Lionel Snell

Ramsey Dukes is the current and most well-known pen name of Lionel Snell, a contemporary English magician, publisher and author on magic and philosophy. He has also written under the pen names Lemuel Johnston, Angerford and Lea, Adamai Philotunus and Per Anum Ad Astra. His regular satirical column The Satanist's Diary was published in the magazine Aquarian Arrow during the 1980s and early 1990s under the pen name The Hon Hugo C StJ l'Estrange and included a multitude of other pen names as contributors.

Lionel Snell
Born17 April 1945
Kings Langley, England
NationalityEnglish
EraContemporary philosophy
Main interests
Magical thinking
Virtual reality
Notable ideas
Johnstone's paradox[1]
Websitehttps://ramseydukes.co.uk/

Early life

Snell was born 17 April 1945 in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire before his family moved to the Gloucestershire, Cotswolds that same year. In his youth, he enjoyed a series of scholarships that brought him to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he graduated in Pure Mathematics. His writings on Austin Osman Spare in Agape Occult Review (1972) and his magical theories published in SSOTBME - An Essay on Magic (1974) and Thundersqueak (1978) brought him into contact with the nascent chaos magic movement in the 1970s. This comparatively rigorous and modern style of magic, largely shaped by fellow scientist Peter Carroll, provided a fertile ground for his own ideas.

Career

In 1977, he performed a well-known, but notably laborious and rarely attempted[3] ritual called the Abramelin operation.[2]

Since 1972 he has written and published several books noted for their impact on late 20th-century magic and humor. Words Made Flesh (1987) was written from a more philosophical point of view and notable for its original outline of the "information model" theory of magic that our universe could be a virtual reality—as later explored in The Matrix. It is an example of the author's ongoing studies in the relationship between magic and rationalism.

Dukes has worked on the subject of magic with diverse associates including the Ordo Templi Orientis and Illuminates of Thanateros.[2]

Partial bibliography

Works include:

  • SSOTBME: An Essay on Magic, Its Foundations, Development and Place in Modern Life
    • 1st edition: Mouse That Spins, 1974. ISBN 0904311015
    • Hardcover: Turner, 1979. ISBN 0904311090
    • SSOTBME has been published in Polish as STCMO: seksualne tajemnice czarnych magów obnażone: esej o magii, jej podstawach, rozwoju i miejscu we współczesnym życiu. Zielony Lew. ISBN 9780904311242
  • SSOTBME Revised: An Essay on Magic. Mouse That Spins, 2002. ISBN 0904311082
  • Thundersqueak: The Confessions of a Right Wing Anarchist, with Liz Angerford and Ambrose Lee. Mouse That Spins. ISBN 0904311120 (3rd rev. ed., 2003)
  • Words Made Flesh, Mouse That Spins. ISBN 0904311112 (2nd rev. ed., 2003)
  • BLAST Your Way to Megabuck$ with my SECRET Sex-Power Formula. Mouse That Spins. ISBN 0904311139 (2nd rev. ed., 2003)
    • BLAST... has been published in German as Zaster-Blaster, Zapp Dir den Weg zum GiGaGeld mit meiner GEHEIMEN SEX-KRAFT-FORMEL. ISBN 3890942717
  • The Good, the Bad the Funny, with Adamai Philotunus. Mouse That Spins, 2002. ISBN 0904311104
  • What I Did in My Holidays: Essays on Black Magic, Satanism, Devil Worship and Other Niceties. Mandrake Press Ltd, 1999. ISBN 1869928520
  • Uncle Ramsey's Little Book of Demons: The Positive Advantages of the Personification of Life's Problems. Aeon Books, 2005. ISBN 1904658091
  • "How to See Fairies: Discover your Psychic Powers in Six Weeks". Aeon Books, 2011. ISBN 9781904658375
  • The Abramelin Diaries. Aeon Books, 2019. ISBN 9781911597193
  • Thoughts on Abramelin. Mouse That Spins, 2019. ISBN 9780904311457
  • My Years of Magical Thinking. Mouse That Spins, 2017. ISBN 978-0904311242
  • Thoughts on: Post-truth Politics & Magical Thinking. Mouse That Spins, 2019. ISBN 9780904311501

Notes
  1. Collins, Steve (2004). "Technology and Magick". Scan Journal of Media Arts Culture. Macquarie University. 1 (2). ISSN 1449-1818. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  2. Hine, Phil. An Interview with Ramsey Dukes Archived 2006-12-11 at the Wayback Machine in HEAD magazine.
  3. Dukes. The Abramelin Diaries. Aeon Books. ISBN 978-1911597193.
gollark: Yes you were.
gollark: What did you intend to use them for?
gollark: 🌵
gollark: I could do it with enough brackets.
gollark: Not even humans actually *optimise* for survival or spreading genes or whatever. We have planning capabilities, but do things based on a weird set of instincts and desires which sort of approximate that.


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