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Disinfo Magick book: Help me out with ideas

Boy in a Suitcase

17:54 / 02.07.03

So I'm sitting in my office at my new job at Disinformation in New York City. For those who don't know the company they're an "occult corporation" of sorts that is currently the most visible occult/counterculture brand. They put out big tomes of investigative journalism, and, more and more, books on
people on the cutting edge of magick. (The company head Richard Metzger is a very successful chaos
magician & huge stoner).

Later in the year they're putting out the "Disinfo Book of Lies" which is a huge compilation of essays on
magick from people like Phil Hine, Genesis P-Orridge, Paul Laffoley, Grant Morrison, etc.

So I'm working for them for the summer and they seem pretty open to book proposals from me, so I'm trying to come up with some kind of work on magick I can pitch to them, write, and make craploads of money on (yeah right). I was considering writing up a Disinfo practical grimoire outlining basic chaos techniques and then the essentials of the major paradigms in an explicitly practical, workbook kind of way with all the sentiment and gloss stripped off and made all 21-st century corporate cool, but... I'm only 21 years old fer fucksake and I don't know if I have the practical experience to pull such an undertaking off and actually have it be representative of something.

So now I turn to my friends on Barbelith, my spawning pool... my question to you beautiful lot being, got any ideas that I could try and pull off? What kind of book are you always searching the new age stacks for and never finding? What kind of books on the topic does the new century need? This is my chance to spread Pandaemonaeon in a huge way... (and make some mad scrilla $$)

Suggestions most most appreciated!

19:30 / 02.07.03

First off, congratulations on your new job! Very very cool stuff. I didn't know Disinfo had an NYC office.

As for ideas for a book, I really don't know of any that wouldn't sound cliche. Maybe compare NLP to magickal techniques in your grimoire?

I feel like the right idea, or combination of ideas, will come to you. I like your idea of doing a step-by-step, clear-language workbook style thing.

The "Disinfo Book of Lies" sounds fantastic.

20:26 / 02.07.03

What about focusing on one aspect of magic rather than trying to redo older works like Condensed Chaos and the like? Say, divination? (Disination?

) You could start with a handful of divinitory systems, their basics and how they are used as ground work, go into some quantum probability on selection of elements as breaking of the probability field and theories on how this field could be manipulated by energetic forces, go off on syncronicity as the driving force for it all, and lead the reader into seeing everything around them as an element of a divinitory system full of secret messages from the divine until you drive them into a scitzotypal fugue that could trigger a mystical experience.

Hmm. Or maybe I'll write that one

At any rate, congrats on the job. That must so rock.

20:45 / 02.07.03

you must tell us when it comes out.

22:13 / 02.07.03

Major props on the job. Myself and several I know would kill for a position like that. As for book ideas, the one magickal text I've always wanted to see would be kind of like you stated. A time-conscious how-to book. Something any teenaged geek with a hard-on for his level twenty mage could pick up, thumb through, and basically embrace. I wouldn't want it to be easy, per se, because magick most certainly isn't, but I'd want it to be thoroughly accessable. Let's say you flip to the table of contents. You'll see neat and tidy chapters, broken into subsets on theory, mechanics, and practice. A section on sigils ('cause everyone loves sigils) and a section on spirit-ish stuff, a chapter on preparation and enhancement (which would probably come first) and maybe some bits on magickal communication, psychokinesis, and pretty light shows. Take all the buzzwords and mind's eye images that people love to associate with magick and simplify it. Make it viable.

02:22 / 03.07.03

Boy, you rock. Congrats. Disinfo is mad tits.

I think the overview style would be in line with the other Disinfo pubs, like Interviews, Abuse Your Illusions, etc. Each chapter would cover a specific section of the "occult". I think maybe doing some background sections on Crowley et al to lead up to an overview of Chaos Magick and beyond. Some stuff on modern speculative physics and magick would be cool too, maybe after the Chaos Magick stuff. I think whatever you do it would be helpful to rid the world of the "Evil" associations with western hermetic traditions. Maybe introduce the western mysteries as the New Religon (gag, I know the term is scary but you get my drift). Magick as the next wave, post-Judeo-Christian-Islamic, maybe tie it in to stuff like corporate sigilisation, self empowerment, archai revival, and generally finding more meaning in a consumer wasteland of recycled pap culture.

My 2 bits. I'll think on it some more.

--

03:55 / 03.07.03

Wow, you're only 21 and you have a job with Disinfo. I'm 23 and I'm bagging groceries at the local Supermarket.

I don't blame you for being intimidated. If I was working on a project that included contributions from GM< P-Orridge and Hine I'd be daunted to, seeing as those 3 people's philosophy on magic pretty much got me involved in it...

trouser the trouserian

06:58 / 03.07.03

What a great job to get!
I agree with cusm - don't try and rehash what's gone before. One thought (might be hell to arrange tho') is, instead of getting seperate articles, interviews etc. with various luminaries like Gen, Grant M, etc., why not try and get them to do some collaborative input on a set of topics?
Alternatively, what about a collection of 'new voices' on magic. I know publishers like to focus on people who are already 'known', but I'd really like to see some new, fresh stuff - have you thought about getting in touch with Joel Birroco, for instance? Or Ramsey Dukes (okay he's hardly 'new', but I'd really like to see his stuff brought to a wider audience).

trouser the trouserian

07:17 / 03.07.03

Come to think of it, what I'd really like to see is a "cartoon guide to magic". Grant M been talking for years about writing his own magical 'grimoire', so why not try and twist his arm?
Or how about something on magic & genderplay?

07:28 / 03.07.03

Being selfish, rahter than projecting myself back to my formative teenage years, I'd second that. Do something new and innovative - the last thing the world needs is another book on sigils.(Sorry, Deadwing). Actually, there is a new one out, I was looking through it in a bookshop recently (can't remember name of author) but I found it to be totally devoid of two key factors - inspiration and experience. Yhe aotjor had nothing new to say, no excting tales to add, no accounts of how sigilisation had had him ripped to the tits on DMT bunjing jumping off the Empire State Building - it was just a tired rehash of already extant material - boooorrring! People have been rehashing the Golden Dawn Material for the last 100 years, I think you should avoid doing the same for Chaos Magick. Sorry, that turned into a bit of a rant.

Anyway - what I would like to see is something new. Dave Lee's Chaotopia was one of the most innovative magical books I've seen for ages - I got the impression the author had took his experience, assimilated it, and expanded on it - fantastic stuff. What about something new from him? Jan Fries, another great author. Perhaps you could do something that focuses on people's experiences rather than detailing magicial techniques and systems - that's waht I always like to read about anyway.

Oh yeah [gritted teeth, fake smile] congrats on the new job [/gritted teeth, fake smile]

ya bastard.

07:46 / 03.07.03

a modern book that avoids iot-style chaos would be cool, something that adds to postmodernity rather than wallowing in it: reading many recent books on the art it is sometimes difficult to avoid the feeling that magicians are maladjusted punckqxs desperately trying to get their catholic parents to notice their rebellion. perhaps a justification of the role of the western hermeticist within society - it's a long time since the inquisition - yogis in the east are respected and their contribution to the community acknowledged. the influencd of hermeticism through yeats on western literature, and through newton [alchemist] on Enlightenment rationalism. something like that something

07:47 / 03.07.03

Ramsey Dukes (okay he's hardly 'new', but I'd really like to see his stuff brought to a wider audience). absence of gravitas
I'll second that! Check out web-orama.com where he occasionally contributes (or did when I was there) and comments on his work. Especially relevant to the Magic as the new Religion thing, his cultural cycle Magic-Religion-Art-Science is well worth looking into.

cartoon guide to magic
Promethea, anyone? :0)

Don't rehash, but I'd like to see something that briefly covered all the major magical styles (Golden Dawn, shamanism, Crowley) with a decent bibliography, but then launched into 'How to get into magick'.

In fact, the book I want is the Barbelith Magick Forum in paperback. Edited for clarity (and absence of nazi lizardmen) of course...

Hell, why not? There's enough material for a book right here, and it would be a refreshing change from the norm- nobody here's going to mind being quoted and published are they?

07:57 / 03.07.03

Big congrats on the new job - that's brilliant.

On the book front, I dunno, if I were doing it I'd pitch it as 'new writing on magick' and only accept genuinely new and innovative perspectives on magic. No tired re-hashes of other peoples books. No stodgy overviews of magickal history. You can get all that stuff in countless other places. I'd like to read a book on magick that makes me think 'fucking hell I never thought of it like that before' on every page. Make it happen.

Kiss My Apocalips

13:34 / 03.07.03

I´m with Quantum. I´d like to read a book that contains self styled rituals, self constructed sigills and maybe descriptions of self experienced magickal journeys, etc. I´d like to see the stuff of new fresh young lovely radical and unbiased sorcerers. And i guess the Barbelith crowd is just right for a project like that.

14:00 / 03.07.03

The only thing a book on magick can account for is to kick the reader in butt to discover and develop his own magick.

In line with the above, and considering a book with essays from the big farts is under its way, I would propose a book with testimonials from people that: used magick accidentally without knowing it and realising later they have stumbled with their own path, people that actually uses some magickal system, people that don't use any magickal system but are or were immersed in magickal or highly anomalous gratifying experiences that provided them with a long-standing magickal perspective. Whatever the interviewed people talk about, it should be about a very major magickal experience of their lives.

Mainly, a book about people saying magick works whether you practice it or not, and for me it was like this.

15:12 / 03.07.03

The sigil bit would only need to go in if you were going all-inclusive, like a Universal Manipulation and the Funnelling of Probability and Ultimate Power/Chaos for Dummies (A guide for the rest of us, yo.) But the more I read the more I think the laying something out that actually pushes Post-modernistic theory instead of restating it would be a better Idea. Maybe with cartoon characters in the margins.
Picture Sonic the Hedgehog in a wicked cool ceremonial robe staring up at a column of text with a word bubble going "Wow, I never knew calling up the essence of an amalgamated thoughtscape could be so easy!"
...Or maybe that little paper-clippy bastard from Word. That would be nifty.

17:33 / 03.07.03

There's a huge vacant niche in the market for a book exploring ritual storytelling, narrative engineering, hypersigils, fictionsuits, etc. There's a rich seam of common material running through this, from NLP techniques, to how and why so many cultures have built narrative cosmogonies in order to understand the universe; from the act of "the observer effecting the outcome" being akin to the universe functioning as as some kind of enormous reader/text relationsip, to the way in which creative minds seem to settle on the same realisations at the same time. It'd take a lot of research to pull off, but I'm betting that Alan Moore and Grant Morrison could provide many useful insights. A "how to" guide to fictionmagic.

17:59 / 03.07.03

Now, maybe I'm mistaken, but it seems like a lot of the chaos magic texts expect that you've got some kind of experience in some other more formal systems, or even care what other formal systems are. I think that's bunk.

I'd like to see the beginning of the book be very stark--a low-mysticism NLP technique, for example, with no more tools required beyond a spiral notebook. Things you can do without 'belief' are good--emphasis on visualizations that you're consciously making up (so you don't feel like you're supposed to be downloading unexpected information from the get-go). Things along these lines for each of the typical areas of magic: 'divination from unexpected sources,' 'what to do with the ballpoint pen you've decided is a wand,' etc.

Now, once you've taught people how to generate their own magic ideas, maybe some organization suggestions would be in order: how to generate cosmologies (for example Upperworld/Midworld/Underworld, Four Directions, divisions of The Hand), inventing entities to talk to, how to invent banishing rituals, devotions, altar-making, etc.

It's what I'd want, anyway.

18:01 / 03.07.03

Oh, and I dig the fictionmagic idea as well.

I think basically I would want a book which could be given to someone who wasn't interested in shamanism or paganism or Tarot, and they'd read the first chapter and go, 'Oh, is that it? Sure, I can see that being useful for getting over my fear of airplanes.' But eventually the tools for getting as far-out as you wanted would be presented.

19:27 / 03.07.03

Kind of like a writers guide to narrative hypersigels? That would rule. And its something that hasn't been done yet, as far as I know of.

11:18 / 04.07.03

I second the fictionmagic guide idea. Since The Invisibles and Promethea it's definitely a burgeoning area, and we should be looking into that more, rather than doing what Carroll & Hine were doing twenty years ago.

As to Barbelith: the book!, well, my ego tells me that'd be a good idea, but my ego is responsible for some of my worst fashion decisions, so, y'know...Perhaps not.

Though all this has inspired me to go and write a short magical biography article anyway...

12:53 / 04.07.03

A "how to" guide to fictionmagic.
Yeah, that would rule. After a bit more practice with the narrative hypersigil RPG and some research I might start it... difficult not to resort to Campbell and Jung though, it would need a distinctive flavour.

16:46 / 04.07.03

I sometimes suspect that storytelling is the key to understanding everything. And I think Barbelith is perfectly placed to put such a book together: there are vast numbers of people here who use magick or write (or both), and I'm sure we command enough respect in the comics field to secure interviews with Morrison and Moore. If enough people contribute we could nominate a couple of editors and start work right away...

18:46 / 04.07.03

I sometimes suspect that storytelling is the key to understanding everything.

Hell yes. Magic can be seen as ignoring causal links between events in favor of narrative links between events.

13:59 / 05.07.03

So are people up for this? Those who are interested could sumbit one or two essays/articles each, whatever length they feel is appropriate to the subject matter. It'd be good to have a couple of actual hypersigils to include, whether they're short stories, novellas, poems, songs, whatever. We could throw the net wider to people outside the Magick forum, and investigate those interviews with GM and AM and whoever else has spoken about the subject. A real saturation of commentary, theory, technique, examples, articles, ideas, coming at the subject from a ton of angles. Maybe we could even contact a couple of old-school Barbelith members who haven't been around for a while...

Is this the kind of thing you had in mind, Boy in a Suitcase? Would you be up for co-ordinating a project on the relationship between fiction and magic, editing and setting deadlines? What are your thoughts?

01:31 / 06.07.03

a kind of a sidenote... everyone had such great ideas... I would love to see some photos of what a homemade altar looks like. much like wondering "I wonder what their house look like".

as for the BOOK OF LIES I hope it won't turn out an all-male affair. the DISINFO interview book had, what, one female interviewee. something to remember.

05:56 / 06.07.03

that's because metzger is an egotistical patriarchal twat with lotsa male-bonding-yet-psychedelicly-inclined buddies.

21:57 / 06.07.03

I hope you posted that having known him personally. pet peeve of mine, judging people harshly you only know via the media.

08:00 / 07.07.03

might be a pet peeve of yours but it's how the world works innit?

having seen the tv show, read a couple of the books and spun around the website a few times, i've gotta say i get a bit of boy's club vibe from the disinfo setup as well. and the eyebrows, jesus i've been plucking since i was fifteen and if i can get it right so can he.

13:11 / 07.07.03

the popularized CM scene has not a lot of female representation anyway, does it? [sigh]

15:09 / 07.07.03

Barbelith>>Underground>>Magick: The Book! a book on magick based on barbeltith would be a bitch to edit, but I think the major bonus to 'barb vs books is the multiple viewpoints. Often you can learn more from reading 3 conflicting accounts/advice than you can from a single article claiming to be gospel. Asking a variety of authors to write short articles answering similar questions would be informative eg. How does magick work? Tell about a working the succeeded, one that failed and one that backfired? Can anybody do magic? Where should I start? Is it better to take something old or make something new? etc. I'm sure that p.orrige, hine, morrison et al would all have pretty different answers. If they all say the same thing ask harder questions or different people

. Also it would be interesting to read those answers from the mage-in-the-street in addition to celebraties. Actually, I might consider running that as a barbelith project, msg me if anyone likes the idea...

I like the idea of a book/guide with multiple points of view. Helps people find their own. A hitch hikers guide to magick, anybody? (witch hiker?)

I'd love to write up a couple of the very simple improvised workings I've done. I've described them to a few people, some have been very dismissive, but they've captured others imaginations.

15:19 / 07.07.03

If I were in your position, how about a book on magick that uses just some made up system that no-ones ever seen because you thought it up of the top of your head. Work with the system for awhile, and then offer it up as a system of chaos magick. Make up alot of gods that noones ever heard of but embody some classical and non classical archtypes. Build a new oracle system, the whole works, and then at the end point out that imagery is not so important, so long as its there and follows some sense of association. And make it at times minimalist and at others more elaberatly rediculous than the OTO. That aught to sell well.

trouser the trouserian

12:57 / 08.07.03

Make up alot of gods that noones ever heard of but embody some classical and non classical archtypes.

Sounds like The Grimoire of Chaos Magick by Julian Wilde, released by the Sorceror's Apprentice in the late '80s. It was (IMHO) bloody awful.

13:30 / 08.07.03

It'd be better to do some kinda fill-in-the-blanks approach. eg. Describe the properties of the elements and ask the reader to note down a thing or things that represent that to them.

17:24 / 08.07.03

Dude... Chaos MadLibs!