en garde

In a bottom-up reversal of the usual suspects, a post by Simon Robinson on OutofRange alerted me to this listing by long-time Valued Reader Jack Schofield in his 18 August 2005 Web watch column in The Guardian. Locke step Chris Locke, aka RageBoy, is working on a new book, and has started a blog to post work in progress. This time, the Chief Blogging Officer and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto is not writing about the net. The book is Mystic Bourgeoisie: Numinous Lunacy and the Sanctimonious Narcissism of the New Age [sic]. It deals with the New Age (and earlier) tendency to believe complete tosh. Warning: includes nudity, and may contain nuts. [links added] Actually, that would be NewAge++, which involves a critical (in both senses) distinction I'm attempting to draw -- or perhaps I should say, a critical expansion on the more familiar, though ever vaporously vague, "New Age" category. Before Jack's pointer appeared, I'd been wondering whether I should take the nudity out. However, I wouldn't want to disappoint any Guardian readers who might come here expecting to find some. Thus, ironically, his warning has had an unintended sustaining effect. ;-) As to the "nuts," if I removed them, there wouldn't be much of anything left. So, in lieu of something racier, here is the Rosy Cross as worn in their various ceremonies by members of the Golden Dawn, of which W.B. Yeats [you really owe it to yourself to hit that link] was an active member. I found this image on the Kheper site, which has more strange and wondrous stuff than you can shake a leg at. It's fast becoming primary resource. Like the bookstores -- both online and brick-and-mortar -- the web is awash is such... material. click image for larger view!

self-initiation into the golden dawn tradition: a complete curriculum of study for both the solitary magician and the working magical group [not a recommendation]

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