THE BLOOD OF THE EARTH: AN ESSAY ON MAGIC AND PEAK OIL
Book Details + Condition: Scarlet Imprint. Finite Edition, #275 of 747 hand numbered copies. Published on the Vernal Equinox in 2012. Green cloth covers with black decorations to front & back, and textured endpapers. 184 pp. John Michael Greer has written a challenging and radical work, fusing deep ecology with an adept’s understanding of magic. Firm binding; light shelf wear to boards, including a mark / scrape to front and some wear to cloth edges; interior is clean and free of markings.
Industrial culture is in collapse. There is no infinite growth on a finite planet and oil, our most critical resource, has passed peak. We have entered a period of radical flux, and magic must respond to the world in which it operates, or it is nothing but empty escapism. The Blood of the Earth: An Essay on Magic & Peak Oil is a challenging and radical book. It fuses deep ecology and hard physical science with an adept’s understanding of magic. It is a smart, articulate and devastating piece of writing. You could call it a polemic. You could call it a prophetic work. We believe it is essential reading for the modern magician. Magic, like peak oil, is the voice our civilisation has failed to heed. Greer argues passionately that the answers to our darkening age are to be found in the practice of magic, provided we understand what it can and cannot do. He gives a lucid explanation of how magic works and crucially, where it does not. His vision of the future covers the dangers of political thaumaturgy and the threats of new dictatorships in an increasingly unstable world. Neither does he shy away from a critique of the mind control antics of the black magicians of the advertising industry. Cautionary examples of UFO cults, mysterious assassinations and fake science are all grist for his mill. Whilst attacking the failures of scientific materialism and the empty technological utopias he does not spare the New Age. Instead he presents a tour de force of occult philosophy covering Neoplatonism, theurgy, ritual magic, and thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Giordano Bruno, Joséphin Péladan and Rudolph Steiner. He presents the highly practical mental training methods of magic for countering the tyranny of dualistic thinking. Clearly written and accessible, The Blood of the Earth is part of the fusion of deep ecology and deep paganism we continue to champion, and is equally relevant to heathen, druid, magician and witch. By reading this book you will have a far clearer understanding of the unfolding future. More than that, it will give you clear and direct strategies to break free of the mind forg’d manacles.
