The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs

In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that's just ridiculous. It's as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it's for a reason. Among primitive people they say that if someone was bitten by a snake he was murdered. I believe that. - William S. Burroughs In Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs, his biographer Ted Morgan wrote: 'As the single most important thing about Graham Greene was his viewpoint as a lapsed Catholic, the single most important thing about Burroughs was his belief in the magical universe. The same impulse that lead him to put out curses was, as he saw it, the source of his writing...' Burroughs' writings often describe magical, mystical or occult ideas - Invocations of Elder Gods, descriptions of Sex-Magick rituals, references to amulets, charms, ghosts, omens and spells - all the thematic set-dressing that we all know and love, from Hammer Horror Movies to Weird Tales, from H. P. Lovecraft to Dennis Wheatley and The X-Files... Then there is his personal involvement with belief systems and practices that come from strange 'other' territories outside the conventional mainstream - Scientology, Electronic Voice Phenomena, Orgone Accumulators; Ayahuasca, Rites of Pan in Morocco, Sweat-Lodges with Native American and, Chaos Magic. Stevens has unravelled the threads to create a superlative supernatural treatise of El Hombre Invisible's life and work. Whether an initiate to the world of Burroughs or a seasoned scholar, this book opens new and fascinating vistas. Vitally unorthodox and yet true to the core, this is an essential text for anyone looking to go beyond the page into an alternative reality, where magic lives. Nina Antonia