chaotopia

Here's a short story. Kilnest is a housing estate, and a curse, a hate-spell that misses its target and claims the wrong life.  KILNEST By David R. Lee Give me Death, he said, looking at his reflection in the car's rear-view mirror. That's what I'll say in front of whatever choice item of 'pagan' femininity takes my fancy. Bravado, skillfully blended with apparent personal depth, that's the ticket. He tweaked the gelled peaks at the front of his hair and glanced back at his iPhone. Pagan Moot, said the Facebook page, friendly gathering of folk from different spiritual paths, blah blah, newcomers welcome. The picture showed a smiling, fiery-eyed redhead holding a silver cup in front of her ample bosom. Earth Mothers, Goths and hippies, Roger had posted. Well, Tuesday night in a strange city, any port in a storm, Darren had replied. The hair looked perfect. It was the back room of a pub in the centre of town. He stood at the bar, casting around for th

 We arrive at about 10.30, get a drink and stand in the street with about twelve other people. Suddenly there are 100 people here, standing alongside the road, cars passing every few seconds. The many dogs start a chain reaction of barking. There's a tangible buildup of excitement. I'm wondering how the road is going to be blocked, because it's clearly going to take place right in the road, when we all step forward into the road and take command of it. Wow. This display of people power is in response to a team of 8 men in white trousers and very fine brocade jackets marching down the road and into the centre of what is a now a circle. A fiddle starts up, and straightwaway a basset hound standing at the front of the crowd joins in with some howls. The crowd roars with laughter. The next team is a women's dance troupe called Lizzie Dripping, announced as 'from Sheffield'. This underlines the fact that we are indeed not in Sheffield, but in Grenosi

This was a terrific few hours out. Here is a video of the Grenoside troupe. More pics and a brief account of the event to follow.

Here's an essay adapted from a talk I did last year at the RuneGild World Moot. Three Thurses for thee: towards a demonology of consumerism This article is partly a rant, and partly an attempt to isolate some of the demonic elements of consumerist culture. Consider this pair of familiar propositions: - We are all in a dream most of the time - We can choose to wake up, but it takes work, and this is the Work of initiation. So, in what sense are we in a dream? Imagine you are watching TV, and you see an advert featuring sizzling rashers of bacon. Your mouth waters. You get up and go into the kitchen. You catch yourself, frying pan in hand, at the point you realise you aren't actually hungry. No harm done. Now imagine you are riding in a car along a city street. You are wide awake, as aware as it gets. From a billboard, you see a face smiling down at you, lips parted, eyes moist and luminous... this is not just a rumbling in your stomach that emulates hunger, this is real desire

Here's something I wrote for a 2012 collection which never happened. I thought it was high time to publish it. 2012 - or 12,012? We all desire something from the Singularity. Conditioned into instant gratification by consumerist culture, we want to believe that  the mere quantitative - a date on a calendar promoted by Pope Gregory in 1582 - will deliver real qualitative change. So, disappointed by the Millennium, which didn't even manage to crash all the world's computers, we reach out for 2012. Like kids writing 'Dear Father Christmas' letters, we hope that something we haven't contributed to will provide a quick fix to global problems and rescue us from our mass folly. Rather than hold our collective breath until the unknown rescues us, why not take the situation in hand, and create something new instead. Let's mark 2012 with a new calendar, a new system of numbering the years. When we study any history before the past 2000 years, it looks messy. Th

This is a talk I presented at Midsummer to a roomful of esoterically-inclined Freemasons. It was a fun afternoon, and went down well, with most of my audience. More importantly, it networked together some remarkable people... The full, extended version of the model of magic presented here is in my book Bright From the Well (http://mandrake.uk.net/bright-from-the-well-northern-tales-in-the-modern-world/) -------------------------------------------------------- The thing I’ve pursued more than anything since an early age is magical connectedness to the universe, the everyday world. I am not alone in this; I know I share this world with a minority, whose effects on it are disproportionately great, who reject its crass assumptions, its narrowing down of the epic sweep of life. Those who seek something to assuage the abiding sense that materialist dogma produces of having been robbed or defrauded. There was a slogan going round in my youth which summed up this perspective n