Magonia No 84 2004 03

2004·8.1 MB·English

magonia • interpreting contemporary v1s1on and belief • number 84 • march 2004 • £1.75
child and grandchild. until they have a
race of humans hybrids that will look
no different from the way we do.·· It
looks like the spectre of miscegenation
raises its head again!
People have always wanted a
scapegoat to blame for their own prob­
How would you feel if you read the lems. and in the post-9/ll world the
(f)
following statement allegedly by a unknown Other takes on a far more
prominent American ufologist? immediately threatening nature. The
UJ ··However they are still Jews Other is now closer to us. living along­
endowed by a Jewish intelligence, and side us. infiltrating our society -and the
MAGONIA 84 I- whatever other powers the Jews pos­ dreadful bombings in Madrid show that
(incorporating MUFOB 131) sess. What is their mission? To insert this is not just a paranoid fear -calling
themselves into powerful positions in for us all to be alert for these threats.
MARCH2004 government. in industry. in communica­ One might think that it would
tions, and in the financial industry with be safer for more irrational hatreds to
EDITOR Q
each new generation. Theirs will be a be sublimated and directed towards a
JOHN RIMMER
jrimmer@magonia .dem onc.o.uk ·zero-force· takeover. Therefore the non-existent Other such as space aliens:
threat may not be a threat of violence. after all these creatures have magical
ASSOCIATEE DITOR
but rather a loss of what we would con­ powers. can escape the laws of nature
JohnH amev
[email protected] eserve.co.uk sider our freedoms in a takeover of our and arc unlikely to be disturbed by rac­
z planet." ists daubing swastikas on their saucer or
CONTRIBUTINEGD ITOR Well, that's not quite what having bricks thrown through its win­
MarkP ilkington any prominent American ufologist has dows. But the ideas expressed by An­
m.pi/kington@vinergt in.
actually said, but if you substitute the drus. and more worryingly the ideas
REVIEWSE DITOR word ·alien' for 'Jew· in the above promoted in Budd Hopkin ·s latest book
PeteRro gerson paragraph you get a quotation from (sec Peter Rogerson ·s review on page
I Wait Andrus, founder and director of 17) come very close to actually identi­
SUBSCRIPTIOND ETAILS MUFON. quoted in the UFO Magazine f).ing real. living do\\-n your street.
Magoniias a vailabbyle ex ­
UFO Encyclopaedia, published this people as the agents of the ·alien
changwe itoht hemra gazin,e s
year. Now I am sure that Wait Andrus takeover·. How long. I wonder. before
orb ys ubscriptaitot nh ef ollow­
ingra tes: does not have an antiscmitic bone in his some reclusive sufferer from mild
UK: £7.00 (4 issues) body, so how much more remarkable it autism. or with a minor cranial deform­
£9.50 (6 issues) is that he should come up with a state­ ity starts finding "Hybrids OuC notices
Europe: 20.00 euros (6 issues)
ment that, with one vital difference, stuck on their front door'>
USA: $20.00 (6 issues)
could be taken word-for-word from /Jas You might think this an un­
Others: £8.00 (4 issues)
S'turmer. likely scenario. but there is at least one
This magazine has received a precedent to consider. The short-lived
US subscribemrsu stp ayi n
dollabri llWse. a re unablteo good deal of derision from certain cir­ UFO magazine Magic Saucer published
accept checdkrasw n on cles in American ufology for Peter Ro­ in the UK in the early eighties. and
American bank.s gerson 's suggestion that one of the fac­ aimed at children, printed an article
tors in the growth of the abduction about youngsters affected by a syn­
Europeans ubscribesrsh ould
panic in America has been a sublima­ drome called Infantile Hypercalcaemia
payi nE uro note.s
tion of the fears of - mostly illegal - (IHC) which produces characteristic fa­
Chequeasn dm oneyo rders Hispanic and Asian immigration. In cial features -turned up noses and large
mustb em adep ayablteo which case substituting the word 'alien· cars-and some behavioural problems.
JOHN RIMMER,n ot'M agoni'a. for ·Jew· in the quoted paragraph would possibly caused by an excess of cal­
make very little difference in the minds cium. Magic S'aucer called these chil­
Allc orrespondenc,e of some American (and, in fairness. dren "Pixie People· and because of its
subscriptiaonndse xchange
some British) extremists. vague New Age attitude found them
magaziness houldb es entt o
The meaning is: they are here cute rather than sinister. The article
thee ditor 0
without our consent, they are taking our concluded: ··None of the Pixie people
JohnR immer jobs, they are controlling our govern­ look an)thing like their own families,
JohnDe e Cottage ment and media, and they are taking our yet they all look incredibly like each
5 James Terrace UJ women. For in the paragraph previous other ... have they perhaps all reincar­
MortlakCeh urchyard to the one I misquoted, Andrus gives us nated from another planet ... to be here
LondonS,W 14 BHB
his views on the methods that the aliens on Earth for some special reason at this
UniteKdi ngdom
are using: '·I believe these alien crea­ timeT"
Visit Magonia On-Line at tures are hybridizing a species to create In today's darker UFO world
www.magonia.demon.co.uk a generation of hybrids. With each suc­ of abductions and hybrids. these words
ceeding generation of abductees they arc take on far more worrying implications.
© Magonia 2004. Copyright in
signed articles remains with the perfecting the hybrid species, recycling The way the abductionists are moving
authors. the DNA from abductee to abductee ·s puts real people in danger.
3
MINDSCAPES
David Sivier
dieval chronicle gave way to the
humanist monograph. [21
ln fact much of the de­
For Forteans, it is axiomatic that the
bate about such Fortean phenom­
ena in the intellectual countcrcul­
exclusion of the weird and the bizarre ture forged in the 60s has indeed
been as much about history, and
from the modern rationalistic weltan­ their historical provenance. as
about their scientific validity. Just
as humanist historiography
schauung began in the seventeenth
damned them in the fifteenth cen­
tury, so they were reinstated. if
century with the rise of institutional
only in part, with the rise of local.
Those awkward facts. legendary history in the academic
Science. 'The power, that has said to objects and events chorographies of the 17th and the
which couldn"t be ex­ popular chapbooks of the ·English
all these things that they are damned, plained by the ration­ Revolution·. While humanist his­
alism of the academies tonography ultimately won the
were marginalized, academic intellectual battle. these
is Dogmatic Science' ,r11 as Fort himself
ignored and forgotten, latter were seized as models by the
save only for connois­ radicals of the 60s alternative cul­
said at the very beginning of the Book seurs of the weird and ture for their tracts. of which the
unexplained. like Fort, assault on establishment science
of the Damned. who vvere themselves was only one. small part. This un­
intellectually isolated derground, ·modern antiquarian·
and alienated from the approach to history has in its turn
governing intellectual spawned contemporary psycho­
paradigm of the times. Unfortu­ geography, the exploration of the
nately. like the stifling intellectual mystical aspects of place.
straitjackets Fort so loudly de­ Although academic his­
nounced, this is itself a dogmatic torians would no doubt strongly
statement that needs serious revi­ deny any connection with such an
sion. The exclusion of what has apparently spurious discipline.
since become known as the psychogeography does have an
Fortean- freaks, prodigies, omens academic counterpart as historians.
and other ·sports of nature· began cognitive archaeologists and re­
two centuries before the Scientific searchers of Cultural Studies ex­
Revolution. in the 15th rather than plore the physical. changing to­
17th century. and the intellectual pographies of landscapes. tow·ns
discipline which pioneered their and other spaces in an attempt to
banishment was not science, but delineate the mentalite these
history. More specifically, it was spaces express and generate in
the changes in historiography pio­ their citizens. Regardless of their
neered by avowedly political writ­ intellectual respectability- or lack
ers such as Machiavelli and of it-both historiographies share
Francesco Guicciardini as the me- a fundamental awareness of the
4
intellectual and spiritual connec­ from the Trojan Brutus. recounted This disinterest arose in
tion between a place and its in­ in his History of the Kings ofBrit­ large part from the monastic com­
habitants, and an approach to the ain, was disproved first by the pilers· essentially religious inter­
exploration of both which is effec­ Scots historian John Major in pretation of history. The world,
tively summarised by that great 1521, and again by the Italian including human affairs, was ruled
countercultural hero and beardie Polydore Vergil in his History of and driven by God, whose will
weirdie Alan Moore: 'When we Great Britain of 1534. was inscrutable and beyond human
excavate the place, we excava�e At the heart of this comprehension. There was thus no
scepticism is the no­ point in looking too far for the
tion that the progress causes of historical events. At the
of history is accessible same time this attitude also per­
to the human intellect. mitted the inclusion of Fortean ma­
It was an approach terial, such as prodigies, anoma­
partly pioneered by lous weather, monsters and spec­
Machiavelli and Guic­ tral apparitions as it was through
ciardini in the 15th such obviously supernatural occur­
century, who were de­ rences that God's will could be di­
termined to fmd the rectly discerned. Although the ex­
human, political rea­ clusion of such Forteana was
sons for the military greatly facilitated by the rise of
turmoil experienced in experimental, rationalist science in
Italy, tom between the 17th century. the ultimate ori­
conflicting states and gins of their banishment to the in­
subject to foreign in­ tellectual margins belongs to the
vasions, such as those "Historical Revolution', as it has
of the French. Al­ been called by the historians D. R.
though humanist his­ Kelley and D. H. Sacks, of the later
tonography contained 16th century. l51
much that is alien to Coupled with this new
modem historiography rationalist historiography was an
-viewing their genre explicit class prejudice, which also
as a branch of rhetoric. aided the relegation of Fortean
humanist writers saw phenomena to the social margins
nothing inappropriate in line with the perceived social
in inventing noble status of the market for such lit­
speeches to put in the erature. Renaissance ·politick · his­
Geoffrey of
ourselves -the inside is the out­ mouths of their heroes -this scep­ torians viewed themselves as writ­
Monmouth's spurious
side- Hey, lady, that's my skull!' ticism and rationalism has been ing primarily for the education,
account of the origins [3] their greatest legacy to modem and edification, of princes. Ma­
of the British from the Whatever the specific historiography, and indeed has be­ chiavelli, for example. dedicated
Trojan Brutus, re­ area of inquiry may be, modem, come its defining trait. The Prince to Lorenzo De·
counted in his History post-renaissance historiography Medieval writers could Medici. The Elizabethan writer
of the Kings of Britain, aims to be sceptical, carefully produce histories very similar in Thomas Blundeville succinctly
(above) was disproved considering the value and biases of form and content to the humanist expressed the ·poJitick · historians
its sources, and concerned with the model of the monograph. For ex­ line when he stated "Histories be
first by the Scots
causes of the events it studies, ample, the Flandria Generosa, al­ made of deeds done by a public
historian John Major in
whether they are the personal, though originally composed as a weal or against a public weal, and
1521 and again by the
, psychological motives of the pro­ genealogy of Count Baldwin I of such deeds be either deeds of war,
Italian Polydore Vergil tagonists, or long term political, Flanders, in particular anticipated of peace. or else sedition and con­
in his History of Great societal, economic or environ­ its form as its compilers attempted spiracy' in his The Trne Order and
Britain of 1534. mental forces. This scepticism to comprehend the political com­ Methode of Wryting and Reading
particularly extends to the super­ plexities, which emerged with the Hystories of 1574. l61 Anything
natural and mythical. usurpation of Robert le Frison in that departed from such lofty mat­
It began in the sixteenth I 070 and the murder of Charles ters was ruthlessly excluded.
century with Erasmus and the Bol­ the Good in 1127. [4] In general, These damned subjects, according
landists, who, when writing the however, the medieval approach to to John Trussell, another Tudor
lives of saints, such as St. Jerome, history was very different. The historiographer, included celebra­
broke with medieval hagiography predominant form of historical tions like coronations and pag­
by excluding the pious legends, writing was the chronicle, in eants, as well as novelties, prodi­
which had gradually built up which events for each year were gies and justice done on petty of­
around their subjects' over the noted with varying degrees of de­ fenders, a list which effectively
centuries, concentrating instead on tail and interest in the causation excludes most of the subject mat­
contemporary descriptions and re­ and motives of the participants. By ter of today's tabloid newspapers.
cords offering far more reliable and large the chroniclers had little Naturally, these subjects still re­
accounts of their careers. This his-: interest in the ultimate motives of mained immensely popular, par­
toriographical disenchantment also their subjects, and where they do ticularly amongst the lower orders.
affected national mythology. Geof­ attempt to probe their psychology, Although overtaken by
frey of Monmouth 's spurious ac­ their descriptions are often curt the historical monograph as the
count of the origins of the British and stereotyped. premier vehicle of historical in-
5
quiry, the chronicle still survived vate houses, quite often as a tion with 17th century radicalism
and retained considerable popular­ means of supporting themselves by still remain in the alternative
ity. Raphael Holinshed's Chroni­ people newly arrived in a city or press. Aporia Press, for example,
cle, although first published in unable to fmd more respectable publish a range of 17th century
1577, enjoyed a second edition ten work, serving home-brewed ale radical tracts by the visionaries
years later, and the genre contin­ and quite often acting as brothels. Abiezer Coppe, John Robins and
ued into the reign of James INI With his background in such a no­ the Diggers, amongst others, as
with Sir Richard Baker's Chroni­ toriously immoral profession, it is well as F ortean material in the
cles of the Kings of England. Part not surprising that the respectable Anomalous Phenomena of the In­
of this popularity derived from the sections of Jacobean and Stuart terregnum, all edited by Andrew
chronicles' perceived suitability as society viewed Parker's literary Hopton, as well as more contem­
a vehicle for such damned sub­ creations, and those of others like porary radical and anarchist mate­
jects, even though this made it him, with distaste and suspicion. rial. As well as absorbing these
dangerously suspicious in the eyes authors' attitude to the numinous
of the Tudor ruling elite. Edmund Not unsurprisingly, such and occult, the ideologues of the
Bolton declared that their writers unofficial literature, aimed se­ new counterculture also took over,
were 'of the dregs of the common curely at the working classes, en­ to a greater or lesser extent, their
people', [7] and considered that joyed considerable popularity dur­ attitude to history. This is effec­
they had a corrupting influence on ing periods of social and political tively illustrated by the emergence
them. How many of these de­ unrest, such as the English Civil of contemporary psychogeography
praved mechanics actually read War. The 17th century collector from the ley-hunting milieu in the
Holinshed is actually quite moot George Thomason amassed 22 early 90's.
due to books' high cost even a pamphlets in 1640. By 1660 this Sixties ley hunting was 1 X, ed., Charles Fort's Book of the
century after the introduction of had grown to include 22,000 as­ essentially the hybrid child of Chi­ Damned, John Brown Publishing, 1995, p.
printing to England. The Chroni­ sorted pamphlets, newspapers and nese geomancy and Alfred Wat­ 1.
cle, for example, cost twice the newssheets. [8] Although such kin's 'Old Straight Track(s)'.
annual wages of the average literature has been extensively From being merely the neglected 2 For a more comprehensive discussion of
the development of Renaissance historiog­
Elizabethan labourer. Eventually studied by historians attempting to remains of Neolithic tracks and
raphy and its break ¥.1th medieval attitudes
the gap between such official and trace the theological and political pathways -damned by establish­
to history, see Burke, P., The Renaissance
unofficial history was to widen doctrines expounded in them, it is ment archaeology, but not invested
Sense of the Past, London, Edward Arnold,
still further so that such subjects often overlooked that purely theo­ with any special numinous power 1969.
were banished completely from logical tracts were very much in -leys became indigenous British
history to form their own separate the minority. The majority of dragonlines, mysterious channels 3 Moo re, A., The Highbury Working: A Beat
literature of marvels, such as A chapbooks during the period of the of supernatural Earth energies, en­ Seance, RE:, REPCD03, 1997.
World of Wonders, and thence to English Civil War were very much folding the landscape in a web of
4 Discussed more fully in Dunbabin, J.,
haunt the literary margins of concerned with relating the latest occult architecture and power.
'Discovering a Past for the French Aristoc­
broadside ballads and chapbooks. wonder or prodigy to appear to the Instrumental in the de­
racy' in Magdalino, P., (ed), The Perception
Such street literature was beleaguered nation. This did not, velopment of such ideas was the
of the Past in Twelfth Century Europe,
immensely popular. Although it's however, mean that their authors archaeologist and paranormal in­ London, Hambledon Press, 1992.
possible to read too much into its were not concerned with making a vestigator T.C. Lethbridge, whose
existence, with some historians particular political or sectarian dowsing experiments led him into 5 'Introduction', Kelley, D.R., and Sacks,
perhaps discerning nascent class point. The pamphlet A Miracle of increasingly bizarre occult specu­ D.H., The Historical Imagination in Early
conflicts and antagonisms in them Miracles Wrought by the Blood of lation on the nature of witchcraft, Modern Britain: History, Rhetoric and Fic­
tion, 1500-1800, Cambridge University
which really only emerged later in King Charles the First recounted and the origins of ghosts and gen­
Press, 1997.
the 18th and 19th centuries, some the miraculous cure of the 14-15 ius loci in emotionally charged
of the authorities' fears about their year old daughter of one Mrs. images and events becoming tele­
6 Quoted in Helgerson, R., 'Murder in Fav­
subversive nature was by no Baillie from a skin disease after pathically imprinted on the fabric ersham: Holinshed's Impertinent History', in
means unjustified. Most chapbook being wiped by a handkerchief that of the landscape itself Bruce Kelley, and Sacks, op. cit., p. 147.
authors were anonymous, but the had been dipped in the king's Cathie's notion of the global en­
identities of a few have come blood after his execution. ergy web as a power system for 71bid, p. 147.
down to us. While not quite 'the Needless to say, not a few of these UFOs is essentially an application
8 Friedman, J., Miracles and the Pulp Press
dregs of the common people', tracts were distinctly radical in of this idea to the UFO mythos.
during the English Revolution-The Battle
these men certainly did not occupy tone, qualities that made them Much the same can be said of the
of the Frogs and Fairford's Flies, UCL,
an elevated position in society. immensely attractive to the nascent idea, espoused inter alia by Arthur
London, 1993.
The Elizabethan chap­ hippy New Left when it appeared Shuttlewood, that the quartz con­
book author Thomas Deloney in the 60's. To the intellectuals of tained in the constituent rocks of 9 See Shuttlewood, A., The Flying Saucer­
(1543-1600), for example, was a the dawning counterculture, react­ the ancient henge monuments al­ ers, Sphere, London, 1976, pp. 27-32.
weaver, John Taylor (1580-1653), ing against capitalism and the sti­ low them to operate like the crys­
the most prolific of such writers, fling rationalism, which supported tals in early cat' s whisker radios,
was a Thames waterman and a it, such radical pamphlets repre­ regulating the earth energies gen­
tavern keeper in Oxford and Lon­ sented an autonomous, folk litera­ erated along such leys. [9] This,
don, while going further down the ture offering vital models and however, is an attempt to put a ra­
social scale his contemporary Mar­ ideologies for the alternative soci­ tionalist, scientific gloss on what
tin Parker (d. 1656) was an ale­ ety they wished to found. Even is essentially an occult doctrine.
house keeper. Unlike the more re­ nearly forty years after the coun­ Although such ideas
spectable taverns, alehouses were terculture has morphed into the have now been effectively discred­
particularly regarded with suspi­ less confrontational, far more ited, they have still left their mark,
cion by the early modem middle capitalism-friendly 'alternative particularly in popular literature.
class. They were situated in pri- culture', vestiges of this fascina- The idea of the henge monuments,
6
barrows and other Neolithic sacred of Gomrath. while time itself is bouts in the name of the London
sites as a primitive power grid for fluid and permeable. His youthful, Psychogeographical Association,
lost, antediluvian civilisations has and sometimes more mature he­ whose pamphlet claimed that
been taken up in the 2000 AD roes can be transported back into various architectural features of
comic strip, 5,'/aine, whose Celtic the past during timeslips, while the metropolis had been con­
hero draws on it to provide him mythic figures from the Celtic sciously planned by the Freema­
with supernatural strength and fe­ dreamtirne may intrude into the sons and other covert occult
rocity during terri tying 'warp-. present. Some of this is a fantas- groups to form patterns channel­
tication of Garner's ling ley energy into Canary Whart:
own experiences thus aiding the secret power elite
growing up in the Peak in their quest for world domina­
district, in an area of tion. This particular document ap­
awesome natural pears to have been intended
beauty populated. in largely as a prank. A few years
his own words. by previously, Neil Gaiman and Terry
'people of living Pratchett in their book Good
Chauccrian speech·. Omens rather mischievously sug­
Outside of gested that the course of the M25.
the province of chil­ or London Orbital Motorway, was
dren's literature, it's deliberately planned as a giant Sa­
possible to discern the tanic sigil, energised each day by
continuing legacy of the angry passage of thousands of
such mystic attitudes irate motorists who thus uncon­
to place in the current sciously performed an occult ritual
vogue for Chinese designed to raise the level of mis­
geomancy proper, now ery and rage in contemporary Brit­
robbed of its cultural am.
context and domesti­ The outre claims about
cated, in line with the the Masonic architecture of Canary
rest of the New Age Wharf seems to be influenced by
marketing phenome­ Gaiman 's and Pratchett 's joke.
non, as a tweely mysti­ though a number of people sig­
cal indoor decorating nally failed to get it. There thus
fad. followed a series of articles in
Lcy hunting some of the wilder reaches of the
itself, however, practi­ weird press examining various
spasm' battle rages. The effects of cally collapsed in the late 1980s global capitals for signs of Ma­
these are not unlike the physical under rationalist criticisms of the sonic and occult symbolism in
contortions experienced by the spuriousness of its methods and their layout. One issue of Matthew
Irish hero Cu Chulainn. Elsewhere concepts. The ancient alignments Williams' Tmthseekers· Review
in the strip such energies are used of which leys were allegedly carried an interview with a Czech
to propel merchant vessels through composed were often widely sepa­ researcher who traced Masonic
The course of the the sky, and power 'lcyser' ray rated in time and purpose, while patterns and designs in the layout
M25 was deliberately guns. Throughout, the strip is some of the supposed geographical of Prague, while similar symbol­
planned as a giant strongly informed by a pagan features sculpted by the ancients ism has been found in that of
Satanic sigil, spirituality centred firmly on were nothing of the sort, but mod­ Washington DC. In the case of the
energised each day Danu, the Earth Mother. cm railway embankments, roads latter, the designs are almost cer­
Less obviously neo­ and drainage ditches. The result tainly there, as much of the city's
by the angry passage
pagan, but no less informed by the was the discrediting of this coun­ layout was indeed planen d accord­
of thousands of irate
nurninous power of place, are the tercultural discipline as a whole, ing to Masonic principles. Unfor­
motorists who thus
works of Alan Gamer. As a recent and some of the more notorious of tunately for those versions of the
performed an occult
review of his latest book in the its products in particular, such as theory, which see such evidence of
ritual to raise the level pages of the Financial Times re­ the infamous Glastonbury Zodiac. Masonic influence, as the marks of
of misery and rage in view supplement noted, Gamer It should be recognised, however, an oppressive, Fascistic conspira­
Britain was strongly influenced by the that despite these criticisms the torial elite, one of the city's plan­
Aboriginal Australian idea of the discipline still retains its intellec­ ners, Benjamin Banneker, was
songlines-tracts of landscape tual validity for some, and the So­ Black. To him Freemasonry, rather
forged and shaped by the super­ ciety of Leyhunters continues to than being an oppressive, elitist
human ancestors of the Dream­ meet and publish its researches. force, probably represented the
time, and still invested with their Furthermore, some en­ beginning of a new, more demo­
awesome power, accessible to thusiasts carried on to apply the cratic order of universal brother­
their descendants as they travel same techniques of searching the hood and freedom, regardless of
across their ancestral ranges landscape for patterns connecting colour or ethnic origin.
through myth and ritual. Gamer's disparate features to the urban en­ Going further into the
landscapes are similarly invested vironment, in which the bulk of realm of art, psychogeography has
with occult force, occupied and the western European population inspired groups of people to go out
haunted as they are by powerful now live. The result was psycho­ and explore the mystic, visionary
and predatory supernatural entities geography. The term first seems to aspects of the urban landscape.
such as The Morrigan in the Moon have emerged c.1 992 or therea- Moore's 'Beat Seance', referred to
7
above. is a case in point. At least churches he was commissioned to that of the origins of the British
in its CD form, it's an hour long build. As with the landscape fea­ people from Brutus the Trojan.
exploration of the weirder aspects tures around Canary Wharf, these Camden included this, along with
of Highbwy and its denizens, in­ lined up into a distinct, conscious much other legendary material,
cluding Coleridge's drug-induced pattern: a pentangle. Ackroyd uses which has made his work invalu­
hallucinatory peregrinations, Aleis­ the fictional Hawksmoor's life, able to folklorists and historians
ter Crowley's residence, Joe and that of a twentieth century de­ investigating the enchanted world­
Meek's suicide and the 1923 tective of the same name, investi­ view of early modem Europe.
football team's brief experimenta­ gating a series of bizarre and mo­ He wasn't alone. Roger
tion with amphetamines, then le­ tiveless murders, to explore the Sherringham, one of his successors
gal, to assist their game, inter alia, depths of human evil. in the 17th century, also shared his
all linked by their location in Not all of Ackroyd's belief in the British people's noble
Highbury and grouped themati­ work has shared this pessimism, descent. David Lanthone, one of
cally according to the occult ele­ however. One critic of Ackroyd's the pioneering antiquaries of
ments of Earth, Air, Fire and Wa­ oeuvre remarked that as well as Anglo-Saxon England, believed in
ter. As a piece of performance art, occult horror, he had 'also revived the historicity of King Arthur.
an exploration of the bizarre local the myth of Albion as a spiritual While there are a number of histo­
history of one of London's sub­ possibility wherein all the horrors rians today who share his belief,
urbs by a master of contemporary and indignities of history are not to mention the legions of lay
high strangeness, it works very somehow healed in a timeless people devoted to the 'once and
well. according to your taste. To paradise that draws in the dark and future king' through the enduring
his credit, Moore doesn ·t take the light and transforms it into charm of medieval literature, if
psychogeography's academic pre­ Blakean chorale of love and rec­ mediated by Hollywood and a myr­
10 Hedgecock, 'The lain Sinclair Interview',
tensions too seriously, wittily de­ onciliation.' ll21 Given these psy­ iad popular retellings, none would
The Edge, no. 6, December 1997-January
scribing himself and his fellow chogeographical inclinations, argue that the classic treatments of 1998, p. 19.
performers as: 'Rosicrucian heat­ however, it is no accident that the myth in Geoffrey of Moo­
ing engineers ... cowboy opera­ Sinclair subtitled his most recent mouth, Chretien de Troyes or 11 /bid, p. 14.
tives ... read(ing) the street plan ·s book, a travelogue about the M25, Thomas Mallory are anything
accidental creases and the orbit a chorography. other than glorious fictions. Lan­ 12 Newman, P., 'The Art of Shadows', 3rd
Stone, no. 44, Autumn 2002, p. 33.
maps left by coffee cups.· Moore This was the study of thone was a pioneer, so it is too
intended it as art. and a mystical local history with particular refer­ much to be expected that he
evocation of the spirit of a distinct ence to its surviving physical re­ should prefigure completely the
place. It is not. however. intended mains. Although the classic Eng­ attitudes of later generations of
as a work of serious history. lish chorographical works ap­ more sceptical scholars.
Other artists influenced peared in the 16th and 17th centu­ Not all scholars, how­
by the mindset and techniques of ries, with William Camden 's Bri­ ever, were quite so content to fol­
psychogeography in their work are tannia of 1586 as one of the low Geoffrey of Monmouth's line.
lan Sinclair and Peter Ackroyd. foremost examples of the genre, Aylet Samme, for example, argued
Sinclair has stated in interviews like the other forms of historical in his Britannia antiqua illustrata
that he believes 'there are always writing it, too had its origin in of 1676 that the British, far from
these structures of domination and renaissance Italy. It first emerged being Trojan in descent, were in­
power and spirits. which can be in the Roman world with Ptolemy, stead Phoenician. [13) While
articulated for ill within the grids, before being revived in 1453 by Samme is equally mistaken, he
patterns and geometry of the city.· Flavio Biondo with the publication was correct in seeking an ethnic
He did. however, reject the idea of his Italy Illustrated. This de­ origin for the British beyond the
that there ·was a sub-masonic cult scribed the classical remains and time-hallowed fictions of Moo­
that meet(s) in hidden rooms', antiquities surviving in the Italian mouth. His selection of the Phoe­
considering instead that 'just the peninsula, itemised according to nicians as the ancestral stock is by
sheer fact of people endlessly hav­ its 14 ancient regions. It was no means inexcusable, if you con­
ing walked between this building enormously popular, and once sider that the Phoenicians are still
and that building creates a band of published. national pride dictated believed to have traded with the
consciousness which remains an that other scholars outside Italy Cornish for tin. It is also possible
active thing you can tap into.' llOI would produce similar works to to see Samme · s theories as the
His acute concern with demonstrate the antiquity of their precursor to the more bizarre al­
the mystical impact of the land­ lands. Thus, Conrad Celtis, the ternative histories and archaeolo­
scape informs works such as his poet a laureatus of the German gies of the 19th century, which
Lud Heat. while his 1997 Lights emperor Maxirnilian I, produced traced the descent of the British to
Out for the Territory, has been his Germany Illustrated in the the lost tribes of Israel and even
described as 'an non-fiction diary later fifteenth century, followed in ancient Egyptians, ideas which
of nine walks charting London's England by Camden 's volume, persist even to this day amongst
mythology, secret history and amongst others. These were in­ certain sections of society.
counterculture.' [1 1] Similarly, tended to show that Britain, too, It is also far less bizarre
Ackroyd's Hawksmoor was based could boast impressive Roman than some of the works of ethnol­
on the conceit that the 17th -18th remains like her continental rivals. ogy, which arose later in the 18th
century architect, fictionalised as Myths die hard, and the century, such as The Antiquities of
Nicholas Dyer, was a secret mem­ atmosphere of patriotism, in which Nations, by D.D. Pezron, abbot of
ber of a Satanic coven, surrepti­ these works were produced, mili­ La Charmoye, and translated into
tiously incorporating his occult tated against the exclusion of fa­ English by a Mr. Jones in 1706. In
designs into the fabric of the vourite national myths, such as this the reverend gentleman traced
8
the origins of the Celtic peoples and writers attempted to explore clamp down on the Cathars, which
back to the Scythians, then to the the new intellectual and social ho­ gained a considerable degree of
Biblical patriarch Gomer, and ul­ rizons afforded by the artificial, admiring attention from the litter­
timately to the Old Testament built environment of towns. A ma­ ateurs of the highbrow press, is the
nephalim, the children of the rebel jor part of this was the explora­ classic example of their anthropo­
angels who intermarried with the tions of urban space, which con­ logical approach to history.
daughters of men. fl4 J stitute so much of contemporary This includes a close
Cultural Studies. Pio­ examination of the mentalite -the
mi!WlMl UifiWOOi'imOOI neered by French worldview -of past ages. The An­
post-modem philoso­ nales historians pioneered this
phers, such as Georges with Marc Bloch ·s 1924 study of
Bataille 's influential the 16th and 17th centuries· popu­
Against Architecture, lar belief in the efficacy of the
students of contempo­ royal touch as a cure for Scrofula,
rary culture interro­ Le rois thaumaturges. In the 90s
gated the architecture these historians became increas­
and layout of cities ingly concerned with ·cultures of
and urban spaces for memory·, the national and local
the concrete embodi­ historical consciousnesses linking
ment they appeared to particular architectural sites and
give to deep societal places, such as the Bastille, with
notions of authority, politics and the social creation of
class, gender, and ra­ such collective memories. The
cial identity. Possibly classic example of this new ap­
this concern with the proach to history is Pierre Norat' s
built environment re­ 1996 The Realms ofMemory. A
flects Postrnodemism ·s vital part of this new approach to
own origins in archi­ historical consciousness of towns
tecture in the 1950s, in included cataloguing and noting
which contemporary historical monuments, like statues,
architects quoted the war memorials and so on for what
features of historic these said about cities' self-image
schools of building in and the type of past they wished to
their modem works. celebrate and evoke. The differ­
One rather more con­ ence between the official, aca­
Although firmly en­ temporary example of this is One demic exploration of such local
trenched in the traditional view of Redclifie Street in Bristol, a mod­ and national historical conscious­
the ethnogenesis of the British, em office building, which is nev­ ness and those of the psychogeo­
Camden nevertheless was a mod­ ertheless constructed to resemble a graphical counterculturc is essen­
em historian in that he considered medieval fortress, with projections tially philosophical -rationalist
the primary role of the historian to suggesting barbicans and watch­ and philosophical materialist on
explain, rather than merely de­ towers. the one hand, and mystical and
scribe the past. Away from such These decades saw the occult on the other. The methodol­
national concerns, other historians appearance of urban history as a ogy pursued -the interrogation of
of the same period were actively distinct historiographical genre as monuments, street plans and
trying to reinstate other legendary a part of this new intellectual ori­ names, and commemorative events
figures back into history. Thus, entation towards towns and their -is the same.
arguments were made for the his­ citizens. Naturally, this also in­ Indeed, the concerns of
Peter Ackroyd's toricity of such worthies as Guy of cluded an examination of cities· both groups overlap to such an ex­
Hawksmoor is based Warwick, and Robin Hood. The own self-conscious attitudes to the tent that it's probable that in addi­
on the conceit that the latter even enjoyed the privilege of past, and the creation of a com­ tion to both being related as prod­
architect, fictionalised having his genealogy drawn up by mon heritage and historical iden­ ucts of the zeitgeist, there may
William Jackson, a Yarmouth Cus­ tity for their citizens. Although by well have been some direct influ­
as Nicolas Dyer, was
toms Master, in the 17th century no means confined solely to the ence between the two groups. A
a secret member of a
in an ultimately mistaken attempt Continent, this new trend in his­ glance at the stock of radical
Satanic coven,
to establish the existence of the torical inquiry was particularly bookshops such as Counterproduc­
incorporating occult
great outlaw. [15] The new strong in France, pioneered as it tions, demonstrates that the coun­
designs into the fabric chorographers of the psychogeo­ was by the third generation of tcrcultural fringe still absorbs and
of the churches he graphical fringe took over their academic historians associated devours works by radical, profes­
built fascination with folklore and leg­ with the Anna/es School. This sional academics, as well as the
end, as well as the physical, archi­ highly respected French historical far less academically respectable
tectural environment in their his­ journal had been instrumental in tomes on alien conspiracies and so
torical researches. introducing the methods and aims forth. Since the late 1980s some
This was not an isolated of the social sciences into histori­ ley hunters did incorporate the
concern. Psychogeography ap­ cal research since its foundation in methods and objectives of main­
peared at the same time as a more 1929. Montaillou, Emmanuel stream archaeology in their re­
general intellectual flourishing of a LeRoy Ladurie's 1974 study of a search. It is therefore not remotely
new urban consciousness in the 14th century southern French town impossible that some psychogeo­
80s and 90s, in which academics during the Inquisition's attempt to graphers have similarly been di-
9
rectly influenced by the academic academic investigations of the ghosts and other tales of the para­
explorations of the cultures of universities. normal, with particular reference
memory. On the academic side of Although the dichotomy to surviving monuments, land­
the divide, even if the new histo­ between psychogeography and re­ scape features or buildings in the
rians of collective memory were lated folk history and mythopoeia locality.
not members of the counterculture, and the academic and public his­ As for those works pro­
drawn to the re-enchanted land­ tories interrogated and forged by duced by academic folklorists,
scape of the hippy imagination, the the universities and community such as Jennifer Westwood's Al­
grov.1.h of such movements under heritage organisation clearly exist, bion: A Guide to Legendary Brit­
the wider milieu of popular culture the boundaries between them is ain of 1986, these are truly chore­
has clearly influenced their deci­ blurred and porous. As has often graphies in all but name. This par­
sion to explore the historical con­ been clearly demonstrated by aca­ ticular book, like Biondo 's pio­
sciousness of which they are a demic trends since the 1960's, last neering Italian study of the 15th
part. year· s student rebel may well be­ century, divides its subject matter
Of course. there has come tomorrow's university chan­ into its constituent topographical
been more than an element of cellor and celebrated cultural guru. regions, and itemises the folkloric
radical politics involved in this. Today's academic environment features of each -tales of heroes,
Psychogeography tends to adopt a may be particularly receptive to giants, ghosts, fairies, witches and
radicaJly anti-authoritarian stance the bizarre and transgressive. For demonic visitations -according to
in its attempt to rediscover the bi­ example, David Cronenberg's dis­ the locations within these broader
zarre. forbidden and transgressive. turbing cinematic treatment of J.G. areas in which they occurred,
So too do more academic investi­ Ballard's Crash, which provoked complete with brief notes at the
gations of the historic environ­ outrage and moral panic amongst end of each episode giving the
13 See Salmon, J.H.M., 'Precept, Example,
ment. In America. particularly, Daily Mail readers about a decade map references and road directions and Truth: Degory Wheare and the Ars His­
such explorations of urban history ago. has been the subject of a to the site of the described events. torica', in Kelley and Sacks, op. cif.,
have been closely linked to at­ book by Sinclair, published by the A similar approach, pp.11-38.
tempts by local community groups British Film Institute, and an aca­ though without the traffic direc­
and multicultural organisations to demic seminar, Crash Cultures, tions, was adopted by Reader· s 14 See the discussion of the book in Hunt,
R., The Orolls, Traditions and Superstitions
reclaim the history of urban spaces partly organised by UWE in Bris­ Digest thirteen years before in
of Old Cornwall (Popular Romances of the
occupied by members of ethnic tol. Back to psychogeography and their own volume on Folklore.
West of England}, First Series, Llanerch
minorities and other marginalized urban occultism. Ackroyd's Myths and Legends ofBritain. The
facsimile reprint, 1993, p. 39.
social groups. This has led to the Hawksmoor has been read by stu­ only difference between these
creation of a number of Black dents at the universities of modem chorographies and those 15 Wood, D.R., 'Little Crosby and the Hori­
heritage sites and museums in the Gloucester and the West of Eng­ of the new antiquarians and psy­ zons of Early Modern Historical Culture', in
USA. particularly in the South, land for their degrees, though as chogeographers, such as Sinclair, Kelley and Sacks, op. cit.
and in Britain the 'Slave Trail' part of their English courses. is that the latter explicitly describe
along Bristol docks set up by Dr. rather than history. themselves as such. consciously
Madge Dresser. a historian of the Moreover. the antiquar­ harking back to their 17th century
slave trade in Bristol at the Uni­ ian discourse and literary style predecessors. Even this, however,
versity of the West of England. employed by the Earth Mysteries is hardly an exclusive trait. The
amongst other projects. milieu were by no means confined long, flowing locks of the histo­
More specifically de­ to the alternative culture. Although rian. Ronald Hutton, and his in­
\'Oted to the mythic environment superceded as the accepted vehicle terest in popular religion, folklore
of cities has been the rise of the of learned historiography since the and myth, certainly recall 17th
folkloric genre of the 'urban leg­ 16th century, the chronicle as a century antiquarians such as
end· and academic societies. such popular genre has never reaJly Stukely and John Aubrey. rather
as the International Society for gone away. A glance along the than the less flamboyant denizens
Contemporary Legend Research history shelves of most large book of more contemporary campuses.
(ISCLR) devoted to their study. shops will show the persistence of The traffic directions
Although the notion of a distinctly this particular form of historical contained in the books indicate
urban folklore dates to the 19th writing in the form of large, pro­ both their intended readership and
century. when French folklorists fusely illustrated popular histories the modem sensibility informing
attempted to establish that cities itemising national or global events their exploration of the past. They­
also had their folkloric traditions year by year. More often than not 're essentially products of the new
in a move away from the concen­ these popular. coffee-table histo­ age of mass tourism made avail­
tration on those of the rural peas­ ries indeed explicitly describe able by the rise of cheap motor
antry. it was only with the appear­ themselves as such. transport. Although such books
ance of the lSCLR and similar or­ As for chorographies, a may cull much of their contents
ganisations around the beginning fair number of local history and from the various tomes on local
of the 90s that they became a folklore books, such as those pro­ folklore penned by eminent Victo­
separate subject of institutional duced in the West Country by rians -extracts from various
research. at about the same time Bossiney Press, in Liverpool by chapters of Robert Hunt's Ro­
Cultural Studies' scholars and so­ the Bluecoat Press and in East An­ mances of the West of England
cial historians were similarly in­ glia by Jarrold Colour Publica­ have been published separately as
\'estigating the social phenomenon tions. can reasonably be described a booklet on Cornwall's ghosts
of urbanism. Psychogeography is as such. Written for the popular, and folklore, for example [ 161 -
merely the underground expression rather than academic market, these their real ancestors are the calen­
of this wider cultural trend, the recount episodes from local history dars, nature guides and local his­
Gnostic shadow of the respectable and folklore, usually witchcraft, tory books produced by the petrol
10
company Shel I in the 1950s and were shared by a number of small tion certainlv has been levelled at
196-s. Like these later volumes_ press countercultural magazines. particular expressions of it with
these guides also stressed the im­ such as The Edge, which carried some degree of justification, as has
portance of local folklore in the features and interviews with them. been done of other forms of popu­
legends and history of the areas This magazine_ describ­ lar history within the heritage mi­
they covered, an attitude summed ing itself as a vehicle for ·modem lieu, when one considers that one
up in their advertising slogan_ imaginative urban stories for today small press magazine, Pegasus
·Here you can relive legend a�d and tomorrow·_ I I 81 was devoted declared Wo king mosque as a
history on the spot.- to experimental and genre fiction - ·Icy-centre-. ll9] Of course, by
Peter Wright. one of the crime. SF. horror and slipstream. very definition as a place of relig­
most trenchant critics of the mod­ Moore and Sinclair in their inter­ ious worship the mosque clearly
cm heritage industry. has criticised views for the magazine discussed was already a sacred site. though
these books for using 'the evoca­ their attitudes towards occultism its designation as such by those
-
tive gibberish of authenticity. r 171 and the changing topography of particular devotees of Earth Mys­
Shell's books have been particu­ the metropolis. The mentalite ex­ teries indicated its acceptance as
larly criticised by the Left for their pressed there, however_ was one of part of the British mythic land­
apparent appropriation of British intense alienation towards the cul­ scape through its location within a
historical identity to serve their tural and spiritual hegemony of the putative indigenous. British mysti­
own commercial interests, as well ruling elite, and particularly their cal topography. A concern with
as promoting bourgeois cultural appropriation of whole sections of the ancient and antique demon­
hegemony by expressing British London's built environment in the strably does not necessarily mean
history and heritage in the dis­ creation of privatised commercial an automatic rejection of the mod­
course of middle class values and areas, shopping arcades and busi­ cm or foreign.
16 Hunt, R., Cornish Legends, Tor Mark
attitudes. ness districts. For them, the classic As for professional folk­
Press, undated.
It ·s a criticism, which example of t�is was the Isle of lorists, such as Wcstwood. al­
17 Wright, P., 'Trafficking in History', in has, with various degrees of justi­ Dogs, imagined in Sinclair's though they may also write for the
Boswell, D., and Evans, J., eds, Represent­ fication, been levelled at the na­ Downriver as the Isle of Doges_ a popular market and come from
ing the Nation: A Reader-Histories, Heri­ tional concern with heritage whole privatised capitalist Vatican. J.G. middle class backgrounds -West­
tage and Museums, Routledge, London, and especially its expression in Ballard, the magazine ·s culture wood's citation in Albion of Man­
1999,p.132, commerce and industry. ln the hero, has made a large part of his agement Kinetics. by Carl Duerr as
eyes of commentators such as Pe­ literary career from exploring the the source of one quotation cer­
18 Entry for 'The Edge' in Writers' & Artists'
ter Wright, Robert Hewison and detrimental moral and spiritual ef­ tainly seems to indicate this in her
Yearbook 2000, A. & C. Black, London,
David Lowenthal, the heritage in­ fects of the privatisation of such case- it cannot by any means be
2000, p. 45.
dustry acts as a retrograde social public spaces in the institutional taken as read that they share in
19 'News from the Front' in McCiure, K., The mechanism by which the patrician violence of fictional gated com­ toto the class attitudes ascribed to
Wild Places-The Journal of Strange and upper classes use the past to p:o­ munities, from High-Rise in the them by the critics of the heritage
Dangerous Beliefs, no. 7, p. 26. duce a spurious sense of national 1960's to his Cocaine Nights of a industry on the Left. Westwood.
cultural identity, stifling working few years ago. Ballard. however. for example, explicitly discusses
20 Hedgecock, A., op. crt., p. 19.
class and feminist dissent and ex­ writes from a High Tory perspec­ the origins and historicity of many
21 Devereaux, P., '30 Years of Earth Myster­ cluding the contributions of ethnic tive, against the encroaching suf­ of the legends she recounts in Al­
ies' in Fortean Times, FT 177 Special2003, minorities. The particular example focation of the Nanny State. rather hion_ while professional folklor­
p. 25. seized on by British writers is the than that of the alienated. class­ ists. like other researchers in the
use made by the British upper conscious radical Left. It is. how­ humanities, may be intensely con­
classes to attract support for the ever, the viewpoint of the Tory scious of the effects of class poli­
preservation of their country seats anarchist, rather than the blue­ tics in their subject. One section of
and traditional privileges, as the rinsed guardians of national pro­ the folklore milieu has. since be­
cornerstone of British heritage, priety who seem to constitute fore the Second World War_ been
both historical and architectural. much of the readership of the intensely interested in its subject
Although the choro­ Daily Mail. as an expression and instrument of
graphies of local history publish­ The model for their ex­ working class politics and cultural
ing and national folklore are plorations of the urban environ­ identity. in direct opposition to the
aimed, at least partially, at the ment is not the prosperous bour­ establishment culture of the patri­
same tourist market, it is ex­ geois day-tripper, but the alienated cian elite. This section of the
tremely problematic whether such jlaneur, who stalks through the folklore movement is unsurpris­
accusations could be reasonably city watching the courts and ingly quite politicised. as demon­
levelled at them. The psychogeo­ squares of new, unknown locations strated by the career of British folk
graphical fringe is still the product unfold before him. Their model of musicians such as Ewan McColl.
of 1960's countercultural radical­ the urban tourist is Thomas De More generally in folk­
ism, however attenuated, a feature Quincey and his drug-fuelled loristics. the effects of the Merrie
which led Private Eye's scathing peregrinations through the me­ England and related societies in
review of Sinclair· s book on the tropolis, a narcotic exploration cleaning up British folklore and
M25 to refer sneeringly to the that, if written today, would al­ using it to present a false image of
author 'and his aging, anarcho­ most certainly incur the intense class reconciliation and national
hippy friends,- a description which displeasure of the custodians of prosperity has long been recog­
could also be fairly applied to British moral rectitude. It is also nised. Moreover, folklorists- own
Alan Moore, whose image is very especially difficult to suggest that criticism that this movement was
much that of the hippy weirdo. this kind of folkloric topographical essentially nostalgic, looking back
Sinclair's and Moore's urban and occultism is, as a whole, racist or to an imaginary former world of
psychogeographical sensibilities xenophobic, although the accusa- happy prosperous tenants, super-