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

Happy Samhain, kids!

Vampires are hot, hot, hot. Except in Twilight, where they’re just creepy and bizarre. Stephen Marshe suggests this is because young straight women want to have sex with gay men, whereas Charlie Higson thinks vampires are for girls and zombies are for boys. Even ABE is getting into it with a timeline of vamp lit – things even I haven’t read.

If you find all of this worrying, you can always pick up a nineteenth century vampire killing kit. I know I’d feel safer with one. My kitchen’s always running out of garlic.

• The latest issue of the online occult magazine Rending the Veil has come out, and Patrick Dunn has contributed an essay titled “Ritual and Myth” which looks at the role of myth in our lives and what that might mean.

• Joseph Merlin Nichter wrote about “Samhainophobia vs Samhainsensationalism” in his blog WitchDoctorJoe’s RattleBone. He discusses popular reactions to Hallowe’en, his his own family’s traditions. There’s also a picture of a stone monk in a pointy hat lookin’ fab.

• In a lengthly article in Reality Sandwich Paul Levy asks “Are We Possessed?” and responds with excessive quotations from Carl  Jung. The answer to the question seems to be “Probably”.

Also, Douglas Rushkoff intends to interview Robert Anton Wilson (1932-2007) on Monday. Could be interesting.

That’s it for this week, mes amis. Wear your costumes proud and practice safe hex.

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I heard Jordan Peterson speak at the Royal Ontario Museum a few months ago; he was awkward, but very knowledgeable. I can’t recall the topic, but when it was mentioned he wrote a book on the psychology of myths in religion, I took note. That book was Maps of Meaning, which I’ve recently begun reading. It’s fascinating, and deeply insightful: expect further commentary.

In the preface Peterson outlines his background. He was raised Christian, attended church, and left while young (“twelve or so”) due to a minister’s inability to reconcile modern truths with archaic beliefs. (“Religion was for the ignorant, weak and superstitious. I stopped attending church and joined the modern world.”) Typical story.

As a young adult he joined a socialist party, convinced “[e]conomic injustice was the root of all evil”. Secular dreams replaced religious, political utopia exchanged for spiritual paradise. Familiar territory.

He left the town he grew up in, attended an out of town college, and got involved with university politics, retaining his left wing stance. He writes:

“The board was composed of politically and ideological conservative people: lawyers, doctors, and businessmen. They were all well (or at least practically) educated, pragmatic, confident, outspoken; they had all accomplished something worthwhile and difficult. I could not help but admire them even though I did not share their political stance. I found the fact of my admiration unsettling.”

In contrast, the socialist leaders he wanted to look up to did not inspire respect. He found them to be ineffective complainers. He explains that “[t]hey had no career, frequently, and no family, no completed education – nothing but ideology. They were peevish, irritable, and little, in every sense of the word.”) He found he did not admire those who believed Continue reading »

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