Reviews
Review: Sherlock
Oh, Sherlock Holmes. I never really liked you. You are an Edwardian Tory fantasy of upper class superiority and that doesn’t sit well with me. You expect me to believe that this meddling gentleman is somehow vastly superior to professional police officers and scientists who; like good plebeians; come cap-in-hand to one of their betters [...]
Review: Rev
I didn’t have high hopes for this show. Don’t get me wrong, I was always going to watch it. If you pay your license fee you might as well check in with the BBC whenever it produces a new comedy to see where your non-David-Attenborough money is being spent. In my head I figured it [...]
The Devil’s Rebellious Brew And How To Make It
Here’s something I already knew. Some/most of my favourite historical personalities accomplished the things that make them my favourites whilst drunk. John Adams, for instance, liked to start each day with a couple of pints of cider. Even up until the 1820s, you wouldn’t be given water in London hospitals, you would be given ale. [...]
Do You Trick Your Dragons Or Do You Fight Them?
As we all know, Bilbo tricked his dragon. (At least to start with.) But then, it’s not like a hobbit would beat a dragon in a fair fight. No one would. I’ve been thinking about this in terms of reptilian metaphor for the amygdala. You know that ‘lizard’ part of your brain? You can’t fight [...]
What Fictional Wizards Taught Me
I’m still trying to work out what, if anything, is left of a magician if you remove the actual practice of magic. This is that ‘integration’ thing I have been looking at. Because, however many energy exercises you do on the tube or however many daily sigils you launch, you are still spending most of [...]
The Book Game & Its Benefits
So if you haven’t read it, I listed the details of a little book game I used to play. And so far there has been some really great responses. As Steve pointed out, it’s unbelievably helpful in working out what your core influences are. But it’s also a really good tool to assess your priorities. [...]
The 4 Epochs of Independent Chaos Magic
We like books. If someone asks us to recommend a book then we most certainly will. And some of us have recently been asked to do just that. Having given this some thought, I’m going to attempt something a little less helpful: A history of chaos magic through a century of seminal texts. There are [...]
Black Swan Magic: Why Spells Look Lame In Retrospect?
As part of my continuing quest to make up for never paying attention in math class as a child, I’m reading another book on randomness and irrationality. And it’s awesome. It’s called The Black Swan and it’s based -funnily enough- on Black Swan Dynamics. Here’s why I think it applies to the practice of magic: [...]
The Amazon Fairy
No, I don’t mean me. My DVD set (among many other things) arrived from Amazon this afternoon. We caught this series when it was broadcast on the BBC last year and it is unimaginably good. It will Barack your world. (I’m bringing it back.) Diarmaid is an Oxford University theology professor and the son of [...]
7 Essential Chaos Magic Books That Aren’t About Magic
This is a picture of the reading room at the British Museum -possibly my most favourite place on the planet. One of the things I adore about living in London is it grants me unfettered access to the most dizzying collections of ancient and sacred artifacts -an occultist’s dream come true. Entry is free (like [...]
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