Occulture

Reviews

“Occulture is one of today’s most learned, unexpected, and illuminating tours through occult cultural influences. Carl Abrahamsson will expand your doors of perception of what the counterculture really is. His chapter on Anton LaVey came to me as a revelation. I am filled with hope that a book like this can be published at a time like ours.” “Occulture is a word that was inevitable. During the hyperactive phase of Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth in the 1980s we were casting around for an all-embracing term to describe an approach to combining a unique, demystified, spiritual philosophy with a fervent insistence that all life and art are indivisible. At any given moment our sensory environment is whispering to us, telling us hidden stories, revealing subliminal connections. This concealed dialogue between every level of popular cultural forms and magical conclusions is what we named ‘occulture.’ Carl Abrahamsson takes this rendering of an innate cultural dynamic and exposes a multitude of parallel creative Universes that do that thing. So easy to perceive with hindsight but so invisible to the closed mind, he changes our means of perception--turning a straight line into an intricate spider’s web of possibilities and impossibilities combined. He performs magick; he concretizes meaning and brings forth revelation into his carefully focused vision.” “These days, too much occult discourse comes off as grandiose, needlessly arcane, or desperately darker-than-thou. But decades of participant observation on the art-magic-transgression beat have given Carl Abrahamsson a more down-to-earth approach. Streamlining Crowley, LaVey, and postpunk chaos magic, these talks and essays offer up accessible, pragmatic, and psychologically savvy takes on the intuitive potentials of creative individuation. This is not another ‘system’ but sparkplugs engineered for your own magical engine.” “A sharp, frank, and level-headed exploration of some of the most important figures and movements on the current edges of occultism. Highly recommended.” “Carl Abrahamson’s Occulture is itself a beautiful example of the phenomena it discusses. Erudite and a pleasure to read, the collected essays have the potential to nudge consciousness beyond the ordinary perspective of culture and history. A necessary read for students of culture or magick.” “Carl Abrahamsson--that curator and champion of everything in occulture that is cool, edgy, trendy, and artsy--inspires us with this mind-expanding collection of essays: meditations on art, magick, sex, psyche, and society that collectively trace the supernatural’s proclivity to cross over from counterculture to mainstream, casting light on how we see and understand our world. Not to be missed!” “Through this collection of articles, essays, talks, and miscellanea, Carl Abrahamsson emerges as a dedicated communicator who shares concepts, histories, and ideas with insight and imagination. Whether exploring the culture of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth or the philosophies of Crowley, Steiner, Jung, and Paul Bowles, Abrahamsson’s work is never less than engaging.” “A welcome collection of insightful essays on the acculturation of society from the veteran chronicler of countercultures.” Expand reviews