Tag Archives | magic

Ancient Magician’s Curse Tablet Discovered In Jerusalem

By JacobSloan on October 29, 2013 in News 1

curse tablet Via Live Science, what used to occur before people hired attorneys:

A lead curse tablet, dating back around 1,700 years and likely written by a magician, has been discovered in a collapsed Roman mansion in Jerusalem, archaeologists report.

The text is written in Greek and, in it a woman named Kyrilla invokes the names of six gods to cast a curse on a man named Iennys, apparently over a legal case.

Kyrilla asks the gods to ensure that “he in no way oppose, so that he say or perform nothing adverse to Kyrilla … but rather that Iennys, whom the womb bore, be subject to her…”

To obtain her goal Kyrilla combined elements from four religions. Of six gods invoked, four of them are Greek (Hermes, Persephone, Pluto and Hecate), one is Babylonian (Ereschigal) and one, Abrasax, is Gnostic. Additionally, the text contains magic words such as “Iaoth” that have a Hebrew/Judaism origin.

… Read the rest

Jean Gebser & Robert Anton Wilson: The Micro & Macro of Consciousness

By Gabriel Roberts on October 7, 2013 in News 11

Disinfonauts! I spoke the other day at the Jean Gebser conference and had a great time learning more about the unsung muse of consciousness conversation, Jean Gebser. As I read his magnum opus, The Ever Present Origin, I immediately saw a direct correlation between Gebser and Robert Anton Wilson. If you would like to see what I mean, take some time to check out this presentation.

… Read the rest

Alchemical Traditions: An interview with Dr. Aaron Cheak

By Gabriel Roberts on September 25, 2013 in News 5

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I’ve known Dr. Cheak for a while now. I’ve never met anyone with such a broad understanding of alchemy, magic, or religious studies in general. He’s truly a gem of the modern scholarly crowd. His new book is fast establishing him as one of the foremost authorities in the world on alchemy. I had the chance to interview him at my home in Los Angeles over a bottle of wine. Awesome conversation ensued.

… Read the rest

Bypassing the Rational: An Interview with Artist and Writer Sean Woodward

By Aonie Anfa on September 24, 2013 in News 1

Baron Cemeterie

Sean Woodward is a visionary artist, writer, poet and musician whose work incorporates aspects of Vodoun, Thelema and Chaos Magick, among other things. You can learn more about him and his work here.

Aonie Anfa: Thanks so much for the opportunity to speak with you. Your art started popping up among my friends about three months ago. It’s very compelling, visionary yet visceral. So I took a look, and found my way to a lot of great, boutique presses and publications like Scarlet Imprint. And of course, your art. Your work with Gnostic Vodoun helps bring about, in my opinion, a much needed period of new, fresh influence for the current.

Sean Woodward: As a child I inherited artistic abilities from both parents and honed a skill for portraiture landscape and pen and ink. Over the years this became dormant as I concentrated on writing and music projects with my band Gothick.… Read the rest

Sex Magic and Prostitute Magicians

By Matt Staggs on August 21, 2013 in News 8

447px-Unknown_painter_-_Love_Magic_-_WGA23776 One of my fave blogs has a great piece exploring the connections between magic, poison and prostitution. I live for this kind of high weirdness. Check it out.

Via Invocation:

Working with this model, it should come as no surprise that allegations of magic—i.e. engaging in socially deviant behaviour—were often targeted at those most marginalized in society. In fact, it was within these dis-enfranchised sectors where magic appeared to flourished most. Women, in particular prostitutes, were seen as experts in the magical arts.

Prostitutes were widely believed to be specialists in erotic magic, especially the use of philtres to sway the feelings of those around them (Dickie 83). For example, a woman may resort to a binding spell, to handicap rivals in the trade or lock down a steady client (Dickie 85-87). It was also thought that respectable men in society who financially supported brothels, perhaps by providing a madam with a regular stipend, were the victims of a well-administered pharmaka.

… Read the rest

The Universal Energy Symbol / Sigil – by Richard Gordon

By Richard Gordon on August 16, 2013 in News 12

UniversalEnergySymbol The Universal symbol / Sigil.
Copyright © all rights reserved, Richard Gordon 2013.
Since before the dawn of recorded history mankind has sought to define, connect, even harness the powers of the universe via the use of symbols or talismans. Many of these symbols have been used as a method of protection whilst others, such as the cross have been seen to be a direct link between themselves and their chosen god.

During the 1990’s I spent an extended period of time doing in depth study in regards to symbols and their meanings or origin. I remember thinking at the time that it was strange that there appeared to be very little out there that could be employed in the representation of the universal whole. Some 18 year or so later I returned to my original research and was surprised to find that there was still was no convincing universal symbol that had come into common use.… Read the rest

Christian Magicians Rise to Defend Themselves as Not Involved With the Occult

By Good German on July 24, 2013 in News 12

Picture: MikeAlex13

Alex Murashko writes at the Christian Post:

Christian magicians are rising to defend themselves against assertions made by a Christian Post columnist that the performance of magic may involve the occult.

They are upset with columnist Dan Delzell’s opinion that the U.K.-based magician Dynamo’s illusion of levitating alongside a red London double decker bus was real. Delzell related the performance to “witchcraft and contact with evil spirits, and the presumption that the art of magic is a gateway to demonic involvement.”

Delzell’s column incited a number of Christian magicians to leave comments criticizing his assumption that magic performances are linked to demonic power. These magicians included Jim Munroe, who works with worldwide ministries; Rob Robinson, a Christian magician and mentalist; and Joe Turner, who is a member of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians and served on the board of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Munroe, who has worked with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, I Am Second, and Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ), told The Christian Post on Monday that he received Delzell’s column through a secular magician friend and felt compelled to respond to it.

… Read the rest

Peter Bebergal Interviews Alan Moore on Creativity, Magic and More

By Matt Staggs on June 1, 2013 in News 8

2158181-alan_moore Too Much to Dream author Peter Bebergal recently interviewed legendary comic book author and practicing magician Alan Moore for The Believer magazine. I think that disinfonauts will find it an entertaining read.

The Believer:

BLVR: Where do you think human consciousness fits into that? Is it somehow separate from it?

AM: If time is an illusion, then all movement and change are also illusions. So the only thing that gives us the illusion of movement and change and events and time is the fact that our consciousness is moving through this mass along the time axis. If you imagine it as a strip of celluloid, each of those individual cells is motionless. If they each represent a moment, they’re unchanging. They’re not going anywhere, but as the projector beam of our consciousness passes across them, it provides the illusion of movement, and narrative and cause and effect and circumstances.

BLVR: You also believe that we can change the aperture of that projector through various processes like magic, or other ways of shaping consciousness.

… Read the rest

Alan Moore and Psychogeography

By Thursdaynine on May 19, 2013 in News 1

Picture: Karen Karnak (CC)

Alan Moore interviews are always worth reading. Here he discusses psychogeography as it applies to various of his works.

via Reasons I Do Not Dance:

What exactly, in your not unlimited understanding, is Psychogeography?

In its simplest form I understand psychogeography to be a straightforward acknowledgement that we, as human beings, embed aspects of our psyche…memories, associations, myth and folklore…in the landscape that surrounds us. On a deeper level, given that we do not have direct awareness of an objective reality but, rather, only have awareness of our own perceptions, it would seem to me that psychogeography is possibly the only kind of geography that we can actually inhabit.

What books and writers ignited your interest in psychogeography?

The author that first introduced me to the subject was the person I regard as being its contemporary master, namely Iain Sinclair, with his early work Lud Heat.

… Read the rest

Ritual Shamanism – The Drum and the Wand

By Richard Gordon on April 18, 2013 in News 9

“The wand as used in many modern day esoteric practices is in fact a symbolic drum stick, directionally beating our concentrated willed intent against the energetic surface of creational reality”

My personal involvement with shamanism started some 30 years or so ago whilst on what may appear at first sight to be a totally unrelated path.

At an early age I developed a deep interest in the mystical side of our nature, it was as if I was instinctively drawn towards anything that was different or had a freakish nature and was coupled the suspicion that there was much more going on in the world than met the eye. I would spend hours exploring the overgrown orchard and the abandoned farm that backed onto my parents property, the place seemed to be virtually alive with the spirits of nature who had reclaimed the land as their own.

As the years progressed I became ever more interested in the possibilities of our human potential.… Read the rest

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