There once was a mysterious band of knights who roamed and raved their days and nights along the banks of the cool dark waters. Young and wild, they howled at the moon like the wolves, and on the clear days when the sun seemed to sparkle like diamonds on their faces, they stood sullen like statues of antiquity before cawing and cooing outrageously to their peers.
They sat watching the crowd waves roar; the boardwalk full of walking visitors, strange and new from far away places, that would all turn away in disdain from the boys of summer, sensing somehow their mighty position above it all . . .
They weren’t there for the sights and sounds, instead vying for an order of things far from the distressing quarrels of everyday society.
Simple positions shared amongst them all. One assigned to watch, another to distribute, another to discover, and the rest to play by the rules. No one over stepped a turn at the bottle, for each one knew that their last could be any day. Neville, one of the leaders, would say, ‘Never shy from your true colours’ and these they would display with unbroken pride.
Your honour was earned by the friendships you garnered and gathered.
Some say they had magic on their sides; magic powers taken from the ages, used to ensure their place along the sand dunes. Others say they made friends easily, but were actually ghosts playing games on the common folk.
Only one place in the world for them. A sacred fellowship that haunts us all to this day . . .
I like to imagine seeing them there every time I go back to the seaside. Guarding their little corner of the Earth, and protecting the small sliver of paradise they managed to claim as their own.
Sometimes I can hear them sing their favourite tune; a memory that wavers from faded dream to brilliant exuberance.
It was a familiar one made their own by one of their musically gifted initiates –
The Knights of the Sandcastle need your help reviving their unique spirit that has been suppressed by the ages.
With their help, you too can be free. We have lots of wicked vintage apparel in the {SHOP} today so make sure you take a look, and invite a friend while you’re at it!
Our {SHOP} on ETSY is stocked full of goodies, so take a peak before they’re gone. . .
‘Concision in Style, Precision in Thought, Decision in Life”
You may have noticed those immortal words when browsing through our ABOUT US page, although the phrase is more like this:
+ CONCISIONEM STYLO, ACCURATIUS CORDE, IUDICARI VITA +
Since our inception, these words have helped build the foundations for creating The Eye of Faith, and we never forgot them along the way.
Wise words from an icon in his own right, Victor Hugo (and I’m not too sure if he would be one for musicals ) . . . but none the less, his “concision in style, precision in thought, and decision in life”, have made him and his work relevant to this very day!
It’s quite wild how the past comes and goes, and is brought back to life again. Inspiration finds it’s way through the cracks of your mind to infiltrate your thoughts and create something special. This comes into play every time you make your way into your own wardrobe, for example. You stare at your clothes and an idea might come to your mind, and thus a new look, and a new you is born!
While our motto CONCISIONEM STYLO, ACCURATIUS CORDE, IUDICARI VITA (it just sounds so F***ing good in Latin) has carried us far the past year, most mysterious 2014, we have a few new thoughts for the year ahead, and some new virtues we want to inherit and inspire for 2015.
+KNOWLEDGE+
+KNOWLEDGE+ has always been an important piece of the puzzle here at The Eye, and for our frequent followers and visitors, you have come to expect in our approach an appreciation for history and all it’s secrets and quirks. We love to expose the {PAST} and examine where it fits into the {PRESENT} and hopefully, using our age defying wisdom, we can summarize a likely {FUTURE}.
Much like the alchemists and sorcerers of the past, the gaining and collecting of knowledge, every little bit no matter how esoteric, is a vital aspect of one’s true power, for when the time comes and all you are left to is you and you alone, you can count on yourself to follow through! Whether we’re talking life or fashion, no one is ever going to blame you for knowing too much.
We hope to continue in this vein, and bring you more and more vintage memories and musings that can both inspire and inform.
+INTEGRITY+
Since we began creating The Eye of Faith, we have been told a million and one things we should be doing instead. Everyone and their mother has had an opinion on our vision, without even asking what that vision may be!
We came into this game knowing full well who we were, and what we intended to accomplish. You don’t see another site quite like The Eye of Faith online, and that is a good thing. We are not trying to fall into place behind other fashion blogs (most of which look the same) who recycle content from site to site, but we wanted to be true innovators on the scene. This dedication to our vision, and always standing by it without changing it to appease naysayers is why we have ruled +INTEGRITY+ as a continuing priority here at The Eye of Faith.
The Eye of Faith was conceived as a portal to the past with many seemingly disparate items, articles, and stories coming together to create a well-rounded vision of how little things have changed, and how cool the past really was! This will continue NOT to change.
We will also not be picking any random articles of vintage clothing to add to the collection. Nothing is arbitrary, and each piece speaks to a certain story or style we are aiming to incorporate into the vision of the collection as a whole. Believe us, it’s not as easy as it sounds! It’s called +INTEGRITY+
+COURAGE+
The Spirit of Contemplation (1901) by Albert Toft {1862 – 1949}
+COURAGE+ has always been our silent leader when it came to creating The Eye of Faith. In fact, the whole idea of the The Eye of Faith encapsulates this virtue entirely.
The Eye of Faith is an age old symbol of +COURAGE+, and by the pure belief in matters at hand, and some proper insight, one may be given sight to see the way to get to one’s destiny. It’s a silent pathway, but a strong one, and without proper reinforcement your trail could just wither into the wind before your eyes and you would be left to find your way without the guidance of the fates. . .
The latter is a path many of choose in life, but since we are beings with a choice, we definitely chose to trust that The Eye of Faith will get us where we belong.
It took a lot of +COURAGE+ to stand up and tell those we know and love our belief in it, but it definitely seems to be paying off, with everyday us getting stronger and stronger.
+STRENGTH+
+STRENGTH+ comes in many forms. We need it constantly; in the physical sense, to keep up the hustle of getting our pieces from one place to another, and even more so in the emotional and spiritual sense, when it seems like you’ll never figure it all out.
Truth is, you’re never going to figure it all out, so best stop wasting your energy on that one . . .
Having +STRENGTH+ of mind is more powerful than any fist when it comes to life. Creeping deep down into oneself and building +STRENGTH+ from within is your best start. From there, everything else will seem like a cinch!
+IMAGINATION+
I once read somewhere that +IMAGINATION+ is more important than +KNOWLEDGE+
But I don’t think that is quite true, as much as learning to utilize both to one’s advantage can be the most powerful tool of all.
+IMAGINATION+ is quite literally the God-Sense in all of us. If you seek the divine in the everyday all you need do is open a pad of paper and sketch, or write for an hour about any old thing, even messing about your wardrobe will suffice. It is simply that beautiful magical moment where your brain has decided to create something new, and completely you.
You are a well of ideas and inspirations, and once you are able to tap into that spring, you might find your true self overflowing!
+ + +
So there you have it!
Our five newly anointed principles that can be used not just for your style sensibilities, but use them in life, as well. If you use them right, the transformations will happen almost immediately.
Feel free to adapt our Rules to fit your own life, or simply come up with a few of your own.
What means most to you? In the end, that’s all that matters. We know what we need to do to survive, and we’re going to definitely be making it happen! So hopefully some of our words of wisdom have rubbed off a bit, and we can all make things happen together!
The strange, wonderful, and perplex. The Voynich Manuscripts . . . the World’s most wildly weird book. Full of strange diagrams and cryptic text, many generations have passed and still no one has been able to make anything of it.
The book is hidden deep away in Yale’s Rare Book Collection making it kind of hard for eager schoolboys to study all of its mysteries . . .The word ‘mystery’, strangely enough comes from the Greek mustrion meaning ‘secret rite’ [from musts, an initiate, from mein, to close the eyes, initiate.]
The mystery would gather together at sacred times in sacred places performing rituals, celebrations, and rites of passage. These sacred ceremonies were held to ensure certain higher knowledge is passed on to the initiate who is chosen under certain circumstances (possessing special intellectual or spiritual prowess, or defining periods in one’s life eg. marriage)
Not to presuppose of course, we all remember Yale is home to one of the World’s most infamous ‘mysteries’ of them all; the notorious ‘Skull and Bones’ society. The notorious fraternity traces its roots to 1832 as ‘The Order of the Skull and Bones”, and includes such influential names as Rockefeller, Tate, Pillsbury, and Bush.
The group operates in secrecy, much as their ancient mystery counterparts, holding their rituals in a building known as ‘The Tomb’. The lost boys were said to possess the last remains of Geronimo. Sounds like a bunch of hocus pocus from an Indiana Jones movie, reads like one too.
Over the years the boys have gotten tied up in strings of allegations and scandals that range from sexual abuse, torture, and Satan worshipping! Not to mention the associations with the Illuminati . . . Seems to me like someone needs to do their homework.
“I don’t mind if my skull ends up on a shelf as long as it’s got my name on it.”
-Debbie Harry
What do you say? Is it all too convenient the World’s weirdest manuscript has landed in the same turf? Maybe they know something we don’t about this strange codex, its weirdly wonderful drawings, and the wisdom that it may entail. Perhaps it provides them with the ingredients to perform the rituals of their predecessors, or maybe they simply see it the same way we do, and this obscure Renaissance relic will continue to be at loss to modern man, and appear as a precarious dot in the framework of history.
I’ll give it to the boys, they have always been doing it in style. Exploring the delicate and strange beauty of the Voynich Manuscripts is a true wonder, and I’d study up now before they do.
William Shatner is best known as Captain Kirk in the iconic 1960s sci-fi series (the original, tamer, Battlestar Gallactica), marking his first foray into the world of outer space, extra terrestrials, space ships, and other worldly beings. But in 1977, Shatner released a documentary that would have the Canadian star again looking to the stars, this time for answers.
Did millions of years ago, visitors from other planets come to Earth and help accelerate our primitive ancestor’s genes to propel civilization as we know it today? Scientists often note how remarkable it is that human civilization went from cave dwelling hunter-gathers to suddenly building slick and sophisticated cultures with engineering that defies the capabilities of today’s most advanced technologies.
It definitely is disturbing to think that we live in a world where we still have not figured out how they moved the stones of the Pyramids?! How far behind are we? Or did ancient people have help from our astronaut ancestors, or worse, giants that literally roamed the Earth?
If not, why do so many “primitive” cultures, even today, still tell legends of giant men who made us “normal” humans seem like crickets? Now I’m starting to sound a bit like Shatner, so instead I’ll simply live you with the video itself.
The documentary in its entirety has been uploaded to the web (thank you 21st Century), so you can ponder these questions, in all the 1970s New Age Psychedelia of William Shatner’s “Mysteries of the Gods“.
Don’t miss out on his brown suede shirt – boho chic.
Well, well…what have we here? Come back for some more?!
While we’re on the topic of Devils, it seems, we couldn’t resist bringing you this little niblit of the Film & Style Divine. Kenneth Anger. From “Invocation of My Demon Brother”, to “Fireworks”, “Lucifer Rising” , “Scorpio Rising”, and “Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome” – this auteur to the max has brought to the world an esoteric, rebellious, and divine sensibility to all of his works.
Inspiration we are still reaping today! Take for instance, Ryan Gosling’s iconic gold satin jacket with scorpion on the back in 2011’s “Drive” – it was Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising”, an experimental film made by Anger in 1963 about bikers, the occult, the underground, Catholicism, and Nazism that inspired the logo that would become synonymous with Gosling’s “Driver” character.
Throughout his work you can see his love for cinema, for art, for style, for fashion, for creative people that don’t see the world the way other people do. People who gather together to be the truest, and most extreme versions of themselves they can be. It takes a true creative mastermind to bring that into fruition.
Blending the world of the occult with pop culture and art-house cinema, Anger’s films are all one-of-a-kind, kaleidoscopic dreams (and sometimes nightmares).
For instance, take “Invocation of My Demon Brother” from 1969. With music by Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones Mick, Yes), and cameos by some of 1960s California’s most notorious esoteric celebrities including Founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey (making yet another appearance here at EOF), and Bobby Beausoleil (later charged in committing a first degree murder with members of the “Manson Family ).
Invocation of My Demon Brother” is a rare glimpse into a dark underground world, as well as a visual poem to the horrors of War, humanity, and nature itself.
There’s nothing really to be scared of here. Just a bunch of Hocus-Pocus…Movie MAGIC, if you will. It’s really lucky to recieve an entire commentary on the film by the artist himself, as there are not many interviews with the often recluse director.
Anger usually centres his work on ideas of the divine, spiritual, decadent, sexual, and supernatural. The now 86 year old auteur (Happy Belated! His birthday was February 3) got his start in the glorious heydays of Hollywood Babylon itself, as the Changeling Prince in Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle’s 1935 adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”.
Having seen the ins and outs of Hollywood and such a young age- a land full of magic, glamour, decadence, and of course, EVIL – it is fantastic to invite yourself into a Kenneth Anger piece, as you can always leave from it feeling a certain “je ne sais quoi”, as the French would say.
The French, and Europe in general, have always lauded this Prince of Darkness for his unique dark styles, as well as humor (yes, Humor!). Though it took upward of 40 years (40 YEARS!!!), the Fashion World finally seemed ready to let out a little Anger, and the American Auteur was given the helms of a short fashion video for Missoni’s “A/W 2010-2011.
We’re having that “je ne sais quoi” type of feeling again, how about you? If you want to learn more about the dark Prince of style you can visit his official website here. And to buy his masterworks, click here.
