This Wednesday, January 11th, at the suggestion of Sarah, we will further contemplate foundational magical skills by means of The Magician: His Training and Work by W. E. Butler.  Please come prepared to discuss Chapters 7-9 (pages 61-79).

This week, we will be discussing foundational skills described in the ubiquitous manual, Modern Magick, by Donald Michael Kraig.

Part A: Read the beginning of Lesson 2, pages 33-51.  Take it for a spin if you feel inclined.

Part B: Browse the convenient Contents listings at the front of the book (pages 5-7 of the PDF) and pick out one other topic of interest from the extensive list.  Read one more section of your choice and tell us about it!

For good or ill, this book has been one of the most prominent manifestations of some sort of mainstream consensus on how Western Ceremonial Magic can look.  Its methods and perceptions have been a jumping-off-point for many of us.  We can talk about that too – our various relationships with this book, and with the tradition.

Dearly Beloved Bastards,

This Wednesday we will be discussing the dueling forewords, introduction, and first chapter of David Crowhurst’s Stellas Daemonum (the entirety of the attached PDF).  This is another text recommended by AVDIERVNT, featuring cameos from Lon Milo DuQuette and Stephen Skinner.

This week, we’ll be discussing Oliver Onions’ The Beckoning Fair One, pages 6-95.  Please don’t be disconcerted by the page count; the font in this version is very large.

This week, at the suggestion of Saint Shut-the-Fuck-up Friday, we will be discussing The Satan Seller by Mike Warnke, pages 26-57, 76, 155-156, 182-196, and Appendices (211-213).

OPTIONAL SUPPLEMENT: Their Holiness’ summary of the vital plot points.  Also pages 58-78 from the book.

Their Holiness has these comments to offer upon the text:

Unlike memoirs that would debut later wherein the main characters were purportedly victims of a Satanic cult, Mike Warnke’s The Satan Seller describes his time as a Satanic High Priest. While the claims in this book could easily be debunked by anyone with the common sense the gods gave little green apples, the claims weren’t formally debunked for nearly twenty years, and the text helped provide an initial spark to what would become the Satanic Panic of the 1980s. Join us for a discussion of occult supply chain management, multi-level marketing schemes that definitely don’t involve the Illuminati, and the very real repercussions of the depictions of very fake Satanism.

This week, the enigmatical Tobiko brings us three brief selections on city magic: Terra Incognita, the “Pilgrimages and missionaries in rot” chapter of Urban Sorcery (pp. 35-38), and Surrealism in the Streets.

This Wednesday, we continue with The Devil’s Dozen by Gemma Gary.  We will discuss the “Introduction” and “The Man in Black” (pp. 9-25) and “A Horned Castle: the Rite of the Compass” (pp. 65-77).

On Wednesday, AVDIERVNT brings us an offering from The Devil’s Dozen by Gemma Gary. We’ll discuss “Skin-Turning & The Wild Hunt” (pp. 117-137). See you then!

This week, we’ll have a look at Walter Benjamin’s On Language as Such and on the Language of Man, found on pp. 107-123 of this collection. Join us Wednesday as we attempt to elucidate this abstruse but tremendous meditation at the crossroads of theology, philology, and philosophy.

~ Dysnomia

This week’s reading has been selected by Guest Bastard, Man of Letters, and yoga practitioner Antonio.

We will be discussing “Preliminary Remarks” pp.3-5, “Asana” pp.23-27, “Samadhi” pp.79-89, and “Summary” pp.90-93 from Book 4 – Liber ABA (Part One)

We will also read “Sutra 1.39” pp.207-209, “Dualism of Yoga” pp.42-44, “Appendix Chapter I: Meditative Absorption” 562-570, and “Sutra 1.2” 74-86 in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.