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  1. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and the body electric

    “In taste, in learning, wit or science,
    Still kindred souls demand alliance:
    Each in the other joys to find
    The image answering to his mind.
    But sparks electric only strike
    On souls electrical alike;
    The flash of intellect expires,
    Unless it meet congenial fires.”
    Hannah More, The Bas Blue 1786

    For this series of posts on the theme of polarity discourse, I’m going to focus on representations of polarity which make an appeal to forces – to electricity, magnetism, etc. Continue reading »

    June 3rd 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

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    2 comments »

  2. Talismanic books?

    Attending a recent occult soiree, I was offered the chance to acquire one of those deluxe, bound-in-vellum, limited edition, “this isn’t just a book, it’s a talisman” offerings which seem so popular nowadays. Continue reading »

    May 19th 2010

    Posted by in Occult

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    31 comments »

  3. Tantra keywords: Embodied

    “I praise the circle of deities innate within the body, an elevated assembly continually present, the end of everything, vibrant and the essence of experience.”dehasthadevatacakrastotra

    For this post, I want to discuss some “Tantric” themes which relate to embodiment – in particular, whilst stressing that Tantra constitutes an embodied practice, I also want to point towards a key difference between South Asian and “western” esoteric epistemologies – that underwriting Tantra’s embodied practice is what might be called an embodied theology. Continue reading »

    May 14th 2010

    Posted by in tantra

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  4. Tantra keywords: Wonder

    I’m working on an article at the moment, attempting to explain what for me, are some of the basic orientations of my approach to Tantra practice. Rather than seek safety in definitions, I thought it’d be more interesting to examine my own perspective on Tantra practice by highlighting a few keywords – and so I’m beginning with Wonder. onwards…

    May 6th 2010

    Posted by in tantra

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    5 comments »

  5. The Beltane Book of Living and Dying

    I fell in love with a tree, about four years ago. And after four years, she died. She was a flowering cherry. I’m not sure which variety, Prunus Pink Perfection I think or perhaps Prunus Kanzan. She grew in my local park, ten minutes from where I live. Blowsy and bedecked, ephemeral and voluptuous – that’s how she was in the Spring. It would have been her time to flower now, as her sister trees are, tossing their heads in glory. But she died. She was cut down in the snow, just after the Winter Solstice. Continue reading »

    May 4th 2010

    Posted by in Pagan

    Tags: None

    5 comments »

  6. The Anthropology of Magic reviewed

    Back in December, I rashly promised a review of Susan Greenwood’s new book The Anthropology of Magick. I’m playing around with the “Now Reading” wordpress plug-in at the moment, so the review can be found here.

    April 30th 2010

    Posted by in Announcements, Book reviews

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  7. Occult gender regimes: Polarity and Tradition

    When women want to escape from exploitation, they do not merely destroy a few “prejudices,” they disrupt the entire order of dominant values, economic, social, moral and sexual. They call into question all existing theory, all thought, all language, insamuch as these are monopolized by men and men alone. They challenge the very foundation of our social and cultural order….Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which is Not One

    Continue reading »

    April 27th 2010

    Posted by in Gender, History, Occult

    Tags: ,

    4 comments »

  8. ordering-machine: meaning & mapping

    One of the reasons that I was drawn to studying occultism in the nineteenth century was its relationship to the colonial enterprise – something which first struck me when watching Adam Hart-Davies’ 2001 BBC series What the Victorians did for us was how much of the Victorian enterprise was bound up with the drive to order the world – be it through colonial management and its practices (census-taking, fingerprinting, anthropometry), mapping, and the emergence of new disciplines such as sexology, anthropology, and comparative religion. Ordering – and thereby managing these emerging ‘territories’ underwrote the great projects of the Victorian age, and I began to think of Victorian occultism as another example of this trend. Continue reading »

    April 20th 2010

    Posted by in Occult

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    5 comments »

  9. Bumblebees

    I love bumblebees…

    My love affair with bumblebees started years ago when I worked for a ‘design company’ that constructed Santa’s Grottos all year round [horrendous if you don’t like Xmas in the first place!] but also made some seasonal decorations for shopping centres. And for the spring/Easter season some centre up North had ordered 3 giant bumblebees so I spent a few weeks helping another woman construct ginormous bumblebees out of hoola hoops, fake fur and plastic foil. Continue reading »

    April 16th 2010

    Posted by in tantra

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    3 comments »

  10. Theorising Practice II: Habitus/Hexis

    One of the consequences of the mind (theory)-body(practice) divide in contemporary approaches to magic (and more widely, spiritual development in general) is the notion that the spiritual/magical is set apart from the material/everyday world. There is a pervasive belief that materiality (and the concerns that relate to it) is a burden to be overcome; that development requires that the concerns of the body be transcended. This kind of discourse tends to privilege abstracted knowledge over bodied experience. Yet all practices (including those understood as inwardly turning, such as meditation or visualisation) involve our bodies. Continue reading »

    March 23rd 2010

    Posted by in Occult

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    2 comments »