I recently began reading The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. It’s been on my shelf for years, but I’ve only just picked it up in preparation for reviewing Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon.

Edited by Dave Evans and Dave Green, Ten Years is a collection of academic essays inspired by Hutton’s groundbreaking work. Hidden Publishing provided me with a copy for review, but of course this necessitates first reading Triumph. And so here we are.

I’m finding it a fascinating read, and certainly as important as the hype that surrounds it has suggested. At the moment I’m still in the pre-Pagan stages of its history, covering the Golden Dawn and high magick, and this particular quip from Hutton seems a rather accurate summation of how magick is often approached:

Traditional scholarly magic was at basis an elaborate way of ringing for room service.

The reference is in regards to the Holy Guardian Angel, commanding spirits and demons, and much of the ritual work that was reintroduced in the occult revival at the turn of the last century.

It struck me that work with the Goetia hasn’t change substantially since that time, and, for good or ill, certainly many people seem to treat their HGA experiences this way.

How relevant is this observation today? In seeking experiences with entities outside ourselves, are we only “ringing for room service”?

Hidden Publishing has just released a new book edited by Dr Dave Evans and Dave Green, Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon.

Can you believe it’s already been ten years since Ronald Hutton first published The Triumph of the Moon?

Ten Years is “a collection of researches inspired by, deriving from or just celebrating the immense impact of [Hutton's] seminal book”. From the website:

The topics cover many historical periods, many academic disciplines and it provides a wealth of information of use to academic scholar and interested freelance reader alike. Includes an extended essay by Ronald Hutton on the history of such scholarship, the state of it today and some of his thoughts for the future.

I haven’t been able to locate a contributor list, but it’s suggested that there are “big names” and “those newer to the field” who collectively bring “nearly two centuries of hands-on pagan research experience between them”. Which sounds kind of impressive.

What do these three things have in common? I’m still not quite clear on that.

I received Francis Breakspear’s new book, If It Was Easy, Everyone Would Be Doing It! a few months ago, read a few pages, then got caught up in other things. I recently picked it up again, and so far it’s as direct and funny as his first book, Kaostar!,as expected.

Also as in Kaostar!, essays appear from Kate Hoolu and someone called “Dave Evans” (a pseudonym if I ever heard one).

I’ve just finished reading a two-essay interlude by Kate Hoolu, the first, titled “Stereotyping”, deals with issues of race and culture, and the second, “That behaviour is not normal! But how do you prove it?”, discusses mental health. It’s unusual to see these topics addressed in books ostensibly about practical magick, to say the least. Continue reading »