Tagliterature

London: City of Disappearances

London: City of Disappearances is a 655 page anthology with over 50 contributors, including: Ann Baer; J.G Ballard; Paul Buck; Brian Catling; Driffield; Bill Drummond; Tibor Fischer; Allen Fisher; Bill Griffiths; Lee Harwood; Stewart Home; Tony Lambrianou; Rachel Lichenstein; Michael Moorcock; Alan Moore; Jeff Nuttall; James Sallis; Anna Sinclair; Stephen Smith; Marina Warner; Sarah Wise.

Citizens disappear constantly, along with their homes, artifacts, buildings and spaces. As your time-flow accelerates, old friends email the latest obituaries and the function of the writer becomes increasingly clear. You’re there to count the dead; and re-count the missing landmarks. Scribe of mutability and mutation, you’re only a memory-shaman, chronicler of the crumbling scrolls – destined yourself to become a mere neural trace in the world-brain, as the towers tumble around you.

Full Story: Culture Court.

Buy London: City of Disappearances.

Also, if you’re in London: Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, and Iain Sinclair will be reading from the book on October 26th. Details here.

Blows Against the Empire: The Return of Philip K. Dick

Until his death, of a stroke, in 1982, Dick never stopped crying out. He was buried at last beside his infant sister, Jane, the missing half he had longed for and eventually made into a part of his cosmic mythology, the much mourned female God. The vision of an unending struggle between a humanity longing for a fuller love it always senses but can’t quite see, and a deranged cult of violence eternally presenting itself as necessary and real-this thought today does not seem exactly crazy. The empire never ends.

The New Yorker: Blows Against the Empire

(via Hit and Run)

Modern Day Mythology: A Talk with James Curcio

The simplest definition I have for “Babalon” is it’s the most leonine, sexual, feminine energy there is. It’s a feminine personality, a feminine energy, but it’s driven somewhat mad with lust. She’s fickle, and most importantly, she’ll break you before she’s through with you. I think that’s really the central part of it; you can fight it or you can go along with it. Either way, you’re going to get broken if you stick by her side. But if you just let go, you can actually come back whole. If you fight it, though, she makes no promises. That’s the similarity we were talking about, between Kali, Choronzon, and Babalon.

Full Story: Reality Sandwich.

(Don’t forget: come see James Curcio at esoZone).

G-Spot: Jason Lubyk reads from Mac Had A Secondhand Furniture Store

In this episode:

Jason Lubyk takes this audio UFO into hyperspace with a reading from his work Mac Had A Secondhand Furniture Store. Keyboards and other noises by Jason as well.

In addition James Curcio provides a special remix of this podcast, which can be found by clicking ‘Gspot 7 (Remix).’

G-Spot Episode 7.

Alan Moore interview on art and the occult in Arthur Magazine

Arthur: Of course the other aspect of magic that separates it from most religions is that it’s not based on faith, is it?

Oh, no. No. Faith is for sissies who daren’t go and look for themselves. That’s my basic position. Magic is based upon gnosis. Direct knowledge. It’s a kind of ‘I’m from Missouri. Show me’ approach, if you like. [laughter] I think that gnosis it’s probably the original form of spirituality in mankind. If you look back at the old Gnostic religions that proceeded Christianity, what they depended on was direct knowledge of the Mysteries, or the ideas being talked about. If you look at the early Christians, the people that were allegedly around Jesus, then you can’t get much gnostic than St. Thomas. [chuckles] He has to stick his hand in the wound before he was convinced! Or you’ve got the Essenes, with John the Baptist-they were certainly gnostics. Back then, everybody formed their own relationship to the godhead, which was seen as being inside them, as much as anything.

This is true of the old shamanic religions, that were the forebears of all kind of spiritual and religious thinking. The shaman didn’t so much act as a middleman between people and the gods; he showed them how to get there. He told them how to make their own journeys into the Underworld. I get the impression that the shaman in an ancient tribe would have had the same sort of position as a plumber or an electrician. [chuckles] A plumber is a guy who just knows about plumbing and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty when he’s unblocking your S-bend or whatever. A shaman is a guy who knows about traveling to the spirit world and doesn’t mind vomiting because he’s taking poisonous drugs, or getting the horrors of going to hell. It’s a community thing.

The later idea of magic, which probably sprung up when people started burning witches and magicians, when it became dangerous to be a magician. Which would probably have been around the ooo, what, the 3rd century, 4th century? When Christian mobs started putting Gnostics in hermetic scholars to death, Around that time there were Christian mobs that were putting to death hermetic scholars like Hypatea. We mention her in the first issue of Promethea. She was real. She was, I think, skinned alive by Christians. And so at that point, this is where you start to get the thing of secrecy and magic, which carries on from that point up to the present day. ‘If you’re a magician, don’t tell anybody. Don’t tell them and don’t tell them any of the visions you’ve had or give them any of the information that you struggled so long to accrue. Keep it to yourself.’ And that seems very elitist to me. I’d rather disseminate any information I’m getting by one of the means that are open to me. And I’m lucky in that I have several quite excellent means [chuckles] to disseminate information that are open to me. Comic books, CDs, things like that.

Full Story: Arthur.

A Voyage to Arcturus

A Voyage to Arcturus

The full text of the gnostic sci-fi novel A Voyage to Arcturus, a book Alan Moore cites as one of the best underrated books of all time, is available for free on the Gutenberg Project.

A Voyage to Arcturus full text

You can also buy it in print, though the edition with an introduction by Alan Moore appears to be out of print.

Starship Stormtroopers (Michael Moorcock on sci-fi and fantasy fiction)

An anarchist is not a wild child, but a mature, realistic adult imposing laws upon the self and modifying them according to an experience of life, an interpretation of the world. A ‘rebel’, certainly, he or she does not assume ‘rebellious charm’ in order to placate authority (which is what the rebel heroes of all these genre stories do). There always comes the depressing point where Robin Hood doffs a respectful cap to King Richard, having clobbered the rival king. This sort of implicit paternalism is seen in high relief in the currently popular Star Wars series which also presents a somewhat disturbing anti-rationalism in its quasi-religious ‘Force’ which unites the Jedi Knights (are we back to Wellsian ‘samurai’ again?) and upon whose power they can draw, like some holy brotherhood, some band of Knights Templar. Star Wars is a pure example of the genre (in that it is a compendium of other people’s ideas) in its implicit structure — quasi-children, fighting for a paternalistic authority, win through in the end and stand bashfully before the princess while medals are placed around their necks.

Star Wars carries the paternalistic messages of almost all generic adventure fiction (may the Force never arrive on your doorstep at three o’clock in the morning) and has all the right characters. it raises ‘instinct’ above reason (a fundamental to Nazi doctrine) and promotes a kind of sentimental romanticism attractive to the young and idealistic while protective of existing institutions. It is the essence of a genre that it continues to promote certain implicit ideas even if the author is unconscious of them. In this case the audience also seems frequently unconscious of them.

Full Story: Archive.org.

(Thanks Danny Chaoflux).

Jason on the Necronomicon and pathworking

My close friend Jason and I have been having some informative emailing back and forth while he’s abroad. I know I am, but for those of you perhaps interested in some of the Cthulhu mythos, some of these tidbits may be interesting. Perhaps I can get Jason to expound on some of this if anyone cares. He is the ritual to my freestyle.

JasonI would highly recommend Regardie’s “GARDEN of POMEGRANATES” as a guide and methodology fo qabbalistic pathworking, if you have any interest in the inverse side of the tree, the qlippothic or “world of shells”, then Kenneth Grant is your man, particularly “NIGHTSIDE of EDEN”. Tyson’s version of the necronomicon adds a nice fresh and less cheesy depth to the mythos. my opinion of the necronomicon in all its incarnations is entirely spurious however. the only edition that even comes close to being a usable system is the Simon edition (the oh so popular Avon paperback avlb. everywhere!) but it contains so many errors and flagrant mistakes of both an occult and an historical nature is utterly laughable. for instance the use of a magick circle is omitted as unnecessary (!!!), as the necronomicon is purportedly a grimoire of ceremonial evocation the use of a circle is of paramount importance, but there are a multitude of worse errors both in the Simon Edition itself and in the follow up supplements and audio workshops such as:

– Simon claims the “Oracles of Zoroaster” were of Sumerian origin, it wasn’t!
– he says no gold or jewelry has ever been found, what about the Royal Tombs Of Ur!!
– all ziggurats had 7 levels, some had 3 some 9!
– each level is associated with a planet, wrong!
– each of the 7 cities of sumer were associated with a planet, there were more than 7 none of which were associated with any particular planet
– the Summerian word for house is Bar, it isnt! the sumer word for house is E, as in E-anna, “the house of heaven”!
– Simon comments on what he calls the “Sumerian maqlu text”, the maqlu text is Babylonian!

Etc. Etc., as far as the necronomicon is concerned it is only interesting fiction but part of a larger framework and that is where my interest lies. the entirety of the Cthulhu mythos, however i would not use the Necronomicon as the basis for tapping into that current, Kenneth Grant, Don Webb and others have explored and exponded enough on this to illustrate a correlation between cuthulu and the goetic and qlippothic techniques, i believe Phil Hine and P.J. Carol have also done some work in this area.

He had this to add:

I would only add, particularily becuase you posted this e-mail, that anyone intrested in uncovering more concerning the facts behind the various versions of the necronomicon as a printed work and many of the hoaxes surrounding it should read “THE NECRONOMICON FILES”, by Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce III, it is a fascinating study of the book and is obviously exhaustively researched as well. In it you will find all of the errors and inconsistencies i pointed out and so many many more, plus an absolute ton of other info, background/history, etc, basically everything you would ever want to know about the Necronomicon. Also for a working theoryof an occult/magickal nature Kenneth Grant’s “Nightside of Eden” particularily as well as a the rest of his Typhonian Tradition, “The Pseudonomicon”, by Phil Hine is also valuable if one were intrested in pursuing th Cthulu mythos in a magickal way!

Famous writers write six word stories

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time
– Alan Moore

I’m dead. I’ve missed you. Kiss … ?
– Neil Gaiman

The baby’s blood type? Human, mostly.
– Orson Scott Card

With bloody hands, I say good-bye.
– Frank Miller

Read Them All: Wired.

“The Parallels!” Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges

John Barth on Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges:

Here, I thought, was a sort of Borges without tears, or better, a Borges con molto brio: lighter-spirited than the great Argentine, often downright funny (as Sr. Borges almost never is), yet comparably virtuosic in form and language, comparably rich in intelligence and imagination.

Full Article: “The Parallels!” Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.

© 2026 Technoccult

Theme by Anders NorénUp ↑