Carl Abrahamsson

I feel this book has been marketed a bit misleading, as the book barely is about occulture. It's a collection of different texts that have a very thin line going trough them.These texts might have worked as lectures, but on paper they feel empty. I think this book works best if you read it one chapter at a time, since reading it in one sitting doesn't give you a coherent narrative. You end up with a summary of a lot of well known information, sprinkled at times with the authors opinions about how bad everything digital is, and how mindless people are today. Ironic as the author doesn't seem to be able to actually convey any original thoughts.

Not a book for me personally, but might work for people new to the territory.… (altro)

I've read the previous 9 volumes of The Fenris Wolf over the years, so when this was announced I jumped right on it. Like previous volumes the Fenris Wolf spans a wide array of esoteric and occult topics. This volume contains over twenty different contributors, some of whom have multiple articles.

It would be somewhat silly to review every article. However, there are a few that definitely stand above the rest. Peter Sjostedt's 'Antichrist Psychonaut' examines Nietzsche's drug use, including his habit of self-prescription and the potential impacts it had on his philosophical works. Damien Patrick's 'Daoism, Buddhism and Machine Consciousness' takes an Eastern critique at Machine Learning and AI that is worth pondering. Peggy Nadramia has two essays on the composition of LaVey's Satanic Bible; both of which offer a counter-narrative to Aquino's claims in his ReVision of the same. Jack Stevenson's deep dive on Haxan was probably my favorite article. I discovered much that I didn't know about this film that I often used as background to my noise shows, including a history of other avant-garde artists doing the same! Genesis P-Orridge makes a posthumous appearance, with another examination of the infamous TOPY-speak and intentional cut-up wordplay.

Like all Fenris Wolf volumes, there are also some misses. But overall this is a worthy tome to anyone who wants to explore "occulture" widely and doesn't mind a divergent viewpoint cropping up an article or two later. There's Chaos Magic, entheogen use, emerging ideas in occultism, and of course oddball articles that really defy an easy label. This is The Fenris Wolf and it's got something for everyone.… (altro)

When I requested this book, I thought it was an exploration of how occult beliefs have infiltrated our culture- things like why we have a pyramid topped with an eyeball on our basic currency. Turns out, that’s not what this is, even though the description on the Amazon page makes it sound that way. There are some references to that- like how the first art that we know of, cave paintings, were of magical intent. But the ‘occulture’ that is referred to is a post-modern movement, not the spiritualists of yore- but I had to look elsewhere for this explanation as it’s not laid out explicitly in the book.

It wasn’t an easy read for me. I didn’t understand an awful lot of it, and because of that it bored me and I almost didn’t finish it. YMMV. Also, it’s wasn’t written originally as a book; the chapters are conference papers given at various events in the last few years, which results in chapters not flowing into each other. Three stars.… (altro)