When Adam Parfrey told us about his plans for Apocalypse Culture II, we knew it would be compelling.

Parfrey collects eldritch artifacts from fringe subcultures and obscure sociology. He is prominent within a transgressophile cadre that has been wracked by professional jealousies and niche-bickering (notably with V. Vale and Mark Dery), but a cadre, nonetheless, that holds a Key to the 21st century.

Apocalypse Culture II is a superior volume to its influential predecessor, featuring material on CloneJesus.com, eco-philosopher Pentti Linkola and conspiracy theory du jour. The anthology features incredible artwork by Joe Coleman, and notable contributions by Robert Sterling and Jonathan Vankin.

Mu-Meson Archives curator Jay Katz observed in October 2000 that "Parfrey has an empathy with the people that he investigates or writes about. He gets in close, like an anthropologist, and studies them. He gets into their headspace. But he's no fool - he has a biting humor when it's necessary."

In his Village Voice review, Mark Dery claimed that Apocalypse Culture II lost some of its visceral impact because "millennial America's at once a far weirder, more niche-marketed place than it was in '87." Despite harshly critiquing Parfrey's ethics and personal politics, Dery summed him up with words that also describes why we recommend the Apocalypse Culture anthologies to Disinformation.com readers: "He's got a deft, Mencken-esque way with the lacerating one-liner, and a nose for great stories."

Sex and Rockets: The Occult World of Jack Parsons
John Carter with Robert Anton Wilson (introduction)
Los Angeles: Feral House, 2000

Jack Parsons was the original Antichrist Superstar, and the palimpsest for the contemporary Faustian-Introvert.

John Carter (a pseudonym) has written a biography about one of the most enigmatic figures in the occult pantheon. Parsons cofounded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. His contribution to early rocketry is vastly underrated, and Carter unearths historical documentation that directly addresses this. Unfortunately, Sex and Rockets has few footnotes, which makes further scholarly research more difficult.

Parsons was a member of the Agape Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis, and was briefly connected with L. Ron Hubbard. There is evidence that Hubbard "stole" many of the cathartic techniques that were later used in Scientology to confront the Self. Hubbard claimed that he had infiltrated a "Black Magic" cult in order to destroy it.

Carter also offers various interpretations of The Babalon Working, the Thelemic ritual that was the pinnacle of Parson's initiatory experience. Richard Metzger advised that, "you should see Parsons as the penultimate style icon of psycho-sexual/magickal insurrection, a truly American original if ever there was one. This darkly handsome, genius scientist, was, submit, the James Dean of the Occult – one spectacularly cool motherfucker."

Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley
Lawrence Sutin
New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000

Our expectations were high: Lawrence Sutin had written an accessible yet nuanced biography of Philip K. Dick. He also edited excerpts from Dick's complex Exegesis, which was a philosophical and magical exploration of Dick's encounter with a Vast Active Living Intelligence System. Sutin delivered the goods.

Aleister Crowley cast the die for Genesis P. Orridge, Kenneth Anger, Phil Farber, Anton LaVey, Robert Anton Wilson and Marilyn Manson. So why is he so misunderstood?

After Crowley's death, the Ordo Templi Orientis split into competing factions. His books were difficult to obtain until the mid-1980s. Biographer John Symonds wrote a bigoted portrayal of Crowley's complex life, while Kenneth Grant tried to fuse Crowley's system with H.P. Lovecraft.

A post-Kinsey Report America became fascinated with Crowley's sex magick exploits, not grasping that aesthetics and psychology were crucial to the success of these Workings. Crowley's reputation as a heroin addict (the unfortunate result of medical treatment in the early 20th century) only made him more notorious.

Fundamentalist Christians alleged, erroneously, that Crowley was involved in child molestation and early "backwards-masking" experiments. They also mis-translated Crowley's famous command to "Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law" as "Do anything you like." But Crowley was talking about realizing your divine "True Will", a much tougher task.

It's no wonder that Kenneth Anger complained in a Disinfo TV interview that people don't understand Crowley's genius.

Sutin's well-researched biography gives a great psychological depth to "The Great Beast 666". After enduring a tortured childhood with Plymouth Brethren parents (an environment that helped create his self-destructive tendencies), Crowley joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He was one of the first Westerners to decode the complex symbolism of Alchemy, Yoga and the Tarot. Crowley was closer in spirit to psychologist Alfred Adler and Karlfried Graf Durckheim that the demonic stereotype of the public's imagination.