GreyLodge continues to find exactly what I'm looking for just at the very moment I need it. After watching Naked Lunch for the first time in many years, GreyLodge posted the torrents for the best of Burroughs. A four CD collection of his greatest works.
Thank you GreyLodge.
The Ten Towers was a ritual designed to pay respect and thanks to the community that has been generous in its support of my art.
Originally I had planned to complete the Ten Towers by August last year but I was unable to do this due to the various shifts in time.
Tonight Tower Ten was completed. All of the Towers have now been constructed and delivered to the men and women who were originally invited to take part in this audio ritual. You can listen to the first three recorded Towers below the projects section on this page.
The final seven Towers remain to be recorded and it's possible you may never get to hear them all for various reasons. The ten gates (Private facts provided by participants) which were used to help me create the Towers are personal and it may be the case that participants wish to keep their Tower to themselves.
They are entirely welcome to do this is if they wish and I would completely understand their reasons.
When further Towers are recorded they will be uploaded.
Coming>2008 - Yiri T. Khol - John Harrigan
Link: Yasutaka Tsutsui's Profile.
The Japanese guru of "metafiction," Yasutaka Tsutsui started his career as a science fiction writer in the mid-60s, came to break up in the 70s the generic boundary between serious and popular fiction, and won numero us prestigious awards of science fiction and mainstream literature by the early 90s. Deeply influenced by Darwin, Freud, and the Marx Brothers, his own post-Situationist poetics of "hyper-fictionality" has persisten tly disclosed the conspiracy between reality and fiction in the hyper-capitalist age haunted by a variety of "spectacles" and "pseudo-events." While his earliest works in the mid-60s such as "Tokaido Senso" ("The Tokyo-Osaka War,"1964) and "Vietnam Kanko Kosha" ("The Vietnam Tourist Bureau,"1967) and Dasso to Tsuiseki no Samba (The Samba for Runaways and Chasers, 1972) prophesized the acceleration of hypermedia that would transform fictions into realities, the battlefield into an amusement park, and one's identity into a computer program, his latest diptych of Gaspard of the Morning (1992) and Paprika (1993) radically reconsidered our own reality as a version of hyper-fictionality, our everyday life as the effect of the political unconscious, and the boundary-transgressor as the greatest survivor of natural selection. Tsutsui states: "I do not find it accidental that from the 60s through the 70s, just while the post-surrealist mode nurtured British New Wave and North-American Metafiction and Latin American Magic Realism, I was making every effort to develop my own theory of hyper-fictionality without knowing those western literary experiments" ("On My Fictional Theory: a Recollection ," unpublished, 1991). Tsutsui also unwittingly rivalled scholar-critics like David Lodge, Malcolm Bradbury and Terry Eagleton, by experimenting with avant-garde literary criticisms in the novel Bungaku-bu Tadano Kyoju (Hitoshi Tadano the Professor of Literary Studies ,1990), which became a national bestseller. Thus, Tsutsui's long career from the 1960s to the 1990s convinces us of the way Japanese literary history has gradually accepted the hybridization of metafiction and science fiction as the fate of postmodern literature per se .
Tower One of the Ten Towers project is Danny Chaoflux.
Danny Chaoflux is a Persian artist living in Portland OR, and the
founder of Portland Occulture.
Hir main interests are crossdressing, dream travel, and ancient mysticism.
The Ten Towers are audio recordings of ten highly respected individuals from the occult community reading prose written especially for them by myself.
This project is also my way of saying thank you for the immense support each of them has given to FoolishPeople; giving them each a creation of prose that will always belong to that person and that person alone.
All Towers will also have access to the entire recording and everyone who works on the project will be entitled to sell copies via CD; each person creating the aesthetic and design, so as to create a modern day magical artifact unique to themselves. Any money made can be kept by the Tower who has produced the CDs.
I have no idea how many of these recordings will get turned into artifacts until after the project is completed.
Tower number one is Danny Chaoflux. Danny Chaoflux is a Persian artist living in Portland OR, and the
founder of Portland Occulture. His main interests are crossdressing, dream travel, and ancient mysticism.
Video excerpt from FoolishPeople's rehearsal of 'Dark Nights of the Soul- Cycle VI: Carousel' of Santiago Genochio's lips being sewn shut.
Download FoolishPeopleRehearsals.mov
Sticky with wet desires and slick evolve; disney hurt and pentagon medicine. I want you when it’s all done, when all the stories are told. When the teeth are out and the flesh in my mouth has scales. Give your sacred role, as we ache for your pain.
Hooked into what I am, I attach you now to this purpose, as your pain becomes the conduit with which the scar heals and the bridge is built across the end into the new. Look out and stroke my face. Look at what you are, know you are the beautiful one with poena, who takes the punishment in place of those who will not face the future.
Close the gates and let your velvet passion rise as we will you to become what you were, and are. Every innocent lost in one moment of simple pain will heal via this night, as we resurrect every possibility for your species.
Let us see your quiet glory.
Encircled by deadlines, bugs and mysterious happenings Kaotec found himself unable to contact the terminal of the FoolishPeople. Vainly he tried to send the weekly signal that assured the world that the (R)evolution was still underway in Catford, but dark forces encircled him and blocked his path. Finally a brief window opened and he was able to break through with a brief cryptic message : 'if dolphins could walk where would they go?'
A thunder clap sounded in the distance and a chill breeze blew across the land.
I'm on the road, out and about trying to detonate the imagination. Sitting between the same four walls and trying to create something full of Magick can sometimes be rather counter productive. So I'm hitting everywhere that looks interesting, then trying to push the writing before moving on. Its working, not really a surprise considering this Cycle deals with Merry go round Magick and Traveling folk.
This is where some of my own personal gene pool is siphoned off from. I can now tick off a speech from the beginning of Cycle V that ties some up alot of the back story of Cycles I to IV.
Nothing quite like the moment you feel your mind crack a little and something purposeful comes pouring forth.
Need dances its way towards my weak mind grinning with a mouth full of hepatitis teeth. Promising all that never comes. A warm body next to my nothing flesh. Wet places to hide the excuses. I lie straight to my eye.
Drifting along on an ice flow, melting my will. Once again I loose who I am to the somebody I am not. Over and again. Time is fucking bored, yawning scratching it's bollocks staring glassy eyed at my eternal demise.
Vulva promises strip my Grey flesh. My insides are riddled with vaginal folds.
The last fall was forever or at least until the next time. My sex is as fluid as a vial of anthrax.
You really cant pin my will against a wall of vague hopes that only come true if I fit the scheme this world has for you.
My mother saw to it you see. I can thank her for the inoculation against the female kind.
I'm beautifully immune.
I’m lying with myself,
In a pool of loneliness.
That swells
And pulses around me;
As I drift in its silent vapour.
Sea pearls slowly snake up my skin,
And wrap me into a throbbing cocoon.
Where I just hang;
And roll in ominous winds
To the beats of my pungent drumming.
Burning and conceiving.
Rising and falling.
Living and decaying.
As I lie with myself,
In my blood of lonely thoughts.
Photograph by Andrei Sourakov, USDA.
Written by Lucy Allin.
The first of my pieces set to music. Enjoy...
I can hear them, banging their war drums, mindlessly beating the skulls of old foes, creating a horrific din- there is trouble ahead, I see.
I stand and watch while others talk of action, idly twiddling my thumbs and torturing myself over what I perceive as my cowardly indecision. All the while guns are loaded and bayonets are sharpened. War rears its ugly head on the horizon and all I can do is gaze inside and tear myself to shreds.
‘Mr X!!!’ they scream. ‘You must come at once! The enemies of beloved humanity are battering down the gates!’
‘Why?’ I reply. ‘Why must we fight each other?’
‘You damned fool! They’ll kill us all, they’ll rape your wife and children!’ they implore.
This coming conflict has torn my soul open. It has opened up a spiritual void within me. Now I know how the Dane felt- paralysed by a ghostly inertia.
From my room in the citadel I cannot quite see the Great Plain (which constitutes the axis of advance for the enemy), it is obscured by many great towers and monoliths in the immediate and middle distance. From a certain angle I can see the horizon, but it strains my neck to look.
People in the streets below are running to the limits of the citadel to see. The enemies of humanity are coming, I know they are, and I know that I should go and fight. But I don’t know how to, I’ve never fought in my life- I’ve never had to. Why should I have to go now? Its always been so quiet up here. Can’t it stay the same forever?
It’s funny how those who are coming to destroy me and mine are full of such vital spirit. No matter how corrupt it is, they are nonetheless full of some kind of divine energy; an energy whose absence is quite conspicuous within me. And this absence will spell the end of my life and that of my family.
As I was sitting thinking about these things, the artillery of my enemies began its hellish bombardment of the citadel. The first shells falling short of the outer walls began to sodomize the beautiful greenery that lay there- florae and faunae were effortlessly mangled. The gunners corrected their aim; raising the elevation of their mighty howitzers as the next volley tore down the walls of the city with ease.
I led my family to safety in the basement of the apartment with the other families.
‘Wait here,’ I said ‘I will protect you.’
I returned to my vantage point to see that the great towers and monoliths and memorials had been torn down in a hail of high explosive shells. I could now see the horizon perfectly. I could see the legions advancing, screaming for my blood in the distance.
Time has elapsed, and the city has fallen. My wife has been raped and crucified, my children have been ground into a fine meal to feed a company of troops.
I stand in the ruins of the old citidel with a long line of other men. We are led out into the fields beyond the now ruined walls, and begin digging shallow graves with our hands. Kneeling in front of these shallow trenches, hands bound, an enemy officer walks along the line consisting of twenty or so men and inserts a six inch hunting blade into the top of each mans spine; the stricken paralysed body is then kicked into the grave and a detail of two men refill the freshly occupied hole with dirt. I bow my head as the cold steel severes my spinal column; my arms, torso and legs become redundant.
I now feel closure on my spiritual malaise.
As well as working for FP, I am also developing my own writing, and here is one of the pieces I have written thus far that I hope you will enjoy reading:
The
Sun seduces me into a teetering security that will tip me from the edge when
darkness descends, and plunge me into the icy pool of my tormented nights.
Where
I just will the hours away.
And
I will the minutes away.
As I
will the seconds away.
Where
I just will away any sense of time.
Where
the traffic in my mind, that drives me into this crash, will flow through the
day on the dusty roads.
Where
I can hide from myself and sparkle in illusions.
And
the clock ticks.
I wake up, and I'm asleep.
My mind has become fragmented. It is so hopelessly disjointed that I just sit and stare into space.
It feels like a piece of broken machinery behind my eyes. I can actually feel the shattered parts jangling around making lots of noise. They must be taken out piece by piece and reassembled. I know what the broken pieces are- they are my thoughts and dreams and aspirations and desires. Somehow they have all become dislodged and are swimming around inside my cranium like free radicals, clogging up the parts of my mind I need most. Logical thought seems impossible; I now seem incapable of doing anything to help myself. I know I must, or I will be forever fallen. But, for the time being I know I’ll just keep sliding. The only time I seem to be able to achieve the stability for reasonable thought is through smoking lots of marijuana- it seems to suppress the chaos. Otherwise, being drunk is another excellent fix, destroying all other parts of the brain to create a twisted kind of equilibrium.
This fragmentation has been caused by life. As it continues at its unprecedented pace, I am occasionally left reeling so violently that I fear I will lose it all- that I will fall into the abyss that we all teeter upon so treacherously in this life. And of this I am certain- it has only just begun. I must retain sure, steady feet and a realistic mind.
The
winter is approaching, I can feel it. I look forward through the months
in my mind’s eye and I feel butterflies struggling for freedom in my
stomach. The thought of winter covers me with apprehension- like a wet
pillowcase over my stupid fucking head(!). Battened down in pea coats,
scarves and leather gloves- head tucked into Alamo lapels. The short
days will force me to work hard, to achieve as much as I can, before
the long night swallows me whole and washes away the hard work of the
day- I won’t see light again for another twelve hours.
The future scares me.
Looking back through time fills me with a similarly inexorable melancholy. Through misty eyes I view (with sadness) old, long dead friends, lovers and relationships, all of which I want to embrace for eternity, but I am instead left to grapple with their slippery, dusty ghosts.
(I wonder how long this feeling can last? An inherent cavity in my very being that can be brutally torn open by a piece of sympathetic music, leaving me to suck in space and time until I simply go under- the weight of my unearthly load leaving me pinned on the axis of perdition.)
But, it would be blind of me (and fucking arrogant) to think that I am the only one. All of us people born of flesh and blood- with abdomens full of gore and gristle, and heads full of dreams and aspirations, and genitals that yearn to be exercised regularly- we all get lost.
We marvel at acts of love and hate and brutality in the news, but we forget that we all have the capacity for such extremes.
Right now we could be having the best time of our short little lives- and that’s the way it should be. If we fall in love- so be it. And if we part ways- take care, and feel free to hate whom you wish to hate and love whom you wish to love.
But in the meantime lets get royally ripped, twisted, stoned, and whoop it up like good old boys and girls!
Looking back fills me with sadness; looking forward fills me with fear; so I’ll just keep my head down and take things as they come.
Greetings Foolish People. I'm writing to inform you about a series of pieces that I plan to write to a somewhat unusual blueprint.
I intend to pen several pieces around the work of London based death metal band Dam. The idea being to allow the music from the album 'Purity: The Darwinian Paradox' to inspire my prose, using the song titles as rough thematic guides for each piece.
Hopefully this combination of heavy music and prose will yield some interesting results. You may want to check out Dam to get a feel for their fresh take on extreme metal- do so at myspace.com/spiritualvoid.
The first piece entitled 'Spiritual Void' will follow next week. Stay tuned Fools...
The following piece is a musing over some beautiful relationships gone very sour by my own indescretions. I find it fascinating how men can always somehow manage to destroy the most delicate, precious and innocently vital things.
To feel lost in ones own reality is a great tragedy. To be the only person in your own universe is simply unbearable. Watching other solar systems float by, self contained- planets spinning in perfect harmony- it puts one to shame.
To have nothing to do, nowhere to go, to only want to get out of ones own head…all the time. This is indeed a painful reality- full of certain truths that sting old perceptions. Things do not always revolve around me.
How many times can I listen to the same fucking song? The same fucking song? Apoplectic to the point of self-destruction- inebriation simply fuels further confusion (but at least I'll have the Dutch courage to get a fuck).
Blind in the beginning, completely comatose by the end- what has been achieved? This loneliness is crippling. It's making a fucking fool of me. And I simply do not know what to do about it.
Everything I've ever loved has been destroyed by my own hand- just as Oscar Wilde said it would. Being a coward, I have not endeared myself to those I have fucked over. There was not a hint of bravery in my actions- they reeked of an incessant, internal yellow fever that rots me from the inside out. Has such emptiness ever been described as human?
I absolutely despise Foster's. But not today. For today, I drink to forget. I will drink until the beast inherent takes control, for I can no longer be bothered. I shall drink until I forget how to breathe. I shall drink until I forget how to live.
I miss the ones I have loved. Their hatred for me is poured on myself by myself one hundredfold. They were beautiful girls. And they were delivered into the hands of a blind fucking fool. My screams shall forever go unheard. They do not wish to hear the complaints of a blind fool- a blind fool who has taken them for fools, treated them like dirt, and put their futures at risk.
To be such a person feels like jobojeaajrejoejvjrjofreejiji nkhiguyifudtxmfdhgc,jhyguoihypyo8trersafdz xbvcnvmb,fuck it. I'm going.
The following piece pertains to what I have called haunted spaces. Places that absorb the memories of things that have happened on, in or around them, and constantly exude them, affecting the mind on some vague, rarely used sensory channel.
It is July, 2004 in a small village called Isham on the outskirts of Chelmsford. A young couple are taking a walk on the common in the balmy late afternoon, when they are aroused by the smell of burning pig fat- a smell somewhat at odds with their current location. Curious, they follow the smell to a small grouping of bushes amidst a small copse in the middle of the common. Approaching the bushes they see a blackened log resting against another branch, protruding out towards the clear blue sky above from the leaves, it smoulders and hisses vehemently. Now not more than seven feet from the bushes, the charred log appears to have a strange, charred hand at the end of it; the knot in the log about eight inches down from its strange hand reveals the remnants of a patterned material melted onto its surface; the melted material continues until it is hidden by the bushes.
The couple are clearly in shock now. The girl is hysterical. She retreats from the bushes screaming for help. The man continues forward (now holding his nose, as the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh has become quite overwhelming). The sun glints upon something at the end of the burnt log- it would appear it was married. Wielding a nearby stick, he prepares himself for what he knows he will see. Layers of twigs and leaves are pushed back to reveal that the log is attached to a larger form.
Of course, as you probably knew from the beginning it was the burning carcass of a human being. The body is in a horrific state. The hands are horribly clawed and the other main joints of the body have become contracted grotesquely (due to the effect of heat upon the ligaments when the victim finally stopped writhing and succumbed to shock), so that the corpse has come to rest in an impromptu foetal position, a grim ebony necro-sculpture. The eyeballs resemble those of a fish fresh from the oven. Subcutaneous fat fizzles and spits. Hair is melted to the scalp. And more hauntingly, patches of pinky, grey skin on the face and stomach reveal something of the original colour that this poor mortal coil used to possess.
I shan’t bother with too many details of the murder. Her name was Amy Gordon. She was married. She had three children. She met her end walking back to her car which was parked in the dimly lit car park of The Bell Tavern where she had just had a meal with friends. Coroners found she had been raped and then asphyxiated before being set alight and dumped on the common that night. Anyway, the details aren’t important here.
Had the couple been more aware of their surroundings before they mad their unfortunate discovery, they may have noticed the prevailing mood of the common, especially in late afternoon; a mood which reeks of darkness and mental malaise. The common is no stranger to death- it has seen plenty. Over the village’s history of some 800 years, the common has seen many hangings and murders. A nearby lane which meanders gently around the perimeter of the common heading towards the local church has seen innumerable funeral processions.
With this story, I just wanted to gently illustrate how such a gruesome murder on this sleepy common is part of a much grander tapestry of human expiration. The young couple, the victim’s family and the victim were all brought together by that place, and together they all became another thread in its ancient memory. One doesn’t have to look very far from home to find these places- they are everywhere, brooding night and day. The vague feeling of sorrow that these places emit will always be the same, regardless of whether it is cold and wet or dry and gloriously bright and hot. The next time someone walks on that common and feels that particular feeling, it will be accompanied by the far off recollection of the victim’s final grimace, the family’s mourning cries and the unsuspecting terror of the young couple.
I’m reminded of a trip to Turkey by this. This overwhelming feeling that a place can bleed- it soaks into you and etches itself inexorably into your head. Driving into the mountains on the eastern coast, we stopped at the site of an ancient battle between a small Spartan army and a much larger Trojan force. The Spartans were annihilated. The site itself is tiny; there are a few ruins in the clearing where the battle took place, all around thick forest threatens to swallow the little killing field whole. Mother stayed in the car (she is terribly frightened of heights); dad and I explored this remote site. We climbed the terraced field up the mountainside, pointing out Greek symbols carved on the sun-bleached stones and marvelling at the solitude of it all. I was drawn to a particular edifice towards the top of the field near the forest border. I climbed towards my goal through the remorseless midday heat, all the while something was reminding me that this was had been a place of brutal slaughter so many years ago; what it was I don’t know, I just felt it. Goats were idly grazing amidst the ghosts of the slain. They bleated at me as I reached my prize. It was a large tomb, about six and a half feet wide, twelve feet long and eight feet high. It had an open doorway of regular size. It seemed unnaturally dark inside, and I was slightly terrified by the fact that the tomb was giving off a freezing draft as I stood in there. I could see a stone coffin lying against the back of the construction, it was slightly raised to around waist hieght. I wanted to go in and see it. What happened as I entered the tomb affected me deeply- I crossed the threshold from temperatures approaching thirty degrees into what felt like zero. And then there were the flies. This cold space was filled with thousands of flies. The sound of a thousand buzzing insects echoed around the chamber as if there were still fresh meat in that coffin. As I stood there, a though occurred to me- maybe these were the souls of those long dead soldiers, sheltering from the heat for the past few millennia. It had to be them, because standing there in the cold, with father exploring elsewhere, it felt like I wasn’t alone.
With rehearsals for Cycle III of Dark Nights of the Soul come nerves this time. Which is a rarity believe me. They kick off tomorrow at the usual place with most of the usual cast, but something has struck me as very unusual for this, our third venture into Dr Bleach's realm.
A sort of expectation, waiting for that moment where all the cards get tossed up into the air; which seems to come as mandatory with each script, but never when you expect it. Waiting for that moment to come and peak and do it's worse and leave again...and waiting...and waiting...but it's not coming.
Holy shit, things are moving along very neatly indeed. Zut alors! But this can not be, 'tis simply not the FP way!
Part of this success is owed to the marvelous lady responsible for the beautiful shot you see above and also for the brand new DNOTS trailer for Cycle III - Emergence.
Alexa Looker is now not only cast but is throwing onto the FoolishPeople pyre her skills within digital art.
Having studied performance, digital art, live art and contemporary theatre at Northampton University and also trained in contemporary dance and ballet with a background in sonic art/music Alexa makes for the most modest, gifted all around artist you could ever meet.
I'll update here as soon as we secure the date for the next cycle.
Just found out that Phil Hine is selling many of his overstocked books via Treadwell's. Some of these title's are extremely rare and interesting, and they will no doubt be disappearing fast. The list below is also an invaluable tool for anyone looking for details on the contents of specific Magick Book's and periodical's.
So especially for all you Magickal entities out their who are looking for the perfect gift for Anti-Christmas here is the full list along with some other specialties that Treadwell's have before Christmas.
Chaos Magic and Related
CHAOS AND SORCERY
Author: Hall, Nick
Price: £650.00 (reduced from £800.00)
Published: Nicholas Hall, 1992.
Format: Paperback in good condition. 111pp.
Notes: Extremely rare first edition, self-published, with the distinctive black cover with demon and chaosphere. This copy signed by Nick Hall to Phil Hine, also signed by Phil Hine. Also signed by the illustrator, Robert Taylor. This copy is from Hine’s personal library. This is one of the great classics of chaos by the nexus of UK practitioners in the 1990s. Sorcery, as defined by the book, is "the art of using material bases to enhance a magickal conjuration, the outcome of which is determined by the sorcerer's will. It has been described as "sharp, fast, unsentimental". Chapter Titles: 1) Tools of Sorcery. 2) Techniques of Sorcery. 3) Malicious Doll Magick. 4) Beneficial Doll Magick. 5) Word Weaving. 6) Chaos and Sorcery.
CHAOS SERVITORS, A USER'S GUIDE
Author: Phil Hine
Price: £60.00
Published: Pagan News Publications and Chaos International Publications, 1991
Format: A5 Booklet, paper covers. Good condition. Content: Phil Hine tells you, in his inimitable style, all his thoughts in servitors. Collectible -- and with reason.
IS THERE LIFE AFTER DEATH? TRESPASS AND FIND OUT
(TOPY magazine)
Contributors: TOPI Nomads, Ray Sherwin, Malchick Nostra, Coyote 182, Eden 304, Coyote 144.
Price: £30.00
Published: Temple ov Psychick Youth, 1991.
Topics: sigilisation, revolution, Kali, 'action sigils', Aleister Crowley's last Will and Testament, Thoth Tarot divination, sodomy as spiritual fulfilment, Dream Sigil Sex. TOPY was flourishing in the UK during the era when this was produced; now it is active in the USA, with things somewhat moribund in the UK by comparison to the 1990s heyday. This booklet shows how much creativity and verve TOPY are capable of!
Format: A5 Booklet, paper covers. Fine condition.
DARE TO MAKE MAGIC
Author: Edwards, David
Price: £40.00
Published: Rigel Press, 1971
Notes: this copy is from the personal magical library of Phil Hine.
Format: Hardback with dust cover in good condition.
Phil Hine recommends this book as a really good work on a subject that produces great amounts of substandard work: real magic. One of the formative influential texts that inspired the first wave of chaos magic. Want to see who and what inspired Carroll, Hine, et al? Look no further.
SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic, its foundations, development and place in modern life.
Price: £12.00
Published by: The Mouse That Spins, 1977.
Topics covered: One of the classics of experimental and chaos magic by the much-revered master of the Art, Ramsay Dukes. It is a concise account of the disciplines of magic, art, religion, and science. The book explores the interrelationships between these disciplines, whilst stressing the different premises upon which they are founded. This copy comes with the original pink advertising flier bound into the back of the book.
SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic
Price: £30.00
Published by: The Mouse That Spins, 1979.
Topics covered: One of the classics of experimental and chaos magic by the much-revered master of the Art, Ramsay Dukes. It is a concise account of the disciplines of magic, art, religion, and science. The book explores the interrelationships between these disciplines, whilst stressing the different premises upon which they are founded. The illustrations, only found in this edition, are by Austin Osman Spare, and constitute the first full republication of his A Book of Satyrs since its original appearance in 1907. In MINT condition, from Dukes’ own personal collection. Signed by Ramsay Dukes on the title page.
SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic Revised
Price: £15.00
Published by: The Mouse That Spins, 2001.
Topics covered: One of the classics of experimental and chaos magic by the much-revered master of the Art, Ramsay Dukes. It is a concise account of the disciplines of magic, art, religion, and science. The book explores the interrelationships between these disciplines, whilst stressing the different premises upon which they are founded. In MINT condition, signed and dated by Ramsay Dukes on the title page.
I-Was: A Journal of Arcadian Disturbances - No. 3 (n.d)
Limited Edition of 70 copies; this copy out of series
Contributors: various anonymous. Large format, card covers 80pp.
Price: £15.00. Thelemic stream of consciousness. Wow. Worth it for the content alone.
DREAMTIME IS UPON US! THE SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AUTONOMOUS ASTRONAUTS
Author: Various contributors.
Price: £15.00
Published: London and Watford: AAA, 1997 Format: Paperback in good condition
Content: an amazing cult flowering of a group pushing out the limits of the bizarre. Their stated aim? Dreamtime. What is it? An alternative reality, the reality of outer space. This book was reviewed by The Guardian, who said of it, ‘Equipped with no money but big dream, the AAA have a simple programme: space travel in the community by the year 2000’. They say of themselves on their current website, the following: The Association of Autonomous Astronauts is a non-hierarchical network of local, community-based space exploration programmes. Disconaut AAA was set up to explore the potential of dance cultures for autonomous space exploration. Everybody is a Star!, is named after a 1979 track by Sylvester (1946-1988), also responsible for such otherworld explorations as "Dance Disco Heat", "Do you wanna funk" and "You make me feel mighty real". Seriously collectible.
The Grimoire of Pharaon:
Sorcery, Chumbley, Spare, Chaos
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
£350
First Edition: Octavia Press 2005. Hardback 162pp. Author: Pharaon. This copy is Number 4 of the numbered limited edition of only 36 copies. It is signed and sigilised by the author. In this first edition, sigils to 36 daemons were individually produced. Copy 4 is dedicated to Samael; this unique sigil is starkly remarkable. The book’s content consists of an original grimoire, though it is evident that inspirations are drawn from Austin Osman Spare, Kenneth Grant and Andrew Chumbley. The grimoire presents an original system of Gnostic sorcery, which is both practical and cosmological. Eschewing the traditional esoteric cosmology that describes the Supernal or Divine that is in opposition to the Infernal, it instead it regards the ‘hostile’ or ‘demonic’ forces as being inherently illusory, indeed that which is the illustory itself. The response to this insight is the spiritual aim, what Pharaon calls ‘Black Gnosis’. In it, the sorcerer apprehends mystically the transience of identity. As the infernal (illusory) nature of reality is identified, one is enabled to ford the currents that underlie it, recognising their sentience and power. In this system, the sorcerer becomes a mirror for that which is beyond. As the author draws upon the entire magical tradition, the Daemons summoned are traditional ones, ones that most will recognize. It is their relevance to postmodern reality that is emphasized, however. The author is transgressive, fiercely iconoclastic, and solitary; despite the fact that Infernal Sorcery is explicitly referred to as Cainite and relates to the work of Andrew Chumbley, the author is not a member of his Cultus Sabbatai, but instead works independently. The book, after outlining and instructing the system of Gnosis and magical practice, lists the 36 daimons, with their natures, their meaning and relevance to the system and sigil. The first edition, in which only 36 copies were printed, has become highly sought after even within the first six months after its release. Issue points distinguishing it from the second edition are the upright direction of the cover pentagram, and the particular decoration of the endpapers.
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
Author: Pharaon
£60.00
Second Edition: Octavia Press 2005. Hardback 162pp. This copy is Number 22 of the numbered limited second edition of only 72 copies. It is signed and sigilised by the author. This second edition features a different decorated end paper to the first edition. Also, compared to the first edition, the pentagram on the cover is inverted, which in fact was the author's original intent.
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
Another copy of the second Edition: Octavia Press 2005
£60.00 - Number 36, of the numbered limited edition of 72 only copies
Like all copies in this limited second edition, it has the author’s sigil and signature, hand-drawn.
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
Another copy of the second edition: Octavia Press 2005
£90.00 - Number 36 of the numbered limited second edition of 72 copies
This copy has the author’s sigil and signature, hand drawn (like all copies in this limited edition). In addition it also has a special sigil individually drawn for Treadwell’s: the elaborate invocatory seal is appended by the caption, ‘Our Name is Legion, for we are Many’. The anonymous author is a regular at Treadwell’s, and produced this artwork at the request of the owner, herself a magician.
Oh Theo, where have you been? I've been to London, to visit Dream Team. I mean, I've been an extra or supporting artist in Sky One's football soap, which is something my agent loves to make me do rather than any real performance work. I became involved with this particular agency in the full knowledge that most jobs it would send me on would be of this nature which is probably why I never joined any more. I know people that pretty much make a career of being an extra in the hope that they will be given a line, or they will be spotted. It does happen but it's very rare. Up until Christmas, I was thinking about concentrating my acting energies on Film and T.V. work. However, the more stage work I did, in Epsom, on my BA top-up course, the more I got over my quasi- stage fright. It wasn't easy but the harder I worked to get my stagecraft right, the more compliments I was afforded.
Most of my problems with stage-acting arose from my tendency to focus inwardly, which made me a negative person. That negativity helped me be attentive of my studies but what made my latter performances achieve good marks was the self-confidence I gained from early success on the course. I was astounded by the marks I received because I simply wasn't expecting them. I don't like being depressed but it did help, initially. The more I realised I wasn't that bad, though, the better my performances got.
Social Schism, the most recent of which was on the 25th of August, would probably not have existed if I hadn't amassed self-belief, something I definitely was lacking this time last year. I needed to give a forum for a lot of the poems/ lyrics I was generating in the early part of '05. I thought it might be nice if I just create a slam of my own in my hometown. At the same time I had instigated a musical project called the Muck Rakers, then I called it S-O-S (Southend-on-sea) Muckrakers because there was already a music group called that. Anyway, at the last poetry slam, I sneaked on a couple of tracks by the said project, and read a poem to the music, (music created mostly by my brother, Nick) and it got an enthusiastic response which was the most for which we could ask, really. Nick always has tracks in the pipeline and I often have lyrics-to-go but I need to write some more stuff to keep the tracks fresh and relevant. The other personal highlight, was having John come down to it, as he had to come quite a distance at his own expense. His support, from just coming across me on the net, has been a real touch.
His performance was impressive, as I expected it would be. His words were atmospheric and personal but also, despite his reservations, accessible. I was surprised that he was nervous to go on, allegedly fearing that nobody would like his work, but humility is a weapon worth having at the Schism. I'm not allowed to have it because, as the master of ceremonies, I have to make sure the crowd or audience are awake. The performer who slowly but surely draws you into his or her world by powerful words and humble body language is a real asset, in my opinion. As long as you don't look too scared because an empathising audience can easily shift nervously in that situation.
What I couldn't tolerate was all the chatter from the spectators throughout performances. If it was a guitar-thrashing band it wouldn't really be an issue but there is just one person and a microphone, and whilst there were plenty of people whose attention was on the person speaking, those whose attention wasn't on that could drink and chat downstairs, rather than rudely ignore the words on offer. At the next slam, (29th September, folks!) I've decided to make an announcement "politely" requesting that the audience shut the hell up when a person is speaking on the microphone. It won't work but I want the message to get across, without saying, "Shut the hell up!"
Onto the future, whatever my financial situation, one thing I know for sure is that I have to get on with my studies. My semester begins relatively early on the 19th September, I need a job but a full-time job is not my preferred choice, whatever I tell the JSA people. I want as much time as possible to get this flipping dissertation done. I'm going to get a part-time job if I can help it. I'll start looking through my books and early notes again very soon. I have to enrol as well, but nothing is ever that simple and my tutor has to get a special code for me, apparently, because of my unit deferral. I've always been told I was special.
I look forward to the day when I have letters after my name, it may not guarantee a job, but it will surely look better than a laborious explanation as to why I haven't quite finished my degree. An employer knows what a BA is, they can't be bothered to read about my reasons for my continued undergraduate status. It's a temporary irritation which means in an ideal world that my cash flow problem will be temporary, too.
Finally, can I just say how bored I am of anyone thinking they can act? That is what I always feel like with some of the people I mix with on these extra shoots. I'm not really talking about acting actually, but performing. The level of performance required to become human wallpaper is nothing when compared to constructing a genuine character. Until we go on set, we don't have a clue what's going on most of the time. I'm going to stop there because I could be libellous about professionals. I suppose everyone wants a little respect, which is why I put on that poetry slam.
Don't forget, if you are in the vicinity of Southend-on-Sea tonight John will be there giving a reading of some of his prose from The Book of Hate at Theo's Social Schism.
Can't believe the fucker's managed to wrangle a trip to the coast under the guise of 'work'.
Pah, all of a sudden I feel a much needed 'research' trip to the pub coming on....
You may remember a while ago my post on Social Schism;
Well I am very proud to introduce you to our next guest author; Theo Rowswell. Founder and general brains behind Social Schism, hopefully he will be able to provide FP.com with the link to the outside world it so desperatley needs now John and I both seem to have fallen up Dr Bleach's arse and to a land far, far away.
Take it away Theo...
Six: Ha ha (Fiction)
I knew I recognised him when I let him in, showed him to the back door and offered him a cup of tea. My mind scanned for where I knew him from while I filled the kettle and asked if he took sugar.
Strangely it was seeing the back of his head as I approached him which ignited my recollection. I handed him his tea, he said "arr, cheers mate", and I went and stood in the lounge watching him weed my garden. It was Barry Glass, the toss pot who bullied me and made my life wretched at school. He used to constantly push me down the stairs, called me "walnut" because of my deep creased hairline, punched me in the showers, hid my bag on the ceiling and once followed me home, knocked me to the ground and urinated in my PE bag.
Looking at him now, he looked like life had taken it's revenge on him slowly. He looked old and was really thin - his bumpy spine protruded through his cheap t-shirt as he knelt down to start with the shears. His fingers were stained dark brown from years of holding cigarettes, and his hair was greasy and looked like it had been cut by a baboon with a hangover.
How did he come to be in my garden? It was a scheme the Neighbourhood Watch had agreed with the police, where those found guilty of criminal damage locally returned to the area to "give something back". Barry had mugged a 15 year old for their phone, which he allegedly sold for an eighth of skunk. Still picking on the little kids, eh Barry.
I watched silently as he muttered to himself, a nervous tic in his shoulder made cutting a straight line on the edge of my turf difficult. I stifled a laugh, but actually saw little humour in seeing this pathetic lost soul, all his bravado gone, trying to use a pair of shears. I felt sorry for him briefly, then remembered of course the Walnet stuff, that 15 year old who was now traumatised. And phone-less.
Perhaps this was at the forefront of my mind, then, as I banished for a few moments my conscience, and after waiting an hour, offered Barry a biscuit and a second cup of tea. Thankfully he didn't recognise me, nor did he notice that his tea had a vague smell of urine...
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Please try to observe the 2 minute silence this Thursday at Noon, in memory of the people who died, or who were injured or affected, by the attacks in London on the 7th. Thanks.
Ok so you may have missed the last Social Schism in June but you need to make damn sure you dont miss the next;
S-O-S Muck-rakers present the next step in Poetry Slam technology...
Social Schism - Episode II: Attack of the Poets
The Sunrooms, 20-22 Market Place, off High Street, Southend-on-Sea
21st July 2005,8.30pm
Free Admission
Featuring Open Mic Competition (with mystery prize for the winner), deejays and emcees and the standard poetic frivolity.
Four: Today (Fiction)
While her neighbour hunted for small scissors in the kitchen, Claire stood staring at her reflection in the large lounge mirror. Her dress felt tight, but complimented her figure. For the first time in her life she felt beautiful.
Looking at the reflection of her dress in the mirror, she tried to hold herself together. But eager tears stung the back of her eyes. The last week (and months) had been a flurry of emotions. And all for today. Her head span with a stream of thoughts; she wished so much that her mum were here to see her, tell her she was proud of her daughter, give her the little bits of advice and reassurance, that could only come from a mum.
And who was this man who she would stand beside in three hours' time? What did she really know about the man she would kiss at the alter and escape with at the end of the day? Standing here, her thoughts felt clouded and she could not even picture the face of her fiance, Steve. Was he the tall, dark soldier she had dreamed of when she had stood in front of the same mirror, when aged eleven, with the dining-room curtain draped clumsily over her head? He was neither tall, not dark but she loved him. Loved him, despite him being larish when drunk, despite the fact that he often scratched his groin whilst watching football on the TV, despite him often putting "mates" before her in his list of priorities, and quietly expected dinner to be ready, by 8 at the latest.
She loved him.
Later that day Claire stood beside the man she loved, held his hand, and felt bathed by his love and warmth as they travelled from the reception. She had not felt doubts, she just wanted it all to be right.
"Hurry up, driver," Steve had said in a raised voice, "the Liverpool - Chelsea game starts at eight, and there's a consumation to fit in before that!"
Claire looked out the car window, and hoped he was joking.
Three: Lay-by (fiction)
I pushed into the seat, and sighed. My eyes stung and I still had fifty miles to go. Fortunately the traffic was light, and I turned the radio up as a song from my childhood came on. "Whatever happened to you, Debbie Gibson?" I thought.
The dashboard made its ping-ping noise and a red diode beside the temperature gauge lit up. I had been having problems with the car overheating over the last week; I hoped the cool night air would help. The needle crept up further. The road stretched for miles, with no sign of a blue P sign. I checked my mirror and slowed down. I hesitantly turned down what looked like a farm track and stopped. I grabbed my mobile phone. It showed no signal. "Arse" I muttered.
I turned the engine and lights off, and grabbed my jacket, preparing to walk up the road to attempt to get a signal. Before I could, a car drew up behind me, the lights going off before it had stopped. I moved towards the car, in the hope that the timing of help was good. A guy wearing a thick jumper got out, and looked at me.
"Hi, I wonder if you could help me out," I began.
The guy looked me up and down. "Are you a friend of Jay's? What are you looking for?". I'd never heard of "Jay".
"Skunk?"
"Oh, God, no, I'm not here for that..."
A third car drew up behind the second. A piecing white light shone on myself and the other guy. Two men got out the third car, and walked briskly towards us. "Police. Can I ask what you are doing here?" My heart palpatated in my chest. "My car, it's too hot". The police asked myself and the second guy to move away from our cars, and for the passenger of the second car to get out.
I was taken aside and questioned briefly. My car had cooled slightly, but the steam rising from the engine suggested my story was true. With great relief I went, after a local garage collected my car. I slept little that night.
I slept less the following Thursday, when the local paper's headline informed that a drug dealer with a history of violence had been arrested in a lay-by off the A233 last Monday. "Police had been tracking Martin Drey for three months, and followed him to a well-known dealing location. A member of the public was unwittingly involved in a fake deal with Drey when he was caught by police".
I changed my locks. And my car.
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