REVIEWS 2
01 JUL 2012
THE ECCENTROPEDIA
"I think the real end of any civilization is when the last eccentric dies." - William S. Burroughs.
There's been quite a few books written on eccentrics,
those rare souls, who, by dint of genetics, outside forces or sheer
unbending will, have gone past outer beacons to another world, that
is in this world. The Eccentropedia is the first full
blown A-to-Z encyclopedia of them, and surely the most substantial
(it features 266 real life examples) and deep-researched document on
the phenomenon yet. The author, Mr Mikul, is much into this out-box people
scene, having previously produced many issues of his Bizarrism
zine on this very topic, so he's well qualified to attempt such a
feat as The Eccentropedia, and has pulled it off very
nicely.
Ranging from the 400 BC Diogenes to such modern strangelings as Captain Beefheart and Grigory Perelman, The Eccentropedia covers eccentrics from all walks of life with great respect. It is laid out in a pleasing Victoriana style, presumably in homage to that era's fecund fount of eccentrics, with two columns per page that makes for easy reading; with extended trance perusal they became like twin pillars at the entrance to a Mystery School temple and I'm searching for the secrets of life within. Neat line portraits by Glenn Smith adorn the tome, and all eccentrics mentioned are handily cross-referenced in the text, should you wish to compare characteristics, etc.
To paraphrase Aldous Huxley: "Never before have so few had the opportunity to stupefy the many", and it's THEM (The High Elite Manipulators) who want us all to be homogeneous obedient slave-drones in lock-step to the Goofy Game; individuality has become a crime, punishable by mindwarp drugs and forced re-education. Like Squaresville scientists rejecting all anomalies (the paranormal) in their experiments, THEY want to wipe out the anomaly people who can access this unlimited realm, so THEY can keep all the best material found there to themselves.
This is WAR, and The Eccentropedia is
an essential weapon in the anti-herd resistance fighters' arsenal.
Get this book to your awkward child or friend. It will give them
IDEAS. Keep the weird weird, with this magnificent testament to the
infinite ingenuity and unquenchable untamableness of the human mind.
Extracts can be read on the World Headpress site.
Chris Mikul, The Eccentropedia: The Most Unusual People Who Have Ever Lived. Headpress, 2012. Paperback, 516pp. ISBN: 978-1900486828. RRP £16.99. Available from the publisher and other good booksellers.
20 MAY 2012
RITUAL
After the pathetico-pointless 2006 Hollywood remake of
the original unbeatable 1973 Wicker Man film, and original
Wicker Man director Robin Hardy's own tired self-parody
reworking of it, The Wicker Tree (2010), adapted from his
recent disappointing novel of the same name, you may well think yet
another Wicker Man-related item would be equally no-no,
but hang on, Ritual is way different. It was written and
published back in the good old days, 1967, when the cosmic Earth
Mystery ambiance was at a far more interesting frequency, its
instructive solar flares mirrored by the flared trousers of the
British people: an unconscious signifier of their desire for
expanded consciousness.
After being unfairly overlooked (or purposefully suppressed?) for far too many decades we can now rejoice, for Ritual has been republished by those rather helpful obsessives at Finders Keepers Records, who have veered off from their obscure music releases to put this title out as their first print venture, and what a strange delight... Verdant, quaquaversal and fey, its spellbinding ideas bubble up from the secret spinning cauldron seeking every nook and cranny. Its characters overact, and so does the writing (can you have overacting writing?), that nicely pushes the boundaries and makes for a telling joy-plunge into this unusual world of magic mystery, because people are this bizarre in real life, and more - just take an ale-fuelled night ramble through the whole lurking unexpected library of what could well be the drawn-from-the-flesh Straw Dogsesque/Blood On Satan's Claw-like dark haunting logical British countryside. Ritual is there, documenting documents, transmitting...
Would've liked to have been ensconced in a funky-walled, growing carpet early hippy pad, its weirdy-beardy tripster off to secure a tin of potent bombers from the circular UFO club on 'his' return the sliding doors of perception life imitating art sector VIOLET68 with the purpled velvet eye assuredly kaleidoscoped in the wide studded belt going off the rails into a moon-blessed ploughman's lunch of decapitated chess sets as I get strong-strong psychic impressions on the very first holding/absorbing of this book: "He ate the copper's brain, then his own fingers"; "Ploughman Piers into the swirling egg"; "Forty shades of green eyes in the House of Broken Butterflies", that does suggest a tapping into an aforementioned sub-realm strata of Great Britain from where such artistic creations originate and send you to.
My copy had a printed-on black-and-white 'sticker' on the top-right corner of the front cover, ramming home to the potential purchaser that this book seeded the original Wicker Man film project (the plot is quite similar, and the film rights were actually acquired by the Wicker Man team in 1972), that kind of spoiled the whole retro-reproduction angle of the first edition art and typography, but this is of small account, for Ritual will surely lead you long past midnight into a witching realm of shimmering wyrd, initiating you into the olde way sparks. Knock knock knock - Hugh's there...
David Pinner, Ritual. Finders Keepers Records, 2011. Paperback, 223pp. ISBN: 978-0956706317. RRP £7.99. Available direct from the publisher and other reputable outlets.
05 MAY 2012
CONSPIRACY CINEMA
Due to its double-initialled title code
(CC = 33 = Masonic Magick) and 'my' other skewed prejudices
forcefully implanted deep into my subconscious via invisible rays, I
first thought this was going to be yet another zany midnight
mushroom synchromysticism-themed delve into the occult, etc. symbols
placed in mainstream movies to program people; supposedly a fiendish
ruse by the Illuminati (no, don't say that's a redundant term, it's
perfectly apt: ILL-Luminati - the votaries of the bad/false Light).
But thankfully, Conspiracy Cinema is a totally different
affair.
The author defines Conspiracy Cinema as "films by amateur filmmakers that are used to promote a specific viewpoint on a popular conspiracy theory"; technological advances mean that now almost anyone can make them, and most of them can be seen freely online. There's so many it can be hard to decide just what to explore. Mr Carter has come to the rescue as he has avidly watched tons of these flicks and produced this handy, first-ever authoritative guide to the genre. The author is a longtime professional film reviewer, and he gives us the benefit of his years of experience in the art of film and its proper dissection. The overall tone is sober, objective, thorough and reliable; its complementary fibres blend into a fine brew.
Mr Carter sets the scene nicely with his perceptive Introduction, and structures the work by starting each chapter with an overview of the conspiracy in question, a brief explanation of the two competing official and unofficial (conspiratorial/weirdo) viewpoints, then he presents various outstanding examples of Conspiracy Cinema output. All the well-known (9/11, 7/7, presidential assassinations, Chemtrails and the New World Order, etc.) topics are covered, along with most of the more out-there ones (aliens, Freemasons, Satanism, etc.), plus the author doesn't shy away from the anti-Jewish brigade, examining the notorious 911 Missing Links, The Jewish Conspiracy and Jewish Ritual Murder Revisited (the latter pair produced by the wonderfully-named "Nightmare Historical Videos").
Although I'm very familiar with this whole subculture (that sadly seems to be turning into another branch of the mass media), I still greatly enjoyed this book. Even the areas I normally stay well clear of were made curious and interesting once Mr Carter supplied the lowdown on them, and he's prompted me to check some of these out. Another thing: disturbingly, Mr Carter states that the 9/11 films 911: The Explosive Reality and Face The Facts both contain visual subliminals. I never thought such underground 'truthseekers' would stoop to using the same techniques as the Secret Controllers themselves, and since then I've been informed that Oliver Stone's totally mainstream JFK is chock full of these visual subliminals... (see Dean Grace's article, 'Subliminal Images in Oliver Stone's JFK', in Jim Keith, ed., Secret & Suppressed: Banned Ideas & Hidden History, Feral House, 1993). Maybe we should remind ourselves of Thomas Mann's aphorism: "A harmful truth is better than a useful lie".
Conspiracy Cinema is a clean guru, an efficient elevator, a trustworthy and dependable ship's captain who knows his maps and will navigate you to all the right hotspots of this strange and fevered labyrinth. It will challenge and enthrall.
David Ray Carter, Conspiracy Cinema: Propaganda, Politics & Paranoia. Headpress, 2012. Paperback, 282pp. ISBN: 978-1900486811. RRP £13.99. Available direct from the publisher, as are the hardcover Deluxe and Special Editions.
06 DEC 2011
SWAMP BRAT EP
The Swamp Brat Cometh, in the form of the new
four-track extended player presented by the hip and savvy Space Age
Thrills, who adopt a strong fighting stance with all the right
alliances. It's thigh-fog out elevator trajectory, a loudhailer in
pair of 3Ds sculpt-surfing the focal length towards a pyramidical
skyline, cosmos kaleidoscope reach. The deep ceremonies here do
surprise in the bullseye, for there are no facts or finite. Swamp
Brat also evokes: X-moustache cyborg smell of volcano dream; the
silver ocean cauldron lady underwear whispers to Ray Bradbury's
intelligence man; the eight-armed juggler phonecall from Pan Night
house-to-house... The cover lady knows what she's doing and so do
this band: the non-commercial stance, authentic underground ethos,
concentration on the work above all. Well worth investigating.
Space Age Thrills, Swamp Brat E.P. Self-released 23 November 2011. Recorded 2011 in South-East London, UK. 4 tracks. Total time 10 Minutes approximately. You can free download it in a choice of formats here.
02 DEC 2011
BRION GYSIN: DREAM MACHINE
I got this for a song on Amazon shrinkwrapped. It
accompanies the recent same-titled travelling exhibition curated by
the book's editor, Laura Hoptman. The blurb tells us this is the
"first detailed study of [the late Brion] Gysin's oeuvre in both
art-historical and contemporary contexts", which entails concise
informative articles by various well-informed authors on the myriad
boughs of Mr Gysin's art practice, coupled with some modern artists'
reflections on how he has influenced their work.
A lot of care and effort has gone into producing this tome; it's beautifully printed on quality paper, has a good binding, and is lavishly colour illustrated with many known and lesser so Gysin artworks. Also included is a facsimile pullout of a very basic early 78rpm Dreamachine template originally published in the hip French literary review, Olympia (No.2, Olympia Press, 1962), that I hadn't seen before, and a decent (though sometimes slightly inaccurate) Bibliography ends the book should the reader wish to go into extended depth. Much joy emanated from this book and from that beyond through this book. Trance out to it; let the real you dance with it; roll a joint on and experiment with it.
This groovy tome shines with authentic autonomous lights and is an almost perfect introduction to Mr Gysin's life-vision-work for those new to it all, although there is much here for longtime fans and scholars also. A fitting tribute to one of the greats.
Laura Hoptman (ed.), Brion Gysin: Dream Machine. Merrell Publishers Ltd., 2010. Hardback, 198pp. ISBN: 978-1858945217. RRP £24.95.
POSTSCRIPT: Although Brion Gysin is officially credited for inventing the Cut/Up Technique in 1959, Oswald Wiener and Gerhard Rühm of the so-called "Vienna Group" of experimental writers were doing similar deconstructional and/or reconstructional work from 1954. Their "Methodical Interventionism" involved the permutation of a word-list via mathematical formulae such as the Golden Mean to construct bizarre new texts. The other members, Konrad Bayer and HC Artmann, used a less formal montage technique in their writing around 1958 or earlier, selecting and juxtaposing blocks of text from grammar books, textbooks, trivial literature, etc. (see Konrad Bayer, The Head of Vitus Bering, Atlas Press, 1994, pp.58-59). Maybe that old Dadabulb Tristan Tzara was the first known exponent in the 1920s, when he pulled individual printed words out of a hat to make his poems, but Sir Francis Dashwood's Hellfire Club could arguably be said to have originated the practice sometime in the 18th Century, as they used to read across two or more columns of text rather than down each one (see Daniel P. Mannix, The Hell-Fire Club, New English Library, 1967, p.103).
This also evidences an early connection between occultism and the cut/ups: the employment of discordant reading and writing to confound normal perception and provoke an unusual, magically-potent variant. This was the same objective for Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs, who also used such avant-garde artistic pursuits as a cover for their subversive esoteric activities. Here note that in Nik Sheehan's 2008 documentary, FLicKeR, the magician and filmmaker, Kenneth Anger, claims that Mr Gysin and Mr Burroughs attempted to cast serious spells on astronauts so that the latter would be contacted by entities (i.e. aliens) whilst in space.
In this context, note that during a relatively recent radio interview entitled: UFO & Paranormal Espionage Specialist Tony Topping Paranormal Threats & National Security, the British paranormal researcher, Tony Topping, stated that, during the Politburo/Leonid Brezhnev period, Russian cosmonauts had heard "space whispering" whilst they were in space, and that these voices from nowhere told the disturbed recipients that they were not welcome up there and should return to the Earth, and when they did, some required psychiatric treatment. Brezhnev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee (CC) of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) from 1964 until his death in 1982, so presumably the Space Whispers were heard during this time.
Mr Topping doesn't cite any sources, but known (non-Black OP) Soviet manned space missions occurred between 1961-1965, 1967-1971 and 1973-1992 (Mr Gysin died in 1986), and Mr Burroughs and Mr Gysin conducted occult work together at the "Beat Hotel" in Paris between 1958-1962 (when the Cut/Ups and Dreamachine were developed), and later in New York, USA, during most of 1965, when they collaborated on producing The Third Mind, that contains a curious cut/up text by Mr Burroughs entitled 'Inside Into Control Machine', part of which reads:
Lost cosmonauts, a blast-off then silence in space . . . Silent spell in Russia .. . When? what unendurable? . . . Communicate date? . .. Tragic conversation between a man and a woman in the capsule . . . believe that vision? The world is at a mad angle . . . Is it possible to call? Woman: "/ am talking now. Is Engineer Klisgev there?" . . . survivors . .. fear we all know here . . . foreign sounds from the streets. (William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin, The Third Mind. Viking Press, 1978, p.94 in the unpaginated PDF edition.)
This very intriguing connecto-line, that is possibly an early example of Remote Viewing/Remote Influencing, certainly warrants further investigation.
Various internet search methods have yielded no result for 'Space Whispering', and despite repeated e-mails sent to both Mr Topping and Mr Anger requesting the sources for their respective claims, I have not received any reply. One doubts if the Russian Federal Space Agency would be prepared to comment, so the matter shall rest here for now.
01 DEC 2011
TWO-FISTED TALES
The purple light pills with sidethrusters
on full shot me past the silver beacons to land in a rarefied
atmosphere of integrated ultra-systems from which did emerged Space
Age Thrills and their Two-Fisted Tales album. Clocking in
at just under half-an-hour, time is, however, transcended, as a
strange vista unfolds, that does not completely recede in the dawn.
I was smiling and leg-pumping from the start. The sounds here are mostly original tracks plus a couple of cover versions (Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers and John Carpenter/Bill Taylor), being all undergirded by an obvious love-influence of the sci-fi/horror trip in all mediums, a creative hypothesis coupled with a wildly psychedelic overtone incorporating a lot of those eerie "on the outskirts of the mix-field" sounds that always satisfy a certain damask breed, or was I hallucination Spock ears?
The sound chug-ripples on phuzz-or-fase guitar sails; vocals tend to go warped mystery by heavy electronic effects; other voices warn of dinosaur attack and forget about Earthlings cyborg, where are all the stations? We're all aglow as punk-pop beats do merge with the pulsating oversoul landing a different punch all encauldroning an adroit distinctive fresh enveloper sound with great funhouse attitude that veers towards the dark like a sexy clued-up secretary who gets her rocks off in the crypt. Dig it!
Space Age Thrills, Two-Fisted Tales. Self-released on 23 November 2020. Recorded November 2011 in South-East London. 10 tracks. Total time 29 Minutes approximately. Listen to it online or e-mail the band for a free CD-r.
30 NOV 2011
THE SERPENT TONGUE: LIBER 187
I missed the online first publication of this text put
out in 2000 by Ye Olde Goat's Shoppe, so was initially glad to hear
of this newly-revised printed edition. It concerns the new
qaballistic system based on the English language that is hidden yet
clearly mentioned in Liber AL, as is the prophecy that its
mechanisms would be discovered and worked. Aleister Crowley and his
"Magical Son", Charles Stansfeld Jones (aka Frater Achad), tried to
solve this alluring puzzle but failed; the (best so far) solution -
the "English Qaballa (EQ)" - did not manifest in the Outer until the
mid-1970s, and The Serpent Tongue brings English Qaballa
research up to date, although not entirely satisfactorily, alas.
(English Qaballa [EQ] is also known as the "Elevenfold Qaballa" or
the "11-Count ALW Cipher", amongst other names. For many years,
myself, and many others, have used the Hermetic spelling, Qabalah,
instead. Our term for EQ is "New Aeon English Qabalah Cipher 6" or
"NAEQ6".)
Featuring a Foreword-cum-glowing endorsement by the leading Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) initiate, Lon Milo DuQuette, the main problem with the book are the glaring typos: in the 'Tables of A.M.E.N.' on p.102 (the arrangement introduced as being "undoubtedly the correct form"), Kephra should be Khephra; Nu-Ha-It should equal 83, not 89 as given; Aormuzdi should be 95, not 96; Shosinel 85, not 95; Hoor-Apep 108, not 98; there's no number-value given for Aiwaz Amn; ISIS-HATHOR (referred to on p.103) is not present (and some of the other names could have been separated onto two lines to avoid confusion). There's no excuse for such shamefully sloppy mistakes in a book on this subject, where accuracy and continuity are fundamental. (And on a lesser note, a bolder sans-serif font may have been more appropriate for the tables, etc., as the font employed is rather feint in places; the letter 'x' is used throughout instead of the multiplication symbol, '×', and the illustrations of two talismans referred to on p.75 are not present.)
The back cover professes that: "The purpose of this book is to set the record straight about the discovery of the EQ," but Mr Stratton-Kent does not reveal what person(s) actually discovered the English Qaballa, only an unnamed "esoteric Order in the United Kingdom" (later described as a "Lodge of the A∴A∴"). These omissions are somewhat baffling, as it's not classified information - Allen H. Greenfield had already named them as the "OAA", the "sister group" of the Qabalistic Alchemist Church (QAA) (another name for the Hermetic & Alchemical Order of QBLH) in America, on p.10 of his Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts (2005), and named them again on the Occult of Personality Podcast 17 (2007).
I've been told that OAA is the acronym for the "Ordo Argentum Astrum", i.e. the (THE?) A∴A∴ (Order of the Silver Star), and that they formed an alliance with the QAA/QBLH in 1980 to research the EQ. More information on these two obscure and interesting organisations would have been helpful, e.g. there's no mention of the QAA/QBLH initiates, Frater Damon and Soror Ishtaria - who were early developers of the EQ solution, the latter creating the EQ calculator computer program Lexicon - and nothing about what seems like OAA ritual activity at Stonehenge. We must instead rely on Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who claims he met a Glastonbury-based occult group in the 1980s called the "English Kabbalah," who were "obsessed with Aleister Crowley's Book of the Law. To them it was actually a coded message transferring English letters to Kabbalistic symbols, so they were retranslating it." GBP-O also says he and other TOPY initiates assisted this Glastonbury group to perform "the ritual of the Silver Star" inside Stonehenge, which opened a "kind of psychic wormhole" there.
According to Ashé Journal (Volume 2, Issue 3, 2003), the ALW EQ Cipher was discovered in 1976 by the Englishman "Jim Lees," and the dreaded Wikipedia informs us that in September 2008 or earlier, the Thelemite "James Lees" publicly stated that he had found the ALW EQ Cipher on 26 November 1976, but the 11th Continuum source-link is broken. This site appears to be the official domain of the aforementioned "Lodge of the A∴A∴", although this isn't made expressly clear, there's no contact address, and most of its texts are anonymous. It doesn't seem to be linked to the Thelemic magazine, In the Continuum, published by the College of Thelema (that was "Founded in service to the A∴A∴") and edited by Phyllis Seckler (Soror Meral, who was an initiate of the A∴A∴ and the OTO) in the USA between 1973-1996. Maybe "The Continuum" was a general term in use to describe those who continued to practice and promote Thelema after Aleister Crowley's death in 1947?
Elsewhere on the 11th Continuum site, "Leo" (Jim/James Lees?) asserts that he created the pseudonyms Carol Smith, Stefan Dajnowicz, John Deacon and others, who wrote about the EQ from the early-1980s onwards, thus refuting the commonly-held belief in the EQ field that Carol Smith was a real person who first obtained the EQ solution in 1974. (This belief presumably stems from Carol Smith's article, 'The Key To The English Qaballa', in The New Equinox/British Journal of Magick, Volume 5, Number 3 [1981], that seems to be the first public mention by Leo [James Lees?] of the EQ Solution.)
So why weren't any of these important historical record issues mentioned by Mr Stratton-Kent, who cites Mr Lees' works in the Bibliography and is said to be his longtime colleague? I - and many others I would think - would have liked to have read more about the actual discovery of the EQ itself - who, where, how, why, exactly (I've always wondered just who came up with the obscure "Counting%Well" technique, for instance). What's the point of all this mystery-mongering/obfuscation? I understand the need for discretion and secrecy in magical matters, but what about standing up to be counted? Whilst the word occult does mean 'hidden', the core premise of occultism is Illumination: shining light on things; banishing the darkness.
And while we're on the subject, why no mention in The Serpent Tongue (even in its Bibliography) of Allen H. Greenfield's aforementioned seminal book, Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts (1994/2005), his sequel, Secret Rituals of the Men In Black (2005), Gerald del Campo's New Aeon English Qabalah Revealed (2002), or John L. Crow's New Aeon English Qabalah Dictionary (2002)? All of these previously-published tomes have greatly contributed to the sum total of EQ knowledge and praxis and their omission is outrageous. Aside from the present work under review these are probably the only other books on EQ extant, so surely the author was aware of them? One hopes they are not on the Index of Prohibited Books of some Inquisition in 21st Century America.
On p.38, the author states that "Ideally, these exponents [of the EQ] should work together, contributing their various skills," and it would have been better perhaps to have republished the work online again on a dedicated website, so that people could have sent in their own comments, ideas, suggestions and corrections to eventually build up a more substantial and flawless printed tome - but quibbles aside, The Serpent Tongue is certainly 'EQ in Theory & Practice': very useful, deep, and worthy of fetishing. The author knows what he's on about and gives us a lucid account of the matter, including EQ's myriad applications, plus some powerful cognate rituals. There is an obvious need for such a vital and non-Hebrew, non-Greek, etc. system of Qaballa/Qabalah that is rooted in and relevant to our own language, culture and history, if only so that more people are attracted to explore this rewarding subject. Those who do feel the urge to take the plunge into this potent, wideranging and experimental technology should study and implement this book. Just keep your wits about you, which is no bad thing.
Jake Stratton-Kent, The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187. Hadean Press, 2011. Paperback, 226pp. ISBN: 978-1907881077. RRP £15. Available direct from the publisher or Amazon, etc.
POSTSCRIPT: Jake Stratton-Kent has since confirmed that he was involved with Jim Lees' group from around 1982, and took some flak in his role as spokesman for the NAEQ6 movement. Mr Stratton-Kent adds that he wrote for The New Equinox journal (after Jim Lees had took it over from Ray Sherwin), and that he eventually took it over himself and ran a NAEQ6 online forum for some years.
'The History of the English Qaballa' article by Cath Gould (including material by Jim Lees) looks legitimate and can be read here. It contains a photo of Jim/James Lees and reveals that he was born on 22 August 1939 in Bolton, Lancashire, and that before discovering the EQ he had completed the Abramelin Working, Crossed the Abyss, saw UFOs, etc. It also reveals that the "Counting%Well" method was invented by the Anglo-Polish Magickian, Brother Thoth (it is elsewhere written that it was invented by Stefan Djanowicz, although this may have been a pseudonym of "Leo" as stated above); Brother Daedalus (seemingly, like Brother Thoth, of Mr Lees' pre-OAA occult group, the TTS) created the first computer calculation programs for the EQ; Mr Lees was "Grand Master" of the OAA and corresponded with Jake Stratton-Kent, who eventually became OHO (Outer Head of the Order) of the OAA; the Continuum was an affiliated occult fraternity with a "Grand Elect" (the Secret Chiefs?), and the only one at that time that "was sanctioned by Her Majesty's government to use Stonehenge."
Allen H. Greenfield has just published updated versions of his Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts, and the sequel, Secret Rituals of the Men In Black, in one volume: The Complete Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts (Paranoia Publishing/The Anomalies Network LLC, 2016), that is available here. Another newly-available book on NAEQ6 is Cath Thompson's The Magickal Language of the Book of the Law: An English Qaballa Primer (Hadean Press, 2016), available here. Her NAEQ6 website is here. Two out-of-print books that feature NAEQ6 material are the anonymous The Book of Paramazda (Hadean Press, 2010) and Pan's Verse vs. Nothing (Hadean Press, 2011). Readers may also be interested in George T. Mortimer's The Key of It All (AL=L) (1996), that presents an alternative English Qabalah Cipher that he discovered in Liber AL. It can be downloaded here. The sterling research of Dennis Fetcho into the "Isisian Codes" (not derived from Liber AL) and related matters is also worthy of study.
03 NOV 2011
BENEATH CONTEMPT & HAPPY TO BE THERE
Does the world really need the first ever
(unauthorised) full-length biography of arch sleaze merchant Al
Goldstein? YES. In this para-schizo country where, despite the
overload of ultraviolence and torture-porn it's still an offence to
offend if one shows (gasp!) actual sex, people like him are a damn
necessary fly in the ointment of Grey Force Control.
For those who don't know, Goldstein, the master of overkill, or overthrill, was a hippy subversive anti-censorship freedom-loving cab driver-cum-carnival barker who in late-1968 America began publishing the seminal opinionated OTT porn mag, Screw (not to be confused with the "first European sexpaper", Suck, which began the year after), and its bizarre complementary offshoot, Death, which - amongst other things like his notorious Midnight Blue cable TV show - made Goldstein a mansion-dwelling multimillionaire packing a wad of 100 credit cards, before numerous busts for obscenity, harassment, etc., and a few spells in jail morphed him into a dimeless homeless hobo as he approached his 70s, when he was transformed once again into "a kind of absurd folk hero, a living breathing testament to the reverse order of the American dream," as the author puts it. The ever-intrepid Goldstein cast a final upturned middlefinger to the Man by running for US President in 2008.
The experienced sex historian Stevenson does an admirable job here, covering the entire gobsmacking scenario in a punchy and succinct page-turner way, adding his own knowledgeable insights to the matter at hand, assisted by a liberal dose of well-chosen illustrations. So if you want to get the lowdown on the unique X-rated King Goldstein who fearlessly fought and exposed hypocrisy and oppression on behalf of us all, know that, like Goldstein himself, Beneath Contempt delivers the goods.
Jack Stevenson, Beneath Contempt & Happy To Be There: The Fighting Life Of Porn King Al Goldstein. Headpress, 2011. Paperback, 218pp. ISBN: 978-1900486798. RRP £12.99. Available from Headpress and all brave bookshops.
27 OCT 2011
HIP-POCKET SLEAZE
It's hard to believe time really
happened; under tall oaks the text-covered leaves... Is then is then
and now is now? When I contemplate the spellbinding Mysteries behind
old school adult exploitational pulp-print I'm not so sure... I go
there with them. Anyhow, if you share my obsession with this lovely
garish genre you will thrill to Hip Pocket Sleaze, a
"celebratory overview" of said genre from the 1940s onwards. It's
truly a wonder, a marvel. Evoluting out of the author's digest
fanzine that he began in 1999, the most capable Mr Harrison has
cultivated nearly 400 pages chock full of fascinating reviews of
choice examples, interviews and essays concerning the major pulp
writers, artists, imprints and collectors, and useful lists of
what's out there, augmented by many b&w reproductions of the
fantastic front covers of these publications and the advert-smut
they contain.
It's wide in scope: a short history of the phenomenon; lesbian and gay material, Armed Services Editions, drugs and counterculture, horror tie-ins, gore novels, witchcraft and the occult, offbeat and esoteric titles, the sex film mags, plus a look at porny Super-8, photo sets and audio. It also confirms the organised crime involvement in this murky trade, including rumours of people snuffed for demanding withheld payment - art imitating life and vice versa as the characters step out of and into the magic pages.
Hip Pocket Sleaze is a top notch tutelary goldmine that will gift hours of fruitful delight to the newcomer or seasoned connoisseur alike. A pervert's bible kind of trip, surely destined to become (or already be) a standard reference work.
John Harrison, Hip Pocket Sleaze: The Lurid World Of Vintage Adult Paperbacks. Headpress, 2011. Paperback, 392pp. ISBN: 978-1900486484. RRP £15.99. Available from Headpress, etc.
05 JULY 2011
THE HELLHOUND SAMPLE
According to Elvis Costello, "Writing
about music is like dancing about architecture - it's a really
stupid thing to want to do". What utter piffle, like most of
Costello's music. You can write about anything, including music,
which is what Charles Shaar Murray has been doing for the past forty
years, making his debut in the groundbreaking OZ magazine
"Schoolkids" issue back in 1970. Judging from his publicity photo,
this dude's been through a lot, and he has put a lot into his first
novel, The Hellhound Sample, a chunky, near 300-page,
dense jungle of plenty, that was a delight to navigate, and got me
just right, overflowing my attention like a fine bottle of 'shine.
Its tight and focussed prose never wastes a second, as the action
weaves back and forth in time and place, kicking out the jams. Mr
Murray obviously loves his subject: blues-source rock. It's in his
blood, as is writing about it (he's previously crafted two
well-received non-fiction investigations of Jimi Hendrix and John
Lee Hooker).
The plot of Hellhound is underpinned by the whole Robert Johnson/Crossroads thing. (In case you didn't know, Robert Johnson was a tuneless loser, who allegedly went to the crossroads, where he sold his soul to the Devil to become a blues-music genius. He eventually died barking on all fours like a dog; guess that old hellhound on his trail finally caught up with him, as it did with that other famous pactist, Doctor Faustus.) It's 1932, Mississippi, the ten-year-old son of a preacher man gets spellbound in the flesh by the post-pact Robert Johnson playing his devil-tool live on a street corner. The boy is James Moon, who becomes a bluesman himself, and (although he doesn't realise it yet) has his own crossroads meeting with the Devil and is tricked into a pact, that brings him great success and fame.
Cut to the present day and James 'Blue' Moon is a terminally ill old man, who wants to make a final album with his family and longtime friend: a simple-enough wish that turns into a freaky ride of weirdness, exposing the peculiar parallel world of the music business that's unfurling separately alongside us but is also right here; more than hinting at a justified paranoia, the eerie sense of something just beyond awareness and shaping it; of persecution by invisible forces of control.
In his Afterword the author stresses that he doesn't "really" believe in all this supernatural stuff; that the narrative is speculation on his part - but what goes on throughout Hellhound seems very possible to me. I was in the book when it was open in front of me - the characters, locations, atmosphere, interaction so strongly formed and believable (be-live-able). And there's others who swear the crossroads is as real and magical as the crossbones, so I gets to feelin' there's more to this here book than meets the eye. Maybe it will, like old Scratch's haunted geetar, lure future generations into the dangerously rewarding world of the 'music' biz...
Charles Shaar Murray, The Hellhound Sample. Headpress, 2011. Paperback, 292pp. ISBN: 978-1900486781. RRP £12.99. Available from the publisher, Headpress, and the like.
06 JAN 2011
SELF-TITLED MOTH DEMO
What's going on... chrome white meets dull grey concrete, and yet there's a new audio-cassette here by MOTH, formerly known as MOTTR (Mothers Of The Third Reich), namechange due to them getting shit from young idiots who don't "get" much these days. More gigs now perhaps but the intensers will still shout "Bah!" inspired by the stylised nomenclatural 'M'-into-inverted-pentagram and the distorted chequerboard on the sleeve, combined with a secret made-up acronym (Mothers Of The H, the 8th Latin letter hence H-eight/HATE, the first three letters the same in both old-and-new name to hint at 33 [Freemasonry], and the moth is drawn magnetically to the candleflame [Luciferian Illuminati]).
MOTH are an improvised weirdo band operating out of
Susssex, comprised of a male-female core duo, Jase & Jo, whose
double-initials form a round-cornered see-thru lozenge with intox
assertions ("window-pane" LSD). This is their second release, a
self-titled demo passed out to test the water (or poison it?) as it
evolves into a 'proper' release. Appears to be live (alive) gigs
extended tracks with post-prod interjects: voices, sound-effects and
sounds dabbed on the right areas for augment. Kicks off with
sax-drum-guitar-machines passed under the table in meltdown Europa,
pro-autistic Black Metal gone wild through the drainpipes I hear
Beefheart smiling behind the curtains. Hammerthrust frequencies
bludgeon the norm out the way, provoking code: "The time has come /
projects to / find something / EGYPT80 / chaos / honest folk".
Comes on like paranoiac cohesion in midnight woods, completing the ranks of the gunpowder angels. Abysses gape open, that branch into A-Z Vs, emanating in rings: "Find thy mind's eye and see with your ears..." It's monstered rock, wanton under humming cycles, mad and roaming. Feel the drunken rush of noisewind whip your hair and all the madness makes sense. The tanking aurals punch out the speaker cones in a preemptive escalation shot across both bows, unfolding into a starry underground threat against the betting man of GLADIOed destiny. Portal nights cometh, alien dawn.
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A heavily modified MOTH guitar.
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MOTH are playing with black dice. There's references to the fourth dimension, sacred ceremonies and personal gain (mind focus generation). A fighting fantasy, not all in your face, a lot of it gently strokes your palm, these quieter moments like mission liquid orchestras seeping out a mad professor's test-tube (although most of side two is a total cacophonic blowout: petrol in the air, uncanny valley, waking up to the Apocalypse amongst discarded love-goggles). This is not for the normal humanes (offal products). The tape is a non-lethal weapon, darksided demon seed, but the Devil's never done me any harm, unlike old Marshal Law Papa. And we shouldn't have to expect any lazy journo comparisons to the White Stripes, manguitar-womandrum backbone is the only same for MOTH are BRITISH all entails, and the White Stripes be disbanded. MOTH have amply won their spurs already. Could be colossus.
MOTH, Self-Titled Demo. C90 audio-cassette. Received January 2011. This recording is planned to be released in some form by Threshold Tapes. MOTH may possibly be found via MOTTR.
05 OCT 2010
MOTTR (MOTHERS OF THE THIRD REICH)
Coming encased in the larger-domed bubblewrap and sealed with a white cross of masking tape, I suspected that this audio-cassette - the first-ever release by MOTTR - would be something different. This was further evidenced by the tape case: the title spine redacted by black paint, the red stencilled symbol on yellow (blood and sun) of the cover, and the completely gold-painted cassette itself, the whole suggesting occult treasure.
Simply entitled MOTTR, with no track titles or other information included, this magnetic document has emanated from the twisted cogweb of Jase Williams (the tallest man in Sussex who has worked with dwarves), assisted by one-or-more members of either sex. 90-minutes long and seemingly all live shows or mostly, this gargantuan soundtank of improvnoise is way beyond the whole radio/shifting-units-friendly fit-in image concerns not even in consideration here. MOTTR are a sonic antonym: primitive but sophisticated, good - evil.
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The aftermath of a
recent Mothers Of The Third Reich gig.
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Present here is the upsonic higher abuse of proper instruments (horn, guitar, drums, electronic machines), the interweave holding the interweave together like a hidden hand. Long tracks developed overload with an authentic Otherness anointing forged in the crucible of war. A satisfying young Beefheart dream after death. A fearless barrage of targeted wildness that takes risks attempting; a dark weight in the air trying to wake you up in the waking nightmare. Eerie chthonic rumblings in the mix, appearance of lurgi family, mad granny singing, demento child in his growing shed invites you in.
Analogue recording captures then gives more than its digital rival and these days more is needed. This is amply delivered by this tape, that seems like some strange talisman or creepy ritual, contacting through resonance prehistoric witchcraft frequencies; a disturbing sound and dangerous, that could open doors to the abstracted dimensions or entities operating just beyond light. Can imagine this playing in the background serial killer basement sharpening; "Pope of Claws" headphones call; the sort of music those SS killer ghost-zombies from An American Werewolf In London would listen to in their astral bunker whilst planning their next assault. Overall, an admirable example of professional British Weirdness. As to the inevitable "Are MOTTR Black Flame Nazirene?" query - who isn't, if 'only' in thought?
Mothers Of The Third Reich, MOTTR. C90 audio-cassette. Received October 2010. No idea of price or availability, but you can download their other release entitled Tape Two for free and look at their official website.
16 JUL 2009
POSSESSION & EXORCISM
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Malachi Martin's Hostage to the Devil and David M. Kiely & Christina McKenna's The Dark Sacrament are by different authors but are related, in that they are both about real-life demonic exorcism; they share the same publisher; the latter book is advertised in the former and is obviously intended as a 'sequel' of sorts. Know that the late Malachi Martin (a laicised, i.e. politely, usually voluntarily, defrocked, Jesuit priest) has been accused of bending the facts and outright lying before, and Kiely & McKenna freely admit that they've "reconstructed" certain scenes and conversations; plus most names and places have been changed for anonymity in both books, so one wonders the full extent of embellishments or invention, but I was glad I took the plunge, for this isn't mere floor-writhing, frustrated parishioners getting their much-needed irrationalism fix at zany crazy 'deliverance' church meetings; nor teenage LaVey wannabes who judge the few strange coincidences their dabblings have provoked as evidence of having opened the Portals of Hell: this is the REAL THING: contemporary true-life accounts - five from America in Hostage and ten from Ireland in Sacrament - of (mostly) innocent people who suddenly find themselves the subject of infernal attention, and need to call professional ghostbusters to sort it out (in these cases Catholic and Anglican priests). Both books also contain historical and explanative essays on demonic possession and exorcism, those by Martin being especially informative.
Whilst those with no experience of the dark side will still assume that it's all just fiction or psychiat, those who've actually experienced its stark menacing horror will recognise the genuineness of these in-depth accounts with an ice-cold shiver. There are also some curious parallels with TranceFormation-style mind-control literature: in Marianne's encounters with "the Man" and his creepy, life-warping instructions to her (Hostage); and Angela's programming by the demonically-directed magician and slave-handler, Barry (Sacrament). Plus there's further connotations with the Bloodline theory: during Jamsie's exorcism the evil spirit states that "He was chosen before he was born" (Hostage); and the generational paedophilia/incest involving Erin's accursed family and their parish priest, with accompanying possession down the family tree (Sacrament).
Seen as Cautionary Tales, they maketh one wonder if HP Lovecraft really did plug into an objectively-existing zone after all. So to David Icke for that matter, for both these tomes relate how some possessed people's faces turn reptilian-like on occasion. Describing a demonically possessed woman who writhed on the floor like a huge, vicious snake, trying to bite people, "The eyes were hooded with lazy reptilian torpor . . . except when the reptile darted out in attack, at which moment the eyes would open wide with blazing hatred" (Sacrament, p.XXXIII, quoting from the Harvard-trained psychiatrist Dr M Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil. Simon & Schuster, 1983). Then there's Martin's terrifying concept of "perfect possession", where someone makes a clear, definitive decision to accept possession, never rejects that decision in any way, so that total consent is given to the invading demon, who then completely controls the host. At this point the person is hopelessly lost to summary evil, protected even from the touch of grace, for no exorcism can succeed without at least the partial will of the possessed. He or she will give no outward indication whatsoever of the demonic residing within (although from experience the perfectly possessed can be noticed by those in a more acutely perceptive state due to tripping on LSD or Magic Mushrooms - but they can notice that you've noticed them more easily also), will not cringe at the sight of the Crucifix, Rosary or Holy Water, nor hesitate to discuss religious topics. They are truly the damned.
It's certainly food for thought... (Especially as, according to Art Bell on his Coast to Coast AM radio show, Martin, an experienced exorcist himself, died as a direct result of being physically flipped upside-down by a demon. A variation cited in the 2016 documentary on Martin, Hostage to the Devil, is that he was pushed off the stool he was standing on by a demonic force.) And for those concerned, these deep end accounts give the warning signs of, as well as hints on repelling, demonic attack, and how to stay free from it in the aftermath. Although, as both these books contain traditional Christian Prayers and Rituals of Exorcism in full as Appendices, they're no doubt going to provoke some highly-dangerous amateur attempts that will probably lead to disaster. So the Devil gets his way as of old. He's never vanquished that easily...
There are two equal and opposite errors into which one race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight. (CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters. Geoffrey Bles, 1942.)
This is outstanding, fear-kick intoxicating, weirdly fascinating 'occult car wreck' publishing that will have you checking under the bed during its reading or later on.
Malachi Martin, Hostage to the Devil: the Possession & Exorcism of Five Contemporary Americans. Harper-One, 1992. Paperback, 479pp. ISBN: 006065337X. £16.95. David M. Kiely & Christina McKenna, The Dark Sacrament: True Stories of Modern-day Demonic Possession & Exorcism. HarperOne, 2008. Paperback, 398pp. ISBN: 0061238171. £10.06.
04 JUL 2009
TRASHFIEND
Having just finished Clive Barker's A-Z
of Horror (BBC Books, 1997), I was wondering if there was
another 'reference' book out there that was more out there...
and covered the more obscure and neglected gems of this weirdly
persistent genre that has spread across the globe to infect
countless impressionable youngsters like some magic fungus ejected
from unexplored secret stratas. And Hurrah!, Headpress (who
previously published THE book on the 'Video Nasty' phenomenon: David
Kerekes & David Slater's See No Evil, 2000) have come
up with the goods yet again, in the form of Trashfiend, a
vibrant cornucopia of delights by longtime American collector-trader
and self-confessed "trashfiend" Scott Stine: one of that dedicated,
pro-psychotic legion engaged in an unending quest for the elusive
gold/Grail of "Qualcrap" ("Crap of Quality", geddit?), as another
initiate once dubbed it.
So what do you get for your money? A large(ish) format, glossy-papered journey into the roaring, blood-soaked, stygian abyss that was the 60s-70s apogee of horror/exploitation. Loads of its quivering tentacles are lovingly examined: reviews, reports, interviews, rare illustrations and technical info on the films (including 8-MM cine), comics, magazines, posters, personages; even toys, games and other novelties - too numerous to list here (and many of which I'd never heard of before and will now have to seek out). Neat 4-page colour section also. It's biased towards US-made items, but also features some curious nuggets from farther afield.
Overall, Trashfiend is a satisfying, informative product of passionate obsessive fetishism and unashamed nostalgia; the author's unquenchable enthusiasm for this material shines through in every sentence, evoking an intoxicating gore-feast for green or old hands alike, that also engenders definite psychedelic aftereffects. Get culturally armed - buy this book! And that's not all folks, for Mr Stine promises a sequel...
Scott Stine, Trashfiend: Disposable Horror Fare of the 1960s & 1970s, Volume One. Headpress, 2009. Paperback, 321pp. Profusely illustrated. ISBN: 1900486660. £13.99. Available, amongst other delights, from Headpress.