Diableries: The Complete Edition: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell

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Diablerizing the soul of a Cainite is one of the few ways of lowering one's Generation, for if the victim possessed more potent blood then the diablerist's Generation drops by one, possibly more if the victim was of notably lower Generation. However, there is the risk of some portion of the victim's soul living on within the diablerist. Rumors abound of diablerists taking on the mannerisms of their victims, and even stranger tales speak of the victims consuming their assailants from within and taking over their bodies. Some Antediluvians and Methuselah are believed to have survived their death in this manner.

ZOE: Yeah… I mean I’m imagining you know this has been a lifelong passion for you. I think It’s like over 25 years for collecting all these cards and putting it all together, Brian, if I’m right was it quite emotional when those last cards came, you know, you found them? Later this week, May and co-authors Denis Pellerin and Paula Fleming are releasing a book about a fascinating and unusual series of stereo photographs, which were something of a phenomenon in 19th century France, and bear the wonderful name ‘Diableries’. Yes! I can see the very corners of your mouth beginning to curl with the mild amusement of faint recollection -- oh, that’s actually bemused bewilderment?

D photography is based on a phenomenon called Stereopsis. Stereopsis happens in everyday life when our brain fuses two slightly dissimilar (flat) pictures from two slightly different viewpoints, one from each eye, and miraculously, instantaneously, creates a solid image in our heads. The two pictures are different because our eyes, positioned a few inches apart, see slightly different amounts of an object partially hidden behind another, and slightly different views of any solid object. These differences are called parallax. Our brains cleverly interpret these parallax differences as depth information. It’s happening all the time for most of us whenever our eyes are open, without any conscious thought. The benefits of this to our survival in a predatory world must have been enormous in the evolution of our species. It gave us an instant awareness of how close any potential danger (or food source) was to us. Just for comparison, here’s another piece of wishful thinking, so often quoted in histories of 3-D as an early example of three-dimensional imaging. They’re wrong ! It’s not ! Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli made these two sketches around 1600, and lots of people have sworn that this is a stereo pair. But, again, a little careful analysis shows that the variations between the positions of corresponding lines in the two pictures are in fact random, and you get just as much 3-D no matter which way round you position the two. Moreover an equal number of the supposed ‘parallax differences’ are vertical instead of horizontal, which makes nonsense of the assertion that Jacopo knew what stereoscopy was. Brian May and colleagues talk about the project in London on October 30 and November 1, and in Settle, North Yorkshire, on November 6; an exhibition runs at Gallery on The Green, Settle, until December 14. See London Stereo This book, the fruit of half a lifetime’s study by three impassioned authors, brings every single one of the published Diableries into the 21st Century for the very first time. Some of them are so rare that at the time of writing there is no known full collection of the originals of these masterpieces.

Thousands of the cards would have been produced and they were something of an underground phenomenon on both sides of the Channel. Whether it’s a horse race, a bicycle race or a card game, he always wins,” says May. But there was a political as well as a moral purpose. “These images became an opportunity for artists to express sedition. You get scenes, for example, in which Napoleon III is subtly portrayed as the Devil. Quite, often, artists got thrown into jail if they produced work which displeased the powers that be.” Two 19th-century artists were principally responsible for these images. One was called Louis Alfred Habert; the other was Pierre Adolphe Hennetier, who started as a sculptor for the Church, producing pretty straight illustrations of what life would be like for sinners in hell. “Gradually, though, a little bit of dark humour started to creep in,” May explains, “as well as references to current events and figures in authority. In fact, although a lot of the scenes are taking place in hell, most of the skeletons and other characters seem to be having a fair amount of fun.”The craze for stereoscopes came to an end as the new century started – no matter how sensational the images, the new motion pictures were hard to compete with. But the concept didn’t so much die as evolve – in 1939 the View-Master was launched, which was essentially a miniaturised version of the concept, with 3D images on a circular reel that you would view on the handy viewer, originally made of bakelite and later in plastic. Aimed more at children, it has remained a popular thing in various incarnations over the decades. And the 21st century has seen the rise of the VR set, which is surely just the latest incarnation of the format – perhaps some enterprising games developer can create a VR Diableries world for viewers to explore – we’d definitely jump on board the VR market for that. publish stereoscopic books and this is one of them. The “Diableries” book and it’s the first time that the complete collection of 187 I think it is, Diableries, ever have actually been in one book.

A diablerist can be detected extremely easy by a skilled practitioner of Auspex because of the change in their aura. They also lose Humanity and they become addicted to the high that they get from committing diablerie. The Diableries, which translates roughly as ‘Devilments’, show the riotous goings-on in Hell, presided over by the Devil himself, and peopled with a lively cast of skeletons, demons and ghouls. NOT in Wiki, you’ll be pleased to hear, but by someone who clearly has researched the subject himself in great detail !) Brunelleschi is usually credited with the first clear insight into perspective, and certainly Raphael and Leonardo were completely familiar with the concept. But, even with all these insights, perspective drawings or paintings are still flat representations of in-depth scenes … they’re just better than non-perspective ones (though even then, there are plenty of painters who achieved realism of a different kind by deliberately ignoring perspective, Picasso among them). It’s interesting that photographs include all the lighting and perspective without us even trying. But they’re still flat !

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But let's not lose sight of the fact that this is a book about Satan. Remember? The Deceiver? The Father of Lies?

The Diableries are part of May’s wider passion for all things stereoscopic. The enthusiasm has led him to create the world’s largest collection of stereo cards, with over 100,000 in his archive.You can now enjoy the world of the Diableries through the book Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures In Hell, published and co-written by Brian May – yes, the Queen bloke. He is a lifelong collector of stereoscope cards, and the whole run of Diableries is included in the book, alongside a newly designed fold-out viewer. It’s a genuinely magnificent book, a luxurious and hefty volume that every bookshelf will be enhanced by. This book is the result of the passionate work of three authors who have made it possible, for the first time in the 21st century, to publish in one book all of the known Diableries made in the second half of the 19th century. It’s a claim German researchers Claus-Christian Carbon and Vera Hesslinger assert in their study of Leonardo’s famous portrait, “Mona Lisa.” The pair have been analyzing the well-known version of La Giaconda that hangs at Paris’ Louvre, as well as an eerily similar copy known as the “Prado Mona Lisa,” housed at the Museo del Prado in Spain, and have concluded that the two artworks — taken together — may amount to the first stereoscopic image in the world. The Traditions of the Camarilla strongly forbade the practice under any circumstance until recent nights, but the majority of the Sabbat and Banu Haqim have always considered it quite acceptable, one of the reasons both groups are viewed with such fear and disgust. While one's rank in a Path of Enlightenment may fall as a result of committing diablerie, several Paths actually encourage vampires to perform the act under the proper circumstances. This week sees the release of a book co-authored by Brian May (yes, that one) about an unusual series of stereo photographs featuring hell, skeletons and demons all aglow.