Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods, directed by Patrick Meaney
Halo 8, 80 minutes, 2010

I suspect there are only a few kinds of people who’ll be interested in the documentary Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods – either serious documentary fans, devoted comic-book readers, or magical practitioners. Each of them will come away from this film quite happy.

Director Patrick Meaney largely works with a familiar pattern for this kind of celebrity documentary – one of mostly stepping back and letting the interviews (and, of course, editing) tell the story. There are several attempts to visually represent the psychedelic elements of the tale created by cinematographer Jordan Rennert, though the results are far less annoying than is often the case in such films! The perspective is mostly one which aims at the comic-reading audience, introducing them fairly gently to the core of occult thought that permeates his work.

The film opens with a montage of several comic-book writers and artists talking about Morrison’s reputation as a very successful comics creator who is also out as a practicing chaos magician who’s no stranger to psychedelics – and the usual kind of “drug-crazed madman” rumours that inevitably follow. Continue reading »

Best remembered by mainstream science as John Whiteside Parsons, inventor of the solid fuel that helped make space travel possible, occultists know Jack Parsons as a devoted Thelemite, chosen by Aleister Crowley to lead the Ordo Templi Orientis’ Agape Lodge in California in the early forties.

The  comic, titled “The Marvel: A Biography of Jack Parsons“, is written by Richard Carbonneau and illustrated by Robin Simon.  The story follows Parsons’ life closely, beginning with his childhood and adolescence, carrying through to adulthood.  Continue reading »

Saturday Signal: attempting to sift signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

In our first Saturday Signal Beth asked “how our “fun day” (Saturday) got named after the least fun god/planet of the week”.  Last week we looked at one possible reason, and Gesigewigus commented on how the planetary hours align nicely with the days of the week: Continue reading »