Dave, a British academic and magician, is the co-founding editor of JSM – The Journal for the Academic Study of Magic and is author of The History of British Magic After Crowley (Hidden Publishing, 2007) and several other books.

I’m just back from the late-night regional premiere of the new Crowley-based film, Chemical Wedding, here in England. Much anticipated, this film is the brainchild (or should that be Moonchild?) of Bruce Dickinson. He is apparently a long-time Crowley fan, and will be better known as the screaming front man of perennial stadium heavy-metallers Iron Maiden . Apart from a few peripheral references in recent mainstream film (one of the Hellraisers, Razorblade Smile etc), Crowley hasn’t really been touched on for decades – you have to go back to the often appalling sixties’ Hammer Horror stuff, based on Dennis Wheatley’s books, or the 1950s classic Night of the Demon.

The prospects here looked good, with a prominent Shakespearian/Dickensian actor (Simon Callow) in the lead role instead of some unknown no-hoper. The plot encompassed some science fiction angles (the film Weird Science from the 80s immediately sprang to mind) and it is set in a modern-day Cambridge University, with a chaos-mathematics/quantum physics slant on to proceedings. Crowley is essentially called back to life via virtual reality technology, and possesses the body of an elderly and befuddled professor, who suddenly becomes the Beast renewed (in a rather natty purple velvet suit). Sounded like a great premise, and the online trailer, released ages ago, was simply fabulous.

Well, now I’ve seen the film… Continue reading »

Popularity: 56%

Earlier today Michael Szul posted a review of Plutonica.net on his blog Key64.net. He had some really positive things to say; you can read the review here (and check out the rest of the site while you’re there).

A few months ago John Crow commented on Plutonica.net in his “Interesting Blogs Meme” on his blog Treasure House of Pearls, and Caelum Rainieri said some nice things on PaleoNova recently, too.

I thought it might be fun to create a Press page to keep track of what people are saying about the blog, so you’ll now see that on the top navigation bar. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2%

Red Wheel/Weiser is publishing Lon Milo DuQuette‘s latest book, Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and Practical Guide to the Magick of Dr. John Dee and Edward Kelley. The book will be released June 2008.

DuQuette was recently interviewed by Lee Prosser on GhostVillage.com where he discusses the book and the work it’s founded on which rose out of a series of classes conducted in 2005 and 2006. Prosser asks some interesting questions, and DuQuette’s responses are likely to win some over with his easy-going style, and make others wince. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2%

Occult Sentinel is a new podcasts about things the host, Joe, finds “interesting in the occult-o-sphere”. The projected topics will include magick, metaphysics, Thelema, Paganism, and astrology, among others.

The first episode was released in February, and at present a total of five have been released, featuring interviews with Greg of the Occult of Personality podcast, Charles Papapetrou, IAO 131 of the new Journal of Thelemic Studies, Pagan author Christopher Penczak, and Lance Bauscher of the Maybe Logic Academy. Continue reading »

Popularity: 16%

The People have spoken and declared Eyeago‘s Erisian haiku, “Discordian Death Epic Haiku in Five Chapters”, to be The Prettiest One:

King Kong died for You:
Ingrate domestic primate.
Banana peel death.

Five finger discount
Dun dun dun Dunnnnn, badum pshhh
Gobble gobble hey.

A Fnordian Slip
Aneristic nay-sayer
Hey: pull my finger Continue reading »

Popularity: unranked