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 Undergrowth of Literature (1967)   Gillian Freeman with an introduction by the psychiatrist David Stafford-Clark   Sex And Spirit: Ecstasy, Ritual And Taboo (1996) Clifford Bishop   Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (2006) Hugh B. Urban   Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (2006) Esther Perel     The Undergrowth of Literature is an intriguing bit of history, both because it was written in the mid-1960s when sexual liberty was under discussion openly for the first time in decades and because of the subject matter - the types of pornographic literature available at the time. The inclusion of women's magazines from a feminist perspective and Marvel Comics from a fetishistic perspective make it a true curiousity. It is not a great book. It is of its time. But it is useful to read because it shows how much we have changed since 1967. Intellectuals cannot n...