BOOK AND PODCAST REVIEWS - NON-FICTION

Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult (2008)   Richard B. Spence   Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics (2014) Marco Pasi I n Lobster , the premier journal of para-politics in the UK, I argued that more latitude should be given to historians when dealing with the shadowy world of espionage. I had an interest as someone initially trained as a historian, who had participated in a range of political projects and who often had had to deal with cases of political manipulation damaging the reputation of persons who were clients or friends of mine. The 'truth' about the grey world between official record and unrecorded action is generally handled in one of two ways. Professional historians will rely solely on the records available and refuse to speculate on what might be missing. This might mean that no lies are told but it might also mean that interpretations of events are incomplete or that we see historians unwittingly write

Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism & Nazi Survival (1992) Joscelyn Godwin   The Magus of the North: J.G. Hamann & the Origins of Modern Irrationalism (1993) Isaiah Berlin   Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century (2004) Mark Sedgwick    Politics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen (2008) Gary Lachman   Although published by Adventures Unlimited which tends not to be, shall we say, conventional in its authors (who cover conspiracy, lost worlds, free energy and what-have-you), Arktos is a serious and interesting account of polar mythology in popular culture, in the history of science and in esoteric lore. Joscelyn Goodwin provides an intelligent and often wry overview that remains well within scholarly standards. It is a valuable addition to that shelf in the library that is dominated by the work of Goodrick Clark (of whom more in a later review) and it is a useful guide to

The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (1999) Ronald Hutton Everything Paganism Book (2004) Selene Silverwind Pagan Resurrection: A Force for Evil or the Future of Western Spirituality? (2006)  Richard Rudgley The History of British Magic After Crowley (2007)  Dave Evans What Do Pagans Believe? (What Do We Believe) (2013) Graham Harvey     The Secret History of the World (2007) Jonathan Black , Mark Booth   Triumph of the Moon is the near-definitive account of the new religions that emerged, largely from the UK, in the last century. Hutton is sympathetic but rigorously academic. He has swept away the traditionalist claims of some founders whilst ensuring respect and dignity for practitioners. It is the founding text for understanding the context for any further reading in this field.    Although very US-centred, the Everything Paganism Book is a good beginners text which is fair to all strands of co