review - Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age

Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age (Paperback)

~ Patrick Dunn

 

I cringed.

 

I love books. I love well researched books. I even love books that present things I already know, or that contain things that have been published elsewhere as long as they entertain me or seem to serve some purpose, for example dumbing down something that would require the reader to read 10-20 books (yey for pop-psychology and Dissertations turned into books).

When I saw reviews for Postmodern Magic,  my heart lit up. a Linguist? Magician? Wow this must be good. Maybe its filled with some Good NLP shit or even offers a new way of dealing with meme's egregore's and magickal langauges...  in other words, I really wanted to enjoy this book. I really, really did. However it is a waste of money. 

(Oh boy, start of rant)

 I haven't bought any KaosMagick books for a long time, as they are, nowadays, mighty boring. This book wasn't an exception. Without insulting the author, (who comes across the pages of the book as a complete noob somewhere in learning the first mysteries of the path of Tav, but should be commended for saying the same thing anyone says after applying intellect to the Art) the book is almost a waste of the poor dead tree it was written on. 

 Aside from the classical overview of the Kaosmagicians toolbox :

-paradigms (spirit model, energy model, psychological model and holographic model)

-evocation and invocation, a general taxonomy of spirits

-magical tools

-etc and co

It also contains some information about magical groups and a random selection of exercises that, to be honest have been published before and here they are now rewritten from a Holographic paradigm perspective.

I am suprised the publisher even picked this one up. Sorry folks, Kaosmagick has been written to death and this wasn't entertaining enough to warrant a book. Think about it as something like a cross between a rpg supplement, a chaosmagick starter book from a holohgraphic perspective and the seeming personal collection of knowledge of the author, packaged for an audience who thinks that

Liber Kaos

Liber null

Psychonaut

Psychonomicon

by Carrol are tough reading and don't enjoy Phil's inane gay-flavoured lovely insanity.

Oh, Goddess Eris (or someone!). if this is whats out there I wish some of the more hidden and privately circulated Kaosmagick handbooks from the 80-s and 90s would be published.

 I know. I'm going to Copy-Paste all Kaosmagick rites and rituals I find on the net and publish it as the Ultimate Postmodern K405M4Gick Grimoire.

 (ok, end of rant)