Occulture Archive

Another Saturday, another Signal.

Before we get started, I just wanted to highlight that the first “Interludes” issue of Trigger93 is now available for download, free of charge.

You may recall I reviewed the first issue of the new occult journal in January, and if that’s anything to go by, it should be a good read.

While we’re at it, I have a new review in the latest issue of Witches & Pagans as well, issue #23. The theme for this issue is “Law & Chaos”, and it has a great interview with Peter Carroll, Jaq D Hawkins and Andrieh Vitimus about chaos magick, what it means to them and where they think magick is heading in the future. You should check it out.

Now, on with your delicious linkage:

• Dave Evans  and David Sutton have written an article on the magickal battle of Britain for Fortean Times.
• Tibetan singing bowls have given up their chaotic secrets, as Jason Palmer reports for the BBC. Science is cool. (Spotted via Technoccult.)
• Sarah Veale gives five reasons Aleister Crowley’s still relevant on Invocatio.
• Over on Therioshamanism, Lupa has a thought-provoking post about anthropocentrism and what it means in (neo-)Pagan spirituality.
• On Nick Farrell’s blog, Nick shares what Regardie didn’t know about the Golden Dawn, the post title a cute play on Regard’s classic, What You Should Know About the Golden Dawn (my 2006 review here).
• More fun from Nick Farrell, “Mathers’ secret hair colour revealed“. Deliberate deception, or an old magickian’s vanity?

New reviews on our sister site, Spiral Nature:

• Planetary Spells & Rituals, reviewed by Gesigewigu’s
• Confessions of a Black Magician, reviewed by me
• Dancing with Spirits, reviewed by Mike Gleason
• The Light of Sex, reviewed by me
• Zen: Simply Sitting, reviewed by me
• Bridging the Gap, reviewed by Mike Gleason

Thanks it for this week, kids.

Told in three parts, frostyobsitnic‘s enthusiastic retelling of HP Lovecraft’s Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath is absolutely hilarious. It’s like Lovecraft via Jay, of Jay and Silent Bob.

frostyobsitnic “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath RETOLD! – Part 1: Army of Mooncats” NSFW

My favourite moment is when he mimics the moon cats’ flight through space.

Check out part two, “Oh no squidbirds“, part three “This book isn’t as long as I thought it was” for the moral he derives from the story, and his blog, Myths Retold.

As spotted on Kalagni‘s Facebook.

Today is the release date for Supergods, a new work of non-fiction by Grant Morrison, author of The Invisibles, and numerous other comics.

Published by Spiegel & Grau (an imprint of Random House), Supergods bears the rather lengthy subtitle “What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human”.

Supergods explores the history and mythology of the superhero archetype. We’ve seen this before, notably in Our Gods Wear Spandex (my review here), but Grant Morrison’s likely to do it in a style unique to himself.

From the publisher’s description:

For Grant Morrison, arguably the greatest of contemporary chroniclers of the “superworld,” these heroes are powerful archetypes whose ongoing, decades-spanning story arcs reflect and predict the course of human existence: Through them we tell the story of ourselves, our troubled history, and our starry aspirations. In this exhilarating work of a lifetime, Morrison draws on art, science, mythology, and his own astonishing journeys through this shadow universe to provide the first true history of the superhero—why they matter, why they will always be with us, and what they tell us about who we are . . . and what we may yet become.

For more, see Scott Thill’s interview with Morrison in Wired.

Despite David Itzkoff’s mixed-to-negative review in The New York Times, I’m looking forward to reading this.