Book picks similar to
England's Hidden Reverse: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground by David Keenan
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One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time
Craig Brown - 2020
At that point, we will be at the same distance in time from 1970 as 1970 was from 1920, the year Al Jolson's ‘Swanee’ was the bestselling record and Gustav Holst composed The Planets.The Beatles continue to occupy a position unique in popular culture. They have entered people's minds in a way that did not occur before, and has not occurred since. Their influence extended way beyond the realm of music to fashion, politics, class, religion and ethics. Countless books have doggedly catalogued the minutiae of The Beatles. If you want to know the make of George Harrison's first car you will always be able to find the answer (a second hand, two-door, blue Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe, purchased from Brian Epstein's friend Terry Doran, who worked at a dealership in Warrington). Before she met John Lennon, who was the only Beatle Yoko Ono could name, and why? Ringo. Because ‘ringo’ means ‘apple’ in Japanese. All very interesting, but there is, as yet, no book about The Beatles that combines the intriguing minutiae of their day-to-day lives with broader questions about their effect – complicated and fascinating – on the world around them, their contemporaries, and generations to come.Until now. Craig Brown's 1-2-3-4: The Beatles in Time is a unique, kaleidoscopic examination of The Beatles phenomenon – part biography, part anthropology, part memoir, by turns humorous and serious, elegiac and speculative. It follows the unique “exploded biography” form of his internationally bestselling, Ma'am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret.
Psicomagia
Alejandro Jodorowsky - 1995
He realized that it is easier for the unconscious to understand the language of dreams than that of rationality. Illness can even be seen as a physical dream that reveals unresolved emotional and psychological problems. Psychomagic presents the shamanic and genealogical principles Jodorowsky discovered to create a healing therapy that could use the powers of dreams, art, and theater to empower individuals to heal wounds that in some cases had traveled through generations. The concrete and often surreal poetic actions Jodorowsky employs are part of an elaborate strategy intended to break apart the dysfunctional persona with whom the patient identifies in order to connect with a deeper self. That is when true transformation can manifest. For a young man who complained that he lived only in his head and was unable to grab hold of reality and advance toward the financial autonomy he desired, Jodorowsky gave the prescription to paste two gold coins to the soles of his shoes so that all day he would be walking on gold. A judge whose vanity was ruling his every move was given the task of dressing like a tramp and begging outside one of the fashionable restaurants he loved to frequent while pulling glass doll eyes out of his pockets. The lesson for him was that if a tramp can fill his pockets with eyeballs, then they must be of no value, and thus the eyes of others should have no bearing on who you are and what you do. Taking his patients directly at their words, Jodorowsky takes the same elements associated with a negative emotional charge and recasts them in an action that will make them positive and enable them to pay the psychological debts hindering their lives.
Luciferian Witchcraft
Michael W. Ford - 2005
Many books have been written of the so-called left hand path, very few actually were written by initiates. Beginning with a lengthy exploration of the forms of the Adversary throughout history, a foundation of ideology is given by identification with the Adversary. The reader is then led through dark and twisting corridors with Four Chapters, a complete system of the History of the Adversary and the Witchcraft associated with the Left Hand Path. What is found within Luciferian Witchcraft is a Talismanic text which presents the medieval concepts of the Black Book being a conjuration itself of the Devil, a complete initiatory system detailing High Ceremonial Magick, The lore of the Adversary and ritualistic and forbidden sex magick. Approach with caution, you may open the gates of hell within.
The Hell Fire Club
Daniel P. Mannix - 1961
In the ruined abbeys and elaborately decorated caves of England, the notorious Hellfire Club held meetings that shocked and terrified the countryside. London madams scoured the city for young girls to supply the club. Rakes flocked to meetings. Yet it was typical of late eighteenth century England that the club's members included famous men from the worlds of art and politics, even the then-Prime Minister. The list of members could almost be mistaken for the honours list of the most eminent men of the day and when news of the clubs activities leaked out, it caused the biggest political scandal in British history. Brilliant, perverse, equally capable of elaborately obscene jests and the intricacies of parliamentary politics, the members of the Hellfire Club were the most astonishing men of their time. Since its inception over two hundred years ago, the record of their revels has fascinated and repulsed the world.
Inside the Dream Palace: The Life and Times of New York's Legendary Chelsea Hotel
Sherill Tippins - 2013
Sherill Tippins, author of the acclaimed February House, delivers a masterful and endlessly entertaining history of the Chelsea and of the successive generations of artists who have cohabited and created there, among them John Sloan, Edgar Lee Masters, Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Arthur Miller, Allen Ginsberg, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Leonard Cohen, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Sam Shepard, Sid Vicious, and Dee Dee Ramone. Now as legendary as the artists it has housed and the countless creative collaborations it has sparked, the Chelsea has always stood as a mystery as well: Why and how did this hotel become the largest and longest-lived artists’ community in the known world? Inside the Dream Palace is the intimate and definitive story.Today the Chelsea stands poised in limbo between two futures: Will this symbol of New York's artistic invention be converted to a profit-driven business catering to the top one percent? Or will the Chelsea be given a rebirth through painstaking effort by the community that loves it? Set against these two competing possibilities, Inside the Dream Palace could not be more fascinating or timely.
Wicked Messenger: Bob Dylan and the 1960s; Chimes of Freedom, revised and expanded
Mike Marqusee - 2003
In Wicked Messenger, acclaimed cultural-political commentator Mike Marqusee advances the new thesis that Dylan did not drop politics from his songs but changed the manner of his critique to address the changing political and cultural climate and, more importantly, his own evolving aesthetic. Wicked Messenger is also a riveting political history of the United States in the 1960s. Tracing the development of the decade’s political and cultural dissent movements, Marqusee shows how their twists and turns were anticipated in the poetic aesthetic—anarchic, unaccountable, contradictory, punk— of Dylan's mid-sixties albums, as well as in his recent artistic ventures in Chronicles, Vol. I and Masked and Anonymous.Dylan’s anguished, self-obsessed, prickly artistic evolution, Marqusee asserts, was a deeply creative response to a deeply disturbing situation. "He can no longer tell the story straight," Marqusee concludes, "because any story told straight is a false one."
Egyptian Magic
E.A. Wallis Budge - 1899
Everything known about magic in ancient Egypt: the role of magic in controlling the gods, powerful amulets that warded off evil spirits, scarabs of immortality, use of wax images, formulas & spells, the secret name, etc.PrefaceAntiquity of magical practices in Egypt Magical stones or amulets Magical figures Magical pictures & formulæ, spells etc.Magical names Magical ceremonies Demoniacal possession, dreams, ghosts, lucky & unlucky days, horoscopes, prognostications, transformations & the worship of animals
Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary
James Wasserman - 1993
John and A Master of the Temple. These were the only two works regarding the magical diary published in Crowley's lifetime. Both were first published in Crowley's immense collection of magical instruction, The Equinox. John St. John chronicles Crowley's momentbymoment progress during a 13day magical working. Crowley referred to it as "a perfect model of what a magical record should be." A Master of the Temple is taken from the magical diary of Frater Achad at a time when he was Crowley's most valued and successful student. It provides an invaluable example of a student's record, plus direct commentary and instruction added by Crowley.With commentary and introductory material by editor James Wasserman, Aleister Crowley and the Practice of the Magical Diary is the most important and accessible instruction available to students of the occult regarding the practice of keeping a magical diary.This revised edition includes a new introduction by Wasserman, a foreword by noted occult scholar J. Daniel Gunther, revisions throughout the text, a revised reading list for further study, plus Crowley's instructions on banishing from Liber O.
Nina Simone: The Biography
David Brun-Lambert - 2005
After a rejection from an elite New York conservatoire—a rejection she always believed stemmed from the color of her skin—she began performing jazz, blues, and classical songs in a bar to fund her music studies. In 1958 her rendition of the Gershwin standard “I Loves You Porgy” became a Top 40 hit, and her subsequent debut album Little Girl Blue launched what would become an extensive singing and songwriting career. Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with Simone’s closest associates, this extraordinary biography follows her sparkling career as well as her passionate belief in racial equality that eventually led her to undergo self-imposed exile from America in 1970. Featuring rare photographs and a review of Simone’s more than 40 albums and numerous hits, this is an extensive look at the complex and extremely talented diva.
Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen
Hildegard von Bingen - 1985
• Reveals the life and teachings of one of the greatest female artists and intellectuals of the Western Mystical Tradition. • Contains 24 full-color illustrations by Hildegard of Bingen. • Includes commentary by Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing (250,000 sold). Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was an extraordinary woman living in the Rhineland valley during most of the twelfth century. Besides being the abbess of a large and influential Benedictine abbey, she was a prominent preacher, healer, scientist, and artist. She also was a composer and theologian, writing nine books on theology, medicine, science, and physiology, as well as 70 poems and an opera. At the age of 42, she began to have visions; these were captured as 36 illuminations--24 of which are recorded in this book along with her commentaries on them. She also wrote a text describing these visions entitled Scivias (Know the Ways), now published as Hildegard of Bingen's Mystical Visions. Author Matthew Fox has stated, "If Hildegard had been a man, she would be well known as one of the greatest artists and intellectuals the world has ever seen." It is a credit to the power of the women's movement and our times that this towering genius of Western thought is being rediscovered in her full grandeur and autonomy. Virtually unknown for more than 800 years in Western history, Hildegard was featured as one of the women in Judy Chicago's Dinner Party in the early 1980s and published for the first time in English by Bear & Company in 1982. In addition to her mystical teachings, Hildegard's music has been performed and recorded for a new and growing audience.
Alexander Hamilton: First Architect Of The American Government
Michael W. Simmons - 2016
Orphaned as a teenager, he came to America in search of an education, a home, and the war that would at last bring him fame and honor. As George Washington’s most trusted aide, Hamilton helped to win the American Revolution—but after the war, his enemies lost no time accusing him of trying to sell his country back to the British. He was the most powerful member of Washington’s presidential cabinet—so why did Adams and Jefferson hate him so much?In this book, you will learn how the author of the Federalist Papers and the first Secretary of the Treasury nearly ruined his career by fighting duels, seducing women, and getting involved in America’s first sex scandal. The duel that killed Alexander Hamilton is the most famous duel in American history, but you’ll have to come up with your own answer to its greatest mystery: who shot first, Hamilton or Burr?
Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys
Viv Albertine - 2014
Her memoir tells the story of how, through sheer will, talent, and fearlessness, she forced herself into a male-dominated industry, became part of a movement that changed music, and inspired a generation of female rockers.After forming The Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious in 1976, Albertine joined The Slits and made musical history in one of the first generations of punk bands. The Slits would go on to serve as an inspiration to future rockers, including Kurt Cobain, Carrie Brownstein, and the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s. This is the story of what it was like to be a girl at the height of punk: the sex, the drugs, the guys, the tours, and being part of a brilliant pioneering group of women making musical history. Albertine recounts helping define punk fashion, struggling to find her place among the boys, and her romance with Mick Jones, including her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. She also gives a candid account of what happened post-punk, beyond the break-up of The Slits in 1982, including a career in film, surviving cancer, and making music again, twenty-five years later.A truly remarkable memoir told in Viv’s frank, irreverent, and distinctive voice, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. is a raw, thrilling story of life on the frontier.
The Devil: A Biography
Peter Stanford - 1996
But now, Peter Stanford's highly readable survey brings the Devil to the forefront as he focuses on the Church, literature, folklore, psychology and history. The result is a lively account of our age-old response to the challenge of why evil and human suffering exist.
Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica
Zora Neale Hurston - 1938
Tell My Horse is an invaluable resource and fascinating guide. Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s personal experience in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions of great cultural interest.
50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship
Salvador Dalí - 1948
In this rare and important volume, the painter expresses (in his inimitably eccentric fashion) his ideas of what painting should be, expounds on what is good and bad painting, offers opinions on the merits of Vermeer, Picasso, Cézanne, and other artists, and expresses his thoughts on the history of painting. In a blend of outrageous egotism and unconventional humor, Dalí presents 50 "secrets" for mastering the art of painting: "the secret of sleeping while awake," "the secret of the periods of carnal abstinence and indulgence to be observed by the painter," "the secret of the painter's pointed mustaches," "the secret of learning to paint before knowing how to draw," "the secret of the painter's marriage," "the secret of the reason why a great draughtsman should draw while completely naked," and many other Daliesque prescriptions for artistic success.Illustrated with the artist's own drawings, this volume is a fascinating mixture of serious artistic advice, lively personal anecdotes, and academic craftsmanship. It is, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, "in lay-out and clarity of design . . . a remarkable work of art in itself." Especially esteemed for its insights into modern art, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship is indispensable reading for any student of Surrealism or 20th century painting.