At the link, I've made a recording downloadable. It's from the early '90s, and it's a San Francisco "psychic" telling my ex-wife to use "the tools of the occult" in her quest for power over me (AKA attaining her own "male pole").
And now, here's Gary Lachman in 2018:
"My own belief is we've marginalized this irrational, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and kept it on the side, and now - instead of integrating it in a positive way, that's creative and can push us forward - it's come back. But it's come back in a way that many of us are not quite at home with. We don't feel comfortable with it. And in some way, the occult communityI'm a part of,...we have wanted western, logical, scientific ideas about truth and rationality, and all of that, to be loosened. You know, we find them too strict. Too reductive, and too limiting, and so we wanted them to be loosened up a bit, just like the postmodernists, just like the chaos magicians, just like the New Thought people. And, OK, that has happened, but it's not happening quite the magical way many of us would've liked for it to happen,..."
So,...what are we to make of this? And of their "thinking"? "The occult community" expected to "loosen" us into the "irrational" (his word) but expected "logical, scientific ideas about truth and rationality" to come back "magical"? They let the occult loose, through warping science and medicine, and now it's gone wrong?
All I know is, as long as I've told people about The NewAge Movement, and said my wife had gone crazy (and I've been doing that since 1995) I can't find anyone in San Francisco, or beyond, who really agrees with me - and THAT'S becoming very scary, now.
Gary Lachman, former bassist for the band, Blondie, and author of 9 acclaimed books on the occult (including, of course, a new one for the Trump era) has let the NewAge cat out of the bag - and it looks just as I've always said it would:
"We've marginalized this irrational, whatever-you-want-to-call-it, and kept it on the side, and now - instead of integrating it in a positive way, that's creative and can push us forward - it's come back. But it's come back in a way many of us are not at home with. We don't feel comfortable with it....the occult community, we have wanted western, logical, scientific ideas about truth and rationality, and all of that, to be loosened up a bit,...And, OK, that has happened, but it's not happening quite the magical way many of us would've liked for it to happen, so,..."
So, you screwed us for your own selfish ends. Again. Thanks a lot, Asshole.