Episode 141: Actual Magic: On Ramsey Dukes' SSOTBME

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 10:30:00 -0500

Ramsey Dukes, also known by his real name of Lionel Snell, may be one of the most important thinkers on magic since Aleister Crowley. In the impishly-titled Sex Secrets of the Black Magicians Exposed (or SSOTBME for short), Dukes accomplishes something few writers on the topic have been able to do: he gives us magic without asking us to sacrifice anything that makes us sensible modern people. He makes magic seem like the most obvious thing in the world, and he does it without taking away any of its, well, magic. How he does it and what it means are questions that would take several episodes to unpack. In this one, Phil and JF begin the work by discussing how Dukes situates magic in an epistemic compass that also includes science, art, and religion. This set of tools is as essential to a holistic view of reality as the four suits in a deck of cards are essential to a proper poker game. In other words, when we lose magic, we lose a way of dealing with reality.

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REFERENCES

David Lynch (dir.), Mulholland Drive
Ramsey Dukes, SSOTBME
Slavoj Žižek, The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
C. P. Snow, The Two Cultures
Weird Studies, Episode 139 on Art Power
Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy
“Virtual” and “Actual”, as developed by Bergson and Deleuze
Pragmatism, philosophical school
Jack Parsons, American rocket scientist
Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return
William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Episode 24: The Charlatan and the Magus, with Lionel Snell

Phil Ford and J. F. Martel — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 15:00:00 -0400

As Lionel Snell, also known as Ramsey Dukes, observes in his seminal esoteric essay, "The Charlatan and the Magus" (1984), the series of trumps in a tarot deck doesn't begin with the noble Emperor or august Hierophant, but with the lowly Fool, followed by the Juggler. Trickery or illusion, Snell suggests, may not be the dealbreaker we've thought it to be in parapsychological investigation. It may even be a feature, not a bug, of the magical process. In this episode of Weird Studies, JF and Phil talk to Lionel Snell about trickster magic, and all we miss out on when we make rational truth the only measure by which we know reality.

Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], "The Charlatan and the Magus"
Darren Brown, Tricks of the Mind
Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Phil Ford, “Birth of the Weird"
Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], How to See Fairies: Discover Your Psychic Powers in Six Weeks
Ramsey Dukes [Lionel Snell], S.S.O.T..B.M.E.
John Keats, Negative Capability
Weird Studies, Episode 9: "On Aleister Crowley and the Idea of Magick"

Special Guest: Lionel Snell [Ramsey Dukes].

Weird Studies - Episodes Tagged with “Ramsey Dukes”

Episode 141: Actual Magic: On Ramsey Dukes' SSOTBME

Episode 24: The Charlatan and the Magus, with Lionel Snell