Mark Pilkington

The return of the Strange Attractor Journal, offering a characteristically eclectic collection of high weirdness from the margins of culture.

After seven years of silence, the acclaimed Strange Attractor Journal returns with a characteristically eclectic collection of high weirdness from the margins of culture. Covering previously uncharted regions of history, anthropology, art, literature, architecture, science, and magic since 2004, each Journal has presented new and unprecedented research into areas that scholarship has all too often ignored.

Featuring essays from academics, artists, enthusiasts, and sorcerers, Journal Five explores matters including the folklore of foghorns; the occult origins of the dissident surrealist secret society the Acéphale; the pleasures of heathen falconry; the dark cosmological mysteries of Bremen's Haus Atlantis; a provisional taxonomy of animals with human faces; a twentieth-century crucifixion on Hampstead Heath, and an unpublished horror script by David MacGillivray and Ken Hollings.

Journal Five sees Strange Attractor continuing in its mission to celebrate unpopular culture.

Join us.

The eagerly awaited fourth edition of the acclaimed anthology series.

From Haiti and Hong Kong to the fourth dimension and beyond: discover the secrets of madness in animals; voodoo soul and dub music; ancient peacock deities; Chinese poisoning cults; the history of spider silk weaving; heathen mugwort magic; sentient lightning; Jesuit conspiracy theories; junkie explorers; Dali's Atlantis; the resurgence of Pan (in London's Crouch End); anarchist pirates on Madagascar; an ancient Greek Rip Van Winkle; French anatomical waxworks; Arthur Machen's forgotten tales and the full text of Alan Moore's unfinished John Dee opera.

ContributorsRichard Barnett, Mark Blacklock, John Cussans, Erik Davis, Paul Devereux, Roger Dobson, Joanna Ebenstein, Stephen Grasso, Gyrus, Ken Hollings, Mike Jay, Phil Legard, David Luke, Eleanor Morgan, Alan Moore, Steve Moore, Michael Neve, Andy Sharp, Robert Wallis, Sean Walsh

Artwork by Joel Biroco, Julian House, Phil Legard, Eleanor Morgan, Arik Roper & Nathalie Tayton.

A third helping of high strangeness from the acclaimed Strange Attractor anthology series.

ContentsContra Genesis – Catherine EisnerUnusual cases of extra-genital conception, extra-uterine gestation, and other anomalous exits

Burmese Daze – Erik DavisIn which the author submits to the pleasures of a transgender spirit possession festival

Adventures in the Fourth Dimension – Mike JayA Victorian time machine and history's first theme park ride

Ego in Exotica Sum – Ken HollingsIn memoriam Martin Denny, crown prince of the exotica sound

A Psychoactive Bestiary – Richard RudgleyThe joy of zootoxins, from the ant to the giraffe

Liberté, Légalité, Éternité – David LukeSome notes on psychonautic misadventures in time

Kandinsky's Thought Forms – Gary LachmanThe occult roots of modern art

Magic Words – Steve MooreVirgil the Necromancer in mediæval legend

Abu'l-Qasim al-Iraqi – Robert Irwin12th century Arab alchemists on the edge of knowledge

The Electrochemical Glass – Richard BrownA slow-evolving artwork from a living alchemist

The Man Behind the Screen – David RothenbergHans Christian Andersen's greatest and least-known work

The Mole of Edge Hill – John ReppionJoseph Williamson, Liverpool's tunnelling philanthropist

La Maison de Poupées – Robert AnsellA photographic study of a magnificent compulsion

The Dirty Thirties – Alexis LykiardFrom Arthur Koestler's Encyclopædia of Sexual Knowledge

Paint it Black – Stewart HomeAutohagiography of an artist

Redonda and Her Kings – Roger DobsonThe island life of early science fiction author MP Shiel

Magic in Paris – Phil BakerDemons of the opium den in Thirties Paris

The Dark Man's Dreams – Doug SkinnerAn introduction to Xavier Forneret, Surrealism's lost poet

Ghosts: A short Storyby Lady Vervaine

Plus original artworks by Alison Gill, Josephine Harvatt, Betsy Heistand, Katie Owens, Arik Roper.

A second helping of high strangeness from the acclaimed Strange Attractor anthology series.

ContentsMy Travels with Münchausen Richard BurdettIn which the author deceives his friends on an adventure of the mind

Enter the Jaguar Mike JayDigging up the ancient psychedelic temple cults of Peru's Chavínde Huantar

School for Shamans JasonLouvOur intrepid young author braves Maoist rebels and astral collapse to learn the secrets of Nepalese sorcery

The Temple at the End of Time John RoweJerusalem's Temple Mount and its role in all our ends

Haunts of the Halifax Slasher Tim ChapmanA gentlemanly tour of the city's dark past

Admiral Byrd, Atlantis & the Hollow Earth Theo PaijmansA letter, a legend and a flight beyond the poles

Under Petticoat RuleAn anonymous manuscript reveals one boy's restrictive upbringing.Introduction by Peter Farrer & Cathy Ward

An Animist Manifesto Graham HarveyA call to arms. And antennae, branches, tentacles etc.

Dr Price's Final Transmutation Guy OgilvyHow the Royal Society found, then lost, the secrets of alchemy

Life from Earth: The Golem and Homunculi Gary LachmanThe mystical origins of artificial life. Photography by Maud Larsson

Robot Power, Robot Pride Ken HollingsHow the robot found its self

Should they Live: on the Use of Dead Babies Don MaderThe hidden meaning of a sinister 19th century religious print

Mould Art Discovered by Doug HarveyBeauty grows in unexpected places

The Court of Lust John BranstonWaldo Sabine: parapsychologist, poet, feminist, martyr

Sandoz in the Rain: The Life and Art of Wilfried SättyJohn Coulthart on a lost visionary hero of the psychedelic revolution

Boris Vian for Anglophones Doug SkinnerThe scandalous oeuvre of the man who shocked his world

Richard Jefferies and the Agitated Pool of LifeNeil Mortimer introduces this early, apocalyptic ecologist

Anagrams for Maya Deren Kevin JacksonArtist, film maker, voodoo priestess

Change in a Parallel World: CFRussell, Louis Culling and the Book of Changes Steve Moore presents an eccentric history and a new I Ching

Spirits of Place: Strange Encounters of an Anglican Kind Alan WalkerHow the Church of England answered The Exorcist

One More Nightmare calling… the Heathen Robert J WallisLoki the 'pervert god', Seidrsorcery and the Left Hand Path.Illustrations by Arik Roper and Carina Thorén

Terror by Night: the Sleeping Partner Roger DobsonMemoirs of a hag-ridden man

Folklore of Underground London Antony ClaytonWhat rumours lie beneath the city's streets?

Cesare Thodol Mark SamuelsOn brain fungus and other horrors. Illustrated by Betsy Heistand

High strangeness from the acclaimed Strange Attractor anthology series.

ContentsPilgrimage to Truth Mountain: Life Reform 1900-1920 by Alex Martin • The Last Cargo Cult by Mike Jay • Sadhus, Sannyasis, Ascetic Mendicants & Renouncers by Tom Vater • Herworld artworks by Cathy Ward • Strange Cults and Secret Societies of Modern London by Father Alan Walker • Welcome to Disturbia by Ken Hollings • Magick Cyrkles: Glasgow Walks & Photographs by Drew Mulholland • Derek Raymond & Patrick Hamilton: Drinking in London Through their Eyes by Cathi Unsworth • Lost Wax: Blackpool's Passed Attraction by Cathy Ward • The Craft of Ladies' Hairdressing Rediscovered by Xtina Lamb • Rorschach Audio: Art & Illusion for Sound by Joe Banks • Mind the Zap: Mind Control at Greenham Common? • Helen John interviewed by John Lundberg • The Return of the Old Ones: HP Lovecraft & the crisis of Modernity by Justin Woodman • In Search of Terror's Degree Zero by Tom McCarthy • Montague Summers, the Marquis de Sade and the Curious World of the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology by Timothy d'Arch Smith • David Lindsay: Arcturus & Beyond by Mark Valentine • The Myth of Punch by Eric, Count Stenbock. Introduced by David Tibet • The Book of Fortunatus by Doug Skinner