Behold! Presented to you, bold reader, in suitably sinister font, it’s the latest brand-new retro phenomena on the occult scene today – talismanic publishing! Roll up, roll up for your fine edition, bound in toad skin tome. These are beautiful objects, sacred and talismanic publications (which we’d like to sell to YOU). They will look so much cooler in your library than your battered copy of 777, your spiral bound copy of  Sorcery as Virtual Mechanics or those dodgy Carlos Castenda paperbacks. Visit our website! Check out the skulls, the stark quality graphic design and sense that, finally, this is it! You’ve seen The Ninth Gate, now for just <<insert amount in dollars and link to paypal here>> you can hold real magick in your hands!

According to Balkan’s Arcane Bindings it’s been said we are in a new ‘Golden Age’ of occult publishing, at least as far as fine talismanic production is concerned. But should we judge a book by its cover?

Now please understand I like fine edition books. In fact I’ve stopped paying into a pension scheme and started buying them instead because I feel they represent a much better investment. I figure that in the future I’ll be able to sell my collection to pay for my dotage. I’ll be able to shuffle off this mortal coil at an advanced age, having flogged my collection, to pay for all the kindly nurses, holidays in the sun, sex, drugs etc which I hope to enjoy in my old age. However if, to quote Jim Morrison, ‘the whole shithouse goes up in flames’. I will at least have some nice acid-free paper that I can burn in order to keep warm as I struggle through the radioactive wasteland looking for tinned food.

I’ve produced talismanic editions myself. Some years ago an enterprising chap asked me and my co-author Greg Humphries to produce some ‘talismanic’ (his words) copies of Now That’s What I Call Chaos Magick. We did this by obtaining 30 copies from our publisher Mandrake of Oxford and then writing additional notes and creating original artworks, by hand, directly in those copies. (Having done a brief websearch I can’t see any of these left for sale and so I confidently predict they will be worth a fortune by now.)

Some of the new wave of talismanic publishing might be traced back to the work of Kenneth Grant. Kenny G. certainly had style and his original Typhonian Trilogy (nice hardbacks with a smart lamen of The-Occult- Order-formerly-know- as-the-Typhonian-OTO on the spine) was groundbreaking stuff. I did have a set of the first editions once, lovely books. Read them when I was 14 and was well hooked by the eldritch magick which Kenny G. promulgated from his unknown atavistic transmission blah blah blah… Anyhow I sold them years later because, while they were cool, they didn’t really have much to offer except their style which I’d already grokked fully. Grant’s work became prized, the reprints of classics like Nightside of Eden andOutside The Circles of Credability simply flew off the shelves. When Kenny started pumping out his later work, like Beyond The Mauve Zone (now on Amazon for £550), it was being snapped up. It was obvious that there was money to be made and that magicians can’t resist a well produced, left hand path stylee monograph.

As a practitioner one of the problems I see with the current ‘golden age’ of fine occult publishing is that most of the books which I’ve encountered just don’t work for me. If I look in my physical library it’s the battered paperbacks which are the books I use repeatedly, not the fine editions that I own. In fact lots of the talismanic books I’ve encountered are both retro in their content as well as their style. Personally I don’t give a hoot (or ‘howl’) what number of legions of spirits there are in the Grand Grimoire of Some Old Git from Dayez of Yore. Neither do I care whether his sigillum doth looke like a cat being buggered with an coathanger surmounted by a badger skull rampant. I don’t care about the so-called Traditional Craft with its radical re-interpretation of which elements go in which quarters and the oh-so-mysterious arcanum of having the pointy stang of Tubby-Cain among its paraphernalia. So I guess the corpus of literature from this stream of the ‘golden age’ of occult publishing just isn’t for me, at least in terms of finding texts that I return to again and again.

Now I’m not saying there are not great books in fine editions. And there are certainly some good publishers out there. Scarlet Imprint for example have begun to release their material in fine, paperback and ebook formats and if the material is really aimed at practitioners, not just collectors, this makes total sense.

Fine art objects that many of the ‘talismanic’ offerings are, they are just that – art objects. I like a nice bit of vellum and gold leaf as much as the next wizard. I’ve worked with both substances and so appreciate the skill required. But in Balkan’s blog and on a facebook discussion today there’s appears to be a certain amount of wringing of hands about these books being re-sold for ‘astronomical ’ prices and collected by people who are not really into the occult. But that’s what happens to art when it becomes commodity. I really can’t understand how people in this game wouldn’t expect this to happen to their beautifully crafted volumes. And since it’s my pension plan I’m delighted to see the early signs are that I’m making good investments. Hail capitalism! Hail Satan!

Personally I think that books like PiHKAL and TiKHAL are more interesting as grimoires (and have more genuinely useful diagrams) than The Sworn Book of Who-ever, however tasty the binding.  And I want to inhabit a magick that doesn’t look like a medieval parody of obfuscation, or worse, a triumph of style over substance.  Magick should certainly draw on its rich past, but while we’re busy Hoodooing it up and pretending to be Creole slaves, or  hinting darkly that Cunning Craft is an ancient lineage, maybe we should be looking to the future rather more? A grimoire, to make any sense to me as a practitioner, needs be a grammar of the language of now. Where in all this old skool puff is the neuroscience? The psychology? Indeed where exactly did the 20th century of magical culture go, let alone an engagement with the 21st?

Magick as a praxis only develops by doing, so whether it’s a a slim volume from the Aquarian Press Paths to Inner Power series or a finely tooled Enochian tome, whatever inspires us to actual work is good. And as I’ve explained I’m all for fine editions as art objects. My library is looking pretty sexy this days with hardcore booknography. I also get to keep them in mint condition because, for the most part, these are not the books that get a good thumbing.

As I wrote earlier today on Facebook :

I once flogged a first edition Azoetia which was dedicated by Andrew Chumbley to me. Nice book in many ways (mostly ’cause it was a gift), and I guess worth $$$ now, but not the sort of thing that I’d bother re-reading so it was fair game to go. The fact I could flog it for more money now is, frankly, the only reason I miss it.

I’d rather have a sense that the information I’m getting in a book is cutting edge, embedded and alive in real-world culture now, than worry about it’s physical dimensions and binding style. It’s the information that for me is the magick in a book, but if people want to collect the wrappers then, as a collector, I say ‘bring it on!’

Check out the real alchemists using the practical grimoires mentioned in this post here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

and a link to a fine edition of that classic The Necronomicon here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this, the third episode, of SittingNow TV, Alkistis Dimech explores the relationship between avant garde Japanese Butoh (舞踏), the body, and Magickal progression:

Alkistis Dimech articulates the occult anatomy of the dancer, exploring the mysteries of concealment and revelation through the body. Physical praxis, cross-tradition research and an appetite for the carnal, trangressive and irrational have led her to reorient the body as the primal present and archaic source of knowing. In the ‘Mirror of Sacrifice’ the dancer encounters self as sacrifice, the act as divine epiphany, and the manifestation of Life in Death. Among the themes covered may be: imitation and doubling; witnessing & the dynamic of an audience; and a disclosure of some techniques to create what she calls ‘the lucid body’.

We return in a few weeks with the final lecture by Peter Grey. Then we begin a whole new era of SittingNow TV.

Shot by Mathew Hughes, and Sam Horn
Produced, graded, and edited by Ken Eakins
Motion Graphics by Ken Eakins
Sound production by Ken Eakins
Music by Dissolved (for SittingNow TV)

The lecture was shot at Scarlet Imprint‘s Summer of Love event in 2011. http://www.scarletimprint.com/summeroflove.htm

This lecture was shot by SittingNow Media in Brighton, and is © SittingNow Media 2012.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In this – the first ever- episode of SittingNow TV, we present the first of four lectures from the ‘Summer of Love’ event put on by Scarlet Imprint back in August.

Ulysses Black is not a name known to the occult community, despite having generated, under different guises, considerable interest through much sought after publications and artwork. As Ulysses Black he assails the issue of identity through performance art and ritual action. From influences such as Joseph Beuys and Hermann Nitsch as well as the Western Magical Tradition he plots a return to mythical Ithaca.

Ken Eakins

]]> http://sittingnow.co.uk/2011/11/22/sittingnow-tv-episode-01-the-voyage-of-ulysses-black/feed/ 6 http://sittingnow.co.uk/2011/10/02/sittingnow-tv-begins-this-month-with-the-summer-of-love/ http://sittingnow.co.uk/2011/10/02/sittingnow-tv-begins-this-month-with-the-summer-of-love/#comments Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:17:55 +0000 Ken Eakins http://sittingnow.co.uk/?p=4153 Click here to view the embedded video.

SittingNow.co.uk were invited to film the events of the first ‘Summer of Love’ event in Brighton by the excellent Scarlet Imprint.

A veritable Summer of Love distilled into one brimful cup of intoxication, illumination and revelation.

Speakers, dancers, performance art, and ritual combine to create a truly magical happening in a secret, central and spectacular location

The first four episodes will consist of full-length lectures from four of the speakers at the event (seen in the trailer above), and will begin later this month.

I know, I know…we took our sweet time…worth the wait, trust us.

Ken Eakins 

Sigil Business!

Sometime in early 2009, I was approached by a person about creating a sigil to help him get more business. While I’m personally of the belief that if you want something, you should do it yourself, I was also intrigued by his request, partially because I was in the process of working to get more clients for my own business ventures. However, as I thought about it, I realized I wanted to do something magical that worked for more than just one or two businesses, and had more of a positive effect for people in general.

I took this request to a group of other magical practitioners I work with on a regular basis. We started out by asking ourselves what the best method of delivery was. Should we  use a sigil that we could give out to people, or should we work some kind of ceremonial magical working and then share that working with others, or should we work with a deity or daemon of wealth? We discussed all of those possibilities and ended up rejecting all of them for various reasons.

Another concern we discussed what exactly what we’d focus that’d really be representative of economic activism. We didn’t feel that helping corporations to be economically healthier was really benefitting everyone, and also felt that magically prompting people to spend money was both unethical and not a definite solution to the poor economy.

The more time we spent discussing what would be a viable form of economic activism, the more we realized that it was very hard to come to a group consensus about a magical act that all of us could be comfortable with. However one theme that consistently came up was that any magical work we did needed to incorporate the theme of collaboration in it, the idea that people would actively help each other out and work together.

Eventually we decided that we would create a networking entity; specifically an entity which would help people network better. While the stereotypical image of a networker is a person holding a business card in one hand and a drink in the other, the reality is that a networker is someone who is focused on creating quality relationships with the people s/he knows and finding out what each person needs, while matching him/her up with someone who can meet that need. In essence, the very quality of collaboration that we’d agreed on, and an essential ingredient in really building up a community.

The next step was to create an entity. We decided to use a technique where the entity would tell us it’s naming using a pendulum and letters. One of us would use the pendulum and be guided by the entity, while the rest of us put our energy into the creation of the entity. This was a fairly exhausting method for determining the entity’s name, especially for the person using the pendulum, but we also thought it was a useful way of introducing ourselves to the entity, while also creating it. Eventually we did get a name: Zi Fupsekip Vosri. It actually rolls off the tongue fairly well, and the image that came to mind was of some Eastern European person in a suit, with a pleasant smile and an eagerness to help others and collaborate.

Having the name wasn’t enough. We also needed a message from this entity that embodied what it had to offer and a symbol that embodied the concept as well as a method of transmission by which we could share the entity. The method of transmission we decided on was to create a business card format. Because business cards are used as a transmission of a person’s information we thought this might be a successful way to share the entity with other people.

On the front of the card we placed the name of the entity, and a symbol that represented networking, the bringing together of many different connections to form a pattern of success that could be shared to the benefit of everyone. We wanted the concept of networking to focus on success, regardless of whether it was monetary or bargaining or some other form of success, so we came up with a phrase: Mutually Assured Prosperity, Inc(arnated): Wherever people meet to create  abundance. The idea being that if people met to share and collaborate this entity would be there, helping them to do that, as well as encouraging the possibility of other opportunities. On the back of the card we provided further details about what Zi Fupsekip Vosri does and how to feed Zi Fupsekip Vosri (simply pass out the card to other people).

All it takes to activate Zi Fupsekip Vosri is passing out the card. We’ve already put together a small batch of cards, and more will be sent to a professional printer so that we can start passing them out to our local community. The best thing about this card is that it can be a conversation starter, which is the spirit of true networking. Passing the card provides the opportunity to explain what the card is about, but also will provide you the opportunity to find out more about the people you are meeting. Remember to ask the phrase, “What do you need?” It’s a powerful phrase that will allow you to find out what someone else needs and start figuring out who you know that can help this person. And of course, don’t be shy in sharing what you need. You never know who that person is connected to, who could help you!

Below are images of the front of the card and the back of the card. I invite readers to create their own cards and share Zi Fupsekip Vosri with the people they know and don’t know. Network, collaborate and share, and through that create an act of economic activism that helps everyone as opposed to only a few.

rear of card

I would like to thank Innowen, Cobalt, Rowan, MM, and Bill Whitcomb for their help and participation in creating this entity.

Taylor Ellwood

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After the most month-shaped week in history, we return to game with a great new episode of SittingNowish delights. This weeks guest, the fantastic Rodney Orpheus, gives us a great interview about the infamous Aleister Crowley. Discussed: Magick, The Abbey of the Thelema, The Ordo Templi Orientis, The A∴A∴, why Crowley is still so revered, Doing thou will, and our plot for a strange Victorian porn film.

Hyde to Kim’s Jekyll, Daddytank, returns with a nostalgic, but great MySpace Heroes. This weeks Musikal weapons:

Twiggy and the K-Mesons : Preset Love
Yellow Then Blue : The Black Rose
Raleigh St Clair : Alphabet

Books recomended by Rodney:

Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley & The Eye in the Triangle: Interpretation of Aleister Crowley

Rodney’s own fantastic book:

Abrahadabra: Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thelemic Magick

Don’t forget to give us a review on iTunes when you have a spare 2 minutes, we’d really appreciate it.

Enjoy!

Rodney Orpheus’ (impressive) Biography:

Rodney Orpheus was born in Northern Ireland, and in the past years has lived in Hamburg, Germany and Los Angeles, California. He currently lives in The Cotswolds in England.

For the past twenty years Rodney has been well-known as a musician, record producer, and author. He lectures frequently at colleges and music business events, where his ability to present highly technical matters in an entertaining, understandable style has made him very much in demand.

Rodney has acted as a consultant with many of the top companies in the music instrument industry in the past years, most notably with Steinberg and DTS, as well as writing a regular monthly column for Computer Music magazine and running the ground-breaking musicians community at mi7.com

After the release of his seminal band, The Cassandra Complex’s first records Orpheus spent several years touring Europe, originally basing himself in Aachen, Germany, where he joined Ordo Templi Orientis. Orpheus had been studying the works of Aleister Crowleyand other occult authors since his teenage years, and previously had been founder and editor of the UK occult newspaper Pagan News along with Phil Hine. While in Aachen he began work on the book Abrahadabra, published originally by Looking Glass Press in Sweden, later republished by Weiser Books. The book has been described as “a significant contribution to the field of thelemic, or Crowleyan if you will, magick.” and “one of the very few competent and readable introductory texts to Thelemic magick.”

He still also occasionally gets time to play with The Cassandra Complex on stage and in the studio. He is currently completing work on his second book.

Austin Gandy

In this weeks show we chat with the fantastic Austin Gandy about the basics of Magick. Austin knows his subject and delivers the goods this week in another great interview. Fans of our friends Out There Radio will know Mr Gandy from his work on the ‘Invisible College’ episode of the show, as well as being their guest for some of the best episodes. In this episode we look at the real basics of magick, as if the listener was a would-be adept, walking through their local occult bookstore, pondering where to get stuck in!

Claire delivers once again with her awesome Weekly Weird News, and we make a desperate plea for attention from our fans! Next week we’ll hopefully be heading back into the paranormal world with an interview about Crypto-Zoology!

Music this week comes in the shape of Kid606, you can download this track for free here, background music this week comes from Earth and Don Cab!

See you next time!

Featured music this week is a cool live recording of the amazing Ma Meeshka Mow Skwoz by Mr Bungle.

Taylor Ellwood Biog:

Taylor Ellwood lives in Portland with his beautiful mate Lupa, and two cats. He’s a co-author of Creating Magickal Entities (with David Cunninghman and Amanda Wagener), and Kink Magic (with Lupa. He is the author of Pop Culture Magick, Space/Time Magic, Inner Alchemy, Multi-Media Magic and the editor of the Magick on the Edge Anthology, Manifesting Prosperity Anthology, and the Pop Culture Grimoire. When Taylor isn’t editing Non-fiction books for Immanion Press, or working on his latest work, he can be found gaming, reading, and enjoying the company of his lovely wife. For more information about Taylor, please go to The Green Wolf or visit Magical Experiments.

Our guest this week, Lon Milo DuQuette, has authored numerous magical texts including The Magick of Aleister Crowley, Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, and Gods of the New Millennium, but without question his most popular work is the story of his own life as a practicing ceremonial magician, My Life with the Spirits.

My Life with the Spirits has been optioned for a feature film and is a required text for classes at DePaul University, Chicago. He is often called upon to appear on radio and television to comment authoritatively on matters pertaining to the Western Mystery traditions and matters of the occult. He travels extensively worldwide and speaks on a broad range of esoteric topics including Qabalah and the Tarot. He is on the faculty of the OMEGA INSTITUTE in Rhinebeck, New York where he teaches ‘The Western Magical Tradition.’

Lon has just authored a new book entitled Enochian Vision Magick: An Introduction and practical guide to the Magick of Dr John Dee and Edward Kelley

Background music this week comes in the shape of Plaid.

Featured song is Assassins Blade by R. D. Burman