. John of Patmos (author of the Book of Revelation) who takes a quasi-religious journey through the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.
The Boschian Bestiary contains 80 woodcut-style drawings of various creatures featured in Hieronymus Bosch's paintings. These drawings show increased details that aren't readily visible on the original artworks, which have faded with the passage of time.
Plot
Immediately after having his first revelation, St. John is on the island of Patmos when he is approached by a shape-shifting creature which calls itself the Chimerical Scholar. The Scholar leads him into a vision of the Garden of Eden, which subsequently dissolves into the Garden of Earthly Delights, a representation of what Earth would have become if there had been no Original Sin.
"I watched humanity's joy on full display. Men and women made love in the open grass while their friends watched with dull interest. The friendship that existed here between man and animal was of a kind that transcended the bond between a pet and its master. Their relationship was like that between the people and the earth: intertwined and symbiotic."
After being shocked by how humanity would have ended up if Adam and Eve had never sinned against God, St. John steps through a cave and arrives in Hell on Earth. He learns that this place was not a location of Divine punishment, but was created by humanity once they had become exhausted with their lives of pleasure. St. John becomes overwhelmed by the visions of terror and asks for a new vision which is more peaceful.
St. John and the Chimerical Scholar are transported into The Haywain. Here, he learns that no matter what circumstances humanity finds itself in, there will always be conflict. Only a single person in an isolated place can ever find peace. To reinforce this, he is taken to a lonely desert in Egypt where Saint Anthony is deep in prayer. Demons surround him, trying to tempt the saint, but Anthony is too focused on prayer to acknowledge their existence.
The creatures are led (and possibly controlled) by a fearsome magician called the Lord of the Deep. It is a vaguely Lovecraftian entity with a face reminiscent of Cthulhu. The Chimerical Scholar says that it is only a representative of something far more sinister: “He serves a master more terrible than Lucifer, older than Satan, and more powerful than the Devil." As the Lord of the Deep begins chanting an invocation, Saint Anthony finally speaks, exorcising the demons.
As St. John leaves the scene, he is followed by a little dog wearing a cowl. This was the Lord of the Deep's pet, Conjure Dog. They journey through the wasteland, but Conjure Dog is stolen by the Fox Thief. They chase him into a nearby city, the Village of Grotesques. The creatures in this place somewhat resemble humans, although their features are all distorted. Eventually, they find Conjure Dog and, after cataloguing all the weird beings they encounter, leave the village and enter a nearby forest.
The Last Judgments
In the exotic forest, they encounter a baby sitting inside a hollowed out apple. St. John suspects the Apple Baby is actually Lucifer and the apple is a gateway to Hell. Anticipating that he will view the Last Judgement, they enter the apple and are transported to a nightmarish hellscape called "The Last Judgement of Souls in the East."
An angel wearing robes of pink and gold strums a harp and the people of Earth begin working themselves into a frenzy. The Last Judgement begins and demons descend on the populace and start hacking them to pieces, killing everyone in a massive orgy of death. The humans organize into an army and start to fight back. In the end, only 100,000 people are saved and brought to heaven, while the rest are slaughtered.
Next, St. John is flown by the angel over the Earth to the place of the original Garden of Eden, now called Autoelia. This is the location of the Last Judgement of Souls in the West.
The Ancient of Days appears in the sky along with a vast army of Archangels wearing armor and holding weapons. Led by Archangel Michael, this holy army defends the Gates of Heaven against a horde of demons. The defeated demons fall back to Earth on a hill called Adam-ondi-Ahman, the place where creation began. All the surviving population of humans gathered at this spot and the righteous souls were brought into heaven by the angels.
After the departure of the righteous, the remaining people were led by the Beast of the Trumpet. The guiding angel explains: "The Lord has given this monster reign over what is left of the earth that he may separate the good from the evil. Some shall be punished now, during the tribulations, others will be punished later, when the Lord departs the earth."
During this period, humans and demons freely mingle, but St. John slowly realizes that the demons are actually on a killing rampage and have started murdering every human left alive. Demons of pure darkness emerge from the shadows and snatch people away. The Beast of the Trumpet leads his followers into the stomach of a fiery demon where they are destroyed. Finally, Jesus Christ arrives on Earth and the demons are all reduced to ashes. The entire planet is left barren, but suddenly starts to grow new life and is transformed into a new Garden of Eden.
In the epilogue, St. John curses these new revelations and throws the book into the ocean where he hopes it will never be found.
Publication history
The Boschian Bestiary was published by Bloodstone Studios in November 2020 as a companion to the Hieronymus Bosch Tarot. This limited edition features a linen-wrapped hardcover with an embossed gold hot foil stamp on the cover.
The book is 182 pages printed on cream-colored paper.
Eleven copies were also released in handbound leather. These are individually-numbered and signed by the author.