Another review of the Contemporary Esotericism conference

There is another review up on the 1st International Conference on Contemporary Esotericism, written by Venetia Robertson and published by the Religious Studies Project (for earlier reviews, see this post). Venetia has found out about my secret identity as an agent of the cherubim (was it my flaming sword or my rosy cheeks that gave it away?), and for the rest has a lot of nice things to say about the conference that came out of this esthetic “marriage of heaven and hell”. I particularly think she’s spot on in referring to the  general atmosphere of the conference being  characterised by “tough love”.

Go read the whole thing. There’s also some revealing pictures from the Dragon Rouge temple, tucked away in an unassuming suburban apartment building in Stockholm.

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A good year for magic (research)

Occultists Franz Bardon and Dion Fortune are the subject of a recent book by Maia Daw.

The first half of 2012 has been a great year for research on modern Western ritual magic. I have already mentioned the publication of my own book, Arguing with Angels, which deals with that obscure system of angel magic known as “Enochian”. I have also mentioned the forthcoming thesis workshop on magic, co-hosted by the ESSWE and the Chair for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents here in Amsterdam. There are however a couple of other publications that have appeared so far this year as well, which I have been meaning to mention for a while. Let’s get to it.

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