BOOK AND PODCAST REVIEWS - NON-FICTION

Sexual Magick & Other Essays (1988) Katon Shual   The Secret History of Western Sexual Mysticism (2008) Arthur Versluis   A Brief History of Nakedness (2010) Philip Carr-Gomm   If you are looking for some 'how to' manual involving dark side practices, Shual's Sexual Magick is not the book for you. Rather it is a sensitive and humane investigation of the role of the sexual in modern magical practice and it is thoroughly liberal in tone. Katon Shual is the pseudonym of the Oxford-based magician, Mogg Morgan, who has done much in such circles to bring the somewhat harsh and masculinised world of Crowley and Grant into line with modern liberal and tolerant culture. The high point for me was an extended 'rant', allegedly from the God Set, against not Christianity (the usual target of neo-pagan resentment) but late paganism as it developed under the Roman elite. For a simple account of how neo-pagans see sexuality in quasi-political and cultural terms, pag...

The Principles of Taoism (2000) Paul Wildish The Principles of Taoism is an excellent and very readable basic account of Taoism in Thorsons' 'Principles of ...' series. It covers not only the basics of the belief system in both its philosophical and religious forms but gives a solid and rounded account of its history and its influence on Chinese medicine and martial arts. Personally, I find Taoism a highly amenable philosophy and approach to religion even if I cannot wholly engage with it myself. It is possibly the most humane of ancient philosophical paths but it is highly culture-specific in its general forms even if its basic philosophy can be studied with profit outside East Asia and the Chinese diaspora. It is not, however, without flaws. The most obvious one derives from what tends to happen when 'essentialist' a priori reasoning gets hold of reality and then tries to bend it to its will - this is the so-called Outer Alchemy, derived from an ove...