Cat Vincent's origin story

People on Bluesky have been posting "origin stories," here is Cat  Vincent's. He posted the above book cover and wrote, "Origin story

"Read it when I was thirteen; gave me the tools I needed to survive. Ten years ago, I made a guest appearance in John Higgs's intro to the new edition.

"Funny how it goes."

Cat Vincent is ill, and angry

Cat Vincent on Twitter

I haven't noticed much activity from prominent British magician and RAW fan Cat Vincent lately, and when I read his latest news, I found out why: He's been ill since early in the pandemic, and likely has  Long Covid, although as he explains, he can't be sure because he wasn't tested when he first became ill:

Although I didn’t lose my sense of smell, a couple of weeks in I decided my other symptoms were close enough to this weird new disease known as SARS-COVID-19 to justify spending a delightful day playing NHS phone-chess, being passed from 111 to the COVID hotline to my surgery and back, only to be told that a diabetic with a chronic inflammatory disorder in his fifties wasn’t considered high risk enough to test for the disease because I hadn’t knowingly had contact with anyone who’d been out of the country recently.

Refusing him a test given his condition makes no sense; I wonder sometimes if many medical folk have become overwhelmed and just don't have the energy to treat every case with urgency. (My 89-year-old mother, fortunately fully boosted, recently fought off a bout with COVID; I didn't think her doctor moved quickly enough to deal with it.)

Cat has had to deal with a lot and he's upset and feels many people he considered friends have let him down. He wants everyone to mask up and stay caught up on the boosters. Read the whole thing. 

Help sought as Kirsty Hall battles cancer

Many of you will know Ian "Cat" Vincent from his prominent role in the RAW fandom community in the UK, and as an author and magician; he's often mentioned in this blog. Cat's wife, Kirsty Hall. is battling cancer, and although the cost of medical treatment is covered by the NHS, there are incidental expenses with getting treatment a considerable distance away from where the couple live. So a GoFundMe has been set up; it very quickly met its goal, but no doubt additional help would be welcome. (The account was created only three days ago -- I'm a bit slow to note this, but I only spotted it yesterday.)

Here is some of the announcement:

"Because this is a rare kind of cancer, treatment will take place in the specialist cancer centre at St James' Hospital in Leeds. This is an hour away from her home in Hebden Bridge, which is a trial for a disabled couple with no personal transport. Fortunately the hospital has a small hotel floor where Kirsty and Cat are able to stay for free during the week. The treatment itself is also free but there are a lot of incidental expenses, mostly weekly travel (a taxi one-way costs around £50, so they will potentially be spending around £600 on that alone) and daily meals (there are no cooking facilities in the accommodation). There have also been a lot of expenses involved in preparing to stay away from home for so long. It's all mounting up, so any help would be very gratefully received.

"Please only give if you can genuinely afford to, Kirsty and Cat know it's been a tough time for many folk and don't want people to put themselves into any financial hardship."

More here.  Cat has a Twitter account. And Kirsty does, too. 

Interesting podcast with Cat Vincent

 

A new podcast called Strange Exiles ("a new podcast about ideas, identity and ideology") has posted its second episode, and it featured Ian "Cat" Vincent and was billed as being of interest to Robert Anton Wilson fans. 

So I checked it out and I liked it. RAW serves as almost a third person participating in the dialogue between the show's host, Bram Gieben, and Cat, because RAW's ideas are brought up again and again. 

Cat for example has a nice discussion of the 23 Enigma early in the podcast. There's also discussion about Cat's ideas on magick, about Hookland, his loathing of Nazis in the subcultures he participates in, how magick can incorporate pop culture heroes, and much more. I like many of Cat's ideas, a few of his notions seem a bit "out there" to me, but it's all interesting and it seemed to me I learned quite a bit. 

One of the pleasures of the podcast was finding out little bits of information about Mr. Vincent I didn't know. He's from a village where Pocahontas is buried? He's a Harlan Ellison fan? Also, the community next door from where he's from is where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards is from, which does nothing to help me deal with my delusion that everyone in Britain personally knows a famous pop star. (This is related but separate from my belief that everyone in Britain is only a couple of degrees of separation from Paul McCartney, something each British person keeps secret from Americans to avoid envy).

The podcast is an hour and nine minutes long, but it's broken up into manageable bits with a nice tune from an artist called Asthmatic Astronaut and I did fine listening over two nights. 

I'm providing a link to the episode on Spotify, but as with many podcasts, you should be able to find it on your favorite app; I found it on my Android app, Podkicker.

You can follow Cat on Twitter and also follow the Strange Exiles podcast. 

The book Cat recommends at the end of the podcast is Six Ways: Approaches & Entries for Practical Magic by Aidan Wachter. More information at his website. 

Addendum: I can't resist sharing this Tweet from Cat: 'everyone in Britain knows a pop star' Well, I'm mates with Julian Cope, so...

New Discordian symbol

Cat Vincent says (in his latest email newsletter) "The redesign of the Discordian Hodge/Podge is a result of a working the Festival 23 team and I did last year (in an actual Castle Perilous!): With their help, I raised a new god, the rainbow snake which signifies the in-between state where Yin becomes Yang. In 3-aspect Taoism, this threshold state is called Shen.

"The rainbow snake between Hodge and Podge is named, could only be named, Bodge.

"If in doubt: Bodge It."

T-shirts, clothing etc. with the new design available here.

Cat also writes about Brexit in the latest newsletter (he doesn't like it). To sign up for his "Thoughts on Fortean journalism, magic, religion, High Weirdness, kink, genre media and the oddness of living in a Yorkshire hippy town" go here (letter archive also available at the link.)

UPDATE ON ART CREDIT: Cat's newsletter said "Art by Peter Fosse" and I copied that in the original version of this post. On Twitter, @Microbial42 said, "Peter Fosse said this wasn't his artwork, but Peter Horneland's, at Robert Anton Wilson Legacy group on Facebook." Cat then said, "I believe Peter F added the Bodge snake to Peter H's original."

UPDATED UPDATE: Now I'm told "Peter Fosse" is a pen name for Peter Horneland.

Cat Vincent news update

Ian "Cat" Vincent

Ian "Cat" Vincent reports that his blog has made a comeback and he'll do a magical working on Halloween:

"My next major magical action is HEXIT on Halloween night.
https://radio23.co.uk/hexit.html."

Details at the link, but "On October 31st 2019, the United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union under Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty.

"To mark this event, Radio23, in association with the Indelicates and cunning-man Cat Vincent, will broadcast a distributed magical working designed to strike at the spirit of Brexit. This will be completed shortly after 23:00 GMT, the time when Britain is due to leave the UK."

So you can listen if you can't be there.

Main Radio23 site. "The regular programming includes We pilgrim mixes from the Librarian, the Pillock and the Phonomancer - more content to follow. Tech provided by The Walker."

To obtain Mr. Vincent's email newsletter, Caterwauling ("Thoughts on Fortean journalism, magic, religion, High Weirdness, kink, genre media and the oddness of living in a Yorkshire hippy town") sign up here.

To reach him, contact him on Twitter: @catvincent.

Events announced for Cat Vincent, Bobby Campbell

Two prominent Robert Anton Wilson have announced up coming events: Ian "Cat" Vincent and Bobby Campbell.

Cat, from his email newsletter, Caterwauling:

"I will be giving a talk and leading a small public ritual on 9 February, at Sheffield's Airy Fairy bookshop. Airy Fairy, aside from having the best possible name for a witch shop, has been running a series of workshops in many areas of magical practice, organised by owner Anwen Fryer Burrows (of the Festival 23 Massive) and OG chaote Dave Lee. The theme of this event is "Magic, Witchcraft, Chaos & Beyond - Real Magic In The Real World", and I'll be talking about The Urban Cunning. Expect a lot on street spellcasting, Landscape Punk (which is psychogeography without the academics), nicking everything not nailed down in urban fantasy and the like. Then, we'll nip down the road, find somewhere with some buddleia and do a thing.

"£23 of your Earth Pounds: we plan to make it a day to remember."

Follow the link for more information. See also Cat Vincent's lecture on "The Occultism of Robert Anton Wilson. " And in the same territory, listen to Gregory Arnott on RAW and magick.

Meanwhile, Bobby Campbell, who joined Gregory and I at Confluence last  year, also has an announcement: "ITEM! I'll be at the Big Apple Comic Con @bigapplecc March 9th & 10th, where I'll be premiering AGNOSIS! #2 "Open System Self" :)))"

For more on Bobby, see his Patreon account. 

Cat Vincent reviews 'Chasing Eris'

I have Chasing Eris by Brenton Clutterbuck on my phone and I've read the John Higgs introduction, but I won't have time to read it until I finish the second Robert Shea Saracen novel, Saracen: Holy War. In the meantime, though, the Daily Grail has published Ian "Cat" Vincent's well-written review, which finds minor flaws but also strongly recommends it. Excerpt:

"As is only fitting for a belief system full of grass roots activism, amateur publishing and a strong sense of the individual, his tale is wandering, subjective and a little ramshackle – but rarely in a way which detracts from a genuine fascination with, and affection for, the people and countercultures he found."

Buy it here.

Caitlyn Kiernan's 'Black Helicopters'

A recommendation on Twitter by Ian "Cat" Vincent for a short novel by Caitlyn Kiernan:

"Caitlin R Kiernan's novella BLACK HELICOPTERS is a Lovecraftian classic, and explicitly Discordian, with nods to #RAW & Bucky Fuller, even calling on Eris Herself."

Looks like I have something else for my "to read" list.

Here's a link to the expanded edition. 

Kiernan actually lives in Providence, R.I. You can read the Wikipedia bio and visit the official page. 

My interview with Ian 'Cat' Vincent

Ian "Cat" Vincent. (Credit: Photographer Robin LeBlanc, plus Deep Dream.)

I am pleased to present an interview with Ian "Cat" Vincent, a British mage, writer and student of Robert Anton Wilson. Here, Cat holds forth of RAW, Festival 23, Brexit and other subjects. And there's news — Festival 23 will return in two years!

Cat sent me his official bio, but a couple of additional notes: If you like this interview, please see the very interesting one with Dubious Monk; I tried to avoid overlap with it. Trivia about Mr. Vincent (from the Internet Movie Database): "Was the basis of the character 'Romanov' in Diana Wynne Jones' novel 'The Merlin Conspiracy' (2003)."

And now we hear from the man himself:

My current bio:

Ian "Cat" Vincent is a lifelong student of the occult, and a former paranormal protection consultant.

In recent years he has turned his attention to Fortean journalism, with a focus on examining the rise of "hyper­rea"' (fiction­-inspired) belief systems and other pop­ culture manifestations of the occult. He was one of the earliest journalists to write in depth on the Slenderman phenomenon.

His writing has appeared in Fortean Times, the American college text Apocalyptic Imaginary, a monthly column at Spiral Nature and the Darklore anthologies, and he is a a contributing editor at The Daily Grail.

He has lectured on subjects including Slenderman, the life and works of Robert Anton Wilson, the fictional roots of modern paganism and the Westernisation of Eastern beliefs at a range of venues including the Senate House Library, the University of Leicester and the Royal College of Art.

His first book, New Gods and Monsters, on the evolution of pop culture belief systems, will be published in 2017 by Daily Grail Publishing.

Ian is a Fellow of The Institute of Atemporal Studies. He blogs at catvincent.com and he can be found on Twitter @catvincent.

A resume of Ian’s writing and lectures to date can be found here: http://www.catvincent.com/?page_id=1309


RAWILLUMINATION: For those of us who couldn't afford to come from the U.S. to Festival 23, can you describe what the highlights were like? How did your own appearance go?

CAT VINCENT: Very hard to describe! (Here’s my latest newsletter where I try to approach summing the event up...).

Quickest possible summary: in a field of at­ peak 500 people, I did not encounter a single arsehole. I got at least three magical upgrades. People I’d never met before became pals; people I already knew became close; people I loved became immortal. The music was varied and excellent, the art fascinating, the spoken­ word and other performances magnetic. The spirits of both Bob Wilson and Ken Campbell were properly venerated. Possibly the best weekend of my life. And ... they’re doing it again in two years time.

My appearances ... well, I was scheduled to do two, ended up doing five. They seemed to be well­received ...  even the bit where I had the temerity to use Alan Moore’s words to impersonate Glycon!

Cat Vincent with his hand puppet at Festival 23. I don't know the identity of the other other gentlemen. 

RAWILLUMINATION: How did you get interested in Robert Anton Wilson? At this stage in your life, is there a book or books by RAW you particularly like?

CAT VINCENT:  I was a weird kid even before I got to reading Bob: something of a prodigy (but not having anything I was especially good at, other than Being Weird and reading a lot), the local library gave me adult tickets once I’d read all the kid’s books ...  then closed shelf access once I’d read all the adult ones. I had access to literally any book I could think of. I was reading Crowley, Tim Leary, De Sade and such by the age of ten. So I was well-primed for finding a second­hand copy of Illuminatus! in the local bookshop ... but it was Cosmic Trigger (back then there was only the one) which did the job. I was around 13 and it was barely in print. Between that and the other Wilson ­ Colin (especially The Occult and A Criminal History of Mankind) I was immediately upgraded, and somewhat prepared for a life of magic. Emphasis on the ‘somewhat.’

I always return to Cosmic Trigger and Quantum Psychology. Of the fiction, Masks of the Illuminati and the Historical Illuminatus Chronicles (especially Nature’s God) stand out.

(And now, Cosmic Trigger 1 is back in print, with a new introduction by John Higgs ... and I’m mentioned in it. 13 year old me would be astonished.)

RAWILLUMINATION: Can you please say something about the book you are working on, New Gods and Monsters?

CAT VINCENT: New Gods is in part an expansion of my thoughts on the concept of "hyperreal religion" ­ those belief systems whose adherents freely admit that their source material is entirely fictional ­ as first examined in print by me in my Darklore piece ‘Believing In Fiction.’ It’s also shaping up to be probably the closest thing to autobiography I’ll ever do: my relationship to fiction and magic is, like any spirituality, intensely personal ­ so it’s the only way to both do the subject justice and contextualise it to a possibly skeptical reader.

RAWILLUMINATION: Aren't you interested in science fiction and fantasy? Who are your favorite authors?

CAT VINCENT: Hugely: SF was my first love as a child, even before the occult. (Here’s a piece I
wrote about my early hyperreal love of classic Star Trek a while back.)

Fantasy was, oddly, less so ­ though the appearance of what’s now called Urban Fantasy shifted my viewpoint: I like my fantasy to be almost like my actual life ...  none of that Second World stuff, generally!

Some of my top writers:

Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Diana Wynne Jones, Neil Gaiman, Philip K Dick, William Gibson, Fritz Leiber, Iain (M) Banks, Clive Barker, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, Kameron Hurley, Kate Griffin (aka Claire North), Richard Kadrey, Ales Kot, J. Michael Straczynski, The Robinsons ­ Kim Stanley and Spider.

A special place for the extraordinary Andrew Vachss: read his bio, then his books.

RAWILLUMINATION: Can you recommend one or two books of magick to provide a solid grounding for those of us who don't know very much about it?

CAT VINCENT: A tricky one, as my education was hundreds of books and thousands of hours of experimentation!

As a primer to modern approaches, you can’t go far wrong with Grant Morrison’s Pop Magic. I also recommend Ramsey Dukes' SSOTBME! as a solid, skeptical intro to chaos magic approaches. The most fascinating new book on magic for me is The Cunning Man’s Handbook by Jim Baker, which is a revolution (and huge!). Best advice on books for the new mage: read widely, doubt heavily, double check your sources, test them personally. There’s a wealth of information out there, especially since the likes of Jake Stratton­-Kent have both transmitted and contextualised many old grimoires.

RAWILLUMINATION: How has RAW influenced your ideas about magick? Which opinion of his on magick do you think is spot on, and what did he say about magick that you disagree with?

CAT VINCENT: In a word: completely.

As a very young mage with no physical peer group, RAW’s multi­model approach was a revelation. By showing me the multi­model approach (around the same time as this idea was being explored with the originators of the Chaos magic movement) it allowed me to combine disparate elements into my slowly evolving praxis, and it’s never failed me yet.

The part I disagree with? His position of total disbelief. Despite my best efforts over some 40 years, there’s still stuff I believe in. I believe in magic: a Something that sometimes allows altering of perceived reality through indirect means ­ maps being used to change the territory. One might see this as an experiment in choosing one’s belief system ... I must therefore note that in 45 years of praxis, it has rarely let me down.

RAWILLUMINATION: You have kind of a unique perspective on Brexit — if I understand correctly, you shut down your combat magick consulting company because you were afraid of running afoul of EU regulations. Do you plan to restart your business in the wake of the Brexit vote?

CAT VINCENT: I truly did not see this question coming.

I voted Remain in the Referendum. I also got one of the oldest pieces of figurative art in England ­ the Uffington White Horse ­ tattooed on my arm right before I voted (23 June!) because whichever way the vote went, I wanted a piece of Old Albion on my skin ... and my Albion is and will ever be (as Eddie Izzard once put it) a Mongrel Nation.  (See also here and here.)

I also note that a pro­immigration seated member of Parliament was assassinated  by a white supremacist just before the vote ... and the Leave side won. I do not think it’s a huge step to say that was a blood sacrifice on behalf of some very bad magic.

I’m hardly a fan of the EU generally, or politics at all. But I am a xenophile, and I treasure what other cultures have brought to my land. (I am old enough to remember what British food was like before the influx of Ugandan Asians to our shores in the 1970s... *shudder*.) And not only are there no justifiable political or economic reasons for Brexit outside of a nostalgia for a non­existent Imperial golden age, the degree of racial and xenophobic brutality since the Referendum horrifies and disgusts me.

That said ...  no, I won’t be restarting Athanor Consulting. Mostly because, as Danny Glover once said, I’m too old for this shit.

Cat Vincent's Festival 23 report

Cat Vincent, using a sock pocket to add a visual element to his reading at Festival 23

Ian 'Cat' Vincent attended the recent Festival 23 and reports that he had a great time:

The quickest way to describe how extraordinary it all was... at peak there was about 500 people in that field, ranging from heavy RAW/Discordian elements to folk who just wanted to get pilled up and dance their asses off.

I did not meet a single dickhead on that field.

The full report is available here.  The report reveals that Daisy Eris has written a new play! Cat's periodic newsletter, "Caterwauling," will show up in your email Inbox if you subscribe here.  And here is another report on the festival, from Phacemag.

My interview with Cat Vincent, including discussion of Robert Anton Wilson, magick, Brexit and science fiction, will run next week.

Ian 'Cat' Vincent to publish book

Ian 'Cat' Vincent

Fresh from his successful recent talk on Robert Anton Wilson, now available on video, Ian "Cat" Vincent has announced he will publish his first book next year. New Gods and Monsters will be issued in summer 2016 from Daily Grail Publishing.

From the Cat's mouth:

This will be an expansion of my previously published thoughts on hyper-real religion, Slenderman, multi-model occultism and basically everything I care about, heavily revised and re-examined – plus a lot of new material on how mythology and stories intersect our modern world.

The Daily Grail also has issued an announcement.