Full Description
An unconventional memoir of a man immersed in magic and the occult
• Explores the author's extensive connections with infamous occultists and organizations, including Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, Anton LaVey and the Church of Satan, and the Ordo Templi Orientis
• Details the underlying occult impulses and magical experiences guiding the author's artistic journey, his experiences in psychedelic culture and the punk subculture, and his experimentation with sex magic, occulture, and sigil magic
What does it mean to live a life as an occultist? There may be no single answer, but for Carl Abrahamsson, it has entailed work in music, art, and film as well as deep engagement with renowned occult figures and organizations for more than 40 years.
Illustrating the possibilities of a life infused with magic, Abrahamsson reflects on his decades spent in the company of some of the most unconventional thinkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He reveals his involvement with psychedelic culture, the punk subculture, and numerous occult figures and organizations, including Genesis P-Orridge and Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth, Anton LaVey's Church of Satan, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and a branch of the American Golden Dawn.
Interwoven with his occult experiences and meetings with infamous practitioners of magic, Abrahamsson describes his evolution as a multidisciplinary artist, always imbuing his diverse artistic practice with a developing occult philosophy. He also details his ongoing efforts to disseminate the occult arts via publishing companies like Psychick Release, Looking Glass Press, Edda Publishing, Trapart Books, and the occultural journal The Fenris Wolf—as well as fieldwork in Tibet, Nepal, and India through the Institute of Comparative Magico-anthropology. Through each encounter and reflection on the magical, shamanic, and mystical practices that structured his own life, Abrahamsson illuminates how it's possible to experience a life of wisdom and miracles.
Contents
Foreword by Frater U∴D∴
Introduction
PART I
1984-1989
Do It Yourself! ◆ Headquarters ◆ Psychonautic
Individuation ◆ Decorum ◆ Cutting It Up ◆ Harmony of
the Spheres ◆ Psychick Youth ◆ Initial Pilgrimage ◆
Panic Profiteers ◆ Academagic ◆ Source Magic ◆
A Vortex of Inspiration ◆ The Melting Pot ◆
Self-Initiation ◆ Dropping Out, Dropping In ◆ If You're
Going to San Francisco . . . ◆ The Black House
PART I I
1990-1994
Happiness & Anger ◆ Psychick Release ◆ Cinemagicians
◆ Fraternal Occulture ◆ Back into the Devil's Den ◆
Psychick Fatigue ◆ "The Great Beast" ◆ "Mr. Satan" ◆
Stockholm Occulture and a Golden Dawn ◆ Beatific
Flicker in the USA ◆ Legacies & Policies ◆
Electric Skies ◆ On the Road
PART I I I
1995-1999
A Two-Way Looking Glass ◆ Necromantic Namedropping ◆
Babalonic Mind-Frames ◆ Pandrogeny ◆ A Para-Academic
Antidote to Intellectual Inertia ◆ Himalayan Highs ◆
Excellencies in Exile ◆ Back to Roots ◆ Ancestral
Meditations ◆ Book Birthings & Devilish Demises ◆ "The
Man We Want to Hang" ◆ Spoken Words ◆ What Is Time,
Anyway? ◆ Bardo Tibet ◆ The Holy Mountain
PART I V
2000-2004
"All You Have To Do Is Go to Kathmandu" ◆ "Are You
Prepared to Pay the Price?" ◆ Searching for Substance ◆
Life on the Couch ◆ Pinnacles & Pedigrees
PART V
2005-2009
Introspection ◆ Transient Lives ◆
The Caretakers' Cabal ◆ Russian Insights ◆
A Massive Occulturation This Way's A-Coming
PART V I
2010-2014
Mr. Occulture (Professor Emeritus)! ◆ Book-Makers &
Literary Magic ◆ An Art Apart ◆ The Mega Golem
PART V I I
2015-2019
Flashback & Forth! ◆ Catholics & Sacred Whores ◆
Cinematic Summings-Up ◆ We Travel ◆
PSYCHARTCULT ◆ Raising Hell(fire) ◆ Time Out,
Move On ◆ Teacher's Pet Subjects ◆ A Pact
Is a Pact ◆ Sacred Intent
PART V I I I
2020 AND BEYOND
And Then Some . . . (Sending Out an SoS) ◆ Spelling IT
Out ◆ It Is Written & Some More Ancestors ◆
"What Do I Know?" & Beyond
Afterword: Becoming the Past, Gently
Appendix: Inspirations
Acknowledgments
Index
