Saturday Signal: sifting the signal from the noise of the Internet’s occultural cacophony.

As I prepare for my rapidly approaching vacation in Paris I’m thinking about what to pack. The most items under consideration are which books should I take?

This is a topic recently broached by Gordon White in “Travel Reading: The Eternal Question“, where he took along a book I recommended on this blog, along with some other neat stuff.

Fiction is easy, I’m going with two French Canadian authors and two French authors, and of course the guidebooks, but which non-fiction to take is proving more challenging. I’m thinking Levi. I still haven’t read The History of Magic which is bound to be fancifully romantic and therefore quite appropriate.

Any other recommendations?

Oh, all right. Enough about me. Linkage:

• Continuing the theme from the second half of this week: a poem by Sian Thomas posted on the Museum of Witchcraft’s blog, titled “Spirit Bottle“.

• On his blog Rune Soup, Gordon White wrote a post titled “How To Hack The Retrogrades” with brief notes on their influences and hacks to circumvent the effects. (Sidenote: I dig the breakdown for Pluto. Getting off on the wrong foot with people pretty much defines my life. I cancelled cable in the last millennium, but it hasn’t helped any. Friends have described me as “an acquired taste”. I’ve decided to take it as a compliment.)

• Reality Sandwich plays host in-progress excerpts from the upcoming Immanence of Myth anthology by James Curcio: “Initiation, Part 1: The Masks of Identity“, “Initiation, Part 2: A Long Road Out Of Hell” and “Initiation, Part 3: Making Do Without A Guide“.

• Klint Finley posted a link to tarot cards based Lost created by Alex Griendling on Technoccult. They’re not actually tarot cards, as they don’t depict images derived from tarocchi, instead using their own oracular scheme, but they look really neat all the same.

If you come across anything particularly awesome, please share it in the comments, or if you use delicious tag it “ahrfoundation” and we’ll take a look. Thanks!

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

This has been a crazy week: camping on the weekend, end of another fiscal quarter at work entailing many late nights at the office, treated with a delightful time at Cirque du Soleil’s Saltimbanco yesterday, and I now find myself playing Internet catch-up this weekend in preperation for another busy weekend come Labour Day. Continue reading »

Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning, by James Curcio
Mythos Media, 9781419672651, 271 pp., 2007

Fallen Nation, James Curcio’s second book, takes up where Join My Cult! left off. Agent 139 and Jesus are in a maximum security mental institution held as suspected terrorists after a restaurant was blown up in the previous novel. Agent 139 wryly comments:

“Bottom line: ideas don’t count for a whole lot in this world, but on their own, they’re mostly benign. Ideals on the other hand can get you a special jacket with one sleeve. Ideals can get you shot.”

Agent 506 breaks them out via mysterious means, and, after a brief visit with Agent 140 fits them with a van tailored with all the tricks and tools they’ll need, the three of them set off on their way to new adventures. They soon pick up a hitchhiking guitarist and decide to form a band, Babalon. The van serves as a tour bus as they pick up groupies and collect followers, making waves wherever they go.

“I like the sentiment of anarchy, but you’re idealizing it. In a world of so many conflicting cultural signals, each person’s idea of what social responsibility is, and how it should be enacted differs. When there is differing opinion, there is conflict. When there is no difference of opinion, there is absolute fascism. Take your pick. The freedom of this ideal turns quickly into the lowest common denominator, the law of the jungle, as people’s priorities and ideals clash with one another. This is exactly how the world is right now, and how it has always been – the war of all against all…You want anarchy? You already have it. In disguise. Anarchy’s always been, and always will be.”

A government agent is charged with the task of eliminating Babalon, perceived as a threat to the status quo by Those In Charge. Cultural warfare becomes more than abstract theorizing when things escalate in a desert battle pitting agent against agent. Continue reading »

I’m Canadian, not Irish, but I did visit the pub last night with a group of friends, and while dying beer green seems absurd, I did drink (more than?) my fair share of Tanqueray, which comes in a green bottle. For those who keep score of this sort of thing, it probably counts for something.

I recently resent my article for the Origins column for Tarot World Magazine. This article details the history of the court cards as it relates to tarot, touching on the Golden Dawn’s “special” rearrangement in a gentle, neutral way. I’ve also sent reviews of the Housewives Tarot and the Blake Flame Tarot – I hope they’ll be able to use them. They’re facinating decks…though in very different ways.

A few books are sitting read and waiting for review on my desk right now: Dave Evans’ Aleister Crowley and the 20th Century Synthesis of Magick and James Curcio’s Fallen Nation: Babylon Burning. Those reviews should come out later this week.

A pile of new books have come in recently for review – a lot of good stuff, more on that as I get through them. Though if there’s anyone in Toronto interested in reviewing from my slush pile, let met know: send me a writing sample, payment is in free books.

Anthologies provide themed essays from a variety of writers, allowing the reader to sample an assortment of styles and opinions. Finding new writers can be difficult for the average person, there’s so much out there that’s useless, or worse. Anthology pieces always vary in quality, and are frequently contradictory when taken as a whole, but that can be part of their charm.

Continue reading »