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Wyrd Times by Nigel Pennick

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Nigel Pennick has written countless books, but only this one full memoir. The edition is the second in a series by Arcana Europa - ‘Wild Lives’. The first was Far Out In America by Wolf-Dieter Storl, which I review here.  https://chaotopia.com/2022/02/21/far-out-in-america-by-wolf-dieter-storl/   The front cover of Wyrd Times is a montage which sums up a lot of the interior - Mr Pennick stands as a giant in a landscape of standing stones, a labyrinth and Hiberno-Saxon knotwork.  This is a life-and-times book, evoking that other country, the past. I remember much of what Mr P writes about as post-war London, being only a few years younger than him. This fascinating part of the book also introduces his eye for architecture and design, especially lettering. When we get into the 1970s much of the text is a history of his ‘underground’ publishing days, putting out many magazines of local (Cambridge) anarchist agitprop as well as an emerging theme of earth mysteries and local tradition. He
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In Search of Smiles, by Andy Roberts

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Hardback ISBN: 9781916266773 Paperback ISBN: 9781916266780 *OUT 10.06.2023* This is Andy Roberts’s fourth book of British psychedelic history and I think it’s his best. It’s a history of one Alston Hughes, more generally known as Smiles, the photogenic chap on the cover with his corvid friend. Smiles was a major distributor of the (excellent) LSD made by Richard Kemp and others of the ‘Microdot Gang’ who were busted in the 1977-8 police extravaganza known as Operation Julie.  The early chapters outline Smiles’s early life, giving a biography that adds depth to the stories we read of his later exploits. However, the book is carefully framed as an important bit of British psychedelic history, an area in which ‘Establishment’ narratives have dominated the discourse for too long. Andy writes about the directions his research for his earlier books on psychedelic history took him: ‘… one event repeatedly drew my attention: Operation Julie. This was the British government’s police-led init
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  Once again, greeting the Unconquered Sun in Grenoside.  https://youtu.be/sZSXRTEffcA The still at the top is from 2012, the first year we went along. They've been doing it for over 200 years. Here's my first bog from 2012, with some more details:  http://chaotopia-dave.blogspot.com/2012/12/grenoside-boxing-day-sword-dancing.html?m=1 The mainstream media seem to be catching onto it this year, here's a brief item from the BBC:  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-64094768 Hail Smiling Morn!
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POPULAR BIRD THROTTLED BY NARCISSIST

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I don't usually get involved with the politics of social media, or even write much about politics at all, but it'd be hard not to notice the disastrous takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk . I used to like Twitter - sure, it has always had a well-earned reputation as the platform for getting into rows, which is hardly surprising considering the loss of nuance a 280-character limit offers. On the other hand, that limit can be used to discipline yourself to create something approaching a haiku in its gnomic brevity. I'm not claiming that level of skill but some people manage it. And you don't have to get into rows - if someone is rude or persistently stupid just block them and move on. (I am not writing this naively, but from the perspective of someone who was trolled for years by a demented creep.) Another Twitter upside for me is that there is (currently) practically no advertising, just a burst of sponsored posts every week or so. Block them and they go away. This is in s
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William Blake vs The World by John Higgs

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This is not the first thing that John Higgs has written about William Blake. He released a much slimmer volume in 2019 - William Blake Now: Why He Matters More Than Ever . That was a nice taster of where Higgs was going with his Blake work, but this new book is the long-awaited volume. Readers of John Higgs’s books will recognize a few familiar themes: a place for diversity and oddness; his ‘ pragmatic optimism ’, based in agnostic thinking and a long view of human ups and downs; an unusually sympathetic treatment of magick, mysticism and vision; his love of England, its landscape, its history and its peoples. These themes all come together in this book. Higgs brings out some profound and fascinating features in Blake’s thinking, and unpacks nicely his personal mythos. One of the most helpful things about this book is how it helps us to appreciate that none-too-easy symbol system. He is not the only writer to make up their own language - amongst philosophers, Whitehead and Heidegger we
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MAGIA: The teachings of Alan Chapman

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Available HERE . How do you write a review of a book which is about spiritual enlightenment, awakening, attainment, initiation or whatever you wish to call it? And not just about awakening, but an actual full scheme for attaining it? I shall of course outline the contents, but what about evaluating what is written here? I shall also try to give some of the flavour of Chapman’s teachings; but sadly for those who hate cliches, it really is the case that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Ultimately, what draws a student to a teacher is itself part of the mystery. It seems to me that I can only evaluate what Alan Chapman is presenting as someone who has practiced the system; the only laboratory in which such writings can be tested is that of personal experience. So I shall have to tell my own Magia story.  The book is a transcript of teachings delivered over six days at a retreat in Greece. It consists of those twelve sessions, with some unpacking, all rendered in blank verse
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TINFOIL HAT WATCH SPECIAL - THE QANON DIARRHOEA PUDDLE

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I’ve been planning to write something about the weird and unpleasant phenomenon of QAnon for some months. I thought about it rather a lot because once I’d heard about it I felt as though I’d stepped in a puddle of cultural diarrhoea and couldn’t turn anywhere without smelling it. So the only way forward was through - I needed to read and think about it until I felt I’d got my head round what it consists of and why it attracts people. It turned into a much longer piece than I’d originally imagined, so it’s now too long for the newsletter and it’s here instead. So please forgive me these ugly metaphors for an ugly thing - here comes the boot-scraper, a Tinfoil Hat Watch QAnon special - the Cultural Diarrhoea Puddle. The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. - W B Yeats, The Second Coming I’ll assume that the reader already has some level of familiarity with these ideas, so hopefully you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s baffling and frustrating w
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