A new and revised edition of Dave Lee‘s Chaotopia!: Sorcery and Ecstasy in the Fifth Aeon has been released by Mandrake of Oxford in a new expanded edition.

Lee has also launched a new blog, also titled Chaotopia!. At the moment it seems to house a few reviews; it’ll be interesting to see the direction it takes.

While we’re on the subject, chaos magick seems to be undergoing (another) revival at the moment. Phil Hine’s Prime Chaos: Adventures in Chaos Magic is also out in a new revised and expanded edition from Original Falcon. A review will be forthcoming.

Jason Miller’s posted a call-out to chaotes over on Strategic Sorcery. Chaos magick – and chaotes – have changed quite a bit since the current’s inception. Continue reading »

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The comments section for “Sexism in contemporary occulture” and “Gender and the elements” have recently flared up again, and it’s clear that the larger conversation is far from over. If you haven’t read these posts yet, please do and share your thoughts in the comments.

Two new essays have appeared recently on this theme, and they bear a closer look.

In a recent essay on Enfolding.org titled ”Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Tradition“, Phil Hine gets to the heart of what makes so many uneasy broaching the subject in the first place. He writes,

the very act of questioning the inevitability of gender polarity is a radical step – and one which potentially shatters the foundations of the occult implicit-order – itself a reification of the wider gender-order of Western Culture. Gender polarity is often reified in occult texts as an earthly reflection of cosmic or otherwise essential principles – which are held to be inevitable and juridicial (“Laws”). Frequently it is asserted that gender polarity is inevitable because it occurrs on the “higher planes” or is a reflection of essential qualities of deities, archetypes, etc – it is universal and timeless – part of an unchanging/unbroken tradition which has only been challenged very recently…

Hine traces the origin sexual poliarty to Continue reading »

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

The comments section has been busier this week than it’s ever been in the history of this blog, largely due to my post about “Sexism in contemporary occulture“, with some spill over on my follow up with “Gender and the elements“. A third post on this theme was planned for Friday, but due to time constraints it will likely be posted tomorrow instead.

You may notice a theme in these signals.

• Did you know that Phil Hine has a new blog? Check it out at enfolding.org, especially the latest post, “Occult gender regimes: the Yin-Yang binary” for a lucid examination of why appeals to history and tradition are often misguided.

• Tim Maroney‘s excellent 1998 essay “Facts and Phallacies” looks at Aleister Crowley’s use of the word “phallus” and provides deeper insight into the context which it’s used. It’s clearly not a gender-neutral term, and Maroney eloquently dispels this myth once and for all. (Via Phil Hine.)

• While we’re on the subject, the Arcane Archive has an excellent resource titled “Aleister Crowley: A Legacy of Sexism” which is a compilation of sexist remarks and other misogynistic material sourced from Crowley’s writing. I’ve no doubt the man was a Master, but there’s just no getting around the fact that he was a misogynist.

While not specifically related to occultism, GeekFeminism.org is a great blog and resource for all things geeky and…feministy? In a recent post, “Quick Hit: The Safety Dance“, Terri discusses her experiences at events with unwelcome contact. Strange men approaching her what follows amounts to sexual harassment. I’ve seen this happen at public gatherings at occultural events as well. Being female does not give anyone an excuse to initiate physical contact. Ever.

This is an important subject that requires ongoing discussion, but it will not become the dominant theme on this blog.

We’re rounding out the week, and if you have further links you’d like to share, or stories that need to be told, I’m always available on the blog, but for more private discussions, there’s always e-mail or IM.

Found something groovy? 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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Ok, so I received this copy of Abraxas back in September during my visit to Treadwell’s. This review has been a long time in coming. What took so long?

Mostly, I wanted to do it properly. I didn’t want to rush reading bits and pieces here and there, I wanted to really sit down and savour it.

Abraxas isn’t just “An International Journal of Esoteric Studies”, this first issue is also an art book. At 290mm x 232mm it’s a large quarto, beautifully bound, and printed on high quality paper, including a handtipped sheet. Richly coloured paintings are beautifully reproduced, along with many lovely illustrations in monochrome. And then there’s the text.

This first issue focuses largely on witchcraft, and while I can’t detail every essay that appears, I would like to highlight several that I felt stood out in this already exceptional collection. Continue reading »

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It should hardly seem surprising that something called “chaos magick” is constantly in flux, both in terms of what gets classed as chaos magick, and in who it attracts.

I was first introduced to the subject by some English bloke on IRC in a random Wicca chatroom who later, through a series of unlikely circumstances, became my husband. He introduced names I’d never heard of before: Austin Osman Spare, Peter J Carroll, Robert Anton Wilson – people with three names writing weird stuff.

It was refreshing. I was young, and apart from a few friends in high school, I didn’t know anyone else who was interested in magick. Until I found the chaotes, all I knew were religious Pagans who left me empty, or pedantic ceremonialists who bickered over trivia that seemed unnecessary.

From there I devoured everything I could find: Ray Sherwin, Phil Hine, Stephen Mace, Jan Fries, Steve Wilson, Ramsey Dukes, Jaq Hawkins, Hakim Bey, ye gods even Adrian Savage, simply because the word “chaos” was in the title. The books were difficult to find, expensive and experimental; the websites were raw and their authors approachable. Continue reading »

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