Readers, please enjoy this guest blog post by Donald Tyson, author of The 13 Gates of the Necromicon. Ask most fans of H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos (as it is generally but erroneously called) who Lovecraft was, and chances are they will say he was a science fiction writer. While it is undeniably true that Lovecraft wrote science fiction, that’s not all he wrote. Many of his stories are fantasies patterned after the model of the Arabian Nights, or outright occult horror stories. Even his science fiction is very unlike the science fiction of Clarke and Heinlein. In Lovecraft, science and the stars are both regarded as realms of unutterable horror, and those who delve too deeply

There is a joke for the digerati that goes: "There are 10 types of people... Those who know binary and those who don't." Some of you reading this may get a laugh out of that...well, at least a snicker. The key to understanding it is the concept of "binary."Binary refers to the number 2 and especially numerical systems that use "base 2." Our regular counting system is "base 10" and has ten digits (0–9). Base 2 uses only two digits (0 and 1). In base 2, writing "10" is the same as writing "2" in our regular base 10 system. Understanding binary is important for some people today because most computers, at their deepest levels, are binary. Microprocessors that run the computers

Magick is not something taught in school. All forms of magick are foreign to most people's daily lives. Certainly there are some magickal practices that have filtered into daily life (often in partial or incorrect form and sometimes referred to as superstitions), but for the most part magick is something unique, special, and unusual. What little most people know of magick before they study it usually comes from movies, novels, or comic books and serves as plot points only. It doesn't reflect the reality of magick. Similarly, those who are simply against the practice of magick—because it would disrupt their personal view of the world—misrepresent the way magick works, the way magick

There's an old saying that goes, "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail." I've tried using hammers on screws, and it just doesn't work. Having the right tool is important in carpentry. It's also important in magick. Yesterday I received an email from a person who wrote, I am reading Modern Magick. I am on lesson three and do the the rituals LBRP, Middle Pillar, Circulation of [the Body of] Light, Tarot contemplation, four adorations and dream diary on a daily basis. One thing I have noticed is that I am more assertive than I have ever have been. Also, I am attracting all kinds of attention that I am not used to. Good and bad. I used to be well......invisible.