Magick Matters

“Strange Rites: New Religions for a Godless World” by Tara Isabella Burton

"A sparklingly strange odyssey through the kaleidoscope of America's new spirituality: the cults, practices, high priests and prophets of our supposedly post-religion age. Fifty-five years have passed since the cover of Time magazine proclaimed the death of God and while participation in mainstream religion has indeed plummeted, Americans have never been more spiritually busy. While rejecting traditional worship in unprecedented numbers, today's Americans are embracing a kaleidoscopic panoply of spiritual traditions, rituals, and subcultures -- from astrology and witchcraft to SoulCycle and the alt-right. As the Internet makes it ever-easier to find new "tribes," and consumer capitalism forever threatens to turn spirituality into a lifestyle brand, remarkably modern American religious culture is undergoing a revival comparable...>>

“Controversial New Religions” edited by James R. Lewis and Jesper Aagaard Petersen (older 1st edition)

"This book complements Lewis's Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. The former provides an overview of the state of the field. This volume collects papers on those specific New Religious Movements (NRMs) that have generated the most scholarly attention. With few exceptions, these organizations are also the controversial groups that have attracted the attention of the mass media, often because they have been involved in, or accused of, violent or anti-social activities. Among the movements to be profiled are such groups as the Branch Davidians, Heaven's Gate, Aum Shinrikyo, Solar Temple, Scientology, Falun Gong and many more. The book will function as a reference for scholars, as a text for courses in NRMs, and...>>

“The Witch of Eye” by Kathryn Nuernberger

🕵️🐷🕵️ zero-day🕵️🐷🕵️ "This amazingly wise and nimble collection investigates the horrors inflicted on so-called “witches” of the past. The Witch of Eye unearths salves, potions, and spells meant to heal, yet interpreted by inquisitors as evidence of evil. The author describes torture and forced confessions alongside accounts of gentleness of legendary midwives. In one essay about a trial, we learn through folklore that Jesus’s mother was a midwife who cured her own son’s rheumatism. In other essays there are subtle parallels to contemporary discourse around abortion and environmental destruction. Nuernberger weaves in her own experiences too. There’s an ironic look at her own wedding, an uncomfortable visit to the Prague Museum of Torture, and an...>>

“Spectral Spaces and Hauntings: The Affects of Absence” edited by Christina Lee

"This anthology explores the spatial dimension and politics of haunting. It considers how the ‘appearance’ of absence, emptiness and the imperceptible can indicate an overwhelming presence of something that once was, and still is, (t)here. At its core, the book asks: how and why do certain places haunt us? Drawing from a diversity of mediums, forms and disciplinary approaches, the contributors to Spectral Spaces and Hauntings illustrate the complicated ways absent presences can manifest and be registered. The case studies range from the memory sites of a terrorist attack, the lost home, a vanished mining town and abandoned airports, to the post-apocalyptic wastelands in literary fiction, the photographic and filmic surfaces where spectres materialise,...>>

“Seed Sounds for Tuning the Chakras: Vowels, Consonants, and Syllables for Spiritual Transformation” by James D’Angelo

"Using the Sacred Alphabet--the universal sounds of all languages--sound-healing teacher James D’Angelo explores the intimate connections between vowel, consonant, and syllable combinations, each of the 7 chakras, and their corresponding psychological traits. He explains, for example, how the vowel sound “uh” connects to the root chakra and is found in such words as “support” and “trust,” words deeply linked to the emotional character of this chakra. Revealing the voice as the master instrument for transformation--attested by the spiritual traditions that use chanting as an aid to enlightenment--he provides an extensive selection of vocal exercises to re-tune and purify each chakra and dissipate any related negative states as well as exercises that incorporate multiple chakras...>>