Aleister Crowley, chaos, itako…and college Quidditch?

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Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

It’s been a crazy week with lots of great stuff to post, but I fear that there may be distinct lull in September.

No one (yet) has volunteered to take over the blog Update: One person has e-mailed me interested in taking over while I’m stranded in England on vacation in September, but there’s certainly still room for more. Position is still wide open, and I’d love for this to be an opportunity to widen the range of this blog to more than just my voice.

Hey! Signal!

• Rodney Davies has written a fascinating piece titled “The Last Days of Aleister Crowley, The Great Beast, at Hastings” for 21stcenturyradio.com, largely drawn from Davies’ 1975 stay in Hastings, and interviews with Crowley’s last landlady, Kathleen “Johnny” Symonds.

• Martin Fackler writes about Japan’s dying mediums for nytimes.com. It seems itako and other shamanistic mediums were common across Japan in medieval times, but were were suppressed in the late 19th century as Japan built a modern nation. Now, when they die, there’s none to replace them.

• Digging this up from aeons (not yet) gone by, read this piece about chaos magick, by Ray Sherwin, one of its founders. In it, Sherwin discusses some of the history of the chaos current, the IOT, chaote philosophy and its (non)beliefs.

Er…noise?

• Max Kaplan writes about “real-life Quidditch” for aroundphilly.com. Apparently, hoards of almost-adult students love nothing better than running around throwing balls at one another while straddling brooms – to the point where an “Intercollegiate Quidditch World Cup” has been created with official rules, and, oh gods, even a trailer. Ok, admittedly the geek dressed in yellow who runs around campus pretending to be a tiny golden ball is kinda funny. But seriously people, WTF?

Hey, remember back in June when I promised to let you know when I’d finished reading Francis Breakspear’s If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It!? Well, the review is up on SpiralNature.com now.

As always, if you find something weird, cool or otherwise noteworthy, please e-mail me about it. If you’re pro-promotion, include your name and website for extra credit. Thanks!

Related posts:

1. David Rakoff and Aleister Crowley
2. New book on Aleister Crowley and the Abbey of Thelema
3. Top 5 Books on Chaos Magick
4. RAW, the Golden Dawn, Pagans and chaos magick
5. Letters between Aleister Crowley, Frank Bennett, C. S. Jones published by Teitan Press