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Title: Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician (Suny Series in Western Esoteric Traditions) by John Patrick Deveney, Franklin Rosemont ISBN: 0-7914-3120-7 Publisher: State University of New York Press Pub. Date: 01 November, 1996 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The Ansairetic Mystery, or a New Revelation Concerning SEX!
Comment: [....]readers should known or probably infer from the esteemed SUNY press W.E.T. series that Deveney cites ALL sources, resultant of some 150 pages of extensive notes which are a worthy and entertaining/informative read in themselves! Also, P.B.R.'s Occult philosophy and practical systems/methodologies are explored in a highly scholarly yet equally accessible manner, and as an appendix are given in their entirety two of PBR's most essential Sexual Magic works, for which I have appropriated the title of this review. Though a scholarly work, as well as an historical one, it is throughout biographically focused on an 19th century Exemplary Mage's Life and Work!
Rating: 5
Summary: The Ansairetic Mystery, or a New Revelation Concerning SEX!
Comment: Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875)was one of the first well-known Afro-American Novelists (if not THE FIRST), of whom Frederick Douglas was an admirer, and one of the most famous as well as sincere mediums of the Spiritualist movement, famous for his speeches of whom President Johnson was a fan, and a KEY figure in bridging the gap between that nec-romantic movement flowering dangerously into the European/American Occult Revival of the mid-late 19th century. He grew up an orphan in a murderous section of NYC; had almost no schooling, (yet became a recognized genius by sheer will/determination and self-discipline) who lived in the "(spiritually) Burnt-out" district of upstate NY where he added the abbr. "DR." to his title and sold his Glyphae Battah (Magic Mirrors)and Hashish, love & healing philtres:'snake-oil' basically, and married a part Native-American Indian Woman and tried to raise a family in dire poverty. And this is just the beginning to his life! He was very influential in getting Black soldiers into the US military in the last years of the Civil War(& getting them paid like any good-willing American!)...also, Blavatsky gleaned much from him, I think her writings concerning Randolph evidences, if only his living example of an highly artistic and Original one-man Occult campaign via Randolph's numerous Rosicrucian brotherhoods which The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor would later appropriate nearly ALL of Randolphs ideas to immense practical benefit (see Godwins and Deveneys co-efforts in releasing many key documents in relation to this group), while the Theosophists waged war against that very practicality deeming it black magic basically...later the Surrealists' devoured Randolph's magical works which were circulated widely through the Russian-born Parisian Surrealist Maria de Naglowska efforts...How does a man like this, who entertained at the court of Napoleon and who counted President Lincoln as an acquaintance as well as knew most every influential Occultist/Abolitionist/reformer/Free Love Politician / Spiritualist of his day (Bulwer-Lytton, Hargrave Jennings, Laurence Oliphaunt, Andrew Jackson Davis,et al. ad infinitum)how does such a figure disappear from history? as if suspiciously erased? The question is as tragic as Randolph's life, for it is a pained life full of much suffering, bore throughout with nobility if despairingness at his predicament. He is a beautiful writer--one must allow him that at least---whose sexual magic works serve as a poignant appendix to Deveney's excellent and thorough 600-plus page biography of a life that serves as an intimate magnifying-glass to probe into the goings-ons of an era filled to overflowing with myriad colorful characters and the energy and excitement of endless rounds of ingenious scientific discoveries and religious aspirations/explorations which as the Poet Osip Mandelstam said "if ever there was a golden age surely it was the 19th century!" Wherever you may be John Patrick Deveney, I thank you a thousand times over while reading this and thank you still for giving us this touching biography which served as a means to truly know what it must have been like to have lived in Randolph's day, during an age of 'Romanticism' and later,'Symbolism' in Art, while an Occult revival raged, made up of a noble search for self-knowledge and universal Uptopianist solutions to universal ills, and art finally becoming a RELIGION itself!...Western Esoteric studies should take as an example Deveney's biographical tome, and know the history of the world is in the lives of men and women more than anyplace else, as Jules Michelet pointed out a hundred years ago...I would suggest to anyone interested in gaining a first hand insight into an era & a subject finally lent proper credence to be studied seriously as it should be respected even if despised by "religious realists"...to read this book full of a life lived with such style & grace. Randolph's motto was: "T-R-Y !"...which is what I would say to others here interested in reading a rare work of an even rarer life that hopefully will become part of the American Artistic and Cultural iconography and more widely known literary canon because of Deveney's immense efforts and achievements herein! Bravo Deveney!
---readers should known or probably infer from the esteemed SUNY press W.E.T. series that Deveney cites ALL sources, resultant of some 150 pages of extensive notes which are a worthy and entertaining/informative read in themselves! Also, P.B.R.'s Occult philosophy and practical systems;/methodologies are explored in a highly scholarly yet equally accessible manner; though a scholarly work, as well as an historical one, it is throughout focused on an 19th century Exemplary Mage's Life and Work!
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Title: Sexuality, Magic, and Perversion by Francis King ISBN: 0922915741 Publisher: Feral House Pub. Date: 01 April, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul by Julius Evola, Joscelyn Godwin, Constance Fontana ISBN: 0892811250 Publisher: Inner Traditions International Pub. Date: 15 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites by Martin P. Starr ISBN: 093342907X Publisher: Teitan Press Pub. Date: November, 2003 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
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Title: Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley by Richard Kaczynski ISBN: 1561841706 Publisher: New Falcon Publications Pub. Date: 24 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Ong's Hat: The Beginning by Joseph Matheny, Peter Moon ISBN: 096781622X Publisher: Sky Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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