Vancouver author's 'occult self-help book' casts spell on Rose McGowan, Taylor Swift
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2020 21:48:05 +0000
Vancouver author Alex Kazemi describes his upcoming book as “a coming-of-age, nonfiction memoir that teaches you how to do magic.”
Sold. The 25-year-old artist and founder of creative agency VOID Collective scored a mid-five-figure advance for “Pop Magick: A Simple Guide to Bending Your Reality,” which is set to be released next month. Simon and Schuster offshoot Permuted Press plans a first printing of 25,000 copies.
Pop Magick, which really challenges the term “nonfiction” with its in-depth discussions of alchemy, witchcraft, and other alternative spiritualities, might also be described as an occult self-help book.
Kazemi’s manuscript seeks to reintroduce the occult to a new generation of identity-oriented youth, both as an antidote to the toxicity of much online discourse (Kazemi specifically mentioned Jordan Peterson), and as a vehicle for self-love, self-preservation, and helping others through magic.
“It teaches you how to create your own entities, your own angels, your own gods,” Kazemi said. “It can get really paranormal, but then there’s something very practical about it.”
It all sounds a bit unbelievable, but the Vancouverite, best-known as the writer and director of 2015’s Snapchat: Mudditchgirl91, the first viral public Snapchat movie, has attracted some big-name believers. ‘American Psycho’ author Bret Easton Ellis called Kazemi “my favourite millennial provocateur.” Notable occultists Mitch Horowitz and Fiona Horne are fans.
Actress Rose McGowan arrives for a press conference at the trial of Harvey Weinstein.
Pop Magick even boasts a blurb from actress Bella Thorne and a foreword from actress-turned-activist Rose McGowan, no stranger to witchcraft herself.
“I wanted Rose to write (the foreword) because I totally am aligned with her idea of deprogramming culture right now and her way of trying to dismantle the patriarchal systems and all of the socially constructed stuff,” he said. “I think she did it because I think she wanted to be involved in what I’m doing. I think she believes it.”
Kazemi described his connection to the former Charmed star as “magic.” The two were introduced by Ellis, Kazemi said, and quickly developed empathy and understanding for one another as they bonded over trauma, pain, and the transformative power of independent thinking.
Also: he put a spell on her.
“In the book I talk about doing a spell for her drug charges to get dropped,” Kazemi said. “I talk about how the spell works.”
Even Taylor Swift has fallen under the Vancouverite’s spell, and again this is meant literally.
“In the book I tell a story about how I did a healing spell on her during the Reputation era, when she was getting a lot of bad press,” Kazemi said. “I was a big fan. I felt a lot of connection to her. And then I wrote an article about her for Paper Magazine and she ended up seeing it and inviting me backstage in Seattle, at her show.”
“It was weird, because I did the spell to make her feel understood, and the first thing she said was, ‘thank you for making me feel understood.’”
That’s the goal of Pop Magick: understanding, and not only of the occult, but of its application as a strategy for self-expression and self-worth. As an example, Kazemi suggested that a self-love spell, actualized through will and belief, could produce more self-affirming thoughts in the mind. In that sense, it matters very little if the sorcery is real or imagined.
“I think what makes me feel safe is there’s no solipsism — something past my concept of myself, my ego,” Kazemi said. “I can connect to whatever my idea of the upper world is: gods, goddesses, angels, crystals, drawing down energy or light, rather than reaching out to it through chaotic things like instant gratification, which is the root source of addiction.”
But Kazemi insists he’s no cult leader. He doesn’t want to be the next Anton LaVey, and he doesn’t want to recruit you into the Church of Satan, or any church, for that matter. Nevermind that Kazemi has written a self-described “counterculture Bible” — he just wants to help people, especially young people, elevate their mindset. Call it practical magic.
“I warn people,” Kazemi said. “I say, ‘be careful about the people in the occult who will try to misguide you into cult-like thinking.’ This has nothing to do with that. It’s just bare-bones thinking that you can apply to your life.”
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