By Psyche | January 13, 2010
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But have you checked out our new Esoteric Book Club? First pick is Robert Anton Wilson's Quantum Psychology. Participate here!
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 »
By Psyche | August 4, 2008
On Being a Pagan, by Alain de Benoist
Ultra, 0972029222, 240 pp. (incl. notes and index), 2004
Originally published in 1981 as Comment peut-on etre paien?, the book was translated into English by Jon Graham and republished in 2004 by Ultra as On Being a Pagan.
I can only imagine that new title and cheesy image of Odin on the cover are intended to lure neo-Pagans and newagers anticipating fanciful stories harking back to the good ol’ days of yore, yet the paganism of de Benoist is decidedly not a “return to the past”, nor an attempt to regain some “lost paradise”. Instead this book offers something far more profound. Continue reading »
By Psyche | July 25, 2008
A Science for the Soul: Occultism and the Genesis of the German Modern, by Corinna Treitel
John Hopkins University Press, 0801878128, 366 pp. (incl. appendices, notes, bibliography and index), 2004
A Science for the Soul explores German occultism between the 1870s and 1940s, largely focusing on parapsychology, séances, mediumism, Theosophy and the spiritualist movement, their popularization, and what effects this had on the larger German culture.
Treitel opens with a look at how occultism brought science and the psyche together, helping to facilitate “the blossoming of psychological modernism circa 1900″, which she writes has been “largely ignored or underplayed in accounts of the era”. Continue reading »
By Psyche | July 21, 2008
Thanks again to those of you who responded to Friday’s post about Plutonica.net’s Amazon.com affiliation, your feedback and support is appreciated.
Readers, you may recall June’s announcement that Pluto had been reclassified from a “dwarf-planet” to a…”plutoid”, a status it shares with Eris, which gave rise to all this confusion in the first place. (Really.)
A third…non-planet (?) has been granted this dubious honour, and with it, receives a new name: Continue reading »
By Psyche | July 18, 2008
Regular readers may have noticed that I have recently (in the past month or so) introduced Amazon.com affiliate links embedded in the site where specific books are referenced.
What’s up with that?
I’ve added the affiliate links because I feel they offer value to the site for several reasons.
To begin, the Internet is a largely visual medium, and Amazon.com allows affiliates to use their pictures of book covers with appropriate affiliate links. Readers can buy the books from their local independent bookshop, or through Amazon.com – either way, at least you know what you’re looking for. Continue reading »
