AND THAT'S The Philosopher's Stone the publication, rather than the Philosopher's Stone from historical alchemy. (If someone wants to write us a history of the Philosopher's Stone from alchemy then have a look at our contributors guidelines.)

First of all lets make this completely clear. This web site is nothing to do with Harry Potter or J K Rowling's book Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone. The material you are now looking at has been around since the summer of 1994 when The Stone started out as a magazine, or fanzine, sold at occult events in the south of England. During the nineties in England there was something of an occult renaissance with a great number or pub meets, moots, discussion groups and other meetings in the back rooms of drinking establishments and the like.

The magazines that sprung up around this time were frequently very poor indeed. They often lacked any real knowledge of the publishing industry, and certainly no real evidence of quality magazine layout and design. A typical example would be an article by someone calling themselves Morgan Le-Fey or some other equally implausible pseudonym, which would go on for thousands of words, and say nothing substantial in the process. It would not be unusual to see a two page A4 spread of pure text with just one or two columns per page and nothing at all to break it up.

There was clearly a need for a publication that would meet the needs of this market, have quality design and publishing standards, and accept writers who had something coherent to say. There was also a need to get right away from those pretentious and often ludicrous pseudonyms. No Arthur King of the Britons or crystal clutching Moonlight Sky-Singer was ever going to get their name in a magazine I was editing. Furthermore, somebody needed to publicise the many events, moots and pub meets that were taking place around the country.

Please don't misunderstand the comments about pseudonyms as there is a point to my rejection of such names. First of all we need to acknowledge that anybody who engages in writing for public consumption is engaging in journalism, but with that engagement comes a need to be just a little bit credible. Journalists use pseudonyms all the time but, unless I am mistaken, there is no other branch of journalism that seems to use this sort of pen name. I am sure that many of us quite like the fact that the pagan movement is out of the ordinary, but at the same time I am equally sure that many of us would prefer that the pagan movement was respected by the rest of society. Writers on occult and pagan subjects will never be taken seriously if they are always seen as Skysinger or Moonbeam. It just makes us look like we only want to be a character from a fairy story or Lord of the Rings. Can't we just stop hiding behind these identities that sound like they come from a bad parody of what we are really about. And if at times we need to use a pen name, then lets try to pick something that doesn't sound like Sunbeam. (End of rant.)

On analysis it became apparent that what was needed was a Time Out for the newly emerging pagan community. The Philosopher's Stone was first published in Summer 1994 with a (very optimistic) projected quarterly schedule, established advertising rates, good articles and no Moondancers! The reaction was generally very good. People were glad to see quality desk top publishing (all mono, produced on early versions of Page Plus by Serif). The Philosopher's Stone was registered with the International Standard Serial Numbering agency (ISSN) and it even had a properly registered bar code just in case it became an overnight success.

However, after the first issue it became apparent that doing all this with one pair of hands was just impractical. It really needed someone else to sell the advertising, do the distribution and sell the magazine around the country. The Stone lasted a couple of years and folded because of the sheer effort involved in its production.

So from history to the future

Since then the web has a arrived so now The Stone is reincarnated in electrons. The quality of design may be a bit shaky at first but as the skills develop we should see the web version getting as good as the paper one was. Those few people who saw the paper version will recognise a few of our first articles but we hope to draw material in from contributors as the site gets known. Again see our contributors guidelines for details and lets hear from you.

In the mean time we need to develop the site. As well as finding willing and talented writers, photographers and artists, we need to improve the various features of the site. At the moment the book reviews section lists the authors we would like to cover but we only have a few reviews to get it going. In the same way our events page is frequently without any events. We have a largely untested list of newsgroups and probably lots more deficiencies to boot.

So, The Stone as it is now is just the beginning. We need support from contributors to give us some good content and support from readers to get the hit rate up. That should generate interest from advertisers as that is the only way we can fund the site. Once we get some money rolling in we should be able to offer the rewards properly deserved by the writers, photographers and artists who will become the heart and soul of The Stone. So give us some support as we develop the site from the base metal that you see now into the glittering gold of its potential.

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