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Tuesday, 09 January 2007 16:08 |
| | David Forbes |
For an area with as much depth, history and richness as it possesses, the occult rarely gets a good, widely available treatment nowadays.
The occasional fortunate masterpiece like Alan Mooreës "Promethea" aside, a lot of New Age-inspired dreck generally takes over far too much of the booksellerës shelves. That many of these books are focused thoroughly around the most mundane of issues (get the partner you want! money too!) doesnët help matters.
Fortunately,
there are some books that seem to break that trend with glee. The "Book
of Lies" (Disinformation Books, 325 pp. $26.95) is one. Edited by
Richard Metzger, this anthology is chaotic, wide-ranging and sometimes
completely insane, but it could never in a million years be described
as mundane.
Disinformation
is a media company, co-founded by Metzger, formerly an underground TV
host and music-video producer, that seeks to publicize subversive,
controversial or unusual information. Theyëve made a habit of
publishing big, softcover guidebooks on topics like history, sex and
politics in an effort to shine a light on things ignored in mainstream
media and society.
 This is one of
their efforts with regards to the occult. The title and spare cover
design, as well as the sheer size of the thing do help to draw oneës
attention and once there, the content makes it very, very hard to put
down.
This book has
everything, or just about. Turn one page and genius comics writer Grant
Morrison ("Seven Soldiers," "The Invisibles") is telling you how to
edit reality, turn another and thereës musician and writer Gary
Lachmanës fascinating tale of how closely connected occult circles and
musical ones were in the ǃÚ60s.
Psychedelics?
Got it. Aleister Crowley? Gets his own section. William Burroughs?
Ditto. Satanism? Thereës a whole interview with deceased Church of
Satan founder Anton LaVey. All thatës before the book gets into Nazis,
aliens, H.P. Lovecraft and how todayës gothic subculture ties in
mystically with the ones who pillaged Rome.
This is in some
ways a difficult book to review, due simply to the sheer range of
topics covered within. Overall, I absolutely loved the book.
Personally, Iëm a sucker for out of the ordinary ideas and will go to
considerable lengths to find out more about them.
The highlights
includes Morrisonës essay, which tackles most of the usual demands
people look for from the occult section these days with humor ("Summon
James Bond before a date by playing the themes to Goldfinger and
Thunderball while dressing in a tuxedo") and ends with some sound
advice for the overall counterculture (forget sabotaging McDonaldës,
take over the company and run them into the ground).
While Morrisonës
might well be the best single piece in here, Lachmanës tale of the ǃÚ60s
occult side is also riveting, as is the late Terence McKennaës musings
on the role psychedelics may have played in human evolution.
But a collection
of this range probably canët help but be a little uneven. While Metzger
has put together and edited a juicily formidable piece of work, his own
writing, consisting of the introduction and story of rocket scientist
Jack Parsonsë occult pursuits, doesnët fare so well. Metzger comes off
as smug and pretentious.
Other pieces are
occasionally completely incoherent or ill-formed (rantings about
ancient sea creatures bringing technology to the Sumerians) and if I
had read one more spiel by an underground artist proclaiming why their
work was the most important thing ever, well, the whole book would have
been chucked against the wall.
Nonetheless, one
should keep in mind that this is a book full of strange ideas about
unusual topics ÇƒÓ it is by nature experimental. Experiments can have
dynamic, wondrous results. They can also blow up in your face or simply
fizzle.
Enough of this
book works ÇƒÓ and much of it works brilliantly ÇƒÓ that I would recommend
it to just about anyone. We all need doses (sometimes heroic ones) of
unmitigated weirdness into our lives.
The back of
"Book of Lies" proclaims, in hyperbolic fashion, that it is "an
alchemical formula to rip a hole in the fabric of reality."
Not quite. But itës a start.
ï
David Forbes, who writes book reviews and covers news for the Daily Planet, may be contacted at marauderAVL-at-hotmail.com.
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