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Stewart Lee, Warhammer 40k, Frater Marabas and cosmic ambience

I’m firmly of the opinion that the magickal worldview yields a soul-sustaining interpretation of reality. It is the most affinitive, fulfilling, awe-inspiring and enlightening way to conduct a life. When I started on this path, I made use of two shops: Caduceus Books in York and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice in Leeds. The latter was run by Frater Marabas (aka Chris Bray), who also published his own occult guides. One of his quotes has stayed with me over the decades:

Understand that magic is and always has been the natural energy of creation and evolution. It is more normal than anything else in existence because it creates everything else in existence.

A related quote from Patrick Dunn has also stuck with me:

We do magic because it feels good. Our bodies, minds, and souls love to do magic. It’s not work to us, and those who try to turn it into work pollute a beautiful, joyful, pleasurable experience.

These ultimately sum up my personal philosophy. That’s not to say magick is easy, or without its tribulations. But it must essentially resolve to – at its root – not power or the achievement of personal desires, but existential joy.

This is why pretty much everything I write here is viewed through a magickal lens. It’s a way-of-living I’ve chosen to adopt, reflected in what I hope are thoughtful essays that don’t add to the already-overwhelming cognitive load, but instead create a space for reflection and, maybe, inspiration. I don’t want to waste your time by emitting words that aren’t worth reading.

Therefore, I really appreciate anyone who invests time in reading this Substack - subscribers or otherwise, and especially those who make the decision to pay. It takes time – sometimes extensive research and deep thought – to construct these essays and, although I thoroughly enjoy the writing process, finding dedicated time to invest in doing so can be difficult. Having said that, I’ve published 80 posts so far, so I seem to be coping.

The last ‘newsletter’ I wrote was about ten months ago, when I launched this Substack, so it feels like another is in order. Here it is.

Simmerings

At the moment works-in-progress include: explorations of sorcerous landscapes and places of power; the band Killing Joke as an occult appliance; more on the Avalon legendarium; the appalling level of customer service amongst some occult publishers; magickal principles; and the consequences of the ‘web of convenience.’

But, of all things, I’ve been thinking mainly about Warhammer 40,000. Gordon White and Austin Coppock, in their 2025 Astrology Forecast, cited 40k as a significant cultural signpost, reflecting the heroic-pessimistic zeitgeist. It’s hard to tell how serious they are about the observation, but there’s something in it. And it’s deeply depressing if 40k’s darkness, xenophobia, fascism and militarism, its heartless bureaucracies, and it’s End Times nihilism, all chime with the current defining mood.

I started playing 40k when Rogue Trader was released almost 40 years ago, continued on and off until the sixth edition, then gave up (T’au was my faction) But I’ve kept one eye on its development, mainly out of curiosity and nostalgia. Recently I’ve been mulling over the extent to which 40k is becoming a mythos for our time (or at least the mythos we deserve), even superseding Middle Earth. There’s been much discussion about how Tolkien’s works exist in the cultural consciousness, in the collective unconscious and in the imaginal, and how they possess resonance because of Tolkien’s deep understanding of myth. His works reach into and perpetuate archetypal, atavistic mythic patterns, and therefore function as conduits for profound truths.

40k by contrast is a meta-myth built on top of Tolkien, Lovecraft and many others, gleefully pillaging the culture. Its byzantine narratives are constructed by committee to encourage the consumption of product – specifically small plastic soldiers. How frivolous an objective can you get? How banal? However, something else is going on. At some point – possibly quite recently – an inflection point was crossed and the ‘fluff’ surrounding 40k transcended the hobby, en route to evolving into a genuine mythos. Millions of fans inhabit it and do so far more intensely than equivalent fictional worlds, partly due to Games Workshop’s omnichannel strategy: its video games, animations and books (to date, over 50 novels) are deeply immersive. And this obsession / infiltration will only increase when Amazon unveils its 40k adaptations in a few years (in the meantime, witness how the 40k short included in Amazon’s ‘Secret Level’ has been frotted and picked apart.)

In fact, I would argue that there is no mythos so extensively constructed across so wide a range of media, and inhabited by so many enthusiasts to such intense levels. Like Middle Earth, it possesses a psychological – and metaphysical – reality.

The next step is when a mythos jumps the cultural shark, and there are a few examples in the case of 40k; Trump’s depiction as God-Emperor of Mankind being the obvious one. But there are further interesting parallels between the Imperium and the Dark Enlightenment; between the Astartes and Kurzweil’s Transhumanism, as espoused by the Broligarchy; and between the Ruinous Powers of 40k and the Dark Trinity of Jonathan Cahn (The Possessor = Nurgle; The Enchantress = Slaanesh; The Destroyer = Khorne.) Arguably it’s only a matter of time before the 40k mythos becomes so culturally entrenched that it’s seized upon by conspiracy fantasists as somehow prophetic.

At that point, any claims by Games Workshop of 40k-as-satire can be well and truly discarded. Pandora’s Box will have been opened, and the lore will take on a bizarre life of its own. I doubt Rick Priestly had any clue what he was getting into back in 1987.

Anyway, there’s a long-form essay in progress about all this. It’s a real rabbit-hole, but a fascinating one.

Does this look like satire?

Heavy Rotation

In total contrast: Michael Stearns, who is a founder of the so-called ‘Pacific School’ of ambient music, along with the likes of Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny and Richard Burmer. However, his work has always somewhat leaned away from pure ambience towards atmospherics and soundtracks. He pioneered the use of the monstrous Serge synthesiser and developed a custom instrument known as The Beam: a 12-foot long resonant beam of extruded aluminum, strung with 24 piano strings, which he put to use on track four of the stunning Planetary Unfolding. The record’s sound is described as ‘space music’ - a sonic excursion into the harmonies of an unfolding universe. Although first released 44 years ago, it was recently remastered and re-released. And it is through this remastering that the music’s true depth, layering, detail and sheer grandiosity can be properly appreciated. Even to 21st century ears, it sounds as fresh now as it did in 1981. The other evening I took a hit of homegrown SR 1070 (Tolkien nerds will get the reference) and listened to the record in full for the first time in a while. I’d forgotten how awesomely cosmic it is; genuinely stunning; a real trip. Highly recommended.

Funny

Last night I went to see Stewart Lee perform his superb new show, Stewart Lee vs The Man-Wulf. I knew he had an interest in esotericism, but was surprised when he delivered a lengthy skit (indirectly) about Ithell Colquhoun, and spoke about his fondness for visiting megalithic sites. It led me think there’s not enough occultism in comedy, nor enough humour in occultism. In fact they barely intersect at all. Odd really, considering the reputed magickal power of laughter.