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.
My review of Sexual Outlaw, Erotic Mystic: The Essential Ida Craddock, by Vere Chappell (Weiser, 2010) is up on SpiralNature.com here.
Craddock was indeed a remarkable person, but some of her notions about what was proper are… Well, here’s a quote from her 1900 treatise, “The Wedding Night”:
To approach a woman’s genitals with the finger for the purpose of excitation, is distinctly masturbative, and therefore wrong. The only lawful finger of love at her genitals is his sexual love organ.
It’s almost cute.
Actually, Craddock’s forthright approach to sex was fairly unique for its time, though much of what she wrote seems antiquated today it’s still a fascinating read. Continue reading »
Llewellyn Worldwide has released a new book by Lon Milo DuQuette, Low Magick: It’s All In Your Head … You Just Have No Idea How Big Your Head Is.
Low Magick is a follow up to his earlier autobiography, My Life With The Spirits: The Adventures of a Modern Magician.
From the publisher’s description:
DuQuette tells how a friend was cursed by a well-known foreign filmmaker and how they removed that curse with a little help from Shakespeare. He explains how, as a six-year-old, he used the Law of Attraction to get a date with Linda Kaufman, the most beautiful girl in first-grade. DuQuette also reveals the ins and outs of working with demons and provides a compelling account of performing an exorcism at a private Catholic high school.
As entertaining as they are informative, the true stories in this memoir contain authentic magical theory and invaluable technical information.
I haven’t read My Life With The Spirits, but his previous book, Enochian Vision Magick (Weiser, 2008), was excellent. (I reviewed it here.)
