I know you’ve been asking yourself “What would a teaspoonful of neutron star do to you?” The answer: bad things.

Or you may be asking “Where has Psyche gone?” The answer is: nowhere really. I’ve just been busy. (Sorry.)

As it happens I’m still around, often on Twitter and Facebook, and I recently joined Google+ – which is pretty nifty. I blogged my initial thoughts about G+ over here. (BTW: if you’re intrigued and want an invite let me know and I will hook you up.)

I’ve also been posting reviews on Spiral Nature (see below for the full list of new stuff), and I have a few pieces forthcoming in various occult journals – further details upon publication.

Neat stuff keeps happening, and I want to share it. I don’t know where the time goes.

Here are a few things I’ve found:

• John Coulthart shares HP Loevcraft’s favourite artists over on Tor.com. Among them are Henry Fuseli, Francisco Goya and Sidney Sime. Also included? Lovecraft’s first sketch of Cthulhu. Nifty.
• Kalagni has great advice for sex with angels over on Blue Flame Magick. All the stuff you wanted to know, but were afraid to ask. Pro-tip: plan for bukakke.
• On Enfolding.org, Amy Hale discusses Pagan “Elders”, and challenges the term, even as it’s usage is growing. I’m not a big fan of the term myself, especially when most Pagan “Elders” are self-proclaimed.
• In other news, NewScientist shares a field guide to bullshit in an interview with Stephen Law, regarding his new book, Believing Bullshit. Could be useful. *cough*
• In Austria a Pastafarian has wont he right to wear a pasta strainer in his driver’s license photo. It’s religious headgear, you see.

As mentioned above, since our last Saturday Signal, our sister site has posted a number of new reviews which may be of interest:

• Divine Duality, reviewed by Ryan Valentine
• Defense Against the Dark, reviewed by Gesigewigu’s
• Man-Made Monsters, reviewed by me
• Teachings of the Santeria Gods, reviewed by Lilith Saintcrow
• Gift of the Dreamtime, reviewed by L. D. Taylor
• Witch Hunts, reviewed by Mike Gleason
• Loneliness and Revelation, reviewed by me
• Swami Panchadasi’s Clairvoyance & Occult Powers, reviewed by Gesigewigu’s
• The Weiser Field Guide to the Paranormal, reviewed by Lilith Saintcrow

And that’s the signal for this week.

I’ve missed you guys. What’s new with you?

Slated for release in March 2011, Austin Osman Spare: The Life & Legend of London’s Lost Artist. by Phil Baker, by Phil Barker will be published by Strange Attractor.

The biography contains a forward written by writer and magickian Alan Moore.

From the publisher’s description:

Spare was never made for worldly success and he went underground, falling out of the gallery system to live in poverty and obscurity south of the river. Absorbed in occultism and sorcery, voyaging into inner dimensions and surrounding himself with cats and familiar spirits, he continued to produce extraordinary art while developing a magical philosophy of pleasure, obsession, and the subjective nature of reality.

Today Spare is both forgotten and famous, a cult figure whose modest life has been much mythologised since his death. This groundbreaking biographical study offers wide-ranging insights into Spare’s art, mind and world, reconnecting him with the art history that ignored him and exploring his parallel London; a bygone place of pub pianists, wealthy alchemists and monstrous owls.

A collector’s edition is listed at £30, while the regular edition will be £25.

First off, for those who haven’t yet seen it, an excerpt from BBC‘s The Culture Show, which featured a piece on Austin Osman Spare with Alan Moore.

The description given is as follows:

Legendary graphic novel author Alan Moore explores the biggest public art exhibition of Austin Osman Spare for over 50 years, and discovers why Spare, an Edwardian virtuoso artist and occult magician has been left off art history’s canon.

The eight minute segment also features Robert Ansell of Fulgur, who discusses Spare’s Buddhist influences; Phil Baker, who talks about his origins and career; Geraldine Beskin of Atlantis Bookshop, on Spare’s automatic drawings and their spiritual aspect; and Stephen Pochin who curated the recent exhibit at  curated the recent exhibit at the Cuming Museum in London.

Though the best quotes surely come from Alan Moore, who says:

Magick offers the artist a new way of looking at their consciousness and look at where they get their ideas from. [...]

If you can manipulate your own consciousness and perhaps that of others, which is surely something all artists are trying to do, whether their magickians or not, then you will have effected an act of magick. [...]

Spare was a visionary, he was somebody, like William Blake, who was not distinguishing between his art and his spirituality, who felt that the world inside him was as valid and important as the world outside him – if not more so.

(Video and links to two reviews below the cut tag.) Continue reading »