Search results for ""Author Carl Abrahamsson""

Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today • Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner • Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since our prehistoric ancestors created the first cave paintings some 50,000 years ago. In this deep exploration of “occulture”--the liminal space where art and magic meet--Carl Abrahamsson reveals the integral role played by magic and occultism in the development of culture throughout history as well as their relevance to the continuing survival of art and creativity. Blending magical history and esoteric philosophy with his more than 30 years’ experience in occult movements, Showing how art and magic were initially one and the same, the author reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end--if it is intense, emotional, violent, and expressive--and offers strategies for creating freely, magically, even spontaneously, with intent unfettered by the whims of trends, a creative practice akin to chaos magick that assists both creators and spectators to live with meaning. He also looks at intuition and creativity as the cornerstones of genuine individuation, explaining how insights and illuminations seldom come in collective forms. Exploring magical philosophy, occult history, the arts, psychology, and the colorful grey areas in between, Abrahamsson reveals the culturally and magically transformative role of art and the ways the occult continues to transform culture to this day.

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Punk and industrial culture in late '70s and early '80s San Francisco Spanning music, art and literature, the industrial and punk scenes of San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s were diverse but united by a DIY, anti-authoritarian attitude. Photographer Ruby Ray was there to capture it all in the same spirit. With her work appearing in the legendary punk zine Search & Destroy and its successor RE/Search, Ray was at the epicenter of, and a key participant in, a vital cultural moment vibrant with provocation and creativity. A local experimental music and art scene supported artists like Bruce Conner, William S. Burroughs and Louise Nevelson and attracted groundbreaking bands like Devo, the Mutants, Boyd Rice and the Dead Kennedys, as well as established international bands like Throbbing Gristle, the Clash and the Sex Pistols (in fact, Ray was there to shoot their famous final concert at the Winterland Ballroom). Ruby Ray: Kalifornia Kool collects the photographer’s images from this time: live shots, backstage parties, apartments overflowing with youthful exuberance, elegant portraits of key people and photographic experiments. Her work captures a time and a place where West Coast open-mindedness, youth, art, music and electricity merged. As Carl Abrahamsson puts it in his introduction to this volume, “Ruby’s images open up a portal to a mythic and frenzied scene and show that it’s true: all mythologies are real.” Ruby Ray (born 1952) is an American photographer, well known for her photography of the early punk, post-punk and industrial movements in California in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She began her photography career in 1977, when her photographs began appearing in Search & Destroy.

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An intimate exploration of the life, philosophy, and lasting occult influence of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan With his creation of the infamous Church of Satan in 1966 and his bestselling book The Satanic Bible in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) became a controversial celebrity who basked in the attention and even made a successful career out of it. But who was Anton LaVey behind the public persona that so easily provoked Christians and others intolerant of his views? One of privileged few who spent time with the “Black Pope” in the last decade of his life, Carl Abrahamsson met Anton LaVey in 1989, sparking an “infernally” empowering friendship. In this book Abrahamsson explores what LaVey was really about, where he came from, and how he shaped the esoteric landscape of the 1960s. The author shares in-depth interviews with the notorious Satanist’s intimate friends and collaborators, including LaVey’s partner Blanche Barton, his son Xerxes LaVey, current heads of the Church of Satan Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia, occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger, LaVey’s personal secretary Margie Bauer, film collector Jack Stevenson, and film historian Jim Morton. Abrahamsson also shares never-before-published material from LaVey himself, including discussions between LaVey and Genesis P-Orridge and transcripts from LaVey’s never-released “Hail Satan!” video. Providing inside accounts of the Church of Satan and activities at the Black House, this intimate exploration of Anton LaVey reveals his ongoing role in the history of culture and magic.

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Since the dawn of time, magic is the node around which all human activities and culture revolve. As magic entered the development of science, art, philosophy, religion, myth, and psychology, it still retained its essence: that we have a dynamic connection with all other forms of life.Exploring the source magic that flows beneath the surface of culture and occulture throughout the ages, Carl Abrahamsson offers a “magical-anthropological” journey from ancient Norse shamanism to the modern magick of occultists like Genesis P-Orridge. He looks at how human beings relate to and are naturally attracted to magic. He examines in depth the consequences of magical practice and how the attraction to magic can be corrupted by both religious organizations and occult societies. He shows how the positive effects of magic are instinctively grasped by children, who view the world as magical.The author looks at magic and occulture as they relate to psychedelics, Witchcraft, shamanism, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), the panic rituals of the Master Musicians of Joujouka in Morocco, psychological individuation processes, literary “magical realism,” and the cut-up technique of Beat icons like William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin. He explores the similarities in psychology between poet Ezra Pound and magician Austin Osman Spare. He looks at the Scandinavian Fenris Wolf as a mythic force and how personal pilgrimages can greatly enrich our lives. He also examines the philosophy of German author Ernst Jünger, the magical techniques of British filmmaker Derek Jarman, and the quintessential importance of accepting our own mortality.

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