{"id":431,"date":"2009-01-08T18:53:09","date_gmt":"2009-01-08T22:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=431"},"modified":"2009-01-08T18:53:09","modified_gmt":"2009-01-08T22:53:09","slug":"10-questions-with-gary-lachman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/?p=431","title":{"rendered":"10 Questions with Gary Lachman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>1.  As I made note of in my review of your latest book \u201cPolitics and the Occult: The Left, the Right, and the Radically Unseen\u201d you belonged to the band Blondie and were a fixture of the New York music scene, how did Gary Valentine the rocker become Gary Lachman the writer? <\/strong><br \/>\nI had always wanted to \u2018be a writer\u2019 and wrote poetry before I became a musician. It was through the poetry that I became a songwriter. While in Blondie, my own and other groups, I always read philosophy, psychology, literature and so on. <\/p>\n<p><strong>2.  What drew you to studying occult movements and philosophies? <\/strong><br \/>\nI became seriously interested in the study of the occult through reading Colin Wilson\u2019s excellent book The Occult, which takes a more philosophical approach to the subject than most other similar books do.<\/p>\n<p><strong>3.  One thing that stands out in \u201cPolitics and the Occult\u201d is the colorful cast of characters that fuelled these movements.  Who are you particularly fond of and why? <\/strong><br \/>\nIn general I was attracted to the character of Freemasonry in the late 18th century, when it was motivated by what seems a real sense of universal brotherhood without class, religious or racial distinctions, and where men and often women of like mind could meet and discuss ideas about the nature of society.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4.  Help me out here, is Aleister Crowley really as big of a deal as my friend\u2019s college roommate told me he is? <\/strong><br \/>\nCrowley is probably how most people today discover the occult. A colorful if often annoying character.<\/p>\n<p><strong>5.  What was one of your most surprising or entertaining discoveries made while researching \u201cPolitics and the Occult\u201d? <\/strong><br \/>\nI was disturbed by the amount of far right and anti-semitic thought that informs much of western esotericism but encouraged by the many forms of progressive occult thinking.<\/p>\n<p><strong>6.  Since one of these women is deceased, this is a purely hypothetical question.  In a fist fight who would win, Victoria Woodhull (the first woman to run for President) or Hillary Clinton?<\/strong><br \/>\nVictoria, I think. Women were tougher in her day.<\/p>\n<p><strong>7.  Who gets more groupies, rockers or authors?  Or is it about quality?  Do authors get a better quality of groupie verses rockers? <\/strong><br \/>\nI don\u2019t get many groupies these days so its hard to tell.<\/p>\n<p><strong>8.  What is your next project?<\/strong><br \/>\nI\u2019m currently working on a book about C.G. Jung.<\/p>\n<p><strong>9.  Are you amazed we got through this whole interview without me asking you one question about Debbie Harry?<\/strong><br \/>\nRelieved, actually.<\/p>\n<p><strong>10.  Parting shot!  Ask us here at The Magical Buffet any one question. <\/strong><br \/>\nAre you open on Sundays?<\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks to the glory of the internet The Magical Buffet is here 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, barring server issues.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>About Gary Lachman<\/strong><br \/>\n<a href='https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/gary_lachman.jpg'><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/gary_lachman-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"gary_lachman\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-432\" \/><\/a>Gary Lachman is author of \u201cA Secret History of Consciousness\u201d, \u201cA Dark Muse\u201d, \u201cRudolf Steiner\u201d, and other books.  A founding member of the rock group Blondie, in 2006 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.<br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br><br \/><\/br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10 Questions with Gary Lachman, author of Politics and the Occult.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,13,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/themagicalbuffet.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}