P is For Prostitution

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An A-Z of a harsh life survived
Charlotte Rodgers
Illustrated by Ruth Ramsden

P is for Prostitution
An A to Z of a harsh life survived
Charlotte Rodgers
ISBN: 978-1-906958-26-8
£15.00 +P&P /US $24.00 +P&P

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‘The way to despair is to refuse to have any kind of experience…’
– Flannery O’Connor

P is for Prostitution is a primer unlike any you will have read before, the ABC approach far from simplistic. Through various episodes the author charts her own insights into addiction and the kind of existence that inevitably goes with this. Each letter marks a step on a journey into the lowest circles of hell in which the “author’s creativity and intellect is misdirected towards a chaotic, nihilistic and devastating existence” (reader’s foreword). There are moments of black comedy, sexual horror, and final, uneasy redemption in which the author reclaims the trajectory of her life.

“. . . the life you lived . . . represents the era you grew up in and the position of women in society and the rules they were expected to live by and the consequences of breaking these rules. Women are often regarded as objects, possessions and are expected to be submissive.” (Jane Hunt)

P is for Prostitution grew out of the author’s exploration of death and ancestral cults. It led her to acknowledge her own past, re-connecting and rescuing a catalogue of youthful dead or missing loved ones. “This was no surprise given the way we lived our lives at that time, but was no less saddening. Whilst the people concerned were not blood relatives, they were part of who I was and very much my family of choice in our shared inability or refusal to accept the terms of mainstream existence.”

“Daddy was an exclamation mark /
exploding on blank walls /
I was a biblioteque hero /
supporting Atlas’ balls /
Roller skating on Freudian slips /
Pussy footing through the fly leafings/
Of fellow social misfits.”

———————-
“Charlotte Rodgers was born in New Zealand.

Her mother was a war baby, abandoned at the Home of Compassion in Wellington and later adopted by a middle class couple with strong Catholic sensibilities and a desire to do good and moral things; a desire that didn’t encompass compassionate and kind child rearing.

Charlotte’s father was Scottish and from a coal mining family, he escaped this background through self education and by joining the merchant navy, and whilst on leave in New Zealand he met and married Charlotte’s mother.

Charlotte was brought up by two creative, intelligent and unstable individuals whose backgrounds created unhappiness and various manifestations of addictive and compulsive behaviours.

The family constantly moved house, the mother was addicted to a huge amount of pills, the father would regularly ‘run away from home’ and there were many times the only stability in Charlotte’s life was when she was sent to live with her grandmother who was rigidly and violently Catholic.

Charlotte was a shy frightened and introverted child and puberty hit her like the proverbial ton of bricks. At age 15 she made several suicide attempts and was put into psychiatric care to be treated for bulimia, a condition that would stay with her for many years.

She also developed addictions to alcohol and drugs, including heroin, and necessarily worked as a prostitute to fund the habit whilst living a peripheral existence travelling through Australia, Asia and Europe, before settling in England.


After 19 years as an active addict (15 of them as an IV user) she cleaned up with the help of various institutions and agencies, and eventually was able to take the risk to go back to what she always wanted to do; creating art and writing.”

Charlotte is author and editor of The Bloody Sacrifice and
co-editor of The Contemporary Western Book of The Dead, both published by Mandrake.

——————-

Illustrated by Ruth Ramsden

——————–

Daddy was an exclamation mark, exploding on blank walls,
I was a biblioteque hero, supporting Atlas’ balls,
Rolling skating on Freudian slips,
Pussy footing through the fly leafings
Of fellow social misfits.

Well read, intellectually fed neurosis,
Genetically perfected psychosis
Penis Envy
Poison Ivy
Piss and Raving.
Something in the woodshed gave you a fright,
Rumplestiltskin will tell you anytime
Its prick is worse than its bite.

Go-go virgins in discotheque cages
Venus in politically unsound furs
Lectures on the latest psychoanalytical magus
Romulus Remus Oedipus
Sucking dugs like common curs.

Psychoanalyse, disembowel and theorise,
Penis Envy Poison Ivy
Something in the woodshed gave you a fright,
Rumplestiltskin will tell you anytime,
Its prick is worse than its bite.

C.Rodgers 1985

Vowels, Consonants and Other Building Blocks: An Introduction
Several years of exploring and writing about death and cults of the ancestors have led to my putting this, more personal book together. As I looked at how necessary acknowledgement of the past can be to solidify the sense of self, both as an individual and a member of a community; flashes of my own, personal history came back to me. I started to re connect with this and found a catalogue of youthful dead and missing loved ones. This was no surprise to me given the way that we lived our lives at that time, but was no less saddening. Whilst the people concerned were not blood relatives, they were part of who I was at that time. They were very much my family of choice in our shared inability or refusal to accept the terms that mainstream existence at that time offered. I decided to reclaim this time and a lost part of myself, by going back and recording some of my rather erratic recollections.

Initially I was worried that writing this could be self-indulgence or an exercise in personal exploration and poor man’s psychoanalysis that shouldn’t be put out to a wider audience.

However the times and places I lived in, and the way I experienced them, hold things which I believe are core to many who struggle to find their place in this strange world.

Putting such a chaotic mass of events into order could have proved an impossibility until it became apparent to me that my early years were very much about finding a set of rules to live by, thus the subtitle, ‘A Modern Primer’.

Using the alphabet to give order to these memories was a continuation of the primer concept and works well for me. My life was not lived in a straight line and my rather scrappy memory would have rebelled against too linear a form of organisation.

The time span this book encompasses is the 1970s to the 1990s and the backdrop moves between Hong Kong, Australia, London and New Zealand.

This was a time when digital watches were rare and expensive things; China was hard line communist and undeveloped; the Internet was unheard of and there was still a wall dividing Berlin. Graphic novels were on the ascent; only the super-rich had credit cards, and AIDS was just a whisper that could kill in its utterance.

When I was diagnosed with bulimia it was a relatively unknown condition that the medical establishment were unsure how to approach.

I cleaned up as crack was just starting to make its presence known and I was already seeing changes it had made in the junkie community.

Drug using rapidly became even more associated with violence, users burned out much more quickly, if they survived.

When I stopped using drugs I was 30 and considered relatively young in the ‘recovery’ community, but 18 years later I see women burned out by the time they are 15 or 16.

I was one of the first waves of people to go into drug and alcohol rehab, and sad to say the women’s only treatment centre I was in, due to lack of funding, no longer exists.

However the core of the experiences in this book isn’t era specific but is more about one individual’s rather rocky road through her early years.

One thing that I feel I should add.

Readers may find my tone to be detached and even perceive a certain lack of emotion. I was and still am an internalised person, something that may have led to some of my problems over the years.

I look at old photographs of myself and I see a lovely looking girl who seemed locked in her own world. Eventually I couldn’t stay in that private place anymore, despite ever increasing amounts of emotion suppressing drugs. When I left rehab I had a graduation of sorts, a ceremony where I was presented with a butterfly brooch. As I was given my pin, Sister Rosemary who ran the home said that when I arrived at the facility I was like the survivor of a serious car crash; locked in trauma.

Walking away from my car crash life, with its explorations, adventures, and ever increasing horror was when I really started to live.

It was a very different world then, but in many respects, the way we all live and develop has not changed at all.

crogers2

Reader’s Comment
‘P is for Prostitution’ is a personal memoir, which explores episodes and experiences from Charlotte Rodgers’ difficult chaotic life, through her childhood and into early adulthood. At times this book made me feel incredibly sad and much of it was alien to my own comfortable, relatively trouble-free youth. However, her story captivated me and I found myself wanting to find out more about the girl being described. Also, as a woman who grew up during the same decades, I recognized the underlying misogyny of the era and the rules that women were expected to observe. Both Charlotte and her mother suffered in different ways because they were unable to live within narrow definitions of womanhood.

The Primer structure works particularly well and gives the impression of bringing order to a fragmented and chaotic existence. It comments on the nature of individual memory that is not linear and makes connections between disparate incidents and episodes. This form enables the reader to think for herself and reflect on how Charlotte’s childhood and formative experiences affect her situation as she grows up.

Throughout P is for Prostitution, despite the chaos of a life dominated by addictions and illnesses, Charlotte remains a creative and intellectually curious person. Her attraction to similar damaged anarchic souls both as friends and lovers can be seen at various points in her book. Near the end she refers to ‘the person from Porlock’, a debt collector who interrupted Coleridge whilst he was writing Kubla Khan. Charlotte writes, “I feel as if I too had a debt collector knocking on the door of my life, and breaking and permanently redirecting my concentration.” The book conveys a real sense that Charlotte’s creativity and intellect was somehow misdirected at a young age towards a nihilistic and savage existence. It also traces the constant, durable thread of spirituality in her life. This is fascinating given her early encounters with Catholicism.

The book powerfully communicates the devastating effect of physical and mental abuse on Charlotte’s whole family. The suffering her parents endured as children impacts on Charlotte’s life and leads to a lack of stability and security when she is growing up. Charlotte too is terrorized as a child whilst under the ‘care’ of her Grandmother. The sexual repression, religious fanaticism and cruelty that lie behind this abuse are horrifying. Children’s lack of power and the lasting consequences of adult neglect and brutality are recurrent themes.

The reader is able to observe how Charlotte’s eating disorders are caused by a desire to gain some control and how the perception that thinness equals happiness and acceptance actually appears to have almost the opposite effect. This is something that all women can relate to at some level. The book also gave me an insight into addiction and the kind of existence that inevitably goes with it. Her experiences are distinctive but they do reflect the times she lived in and the alternative lifestyle that seemed to be offered by the world of drugs and music. The attraction of losing control and finding a different reality is explored. However, the destructive power of addiction ultimately makes life unbearable.

Charlotte’s discussion of sex in P is for Prostitution is thought-provoking and brave. Her unconventional attitudes and approach made me think hard about the way women are condemned and vilified for sexual transgressions. Moreover, it made me consider how women and children are so often the victims of abuse and the hypocrisy that existed about this when we were growing up and still does to a large extent. Women who transgressed the sexual norms or accepted codes of behaviour were seen as to blame for the abuse they suffered, rather than as victims.

Fundamentally, this is a fascinating articulate and engrossing book. It describes experiences and feelings with which many people, especially women, will identify. I think people will enjoy Charlotte’s honesty and will want to read on and find out how she manages to get through and eventually change her life permanently. Charlotte takes you into divergent worlds, often frighteningly disordered; but the creative, compassionate and intelligent woman that she is today, is always there despite the destructive forces in her early life.

Jane Hunt
Librarian
Somerset
*************************************************************************

Mind-Sprung

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AD Harvey
(Crime Fiction)

978-1-906958-67-1b

Mind-Sprung
AD Harvey
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-906958-67-1
£10/US$16
Subjects: Crime Fiction/Entheogens/Counterculture.

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US & Row





An A-Level drop-out graduates from evicting immigrants during the heyday of the inner-city slum landlords during the 1960s to stripping redundant churches during the early 1970s, before moving to northern Sweden equipped only with the proceeds of selling stolen property and some hashish. He finds new sources of hashish even in Sweden but eventually the money runs out, and he returns to London: only to discover it is even worse than when he left.


Eric Naiman, a Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature at Berkeley, in a six-page attack on A.D.Harvey’s multitudinous literary crimes in THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT in 2013, described Harvey’s account of drug-taking and other shenanigans in London and the Swedish Arctic as “unreadable”, but perhaps that was because he hadn’t actually read it. Another of A.D.Harvey’s novels, WARRIORS OF THE RAINBOW was described by THE GUARDIAN as “weirdly compelling” and by THE INDEPENDENT as “free-flowing and poetic….unforgettable.”

The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs

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The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs
Matthew Levi Stevens
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-906958-64-0
£15.00 / US$24.00
Subjects: Counter-Culture/Magic/Occult/Biography/American Underground.

Click HERE for The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs / UK

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“In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason. Among primitive people they say that if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that.”
– William S. Burroughs

Fully revised and expanded from the limited edition chapbook that first appeared in 2012, The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs is the first ever in-depth consideration of the significance of Magic and the Occult in the Life & Work of the writer and counter-cultural icon.

In Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs, his biographer Ted Morgan wrote:

‘As the single most important thing about Graham Greene was his viewpoint as a lapsed Catholic, the single most important thing about Burroughs was his belief in the magical universe. The same impulse that lead him to put out curses was, as he saw it, the source of his writing…’

‘To Burroughs behind everyday reality there was the reality of the spirit world, of psychic visitations, of curses, of possession and phantom beings…’

From the Introduction to The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs:

In talking about The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs I am really thinking of two things:

Firstly, and probably most obvious, is the material that appears in the output of Burroughs the Writer that can be seen as describing or referring to some magical, mystical or occult idea – Invocations of Elder Gods of Abominations, descriptions of Sex-Magick rituals, references to amulets, charms, ghosts, omens and spells – all the thematic set-dressing that we all know and love, from Hammer Horror Movies to Weird Tales, from H. P. Lovecraft to Dennis Wheatley and The X-Files…

Secondly, there is the personal interest and involvement of Burroughs the Man with belief systems and practices that come from those strange ‘Other’ territories that lay outside the bounds of either conventional mainstream religion or scientific materialism – explorations of L. Ron Hubbard’s Scientology, Konstanin Raudive’s Electronic Voice Phenomena, Wilhelm Reich’s Orgone Accumulator; also partaking of the Vine-of-the-Soul with Amazonian shamans, attending the Rites of Pan in the Rif Mountains outside Morocco, participating in a Sweat-Lodge with Native American Indian medicine men – and, latterly, an engagement with that most Post-Modern of Occultisms, Chaos Magic.

The material considered has been distilled from archival sources, correspondence, interviews, and of course, published works. As well as his own personal contact with Burroughs and his lifelong study of the Man and his Work, the author also draws from a wide range of former associates – collaborators, friends, lovers, and students – including C. J. Bradbury Robinson, Michael Butterworth, David Conway, Phil Hine, Graham Masterton, Malcolm Mc Neill, and others.

As well as his own contact with the likes of Genesis P-Orridge, John Balance & Peter Christopherson of Coil, and writer Terry Wilson, back in 1980s London, he has also had unprecedented access to the papers of Cabell McLean, a young writer who was William’s companion, lover & student, c.1976-1983.

Sometime in the nineteen-seventies, following a reprint of my book, Magic: An Occult Primer, a letter was forwarded to me by my then publisher. Poorly typed and in an envelope which, unless my memory deceives me, bore no postage stamp, it came from William S. Burroughs. I still have it somewhere. In it the writer made plain his interest in magic. In real magic that is, not the smoke and mirrors kind.

Given that Burroughs’ tireless ambition was to encounter a reality beyond that accessible to our five senses, with magic perceived as an effective means to that end, it is remarkable that the subject has hitherto received but scant attention.

This work, by Matthew Levi Stevens, who must have encountered Burroughs at around the time he wrote to me, sets out to make up for that deficit. In it he chronicles the man’s interest and examines the part magic and occultism generally played both in his life and in his work.

Stevens sets about the task with gusto, indicative of his respect and, indeed, affection for “Uncle Bill”, as well as his familiarity with the topic itself. He draws on Burroughs’ own writings, and on those of the growing number of people, supporters and critics alike, who have commented on him and his literary output.

It is a job well done. And one that is all the more welcome because long overdue . . .

– David Conway, 2014.

Epoch

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The Esotericon & Portals of Chaos

By Peter Carroll and Matt Kaybryn

The Epoch – Hardbound Folio Book & Altar Icon Card Deck.

The Book: This fully illustrated and illuminated hardback opens with a detailed historical resume of magical and esoteric thought (where it came from and where it may go) before presenting the reader with three complete grimoires.

The Deck: A Cartomagical tool for the 21st century, the Deck presents 54 glorious Altar Icons spanning the three Spheres of Elements, Bi-Planets and Stellar god-forms. Hardcover: 216 pages, 28cmx23cm
Publisher: Arcanorium College (21 Mar 2014)
ISBN-10: 0992848822
ISBN-13: 978-0992848828

UK Price – Elsewhere, use same buttons, see below for guide to worldwide postage.

Book £40.00+p&p Click HERE

Deck £15.00 (VAT inc)+p&p Click HERE

Both for £50.00+p&p Click HERE

Postage outside UK is expensive as this is a premium book, could be an additional 50% of order total, eg it costs about £40 to send both items, we will contact you with the actual cost, and refund if preferred. Why not start with the book and come back for the cards if you find you need them, it works out same postage wise


” This really is a pantheon for the present day: up-to-date technowizard
artwork, a commentary which soars over millennia of tradition, picking out
what is useful and relevant at the present, and icons which sum up what
deities from the whole span of Western and not-so-Western culture have
cumulatively come to mean. This is a book to which goddesses and gods,
historically so sensitive about their images, should be happy to belong.”

Professor Ronald Hutton – Fellow of the British Academy

” Not content to release a new grimoire, the Chancellor of Arcanorium College has produced three. Oh, also, one of them is a Necronomicon.

Elemental, Planetary, and Lovecraftian grimoires are joined by an accompanying tome of digitally and painstakingly rendered icons. The  Portals of Chaos, and its Chaobala systemisation, marks a particularly cohesive collection of Carroll’s work. But it also contains much exciting new material. Exploration of bi-planetary sorcery – a central component of Renaissance magic somewhat absent in modern occult discourse – is a particularly important feature.

Epoch is a useful resource both for those just starting out and for experienced magicians. There is something here to excite and challenge
occultists of many different dispositions and practices. ”    Alexander Cummins – Author of ‘The Starry Rubric’

“The enormous scope of the theory expounded within, coupled with the extraordinary pictures (which are better than anything of this ilk since Freida got down with her paintbrushes), provoke many thoughts as well as providing a neat summary of some complex ideas. Simultaneously a history and a prediction, it casts a spell covering spacetime and beyond, allowing your magick to have results.” Nikki Wyrd -Author of ‘The Book of Baphomet’

Pulled together, it is a fantastic cohesion of ideas in need of cohering, doubly so because the cohesion makes no claims to antiquity and doesn’t have to fit with either Neoplatonic emanations or Sanskrit body centres. Getting your head around the Chaobala is getting your head around a substantially updated magical cosmology. If that kind of thing is your jam, this kind of book is your toast. Gordon White – Runesoup

Without a doubt, the Epoch will have a great influence on the chaos magick paradigm and modern magick in general for years to come. I think every magician, even if they have their own correspondences, should examine the Chaobola system for its elegance and breadth. James Wilber – Scroll of Thoth

Peter Carroll


THE BLOODY SACRIFICE

A personal experience of contemporary blood rites
Charlotte Rodgers

The Bloody Sacrifice
a personal experience of contemporary blood rites
Charlotte Rodgers
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 978-1-906958-30-5
£15.00 / US $24.00

Click HERE for UK edition

Click HERE for USA & AUS

Charlotte Rodgers is a non-denominational magickal practitioner and an animist, and The Bloody Sacrifice is the story of her work with blood. It chronicles her use of road kill and blood in art, ritualised scarification and tattoo work, and the use of venous and menstrual blood in magick. Also included are Charlotte’s interviews with tattoo artists; priests from belief systems which utilise blood sacrifice; artists who use their own HIV positive blood as a medium; and those who use mortifications and body modification to effect changes in consciousness and self.

All here share a common bond of talent combined with an ability to articulate their beliefs. For example Louis Martinie, a priest in the New Orleans Voodoo Spiritual Temple. Martinie has integrated his Tibetan Buddhist beliefs into his Voodoo practice and in doing so shows how personal spiritual evolution can effect change within a syncretic religion. As a blood-related illness affected various parts of Charlotte’s life, she was given a chance to explore blood rituals in a very different way. Documenting this part of her journey gives an understanding of AIDS, HIV and HCV, and their effect on spirituality and contemporary blood rites.

Blood Ritual, with all its history, baggage and dangers hold the power to create change. Whether this power is held within blood and how much impact is created merely by our perception is for the reader to decide. The Bloody Sacrifice is an honest, modern and thought-provoking personal insight into an ancient aspect of our spirituality and creativity.

The Bloody Sacrifice. Charlotte Rodgers (Mandrake).
I opened The Bloody Sacrifice with more than a wee bit of trepidation. I knew I was not going to come across anything silly or self-indulgent, as the writer of this book is far too intelligent for that. What I found were open, honest and at times profound realisations that the author had come to through her exploration of blood, body, ritual and art. The interviews in the book are varied, relevant and very interesting. But, bar a couple of them, I wanted to hear more of the author’s voice, of her experiences and her conclusions. Rodgers is a natural priestess, regardless of what magical path she chooses to take or has taken; she has a natural capacity to connect deeply with inner world beings and learn directly, for both good and bad, from them. The main issue I was looking for, which would be guaranteed to show me if this person was switched on enough to actually truly work in this field, appeared almost immediately. Such paths into these areas are littered with unfortunate fools who have mired themselves in parasitical and low-life entanglements with inner beings, which effectively ensure that they go no further into the depths of magical realms. Not this author – she saw the traps immediately and neatly sidestepped them, learning naturally as she went deeper into the mysteries of power. Charlotte Rodgers has a powerful, clear and magical voice that I hope we will hear much more from in the future.
Highly recommended.
Josephine McCarthy – The Cauldron #140, May 2011.


Charlotte Rodgers Website
www.perdurabu.com