Reading for 10/1

Late posts every week these days — curse us! The section from this book The Morning of the Magicians that we talked about reading (on Arthur Machen and the Golden Dawn) was missing from the only pdf I could find, along with about 1/3 of the book. So instead here’s a short reading on Charles Fort.

Begins on p.140 under “THE VANISHED CIVILIZATIONS”, let’s just go to the end of that first section. Enjoy and see you soon…

Reading for 9/24

Experiment/potlatch week! Alongside an item of food or drink, bring a piece of writing or art you’re working on, or a question/idea that you’d like to discuss with everyone, and we’ll imbibe while conversing. This open-ended approach to content is just for this week, next time we’ll return to a specific reading, likely continuing our occult/esoteric theme as per request. See you soon!

Reading for 9/17

I am the shameful late weekend poster, here with Tuesday’s reading: English wizard/draughtsman Austin Osman Spare’s unforgettable treatise on sorcery and Dionysian ecstasy The Book of Pleasure. It’s around 30 pgs without the images; hopefully that won’t be too much, as this piece (and all Spare’s writing) is brilliant beyond words. As always, just read what you can.

Reading for 9/10

Next week we’re doing the first of a few upcoming readings on the occult, anti-realism, and methods for injecting doses of chaos into consciousness. We’ll start with the classic Principia Discordia, which can be read in full on THIS WEBSITE. It’s about 75 pages, but they’re filled with illustrations and it’s generally very easy to read in one session. In the Erisian spirit, you might choose to only read certain sections which catch your eye, work backwards, disregard certain parts entirely, or otherwise subvert the linear inertia of verso —> recto; and thereby open onto a different perspective on the text. Wikipedia might be worth a visit if you’re unfamiliar with Discordianism or want to know more. In two weeks we may follow up on this by looking at some chaos magick texts and perhaps even practicing some rituals in the group, but as with all our lives, that’s contingent. Fnord!

Reading for 8/13/19

This week we are reading a section out of David Abram’s Spell of the Sensuous, Mike’s favorite book. Minimal reading is the end of chapter 4 (Animism and the Alphabet) starting with the section “Of Tongues In Trees”. This is 19 pages. You could also choose to start from the beginning of the chapter for a 40 page reading that talks more about the changeover from oral to written language.

 

Also, Chapter 2 is a great explanation of phenomenology in case you still can’t pronounce that.

DavidAbram-TheSpellofTheSensuous

Reading for 8/6

This week we’re looking at animal liberation, specifically at the ethical ground on which such a moral/ideological practice is based. We’ll start with a short piece by Peter Singer (author of the seminal text Animal Liberation) and read it against a newish Enemy Combatant pamphlet entitled The Harvest of Dead Elephants. If you’re familiar with Singer and the animal rights movement already or finding yourself short on time, focus on the pamphlet, as the Singer text is intended to summarize these ethical claims for those who haven’t encountered them before. Hope to see you there!