Category Archives for magick

'THEE PSYCHICK BIBLE' A New Testameant By Genesis BREYER P-ORRIDGE

From DVD and book designer Hazel Hill:

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Thee infamous PSYCHICK BIBLE from Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth receives an updated, expanded, corrected edition, compleat with dozens of new visuals and essays. It’s a sewn-bound hardcover, compleat with ribbon. Thee 544 pages within are printed in two colors on high-quality, acid-free 100% recycled paper stock.

This signed, numbered, limited edition (999 copies only) includes a remarkable DVD of impossible-to-find videos from Genesis P-Orridge archives of early Psychic TV and TOPY creations, which includes the work of Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson and Derek Jarman.

The artist, BREYER P-ORRIDGE, says about this edition: “It has been a revelation and become very thrilling for me to see 30 years+ of social, ritual and communal creative explorations condensed into what we feel may become the most profound new manual on ‘practical magick’ taking it from its Crowleyan level of liberation and empowermeant of the Individual to a next level of realization that magick must then give back to its environment, its community, become about liberation and empowermeant to change this ‘world’ and evolve our humanE species.”

Hazel Hill, designer and artist from Los Angeles (www.madeofthis.com), met Genesis through Adam Parfrey (owner and director of Feral House Books). The two entered the project as friends and have come out as life-long devotes to each other and most importantly, Lady Jaye.

Thee price is $69 plus shipping, and can be obtained directly from Feral House: www.FeralHouse.com.

Thru Oct. 25, Basel: WITCHES' CRADLES by the Center for Tactical Magic

From The Center for Tactical Magic:

The CTM presents a new interrogation of power dynamics. Existing at a technological crossroads where torture, recreation, magic, and self-liberation merge together, Witches’ Cradles (2009) are an interactive public installation based on a contemporary re-envisioning of a medieval torture device.

“During the witchcraft persecutions in Europe, Inquisitors are said to have sometimes put an accused witch in a bag, which was strung up over the limb of a tree and set swinging. When witches’ learnt about this punishment they experimented with it themselves and found that the sensory deprivation or confusion of senses induced hallucinatory experiences. A similar swinging motion has long been used by shamans and dervishes and is sometimes known as ‘dervish-dangling’.”
– Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology

Devised initially for interrogation and torture, the witches’ cradle was eventually reclaimed by its potential victims for flights of fancy and inward journeys to altered states of consciousness. Since then, the past 100 years alone have shown us an array of antecedents that cast both shadows and light on the witches’ cradle, ranging from backyard tire swings to mob lynchings; from New Age sensory deprivation tanks to the haunting images from Guantanamo Bay. Even Houdini’s famed illusion, Metamorphosis (in which he freed himself from a locked and tied canvas sack), promised “self-liberation” and “change in 3 seconds.”

The Center for Tactical Magic’s re-envisioning of the witches’ cradle plays on these historical notes while suggesting a present-day desire to conjure positive transformation. Each cradle consists of a large 5-pointed star designed to simultaneously evoke its magical origins, imperial state power, and a cosmic source of light amidst darkness. After sitting in the center pentagon, the points of the star close overhead as the cradle is hoisted off the ground, allowing the participant to swing gently in the darkened center of the collapsed star. Like a black hole, a holding cell, or a metaphysical amusement ride, the Witches’ Cradles distort time and space. It is at this event horizon that the Witches’ Cradles create a place where one can begin to realize an altered state and contemplate the next course of action.

The Witches’ Cradles can be experienced at the Shift Festival of electronic arts and new media in Basel, Switzerland running from Oct 22 – 25, along with our collection of contemporary Wands. This year’s theme for Shift? “Magic. Tech-Evocations and Assumptions of Paranormal Realities”… Enough said.

For more info:
http://www.shiftfestival.ch/en/shift-2009/home-news/

Friday, Oct 23 8pm, L.A., FREE: Dr. Stephan Hoeller on Jung's "Red Book" at the Gnostic Society in Atwater Village

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From the Gnostic Society website:

October 23, 8pm: Special Lecture on Jung’s Red Book
Reflecting upon the first glimpses into the freshly published Jung’s Red Book, Dr. Stephan Hoeller (pictured above) will preview the forthcoming series in November on this subject entitled “The Holy Grail of the Sacred Psyche”.

Lectures are free and open to the public (free-will donations are appreciated). Refreshments are offered following the lecture. Further information is available by calling 323-467-2685.

The Gnostic Society, 3363 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039

Solid Sept. 16, 2009 New York Times Sunday Magazine feature on Jung’s Red Book: click here

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Arthur presents Sunday Oct. 18, 3pm in Philly: How to make herbal tinctures—a workshop with AEMEN BELL

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(click flyer to enlarge)

Arthur presents

Wildcrafting Magical Elixirs
a workshop with Aemen Bell

Sunday, October 18
3pm

Just in time for Halloween…

Learn how to create and use your very own simple and edible potions! Using beautiful crystals, moon cycles and magical plants from your own backyard, herbalist Aemen Bell will show you how to play with the friendly energies of Mother Nature, and you will leave with your own Magical Elixir! We will explore and explain recipes to enhance Love, Dreaming, and more. Don’t worry: you don’t need to have any witchy experience—just come with an open mind, a little common sense, and a willingness to use your own very powerful imagination.

Space is limited to 24 attendees. Workshop tickets are available for $10 in advance, $12 day-of-workshop, as space permits. Reserve space in advance by

* sending $10 per guest via PayPal to editor@arthurmag.com, or
* handing cold hard cash to Jay or Brooke at 2037 Frankford; arrange ahead of time via email to editor@arthurmag.com

This workshop will be held indoors at 2037 Frankford Avenue in Fishtown (Philadelphia, PA 19125).

Aemen Bell is a Brooklyn-based herbalist, artist, writer, and unlicensed pet detective. She has been making potions since she first took an empty shampoo bottle out of the bathroom trash at age 4 and filled it with mud, rocks, and cat hair. She apprenticed under the lovely, patient and eternally knowledgeable Lata Kennedy of Flower Power Herbs and Roots in New York City’s East Village.

Aemen’s own line of Magical Elixirs, Praecantrix, is currently sold throughout the New York and Pennsylvania areas, and online at AemenBell.com.

She has been showing her art publicly in New York City since 2000, and her photographs were recently featured in the art book They Be We.

LIONEL ZIPRIN: A remembrance by David Katznelson

David Katznelson (left) with Lionel Ziprin (date unknown)

LIONEL ZIPRIN
A remembrance by David Katznelson

On the morning of Sunday March 15, 2009 Lionel Ziprin passed away. By nightfall, his coffin was riding on a plane to Israel, to be buried in Tsfad alongside his mother, grandmother and grandfather, the great Rabbi Naftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia. Tsfad was the home of the mystics, those Jewish spiritualists who dedicated their lives to the study of Kabbalah—the esoteric Jewish texts that were untouchable by most. The Abulafia family was one of the most famous families of Kabbalists.

I originally met Lionel because of his grandfather, a rabbi whose singing was recorded in the ’50s by pioneering musicologist Harry Smith (student of Alan Lomax and creator of the definitive collection of American folk music), because there were sacred melodies—bridging the gap of hundreds of years of cantorial practices—that were known best by him. I had read about Rabbi Abulafia’s recordings in an article by John Kalish, and contacted Lionel to license them for a non-profit Jewish reissue label I co-founded, The Idelsohn Society. Many before us had already tried to convince Lionel to allow the recordings to be released to the public; the recordings had become legendary for the very reason that Lionel refused all offers, other than allowing a single CD to be released, containing short bits of only a few masterpieces.

Four years ago my friend Roger Bennett and I started our trips down to Lionel’s apartment on the Lower East Side, situated in an island of olde Jewish culture that once flourished throughout the neighborhood. What started as skeptical conversations morphed into strange, deep discussions about Judaism, metaphysics, the otherworlds, and the angels that exist on this one.

Lionel was a born-again Hasidic Jew whose past was anchored in the artistic movements of the ’50s and ’60s. As a child he was plagued by epilepsy and rheumatic fever after which he had visions, seeing the bible come to life in his grandfather’s house. Later, he would translate these visions, along with his thoughts that came from them and his external worldly experiences, into his poetry. Ziprin as bohemian walked with the likes of Thelonious Monk, Charlie “Bird” Parker, Allen Ginsberg, Bruce Conner, and SF poet laureate Jack Hirschman to name a few; his apartment was a destination for the greatest underground artists of his time. He married a woman named Johanna, so famous for her beauty that her vision was immortalized by Bob Dylan in song. The couple had four children.

Continue reading →

Dale Pendell on magic, beauty, offerings and gratitude

photo by Mark Pilkington

photo by Mark Pilkington

Here’s a snippet of wisdom thought from botanist-poet Dale Pendell, speaking informally at the World Psychedelic Forum in Basel, Switzerland in March 2008, courtesy Gyrus’s always provocative and thoughtful Dreamflesh blog:

“[T]he people who have lived close to the earth for a long time seem to respect these rites and rituals. They feel a sense of gratitude. God, even Nietzsche said, ‘A sense of gratitude is seemly.’ Our existence here rests on many lives who have gone before us, generations of people. And not only people; all sorts of beings that have lived, and suffered, and died, and micro-organisms creating even the air that we breathe, and the topsoil, and all of it. So every day of our lives is a gift of countless generations that have provided it, for our benefit. So a sense of gratitude is right, and it is good to give something back. It’s good to take a moment to place an offering, or a word or something. Ultimately I don’t think we can prove this. But I say, the other side can’t prove their way either. It comes down to a wager. And I put my wager on a green square, and to do these things, to find a way to move in beauty ourselves, does change the world. It’s the only way we can change the world.

“So, that’s a long way of saying that that’s the ultimate basis of my magic.”

Read more here.

REMINDER — Friday, July 31 8pm: ED SANDERS reading and discussing the GLYPH at The Arm in W'burg

The Arm
281 North 7th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211
thearmnyc.com


(photo copyright Fred Burkhart)

Info courtesy The Arm:

“A rare exhibition of nearly half a century of Ed Sanders’ glyph-poems produced between 1962 and 2009 will be on display at The Arm from July 10 through July 31.

“Gallery hours will be Wednesday to Sunday from Noon to 6PM until the end of the month.

“Building on a long history of utilizing a highly visible language that continues into the present, Sanders’s glyph-poems fuse image with text, and image as text. Political, personal, ephemeral, historical, uncanny, and humorous— the glyph-poems on display at The Arm appear in several different mediums, including original drawings, collages, mimeographed pages from Fuck You/ A Magazine of the Arts (1962-’65), plus a number of collages, and an artist’s book. Over 200 Glyph-works will be featured in the show.

“In addition, Glyphs 1962-2009 will feature new letterpress prints and a limited edition catalogue produced on location at The Arm.

“Edward Sanders is a poet, historian and musician. He is at work, since 1998, on a 9-volume America, a History in Verse. The first five volumes, tracing the history of the 20th century, have been completed and published in a fully indexed CD format, over 2,000 pages in length, by Blake Route Press.

“Another recent writing project is Poems For New Orleans, a book and CD on the history of that great city, and its tribulations during and after hurricane Katrina. He has been granted a Guggenheim fellowship in poetry, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in verse, an American Book Award for his collected poems, and other awards for his writing.

“Other books in print include Tales of Beatnik Glory (4 volumes published in a single edition); 1968: A History in Verse; Poetry and Life Allen Ginsberg: A Narrative Poem; The Family, a history of the Charles Manson murder group, and Chekhov, a biography in verse of Anton Chekhov. Sanders was the founder of the satiric folk/rock group, The Fugs, which has released many albums and CDs during its 45-year history.

“The Fugs have recently completed a CD, Be Free, The Fugs Final CD (Part I), featuring 14 new tunes. Be Free will be released in late summer.

“Two of Sanders’ books, The Family and Tales of Beatnik Glory, are under option to be made into movies.

“His selected poems, 1986-2008, Let’s Not Keep Fighting the Trojan War will be published by Coffee House Press in the fall of 2009.

“He lives in Woodstock, New York with his wife, the essayist and painter Miriam Sanders, and both are active in environmental and other social issues.

“Sanders will perform a section of America, the 17th Century, tracing the voyage of Henry Hudson up the Hudson River in 1609, at the Byrdcliffe Art Colony in Woodstockon August 8, as part of the 400th anniversary celebration of Hudson’s discoveries.”

More info: http://www.woodstockjournal.com/

Kenneth Anger, coast to coast

The Arthur editor got this lo-fi pic of a sign posted outside the screening of a set of recent Kenneth Anger films last Saturday night at New York’s Anthology Film Archives. Click on it to see at full size…

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And, courtesy photojournalist R.A. Pleuger, here are a few scenes from the Hollywood Forever cemetery last Sunday night during Cinespia’s screening of vintage Kenneth Anger films. This first pic is of a huge, magnificently lit tomb, through which you can see a bit of the projection of “Rabbit’s Moon”…

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Friday, July 17, NYC: Thoth Tarot Lecture with artist Jesse Bransford at Observatory

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Layered Orders: Crowley’s Thoth Deck and the Tarot
(a personal narrative by Jesse Bransford)

Date: Friday, July 17th
Time: 7:30pm
UPDATE: Please note, that due to popular demand, a second time slot for this event has been added. Jesse will be giving this talk at 7:30pm and again at 9:00pm on Friday, July 17th. Seating is first come, first served.
Admission: Free

A deck given to his brother by his mother in 1986 sat in Jesse Bransford’s childhood bedroom from the early 90’s until recently, delivering itself into Bransford’s possession at an opportune moment…

The Tarot in general and Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot in particular represent a miasmic confluence of image and thought into a single structure that is both liberating and overwhelming in its scope. In creating the deck, Crowley (in collaboration with painter Lady Frieda Harris) sought to integrate the mythological structures of the major mystical systems of both Western and Eastern occult traditions and to bring them into line with contemporary scientific thinking. The symbolism of the cards blends Kabbalah, Alchemy, Astrology, Egyptian mythology, quantum physics and even the I-Ching in ways that are at the same time clear and utterly confounding.

In an image-soaked personal narration Bransford, whose research-based artwork has delved into many of the territories Crowley sought to unify, will discuss some of the basic concepts of Tarot symbolism, returning to Crowley’s deck as among the most total example of the cards’ syncretism and as the most controversial.

Jesse Bransford is a Brooklyn/Queens-based artist whose work has been exhibited internationally. He received a B.A. from the New School for Social Research, a B.F.A. from Parsons School of Design, both in 1996, and an M.F.A. from Columbia University in 2000. He is currently a Master Teacher with the post of Undergraduate Director at New York University where he has been teaching since 2001, as well as a member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism.  His work is represented by Feature Inc. in New York, Kevin Bruk Gallery in Miami, Galerie Schmidt Maczollek in Köln, and Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art in Cleveland. Images of his work, a complete bio and related articles can be seen at www.sevenseven.com, a website he has continuously maintained since 1997.

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Directions:  ***PLEASE USE NEW ENTRANCE (see below)***

Observatory is located at 543 Union Street at Nevins.

Please enter Observatory via doorway on 543 Union St.

R or M train to Union Street in Brooklyn: Walk two long blocks on Union (towards the Gowanus Canal) to Nevins Street. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on right.

F or G train to Carroll Street: Walk one block to Union. Turn right, walk two long blocks on Union towards the Gowanus Canal, cross the bridge. 543 Union Street is the large red brick building on the left.

For more information, see observatoryroom.org

Via Phantasmaphile.