Cockney Visionary is new, lavishly illustrated monograph is set to accompany the Austin Osman Spare: Fallen Visionary exhibition at the Cuming Museum in London, on from September 14th to November 13th, 2010.

The book will contain an introduction by Robert Ansell, a cartographic study by Gavin Semple, a biographical essay by Geraldine Beskin, essays by curators Christopher Jordan and Stephen Pochin, and detailed commentaries on the works in the collection by Dr William Wallace.

From the website:

Sales of this publication will help to fund the exhibition. The deluxe edition will feature a Patron list. A list of those who purchased this volume and who therefore have directly supported the exhibition. Of course, if you so wish, you can purchase the deluxe without appearing on the Patron List.

There is an extra benefit attached to the purchase of this edition. You will be eligible to attend a special patrons-only private view of the exhibition. The date of this exclusive event will be disclosed to purchasers once orders have been processed.

However copies are not cheap. The deluxe edition is limited to 100 numbered copies signed by the authors can be purchased at £160. The standard edition is limited to 900 numbered copies and goes for £60 – or £74 including shipping to Canada. (Yikes!) Both copies will contain the DVD documentary The Bones Go Last.

For more information and to pre-order either edition, see the listing on Jerusalem Press.

Pricey, but so are all things Sparian these days. Want.

Spotted on LAShTAL.com.

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Khastoo, a gallery in Los Angeles, US, is showing works by various esoteric artists in their latest exhibition, The Alchemy of Things Unknown (and a Visual Meditation on Transformation).

Featured artists include Austin Osman Spare, Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Anger, JFC Fuller, William Blake, Paul Laffoley, Marilyn Manson (??) amongst others.

The exhibition’s been on for a week now (it opened on June 10th) and will continue until July 31st, 2010.

From the gallery’s description:

The artists in this exhibition, some more explicitly than others, sought after or seek spiritual truths through art making and employ an almost fervent and reverent experimentation to their practice, one that is both ritualistic and against the grain. This mystic behaviour is what defines the show; the persistence of new and unorthodox visual experimentation reaches beyond the worldly sphere to heightened states of consciousness.

For the full press release and directions click here.

Unfortunately the gallery’s website does not give an indication of what pieces will be there from each artist. If anyone in LA manages to make it down there, let me know. I’d be interested to hear what they’re showing.

Spotted on LAShTAL.com.

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

Big news of a personal nature: last Friday I quit my job. I gave notice until the 25th, but after that I’m a free agent. Very exciting.

In the last Saturday Signal, I noted that Titan might make a nice vacation spot someday. It turns out visitors may find themselves interacting with the locals,  alien methane-based lifeforms. There’s still that little problem of it being utterly uninhabitable by humans, of course, but still: neat-o.

On to the linkage, also largely travel-themed:

• The Lovecraft News Network posted in “Lovecraft and National Geographic” advises that the National Geographic has created a travel guide of places featured in Lovecraft’s stories, written by Edoardo Molinelli. Check out places featured in “The Shadow over Innsmouth”, Miskatonic University, and other relevant New England sites. Travel information, photos of historical sites and weather information available. What a cool idea.

• “Spare Places“,  a video uploaded by squareye, is a psychogeographical guide to Austin Osman Spare’s London. The camera is shaky and kind of washed out, but it gives an idea of Spare’s London, with context and quotes from other writers. Video found in the comments section to a post on Rune Soup by V.V.F. Click here for Part Two.

• Khephra offers thoughts on the eschaton, in “What is the eschaton and why does it need hastening?” on Sophrosyne Radical. Dude may not always respect chaotes, but I still think he’s secretly one on the inside.

I read my first Hermann Hesse in December, and I’ve been dipping in to his other works over the past few months. I haven’t yet picked up Siddhartha or Steppenwolf, the two for which he is perhaps most famous. I’m saving them.

He’s one of those authors I read and think where have you been all my life? I would have adored them more had I read them as a teenager I think, but they’re still great now.

At the moment I’m reading The Journey to the East, in which the narrator describes a remarkable ’round the world trip with an unnamed secret society called here the League. Each member has a specific goal in joining the League, each different, but united in a search for beauty, truth and meaning. Regarding their destination the narrator explains:

…our goal was not only the East, or rather the East was not only a country and something geographical, but it was the home and youth of the soul, it was everywhere and nowhere, it was the union of all times.

Now that’s magick.

As always, if you come across anything nifty, please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious tag it “plutonica” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

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Over at Rune Soup Gordon introduced a book game with the following guidelines:

How would you introduce someone to magic using only books? He or she has a month in a lake house and will read whatever you tell them in the exact order that you tell them to. Not even any peeking at other books on the list.

It’s a good game, for the full list of rules and to participate, click here. You can see Gordon’s picks here. I offered my response in the comments section, but I thought I’d share it here too, with a little more about why I chose these books in particular.

My aim was a little different than Gordon’s, I took the game as a chance to create a new magickian from a complete skeptic, not to create a mini-Psyche – that would have been a different list altogether. Perhaps a project for another day.

Without further ado, here’s my list: Continue reading »

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Catalogue Seven was released today from Fulgur, featuring works of art by several of their authors and illustrators.

Most notably it contains several drawings and illustrations by Austin Osman Spare, including the one pictured left, titled there as “Three Men in a Cavern”.

Also included are “hand-decorated diabolical objects” by Barry William Hale, whose Legion 49was put out by Fulgur last year. By this they mean  Jack Daniels and rum bottles decorated with sigils and atwork and, well, I’ll use Hale’s description:

The Sigillick Conjuration of Beelzebub is incorporated into the walls of these Seven unique Talismanic Bottles sporting a variegated panapoly of magical signs and symbols sacred to the Lord of the Flies.

One of my favourite modern occult aritsts is also featured, Orryelle Defenstrate-Bascule, with images from his Conjunctio, also published by Fulgur.

I’m more than a little in love with the pencil drawing of Isis, especially after getting the chance to see Orryelle’s Ganeshe in his glory at Treadwell’s last fall.

Even if, like me, you can’t afford any of them, it’s definitely worth a look.

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