The latest issue of the Gnostic Journal contains a polemical, byzantine article by Alan Moore entitled ‘Fossil Angels’. Probably surprising many, the article does not pillory Abrahamic fundamentalism or political oppressive systems. Instead, it’s a heavy roasting of modern Occultism, seasoned with the hot spices of irony, dark humor, and satire.
Within Moore’s tsunami criticism, it would be safe to include Neopaganism, New Age, and modern Gnosticism. After all, the lines have become blurry across Modern Esoterica, as it succumbs to pageantry over substance, marketing over mystery school, and utilitarian meme over timeless mythmaking.
Moore bemoans that the great magical traditions have been orphaned for what he calls the ‘Occultism by numbers’ attitude that became predominant in the 19th century. The mercurial yet scientific approaches of John Dee and other Renaissance mages are nowhere to be found. Contemporary magic has become mechanical, self-serving, and an exercise in keeping up with the Crowley’s.
Moore’s insists that Modern Esoterica needs to revive itself through the embracing of art, imagination, beauty, reverence, and spontaneity. He uses the example of perhaps the most successful Occult cabal in modernity, The Golden Dawn—its power originated from many of its members being writers first, magicians second.
I agree with most of what Moore says in ‘Fossil Angel’s, and have often harangued about it in several episode of Aeon Byte Gnostic Radio. Other scholars and devotees of the Occult have privately told me the same concerns; my friend Keith Nicholson does a thorough job in being a Martin Luther-figure for Neopaganism in his book, Above, Below, Within.
Coming from my tradition, I would argue that Gnosis is impossible unless one is deeply involved in art or creativity. Willis Barnstone, translator of The Gnostic Bible, mentioned in an interview that the Classic Gnostics were primarily poets and secondarily theologians. As Moore mentions in his article, there is more magic in one of William Blake’s paintings than all the covens in London combined. Again, I agree with him.
The reality is that Modern Esoterica has become a parody of itself, a caricature of the once proud Secret Societies and underground heterodox movements. There was a time when Occultism was demonized by fundagelicals like Pat Robertson, Jerry Fallwell, Bill Graham, and Jack T. Chick. We have become so anemic and bloodless, they have moved on to exploit juicier prey.
It’s sad when you’re even ignored by greedy televangelists. You probably couldn’t pay Michele Bachman to bother with Modern Esoterica.
The solutions have been offered. It comes down to bringing out our inner Michelangelo and not our inner David Copperfield. It comes down to accessing our inner Prometheus and not our inner Oprahtheos
In any event, to elucidate how low Modern Esoterica has fallen, I’ve compiled the last section of ‘Fossil Angels’. I’ve arranged it in a list form, where Moore describes the petty pursuits of today’s Occultists. If you are now or have ever been in any of these situations, perhaps it’s time to retire your Renaissance Fair garb, put on a plain smock, and begin creating a piece of art instead of remaining the piece of work you have been for a long time.
Here they are:
--It’s trying to force our boyfriend to come back to us.
--It’s scraping cash together to fend off the black hole in our plastic.
--It’s making sure that Teen Witch slumber parties go successfully.
--It’s putting wispy New Age people into contact with their wispy New Age angels, and they’re all, like, “No way”, and the angels are all, like, “Whatever.”
--It’s attending all of our repeated rituals with the enthusiasm of a patron come to see The Mouse Trap for the seven hundredth time.
--It spends its weekend trying to read our crappy sigil under their obscuring glaze of jiz, and in retaliation only puts us into contact with outpatient entities, community-care Elohim that rant like wino scientologists and never make a lick of sense.
--It’s at the trademark office, registering magic seals.
--It’s handling introductions agencies that represent our only chance of ever meeting any strange Goth pussy.
--It’s off getting us a better deal on that new Renault, helping to prolong the wretched life of our incontinent and blind pet Spaniel Gandalf, networking like crazy to secure those Harry Potter Hogwart’s Tarot rights.
--It’s still attempting to sort out the traffic jam resulting from the Aeon of Horus having jack-knifed through the central reservation and into the southbound carriageway, hit head-on by the Aeon of Maat, which spilled its cargo of black feathers onto the hard shoulder.
--It’s not sure the ketamine was such a good idea.
--It’s sitting looking nervous on a thousand bookshelves between lifestyle interviews with necrophiles and fashion retrospectives on the Manson family.
--It’s hanging out at neo-Nazi jamborees near Dusseldorf.
--It’s wondering if it should introduce a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding the 11th Degree.
--It’s advising Cherie Blair on acupuncture studs, the whole of Islington upon Feng Sui.
--It’s pierced its cock in an attempt to shock its middle-class Home Counties parents, who’ve been dead for ten years, anyway.
--It wishes it were David Blaine, it wishes it were Buffy.
--Or, quite frankly, anyone.
Moore does end ‘Fossil Angels’ on a hopeful tone, which more than likely will be ignored because most in the Modern Esoterica have probably become too deaf by listening to too much Loreena McKennitt or Slayer (or, quite frankly, anyone else that everyone else listens to):
We could, were we to do decide, ensure that current occultism be remembered in the history of magic as a fanfare peak rather than a as a fading sigh; as an embarrassed, dying mumble, not even a whimper. We could make this parched terrain a teeming paradise, a tropic where each thought might blossom into art. Under the altar lies the studio, the beach. we could insist upon it, where we truly what we say we are. We could achieve it not by scrawling sigils but by crafting stories, paintings, symphonies. We could allow our art to spread its holy psychedelic scarab wings across society once more, perhaps in doing so allow some light or grace to fall upon that pained, benighted organism. We could be made afresh in our fresh undergrowth, stand reinvented at a true dawn of our Craft within a morning world, our paint still wet, just-hatched and gummy-eyed Eden. Newborn in Creation.
Or as I like to say in my hobbit show—we could just write our own Gospel and live our own Myth.
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