Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

I started reading this novel because of its status as a classic, but I must confess I knew nothing about its theme. As the story got underway, I had the distinct feeling that this was going to be a thoroughly depressing tale about reflections on the horror of war. Not my cup of tea. Imagine my surprise when the story made a weird tangent into Twilight Zone territory. The narrator, Billy Pilgrim, becomes unstuck in time. What I mean is, one second he could be in the trenches of World War II, and the next he could be cuddling up to the woman he married after the war. Two days after that, he could be on exhibit in an extraterrestrial zoo, where he spent some time after being abducted by aliens. Then he might be back in the war. He has no control over what point in time his consciousness leaps into, or when these jumps are going to occur, but his weird condition gives him a perspective on time that allows him to see “the present” as more than just a single knife-edge that exists at only one point in time and is always racing forward. His alien captors, the Tralfamadorians, live in four dimensions all at once, seeing every moment of time as the present. When events happen, good or bad, their reaction is always “So it goes.”

Slaughterhouse-Five is a war story, an absurdist science fiction tale, and also an entertaining philosophy text on the nature of time – which might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but is definitely mine. As someone interested in esoteric knowledge, I had my own eureka moment about time a few years ago. It’s a real delight when I’m reading a story and the author lets me know that we’re both privy to a life-enriching secret: the idea that no matter when you are in time, you’re always in the present.

Man and His Symbols by Carl G. Jung

Man and His Symbols is Carl Jung’s final work, and was intended for a lay readership, rather than psychology students. It is co-written with four of Jung’s associates, each writer taking on one of five separate sections. The overall theme is dream analysis.

Since I’m someone who writes extensively about the human mind, I figured it was high time I read Jung, if I aim to be taken seriously. Having finished this book, I find myself fairly dissatisfied overall. A great deal of the text is concerned with dream analysis, and so much of what was conveyed seemed unwarranted and almsot fanciful. People, objects and situations were cropping up in a patient’s dreams and the interpreter was immediately jumping to firm conclusions about what the presence of this or that meant. Often, I simply couldn’t see how such conclusions could be solidly justified.

The Jungian model of consciousness views the unconscious mind as a helper, giving us coded messages in our dreams – messages laced with symbols, some of which may be deceiphered by reference to the “collective unconscious.” This is not a paranormal idea, but is more the theory of symbols and their meanings being inherited genetically from ages past and stored somewhere in the brain. So, if we dream about a particular symbol, such as a scarab beetle, for instance, the purpose behind the presence of this object in our dream may not be consciously recognised, but our unconscious knows it from our species’ past experience. These kind of symbols Jung calls “archetypes.”

While there may be some truth to the theory of the collective unconscious, I find it hard to buy into the notion that our unconscious is like a second self that wishes to aid us. I have certainly had dreams that are meaningful, but only because they reflect the particular pre-occupations of my mind at the time. For instance, I once dreamed that I was cooking a dog alive in the oven. During this exercise, I heard my mother coming up the path and into the house, about to catch me in the act. The dream was obviously reflective of a guilty conscience and worries about my actions being found out. The real-life actions behind the dream were far more trivial than cooking a live dog, but the theme of the dream was clearly on target. I don’t think this was my unconscious giving me a warning, like a helpful big brother. It was just a jumbled up mental reflection of what was occupying my mind as I went to sleep. I have had countless dreams of a completely inconsequential nature, where I can see clear allusions to my waking thoughts, albeit messed up.

So I’m afraid I don’t accept the Jungian theory about dreams. Nevertheless, this book had nuggets of useful insight here and there, particularly on the importance of integrating the animal self with the higher consciousness.

The Joyous Cosmology by Alan Watts

Alan Watts is a non-dualist, as am I. Among those who think in this fashion, opinion is divided on the helpfulness of psychedelic drugs in the quest for enlightenment. Watts is in favour of their use, although he cautions that such experiences are wasted on those who do not approach the activity with a philosophical mindset.

Personally, I’ve never felt the need to take drugs in order to heighten my awareness. The human organism is working perfectly just as it is, and I’ve been able to grasp very deep things about reality from an intellectual perspective, and to feel these insights so deeply that I doubt drug use would be of any benefit. Many have congratulated me on my ability to talk and write about things they have felt but been unable to articulate; one individual even expressed great surprise that I have managed to comprend life to such a deep extent without resorting to drugs. My suspicion is that psychedelic drugs are merely a shortcut – something that takes the hard work out of the endeavour of understanding our place in the cosmos. And the drawback of such a shortcut is that it can leave the user stunned by glimpses of a deeper reality without any ability to communicate what he has experienced meaningfully to others. He feels a lot intuitively about what he went through, but cannot process it mentally. Since I haven’t dabbled in drugs, I’m doing a little guesswork here, but I hope intelligent guesswork.

The Joyous Cosmology is Alan Watts’ attempt to articute his psychedelic experiences in words. He never had hallucinations, except when his eyes were closed and he allowed his visual cortex to run amuck. In normal consciousness, the effect of drugs was to heighten perception. The simple act of gazing at a flower takes on far greater significance. Ordinary things became objects of incredible wonder. As I said, I think it’s possible to cultivate this appreciation without resorting to drugs. In fact, the author’s endeavour to capture his experiences in words attests to that.

Some people who are interested in non-duality have a strange view about life: they’re trying to “awaken,” to experience the underlying oneness. But if your individual mind were able to experience unity with everything, then it’s still the individual mind experiencing something separate from itself – still in duality. Any experience of oneness brought about by meditation or drug use will only be a halfway house, by virtue of the ever present subject-object (dual) relationship of consciousness. So, if that’s why you want to take psychedelics, you might as well forget it. What you seek can’t be accomplished.

The main aversion I have about mind-altering drugs are the toxic effects of drugs in general, especially when used habitually – which the author does not advocate. If you’re thinking about using a psychedelic drug for “spiritual” purposes, first educate yourself with this book and others. For me, this whole endeavour is of little practical value, because I’ve already achieved something the hard way. Still, a highly interesting book.

The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are by Alan Watts

I’m frequently disappointed by what passes for spirituality, from a non-dualist perspective. Quite often, there is a crafty repackaging of salvation woven into an author’s sales pitch, or there is a totally unrealistic descent into a spiritual pipedream of “universal love.”

Alan Watts, happily, manages to be both a non-dualist and a down-to-earth realist. In recent years, one of the most interesting dilemmas I went through was the clash between non-dualism (which says that everything is one) and LaVeyan Satanism (which grasps that the universe is adversarial). I rate both of these observations as true, but the latter one is often missed. Watts gets it. He describes existence within the universe as “a harmony of contained conflicts,” understanding that it cannot be any other way, by virtue of the dualistic predicament of all life.

This was a fabulous read. It began with a suggestion of how non-dualism can be explained to young children, as a better alternative to the “God made the universe” stereotype. Watts goes on to tackle non-dualism from a vector that had never even occurred to me: our inability to separate the human organism from the environment around it. We naturally think of the self as a human body – a distinct unit isolated from what is around it. But the air that is breathed into the body from the environment and the carbon dioxide that is breathed out are just as essential to the body as the blood that circulates within. The body cannot be isolated from its environment, nor can the immediate environment be isolated from the planet, the planet from the solar system, and so on. The division of self into body and environment is arbitrary – merely an act of labelling. There is no “you” independent of everything else – only an organism within a super-organism, i.e. the universe itself.

Many times in the book, Watts made observations that were profound, simple, and obviously true, yet so easily missed until pointed out. Chief among them was our conditioned way of thinking, “I came into this world,” when it is far more accurate to say “I came out of the universe.” A person is like the eyes of the universe, which is gazing at itself. Watts has a way of describing life on earth that makes the materialism of atheists seem absurd. Atheists commonly think of the universe as something unconscious. But since man came out of (not into) the universe, and man is conscious, does this not mean that the universe must be conscious?

The balance of nature, the “harmony of contained conflicts,” in which man thrives is a network of mutually interdependent organisms of the most astounding subtlety and complexity. Teilhard de Chardin has called it the “biosphere,” the film of living organisms which covers the original “geosphere,” the mineral planet. Lack of knowledge about the evolution of the organic from the “inorganic,” coupled with misleading myths about life coming “into” this world from somewhere “outside,” has made it difficult for us to see that the biosphere arises, or goes with, a certain degree of geological and astronomical evolution. But, as Douglas E. Harding has pointed out, we tend to think of this planet as a life-infested rock, which is as absurd as thinking of the human body as a cell-infested skeleton. Surely all forms of life, including man, must be understood as “symptoms” of the earth, the solar system, and the galaxy – in which case we cannot escape the conclusion that the galaxy is intelligent.

Watts is well versed in Eastern philosophy (Hinduism and Buddhism), and his writing serves as a useful bridge between very different cultures, helping us in the West to appreciate a wider metaphysical perspective outside of the cramped confines of Western materialism.

After reading this book, I want to get hold of everything that Watts has written.

Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert

Dune concluded with Paul Atreides established as the new emperor of the known universe. He is now married to the previous emperor’s daughter, the Princess Irulan, but his true love is Chani, the girl he fell in love with when he lived in the desert with the Fremen. Chani, due to politics, is forced to play the role of concubine. Paul is a reluctant emperor, and a reluctant messiah, for he has now become the object of religious devotion. Endowed with powers of prescience due to the planet’s “spice melange,” Paul is continually cursed visions of a jihad in his name, stretching out across the universe. And no matter what course of action he takes, whether he stays or runs, the jihad is always there. In fact, it has already begun, and Paul is powerless to prevent it.

The chief focus of Dune Messiah is Paul’s struggle against several enemies who have conspired to destroy him. Frank Herbert’s mythology is so intricate that you can never tell from what angle the attack will come. The first suspect is in the form of his old friend Duncan Idaho, who had been slain but is now resurrected as a “ghola” – essentially a whole new person in Idaho’s skin, containing whispers of the previous man. But how do you attack a man who can see into the future? With the aid of a “steersman” – a creature with prescience, ordinarily used to steer starships safely through the void, because seeing the future means that you can avoid disaster. Paul is immersed in a battle of wits involving not only the ordinary skills of cunning, but prescience versus prescience. You might imagine it would be easy for the reader to get lost in such a complex tapestry, but the book is immensely readable. To cap it all, Herbert comes up with a genuinely unpredicatable and satisfying twist in the tail.

As with reading the first volume, I was in awe of Herbert’s mythmaking ability. I had the sense that I was only being shown a tiny portion of a whole universe, entirely imaginary, but so well thought out as to be almost tangible. Dune Messiah is only half the size of Dune, but is a worthy sequel. I’m really looking forward to the next volume, Children of Dune.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Instruction manuals on how to write fiction tend to feature suggestions like: “Create empathy between the protagonist and your reader.” Thank goodness not every author follows such rules, because then we would never have gems like A Clockwork Orange. The main character, Alex, from whose perspective the tale is told, is no hero. He’s not even an anti-hero; he’s a blatant hooligan of the worst kind. There is almost nothing likeable about him, save for his appreciation of classical music. Alex likes nothing better than going out with his three friends, Pete, Georgie and Dim, for an evening typically consisting of beating up some old person, stealing a car, breaking into someone’s house then raping the woman who lives there. One day he even lures a pair of ten-year-old girls to his house so that he can molest them.

But this is not pornographic fiction. It’s a tale of considerable depth about morality. Why do we do what we do? Alex asks the unaskable question:

But, brothers, this biting of their toe-nails over what is the cause of badness is what turns me into a fine laughing malchick. They don’t go into the cause of goodness, so why the other shop? If lewdies are good that’s because they like it … But what I do I do because I like to do.

Notice the unfamiliar words in the above quote. The entire novel is written in this futuristic juvenile slang. It makes the first couple of pages hard reading, but you quickly get into the swing of assuming the natural meanings of the many strange words on display. Bezoomny = mad; creech = scream; droog = friend. There’s a dictionary at the back of the book, but you won’t need to refer to it.

The really interesting part of the book happens after Alex gets caught by the police and tossed in prison for several years. He gets selected for the Ludovico Technique, a new program designed to turn criminals into good people with astonishing rapidity and reintegrate them into society. For Alex, this means drastically early release from prison, but at what cost?

This begs the question: if one is forced to be good, is this really good? I was reminded of the Christian worldview I used to hold, where I looked forward to a future in heaven where I would not only be free from sin, but I would be unable to sin. But if a person does not have the ability to choose between good and evil, how can good be called good? It is simply action, having no ethical value whatsoever. Is there any virtue in anything, if there is no risk of choosing the opposite path? A person becomes a clockwork orange, his choices imposed upon him. The book is divided into three parts, each one beginning with the telling words “What’s it going to be then, eh?” emphasising the importance of having a will of your own.

Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of this novel is, for the most part, very faithful to the book, even to the point of his script mirroring some of the dialogue word-for-word. Both are worth tackling, especially for the philosophically minded. How many religionists have dared to ask: “Why should there be good only?” No, it is assumed that good is right and natural, whereas evil is wrong and unnatural. But the one has no substance without the existence and threat of the other. What’s it going to be then, eh?

Edgar Cayce on ESP by Doris Agee

Edgar Cayce was an American psychic who lived from 1877 to 1945. The majority of his work consists of channelling answers to questions while in a hypnotic trance. This was called giving a “reading.” Readings consisted of: giving general advice on life from an astrological basis; giving medical advice on ailments; helping to locate missing persons; providing information about ancient Atlantis and the future of the planet.

Interestingly, Cayce was a devout Christian throughout his life, which is hard to marry with his use of astrology, given Christianity’s condemnation of magic. It is claimed that he had no education in this art, which is hard to believe, since his language mimics the general practice of astrology, which is, in my opinion, a rather flawed magical art.

The book begins, very interestingly, with a chapter entitled “The Universal Mind,” which is concerned with where Cayce obtains his information. The idea is that there is a sea of consciousness, of which our individual minds are just an aspect. Cayce’s trances allowed a greater flow of information from the Universal Mind than his normal waking consciousness would be able to process. I resonate very much with this way of thinking, and I was eager to know more.

Unfortunately, after a few chapters of this nature, the book changes tack, and concerns itself with raising Cayce on a pedestal rather than teaching anything useful about psychic abilities. I quickly grew bored reading case after case of supposedly accurate psychic readings. All the while, the sceptic in me was making note of the fact that, while the author Doris Agee had access to “The Cayce Files,” she chose to relay the stories to using aliases, which makes any verification of facts impossible.

When reincarnation was mentioned, Cayce’s readings always fell into a pattern that I see so often with frauds. Have you ever noticed that when a psychic talks about somebody’s past life, that life is always special: he either lived in Atlantis, or he was an Egyptian priest, or he was present with Jesus at the cruxificion, and so on. Statistically speaking, why would your past life be any more special than your present? But it always is. And that’s very telling, isn’t it?

The clincher came when Cayce offered some prophecy about the world’s future, that great “earth changes” would take place between 1958 and 1998, including the destruction of Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York City. FAIL.

I get frustrated when reading books about psychic matters, because it’s hard to tell the genuine information from the fraudulent. All things considered, I have to categorise Edgar Cayce in the latter group. What a waste of time.

The Black Arts by Richard Cavendish

The cover illustration on my copy of this book features a spooky skull, dagger, black candle, pestel & mortal, all sitting on what is presumably an occult grimoire. Along with the title, The Black Arts, this is presumably meant to mislead the would-be magician with the promise of forbidden secrets, and to perhaps evoke outrage from the “moral” majority, which is always good for popularity. Neither the title nor the illustration factored into my reasons for reading. First, Richard Cavendish is a well respected name as a researcher, and secondly the book was first published in 1967. Students of the occult will know that the Church of Satan (the first above-ground Satanic organisation) was founded in 1966, by one Anton Szandor LaVey, who published The Satanic Bible in 1969. Since then, LaVey has been the defining voice of what constitutes modern Satanism. It was my hope that Cavendish’s book would, on the other hand, provide an insight into pre-LaVeyan Satanism, if there even was such a thing.

The first thing I noticed about The Black Arts was that there’s nothing very black about much of the content. Cavendish devotes chapters to explaining the magical theory of the universe, numerology, the Cabala (or Kabbalah), alchemy and astrology. Only the last quarter of the book is devoted to ritual magic and devil worship. Cavendish does not appear to put much credence in occult theories, judging by his occasional critical anecdotes. Most of the time, however, he is completely dispassionate, simply offering us the historical facts and allowing us to make of them what we will. This is the real strength of the book. Key occult figures like Aleister Crowley, Eliphas Levi, John Dee are mentioned frequently, but in a scattered fashion. I would have loved a more comprehensive outline of their lives. H.P. Blavatsky is notable by her complete absence.

Regarding medieval Satanism, it is impossible to separate truth from lies, as it was an unfortunate habit of the Christian Church to brand heretics with the label “Satanist” and to accuse them of strange practices. In fact, the term “Satanist” would seem to have originated with the Church, and there is no evidence of the word being used to denote an actual ideology before Anton LaVey actively embraced it. In medieval times, accusing Satanists of stealing unbaptised babies for ritual sacrifice is a pretty sure way of ensuring that mothers baptised their infants fast. Satanists were, at least to some extent, the boogeymen. Although the spread of “devil worship” was certainly not nearly as prevalent as the Church made out, there remains some evidence of witchcraft afoot – an inversion of Christianity, where the devil is worshipped in place of God. The extent of witchcraft, and its exact nature, are lost in the mists of time.

I got a great deal out of this book. Much of the occult is based on flimsy ideas that don’t hold water when examined rationally. If there can be said to be any power in the speaking of incantations during ritual, it is not in the words themselves, but in the magician who chooses to invest power in the words. In other words, the magic is inside you, not in dusty old grimoires. One interesting anecdote for modern Satanists is the term “Shemhamforash,” which is quoted in The Satanic Bible during ritual, without explanation for what it means. According to Cavendish, the word is a name of God, arrived at through a numerological calculation on the Bible passage Exodus 14:19-21 (where the Israelites cross the Red Sea). These three verses are said to be significant because each contains 72 letters (in the original Hebrew). Interesting how LaVey, who put no credence whatsoever in the Bible, would use something derived from the Bible in his own Satanic rituals. That should tell you something about magical lore; it is all unneccesary fluff, borrowed from elsewhere. Its effectiveness is only in the effect you choose to give it upon yourself.

Magicians wishing to find powerful secrets will no doubt be disappointed by this book. Those who value separating truth from error will appreciate it. I think this handy volume has allowed me to avoid a lot of future disappointments and dead ends in my own research. Well worth the time invested.

Consider Her Ways and Others by John Wyndham

This volume contains two novellas and four short stories. The first novella is the titular “Consider Her Ways,” concerning a woman who accidentally trades minds with another woman who lives in the future, a bizarre future in which there are no more men. The other novella is “Random Quest,” concerning a man who winds up in an alternate universe for a spell, falls in love with a woman from that universe, then later attempts to find the same woman in his own universe. I happened to catch a modern made-for-TV movie of this novella a couple of years ago, which, for me at least, failed to capture the spirit of the original.

The remaining four stories were, for the most part, weaker than the novellas, with the exception of “A Long Spoon,” in which a man editing a film accidentally evokes a demon. Strips of film just happened to be lying on the cutting-room floor in the vague shape of a pentacle, while a piece of film played backwards at a slower pace caused a “word of power” to be uttered from the speakers. This story trumps all others by simply being a lot more fun.

Overall I was disappointed with this volume. The stories were too domestic, dialogue-heavy and drama-scarce, making them somewhat of a chore at times. And the punchlines often failed to reward the monotonous build-up. John Wyndham has much, much better works in print.

The Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor LaVey

I’ve been so reluctant to review this book, for no other reason than the fear of what some of my Christian friends will think of me. “Oh, Darryl, we knew this would happen. You rejected your faith in Christ; you’ve been busy learning how to move objects with your mind; it was only a matter of time before this happened.” Now just HOLD ON A MINUTE. Let’s make a few things clear. Firstly, The Satanic Bible is not some ancient occult text, as might be feared by uninformed Christians; it is merely a book written in the 1960s by one Anton LaVey who founded his own particular branch of Satanism called the Church of Satan. Secondly, it strikes me that if we want to be critical of something, we ought to first know something about what we’re criticising, by reading what it’s all about from the source itself, rather than blindly accepting the second-hand criticisms of our church leaders. Thirdly, my motivation in reading this book was not an interest in joining Satanism, but in helping myself to learn about whether Satanism really takes place at high levels of society and government, as the conspiracy theorists tell us.

The Satanic Bible was a surprising read, to say the least. Initially, the book is concerned with replacing the moral guidelines of conventional religion with alternative ones. Religion, says LaVey, has traditionally been based on abstinence, whereas Satanism is a religion of indulgence. He tells the story of how, as an organ player at a carnival in his youth, he would see men coming to the stripshows, then on Sunday morning at the church, these same men would get themselves right with God, only to return to the stripshow the following week, in a never-ending cycle of hypocrisy. According to Satanism, “man’s carnal nature will out,” therefore LaVey sought to invent a religion based on man’s carnal needs, rather than in futile opposition to them. Satanic morality presents some recognisable Christian principles, with slight modifications, such as “Do unto others as they do unto you”; “Kindness to those who deserve it, rather than love wasted on ingrates.” Some of the principles made a kind of sense to me; others I felt very uncomfortable with, such as “Death to the weakling, wealth to the strong.” At times, LaVey has a way with words – an ability to state his case succinctly, smashing through false, pretentious counter-arguments with amazing brevity – and often with a dash of humour. For instance, consider the importance the Christian Church places on confession of sin. Here’s what LaVey had to say:

When a Satanist commits a wrong, he realizes that it is natural to make a mistake – and if he is truly sorry about what he has done, he will learn from it and take care not to do the same thing again. If he is not honestly sorry about what he has done, and knows he will do the same thing over and over, he has no business confessing and asking forgiveness in the first place. But this is exactly what happens. People confess their sins so that they can clear their consciences and be free to go out and sin again, usually the same sin.

Perhaps the most surprising finding in The Satanic Bible is the assertion that LaVeyan Satanists do not worship Satan. To them, Satan is no more real as a being than the tooth fairy. Instead, the word Satan is used to personify what LaVey vaguely calls a dark force of nature. Satanic ritual is largely a form of “psychodrama” – another vague term not strictly defined, but which I understand refers to the use of ritual to stimulate emotion. And emotion is where the real power lies. This is where my ears really perked up, because this is by no means the first time I’ve heard the idea that emotion is the “fuel” in a magical working; I came across the same idea in my research of telekinesis. Others who talk about “the power of intention” are acknowledging the very same, for what is intention but fervent (i.e. emotionally charged) desire.

It is stated that, contrary to popular belief, Satanists do not sacrifice babies, other humans, or even animals; children and animals are viewed as the highest form of life. The “magic” behind such ritual sacrifices is not in the blood itself but in the harvesting of the adrenal and bio-electrical energy expended in the death throes of the sacrifice. This certainly sheds new light on the prevalence of sacrifice in the religions of the ancient world – Judaism (from which our Christianity emerged) no exception. Perhaps all those ancient cultures were not as dim-witted and primitive as we commonly believe. The Satanist, however, shuns sacrifice, knowing that there are easier ways to generate the necessary emotional energy, from oneself.

Learning a thing or two about the “science” of magic was fascinating to me, especially in relation to my ongoing interest in telekinesis. I learned telekinesis without any guidebook, purely by attempting it again and again, taking careful note of what worked and what didn’t. I came to the understanding that successful telekinesis depended on first creating a strong mental image of what I wanted to occur and pouring strong desire into that image; then clearing the mind of all thought and letting it happen. Imagine my alarm when I read the five principles of Satanic magic: (a) desire, (b) timing, (c) imagery, (d) direction, (e) the balancing factor. We can forget (b) and (e), because they relate only to magic performed on a person, e.g. what time are they are most susceptible to influence, and the necessity of being realistic in your expectations. But (a), (c) and (d) correspond nicely to my own telekinesis technique. Telekinesis works because you employ desire with (mental) imagery, then direction, which is the letting go. Perhaps those elements are rather obvious, but it strikes me that the same underlying “science” is behind both telekinesis and magical ritual. After all, visualing a “psi wheel” spinning and causing it to spin for real is not so different from sticking pins in a doll with someone’s photo attached to it and manifesting an actual curse in their life.

Does all of this make me want to quit my telekinesis experiments? No. Because after all, we use our imaginations and our desires all the time in life. It’s just that few of us ever realise that we are constantly attracting experiences to ourselves through those very desires. In fact, having this understanding only makes me aware that we might well be psychically attacking others without realising it, merely by brooding over unresolved hurts. In this sense, we are all magicians, whether we realise it or not. And what is magic? The most memorable statement in the book for me was (paraphrased) “Everything that is now considered science was once considered magic.”

Satanic magic, however, takes one giant step further, into even more mysterious territory, and this is where the original claim about Satan being merely a “dark force of nature,” rather than an actual entity, starts to fall apart for me. If Satanic ritual is merely psychodrama designed to stimulate emotion, why does The Satanic Bible state strict guidelines, such as the placing of the image of Baphomet (a goat-headed entity representing Satan) on a particular wall. Why the strict regulations about candles? The list goes on. Most telling of all are the “Enochian Keys.” These are strange passages were allegedly supernaturally communicated to Elizabethan occultist John Dee, written in a language called Enochian. Each Key serves a different purpose, and it is said to be dangerous to recite these things recklessly. It strikes me that if I am required to make certain sounds with my lips, then something is there to hear and interpret those sounds as words, certainly something more personal than a force of nature. And it is this, more than anything else, that urges me to be especially cautious about Satanism. For I would ask, “At what cost do I invoke help from beyond?”

I think this may be a dangerous book, particularly in the hands of the young and naive. It is capable of seducing you with a moral viewpoint that is more realistic, and at times more attractive, than that of traditional religion. My personal morality comes not from organised religion, but from my intuitive understanding that we are all one. So, the furtherance of my own ego (which Satanism champions) is tempered with the understanding that I am everyone, and whatever I do to another, I do to myself. If I did not have this understanding, Satanic morality may well have had more impact on me than it did: “If a man smite thee on one cheek, smash him on the other” is not a principle that resonates with me, although I can see why it might to some ears. Another danger I perceived: the view that there is no actual Satan could give one a false sense of security about ploughing ahead recklessly into Satanic magic. An impersonal force of nature doesn’t hold the same sense of threat as an mysterious unknown entity. The latter scenario seems far more likely to me than the former.

Finally, what of my original motivation for reading this book? Did it shed any light on whether Satanism (or a similar occult philosophy) takes place at high levels of government? Well, there was a brief anecdote about Benjamin Franklin’s involvement in the Hellfire Club secret society, and an assertion that all truly successful people are adherents of Satanic philosophy to one extent or another, whether knowingly or not. A poignant question occured to me: if true magical power exists on earth, where would it be – in the hands of a few obscure people, or in the hands of the rulers? Since magic is what would enable one to gain power, surely then it’s the magicians who would be the ones in power. It’s notable that the section of The Satanic Bible on magic is subtitled “Mastery of the Earth.” The Third Enochian Key is prefaced thus:

“The Third Enochian Key establishes the leadership of the earth upon the hands of those great Satanic magicians who throughout the successive ages have held dominion over the peoples of the world.”

Of course, to many readers, all of the above is purely theoretical, because believing in magic is like believing in Santa Claus, right? Well, to someone like me, who learned how to genuinely move matter with his mind, I’m afraid it’s drastically more believable. Who knows.

Dune by Frank Herbert

I’m really struggling to summarise Dune because the mythology created by Frank Herbert is so rich. In fact, I understand he spent about five years researching before writing this tome. Anyway, first a little background. The known universe is governed by a series of feudal houses, with an emperor reigning supreme over them. Central to the novel are House Atreides and its enemy House Harkonnen. As the story commences, the emporer gives control of the desert planet Arrakis (a.k.a. Dune) to House Atreides. The move from the water-rich world of Caladan to the dry wastes of Arrakis dramatically changes the life of young fifteen-year-old Paul Atreides. The native people of Arrakis, known as the Fremen, wonder if he is their long-awaited messiah, according to prophecy. The planet’s main commodity, a powerful substance called “spice melange,” which has many uses across the universe, begins to have a strange effect on Paul. He starts to see visions, and wonders if he could indeed be the messiah of the Fremen. Meanhile, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen is plotting the downfall of House Atreides and the takeover of Dune, but he hasn’t counted on who Paul really is.

There’s a lot going on in this novel, and it’s a joy to read. I found myself taking my time with it because I didn’t want it to end. I loved being in this strange mythology. What’s clear is that the author isn’t making this up as he’s going. He has thought long and hard about the ecology, religion, culture, politics and technology of this world of his. It’s as breaktaking as Tolkien’s Middle Earth. If there is one weak spot in the whole package, it’s in the very clear-cut roles of good guys and bad guys. House Harkonnen, and all its members, is thoroughly immoral, led by the Baron, who is an obese man with a liking for young boys. He is saved from being a two-dimensional villain by the depth of his cunning. The war between the Atreides and Harkonnens is a too-simple battle of good versus evil. This polarised viewpoint, in my humble opinion, isn’t a true reflection of wars in the real world and was the only disappointment in a work of brilliance.

If your introduction to Dune has been the 1980s David Lynch movie, I can tell you that the book is so much better. I decided to watch the director’s cut of the movie after reading the novel, and it felt like watching a summary. A visual feast, but a poor attempt at storytelling. The novel is a far bigger and more personal story. The more recent mini-series does a better job than the movie, and is a fairly faithful adaptation, but I don’t recommend watching it before reading the book, as the book is a superior experience.

So many novels are forgettable, but Dune stays with you like a memory. It’s not often that I have such good recall of events and character names. Frank Herbert wrote six Dune novels before he died. I’m looking forward to Dune Messiah.

The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison

James “Slippery Jim” diGriz is a master criminal living in a near-totalitarian future society. Using his own cunning, and with the help of disguises and gadgets, he outfoxes the lawmen and gets away with the loot … until now. We begin with a bank heist that goes wrong, putting diGriz in the hands of the police. It looks like it’s all over. But then Harold Inskipp, of the elite law enforcement agency the Special Corps, seeing the potential of diGriz, puts him in the agency’s employ. diGriz, who is in fact the hero of the story, changes his criminal ways (sort of) and starts working on the right side of the law. Soon, he ends up on the trail of another master criminal, one who is in the process of secretly building a battleship to wreak havoc across the galaxy. In summary, the story is sort of like James Bond in space. You have the gadgets, the battles, intrigue, betrayal, sensuality.

I had problems with this novel. First, I found myself not entirely warming to James diGriz. It wasn’t so much that he was a criminal. It was all the self-justification of his crimes. He won’t commit murder, but he will lie and steal his way through life, and see himself as quite a moral guy. He is a romanticised outlaw, and there’s just something false about him. Secondly (and this is purely a matter of what you’re looking for in a story), the aspects of the story involving technology and trickery and cunning just didn’t do it for me. There was a hollowness running through it that made me feel like quitting at a few points. Three quarters done, I kept reading purely to finish what I had started.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the closing chapters blew me away. Suddenly The Stainless Steel Rat became a story about people (which is exactly the kind of fiction I like). The cracks in diGriz’s armour were beginning to show. He was in serious danger of losing his way entirely, of partnering up with the very person he had set out to arrest – a power-mad violent sociopath, no less. Furthermore, the sociopath wasn’t allowed to become pure evil personified. Harry Harrison delved into the past, dredging up the things that shape a person into what he becomes, good or bad. Great stuff.

There are eleven Stainless Steel Rat books, of which this is the first. That total doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence. It feels like the old scenario that we’ve seen countless times with TV shows. When the producers know they’re onto a good thing, they just keep churning out more and more to fill an audience demand, regardless of how little steam there is left in the original vision. Nevertheless, I might jump into the Stainless Steel Rat universe again sometime. This one was worth reading.

The Lotus Caves by John Christopher

When John Christopher wrote The Tripods trilogy in the 1960s, it was a turning point for the author. As one who had written only for adults in the the earlier part of his career, he now wrote almost exclusively for children. The Lotus Caves is the children’s novel that immediately followed The Tripods.

This is a moon adventure, something that perhaps has limited appeal today, but would have been really exciting in the year of publication, 1969, the same year as the first manned moon landing. From a 60s perspective, the novel envisions a fairly gritty possible future, with a mining colony established on the moon and entire families living within a huge domed structure called The Bubble. Lives are a little colourless in comparison to Earth. Commodities are always in limited supply, so lifestyles of conservation are encouraged, where every little thing is important – in stark contrast to the affluence that’s possible on Earth. An artificial lake with its own fish is provided, to make the families feel more at home. But for some of the young, the moon has always been their home. Born there, and destined to remain until their parents have finished their contracts, the young nevertheless long to visit the blue world they’ve only ever seen in books and videos.

Marty is one such teenager. Bored with life in The Bubble, he ends up getting into a bit of mischief with his new friend Steve. Discovering a passkey accidentally left in the ignition of a lunar crawler, the boys take hold of a rare opportunity to travel far and wide across the lunar landscape. Their first destination is First Station, the now abandoned predecessor to The Bubble, where they discover the diary of a colonist who went missing under mysterious circumstances, telling stories of a vision of a strange impossible flower on the moon. Marty and Steve go in search of the mystery. From that point on in, we leave mundane science fiction behind and grasp the reins of fantasy. For under the surface of the moon is a bizarre plant-like entity who welcomes the boys and never wants them to leave.

When I was reading this novel, I couldn’t help but wonder if Christopher’s favourite theme of mind-manipulation would make an appearance, since I had already seen featured in The Tripods, The Guardians, The Prince in Waiting, and A Dusk of Demons. Yes, it’s here, too. Perhaps “social conditioning” is a better word to describe Christopher’s obsession. This time the conditioning comes not from a metal mesh embedded in the brain, but from an external force that obtains obedience by creating feelings of peace and happiness. It’s the human will versus the emotions in a battle for freedom.

A criticism purely on personal taste: I found the story a bit too wacky. I’m not a great fan of the fantasy genre, and The Lotus Caves ultimately abandoned its sci-fi beginnings in favour of something completely “out there.” That said, I found the novel to be an enjoyable worthwhile adventure.

Chocky by John Wyndham

John Wyndham was quite a proflic author, and Chocky is considered to be one of his major works, although it is less well-known than the likes of The Day of the Triffids. I suspect that most people presently seeking out the novel are doing so because of their memories of the ITV children’s television adaptation from the 1980s. My own nostalgia of that six-part drama has been prodding me for many years to read the original novel. Finally I have.

The story is told entirely from the perspective of the father of eleven-year-old Matthew Gore. We begin with Dad overhearing Matthew speaking to what appears to be an imaginary friend. It’s a little worrying that a boy so old should be indulging in such a fantasy, but what’s even more worrying is the bizarre subject matter of the conversation. Matthew is attempting to form answers to questions like “Why are there seven days in a week?” and “Why 31 days in a month?” Later, Matthew learns to count in binary, using the symbols Y and N for positive and negative. If he had read it in a book he would certainly be using 1 and 0. This imaginary friend also seems to have no concept of the time of day, insisting on quizzing Matthew at various hours of the day and night. When confronted by his parents, Matthew tells them about Chocky. Matthew’s father is uncertain about dismissing Matthew’s fantasy, so he calls in the help of a psychiatrist, Dr. Landis. As a reader, I have a pet hate for the kind of stories where a child has something fantastic happen to him, and all the adults refuse to believe him, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence. To my delight, Chocky does not go down this road. The adults realise that Chocky is objectively real. But who is this entity and what is his/her/its purpose? Is it friend or foe? The real threat, however, comes not from an alien presence, but from ordinary men willing to exploit a young boy in the pursuit of knowledge.

The book is very male-centred, which makes it a product of its time (the 1960s), but story also contains an environmental message so relevant to today’s ever-growing awareness that it makes you think the book was written in the present. It’s to John Wyndham’s credit that way back then he was so clued into how much we’re polluting the planet. Chocky is actually the very last book that Wyndham ever published, just one year before his death in 1969 (although the Wyndham Estate later published Web posthumously). I can think of no finer way to finish a life of writing than with the theme of Chocky.

The television series is also notable. I chased it up after reading the novel. It’s a very faithful adaptation, and according to an interview with series creator Anthony Read, the Wyndham Estate said that out of all the adaptations of Wyndham’s work, Chocky was the only one they were delighted with. The series spawned two sequels, Chocky’s Children and Chocky’s Challenge. I enjoyed the former; it was the perfect sequel in many ways. But by the third series, the story is clearly losing its way, stretched to the point where it contradicts the original ending.

But this is a review of the novel, and it’s excellent. Wyndham on top form.

Logan’s Run by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson

Which came first, the movie or the book? In this case, the book. Usually, an original is superior to an adaptation, but this one’s a bit hard to compare, because the two are quite different. It’s as if the film writer merely used some general elements from the novel as the framework for his own creation. Here are the most notable differences.

The movie takes place post-apocalypse, and is concerned with a surviving city, the City of Domes. It is sealed off from the outside world and is run entirely by a super-computer. When a person reaches the age of thirty, they are required to undergo a ritual called Carousel, where they are vaporised, believing themselves to be undergoing “renewal.” Nobody knows any better, and the citizens lead a lives of hedonism in blissful ignorance of the possibility of old age. A few reject this philosophy and go on the run when it’s their time for Carousel, searching for a legendary place called Sanctuary. They are termed “runners” and they are hunted down and killed merciliessly by the city’s police force, the Sandmen. The computer wants to know more about Sanctuary, so it turns Sandman Logan into a runner and tells him to go find the place and report back. In the end, it turns out there is no Sanctuary, and this information sends the computer into overload, freeing the citizens from the confines of the city.

In the novel, there is no apocalypse, no City of Domes, no Carousel, and people are killed at age twenty-one. “Sandman” is merely a colloquialism in the book, which is a pity, because it’s an excellent term. The book usually calls Logan a “DS man” – Deep Sleep operative. There is no city-wide prison in the novel; people are free and the whole world accepts the twenty-one-year life-span rule. How this happened is explained briefly, if somewhat unconvincingly, in a prologue.

“The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb — and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 percent.
In the year 2000 — critical mass.”

Logan’s companion Jessica features in both movie and book, as well as Francis, the Sandman who pursues them, although Francis’s ultimate role turns out to be quite different from the screen version. Logan and Jessica spend a good portion of the novel travelling from place to place by means of a nationwide underground network of “mazecars.” Interestingly, Logan spends most of the story as a bad guy, a true DS man only pretending to run, secretly intent on finding and exposing Sanctuary. In the end, Santuary turns out to be a real place after all.

The novel is a bit trippy. I never quite grasped how Logan and Jessica ended up in all these bizarre locales. One chapter they’re in an undersea biosphere; next they’re in a freezing cold wasteland; then they’re on something akin to an indian reservation; then they stumble into the middle of an android reenactment of the American civil war. I never understood how the mazecar could take them to all these places, or how they navigated their way towards Sanctuary through all the craziness. Although I have to admit, these adventures were pretty enjoyable nevertheless.

The book is very small. Sometimes that’s a good thing, but this time I think the story was larger than the authors allowed room for. Especially the closing chapter; everything is wrapped up with disappointing brevity. Still, there’s no denying this book has something. This is evidenced by the fact that it spawned a movie and a television series. In recent years, the right to a remake have changed hands a few times. William F. Nolan has also written two sequels to the novel. I’m not sure I’ll try them. Logan’s Run is a self-contained novel, and the others smell like cash-ins on the success of the movie, especially when you read the plot of the third one, which you can do via the highly informative page about Logan’s Run on Wikipedia.

Overall, an entertaining above-average read. Fans of the movie should definitely read it, on the grounds that there’s so much that’s familiar and yet so much that’s different.