The Obscure Occult Book Report (TOOBR)

New podcast. Available from the usual places. Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford, editors of a forthcoming collection of Aleister Crowley's magical writings, discuss the true meaning of Crowley's legacy and thought. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A collection of fictional writings that break the traditional rules of storytelling leads us into a consideration of how writing might be used for magical purposes. The book, this episode, is: John Foxx, The Quiet Man: Short Stories by John Foxx (London: Rocket 88 Books, 2020). See also: Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures (Winchester, UK: Zero Books...

We consider in detail some intriguing and sometimes startling true cases, exploring a text that offers frank and practical guidance to psychotherapists on how they should respond when paranormal forms of communication occur within therapy. The book, this episode, is: The Psychic Thread: Paranormal and Transpersonal Aspects of Psychotherapy , by Elizabeth E. Mintz, in consultation with Gertrude Raf...

The seeds of chaos magic, uncovered in the unlikely context of a 1975 children’s book on chance and probability. We take a nostalgic romp through some of the fascinations and shortcomings of a scientistic take on magic, which seems to have formed a significant current in the 70s zeitgeist. Our text for this episode is Chance, Luck & Destiny , by Peter Dickinson (London: Victor Gollancz, 1975)....

An obscure and possibly much underrated poltergeist case, from 1938, is our springboard into issues concerning how a psychoanalytical approach to paranormal investigation radically recontextualises the notion of “faked” versus “genuine” psychical phenomena. The text under discussion is On the Trail of the Poltergeist , by Nandor Fodor (New York, NY: Citadel, 1958). For more about Fodor’s life and...

Can discarnate entities take possession of human beings? We consider an academic text that attempts to build a serious case by drawing on the work of Frederic Myers and considering evidence offered by the nature of dissociative states and hypnosis. The text under discussion is The Science of Spirit Possession , second edition, by Terence Palmer (Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars). Available at: ht...

In a change from the promised episode, a search for an intriguing-sounding text prompted by a half-remembered reference in a letter by Aleister Crowley leads us into an exploration of how language facilitates expression of what lies beyond sensory perception. The main text under discussion is: Anatole France (1908). Aristos and Polyphilos on the Language of Metaphysics. In: The Garden of Epicurus...

Our book, this time, is by a meditation master and former NASA engineer, who presents a mental technique for alleviating all forms of physical and emotional pain. We describe and explore his method, its origins, and confront the question of how it could possibly work, if, as its author insists, it's a mental technique that involves neither imagination nor visualisation. The book providing the basi...

In this episode we discuss a memoir of a mental health support worker who works with clients in the most deprived areas of London. We consider the issues arising from its author's deep interest in esotericism and the occult, and his attempts to redress what he perceives as the repressive shortcomings of the UK mental health system by resisting consensus models of mental health intervention and inc...

In this episode we set some parameters for the podcast as a whole, concerning the kinds of relationships that occultists might have with books and reading. The book under discussion concerns contemporary paranormal investigation: we consider some of the specific characteristics of the author's approach to communicating with the dead within this cultural context, and the light it casts upon possibl...