Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump Paperback – May 29, 2018

Having become a fan of Gary Lachman’s work a few years ago, I’ve known that he’s had Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump in the works for some time. The time between his announcement of the project and his report that he’d sent the manuscript to the publisher was some months ago, so it’s been a long wait. As time passed my anticipation grew, and upon receiving the book I had to wonder whether the reality would match the level of my anticipation. The answer, I’m happy to report, is a resounding “Yes!”I’d learned that Lachman would be exploring the complex of ideas that surround Putin’s regime in Russia, a daunting task given Russia’s cultural heritage that’s as tangled and enigmatic as a great Russian novel. Lachman delivers on this end of the story, but to my delight, he also shines his light upon the American side of this time of political turmoil. His consideration of American-as-apple-pie New Thought and its relation to Trump provides a valuable contribution to our understanding. How does one start with a train of thought that can claim greats like Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James—two of the most significant and encouraging of American thinkers—and arrive at Donald Trump?Also, Lachman provides readers with a new lens through which we can better perceive the Trump phenomena. I’d initially perceived Trump as a clown in the mold of Silviu Berlusconi (Italy’s former PM)—a wealthy philanderer out to massage his own ego and line his pockets while his boorish behavior and grandiose promises distract voters long enough to pick their pockets (which seems all too acceptable in Italy). Later, I came to see Trump as a full-scale demagogue, precisely the type of candidate that political thinkers from Plato to the American Founders (Hamilton and Madison in particular) warned us about and against whom the Founders designed the Constitution. (This blog post addresses both of the first two of my Trump images.)Later, in part as a reaction to Scott Adams’s “Trump is a master persuader and can do no wrong” refrain (my initial response that I now find inadequate). I came to see Trump as a master salesman, a huckster in the classic American mold of hucksters. Only he didn’t sell land in Florida or shares in the Brooklyn Bridge; instead, he sold worthless educational certificates from Trump University and stiffed contractors and investors. A friend of mine captured Trump’s essence by describing him as “a man of low cunning.” More recently, and to use a more contemporary vocabulary, both Max Boot and Tim Egan (and undoubtedly others) have described Trump as a grifter. (Slate has an interesting piece that distinguishes a “grifter” from a “grafter,” but we needn’t quibble.) But while all of these characterizations hold validity, they’re not completely satisfying. While money is a VERY BIG THING for Trump (as it is, less ostentatiously, for Putin, who’s now probably richer than Trump), money alone doesn’t provide a satisfactory explanation for the Trump phenomena. Something more, something deeper is at play, and here’s where Lachman has provided us with a more revealing lens. Drawing on the writings of Colin Wilson that deal with “rogue messiahs” (gurus) and “Right Men” (those who cannot admit errors or flaws), Lachman establishes a strong connection between “gurus” and “demagogues.” When reflecting on the traits of gurus gone bad--most prove human, all too human--and demagogues like Trump or Putin, one discovers very similar traits. Lachman follows this trail of traits to establish—for me at least—that Trump is not just not a normal politician (compromise, give-and-take, follows established norms), but a guru-demagogue in about every conceivable way. He's intolerant of criticism, lacks friends, prefers mass audiences of adulating fans, holds a simplistic worldview of “us versus them,” and so on. This trope of the bad guru fits as well as any . . . Well, except for one more perspective that Lachman provides us.A more far-fetched, but most intriguing perspective, is to consider Trump a “tulpa,” (or ‘telly-tulpa”), a thought-form, an apparition (albeit one with some material reality) created by mental processes. Lachman draws the idea of a tulpa from Tibetan and magical lore. Whatever the empirical validity of such an entity, as a metaphor, it fits. From this, I can conjure a great opening for a piece about Trump: “A specter is haunting America, the specter of Donald Trump.” Catchy, don’t you think? Just keep in mind that this specter is not a friendly genie that will do our bidding and fulfill our wishes, but an evil jinn who seeks to entice us into our own imprisonment.Lachman is a thorough, reliable guide through the under-explored and labyrinthian ways of experiencing the world that lie outside of the modern mainstream. Lachman has developed a solid reputation for exploring these less traveled by-ways, and this work proves no exception. And I must mention that Lachman approximates an ideal teacher. He informs his reader about ideas, events, and persons with a very light, unobtrusive touch. One must read carefully to get a sense of where his preferences and perspectives lie. He tosses off comments and asides that provide clues, but he’s never ponderous or pedantic. Only at the end of the book, as on the last day of class, does Lachman pull back the curtain and provide a direct statement of his perspective about what he’s shared. His peroration merits careful contemplation:Exactly what guidelines we impose on our imaginations is, of course, a serious question . . . . But the very power involved suggests we should proceed with caution, as anyone of any seriousness would; only children play with matches. This does not mean timidly, but with care and an awareness of the responsibility involved. The future perhaps is not only in our hands, but in our minds, and the reality that awaits us in the time ahead may be germinating there now. Let us hope that when it arrives we will be equal to it and that it will bring clearer skies and brighter stars on the horizon.Lachman, Gary. Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump (p. 192). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. As usual, I find myself mostly agreeing or at least sympathetic with Lachman's arguments, even about points where I’m more skeptical—or perhaps to say cautious—about conclusions and connections. All the points in his case merit careful consideration and invite us to a more in-depth exploration of the issues raised.For me, a book that promotes—even demands—further explorations of its subjects merits the highest valuation, and this book meets this criterion. I could go on at great length sharing and then riffing on the many issues that Lachman’s book raises: the nature of persuasion; the relation between thoughts, beliefs, actions, and reality; the role of ideas in the material world of politics; the thinning barrier between appearance and reality (or simulacra and simulation); the distinction between “imagination” and “fancy” (or “creativity); critiques of modernity and alternatives to modernity; the illusions and deceptions of postmodernism; the potential for civilizational disruption; and (in my words), why the human herd is so spooked that we have stampeded toward a cliff.I’ll save exploration of these issues for later blogs, but suffice it to say, I highly recommend reading this book to better understand and investigate the uncertain times in which we now live.

One year on from when this book was written and it appears that the sharks are circling on Donald Trump's Presidency with allegations against Trump of money laundering with the Russians and the misuse of campaign funds to pay off women who he had extra-marital affairs with. The whole thing seems quite a mess, but how did American politics get in this position? According to Lachman, Occult forces may have had something to do with it. Lachman explores the notions of Positive Thinking, Chaos Magick and Postmodern Philosophy and examines how the practice of these ideas may have influenced not only Donald Trump and his rise to power, but also the politics of the Right-wing in Europe. According to Lachman Positive Thinking, Chaos Magick and Postmodern Philosophy all espouse the idea that there is not some fixed "reality" to be discovered by the Mind, but rather, reality can created or constructed by how we think and act. Central to this idea, isthe notion that the creation of such new 'realities' requires the creation of uncertainty, unpredictability or 'chaos.' For both practitioners of the Occult and Donald Trump, there is no "true" version of reality just one we invent in the process of trying to achieve our goals in the world. Lachman discusses not just the "philosophy" and mind of Donald J Trump, but signs of Occult practices in the recent actions of the American Alt Right and the 'New Russia' under Vladimir Putin. Putin is said to have his own modern day Rasputin-like Occult practitioner in the form of Alexander Dugin. Having read others books by Lachman, I feel he tends to focus a lot more on the life histories of those involved in the Occult, rather then the concepts and ideas that they embody. It could be argued, that you can't understand one without the other, as one key aspect to Lachman's argument is that many of the famous people in history that he contends embody the Occult persona: Trump, Hitler, Ayn Rand, Steve Bannon, Dugin for example, all share the personality "quirk" of never acknowledging they could be "wrong" about their world view. This ties in with the general Occult philosophy that if you believe in a certain "reality" or desire that a certain "reality" come true, it will come true. Lachman makes an interesting summary argument that the practices of Chaos Magick and Post Modernist thinking are not really truely creative acts, but a kind of hodge-lodge philosophy/practice where different ideas are just thrown together. That is, he argues genuine creativity is not just the process of getting two or more seemingly disparate ideas or images and gluing them together, but more like a kind of synthesis of truly new ideas that occurs through the act of imagination of possibilities interacting with the universe. The idea is a little vague, but I think Lachman is arguing that true creativity does not just merge ideas that have already been created but creates genuinely new 'transcendent' ideas. Could it be that the problems that Trump now faces (at the time that this review is being written) is a reflection that the 'Cult of Trump' and its rise to power, has been produced not out of a truly transcendent synchronistic resonance with the universe but out a chaotic mish-mashed wave of confusion?

I have had the considerable pleasure of reading Gary Lachman's works for a number of years now. I also had the experience of seeing, and hearing, him onstage in 1977 when he was bassist with, the then young, vibrant and exciting, Blondie. A great night out, still remember it well and have the photos to prove it. Any way, back to Gary Lachman the writer and researcher. Mr Lachman has been creating beautiful, informative and knowledgeable prose for several decades now, through his long established career as a writer and commentator on the enigmatic, esoteric and occulted aspects of our shared reality. In more recent years his innovative and always fascinating work has turned its focus onto the role of the imagination in this thing we hesitatingly call reality. In these times of stark, hard objective, scientific materialism, the good old Kali Yuga, we have an alarming tendency to spurn the role of the mind and our imagination in our collective reality, possibly to our considerable cost. Mr Lachman has written before upon the role of the occult within politics, in a delightfully balanced and matter of fact manner, avoiding the obvious and inevitable unsupported sensationalism of many books within this subject area, his work always backed up with solid research and non-opinionated commentary. Dark Star continues within this vein, allowing the reader to explore the complexities of western and Russian politics within the structure of their diverse mythoi and philosophies, informing the actors within. We live in a cultural reality that is currently undergoing a deep and significant reboot, courtesy of the various influences of Traditionalism, Fascism, the rise of the Alt-Right and the fascinating involvement of Chaos-Magick. The old order is rapidly fading and a radically different paradigm is flowing into contemporary politics and culture. Some of it being not particularly nice. I can only recommend this book to anyone who wants to see our culture and its political realities in the blinding light of new and revealing truths, uncomfortable as they may be.

Concise and erudite primer on the always fascinating link between politics and the occult.

This is the most interesting and informative book I've read this year. It will put a lot of people well outside their comfort zone, and a good thing too. It is all very carefully researched, and properly considered. The book contains a lot of information various people would prefer you not to know, which is a good enough reason alone for reading it. Despite the depth of its material, it's quite an easy read. And forewarned is fore-armed. Whether you suspect or actually know that there are 'more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of' in most our philosophies, this is a book that doesn't shy away fro looking them straight in the face.

To understand why and how the strange success of someone like Trump in our times. It helps amplifying our consciousness and eventually better dealing with these dark influences, presently spreading all over the world

As a life long socialist interested in secret societies I found the book somewhat biased.The author talks alot about the right wing dangers of Trump and Dugins influence in Russia which I personally think is vastly overstated.However the author totally ignores the evil and carnage created by the American neo conservatives and project for the new American century since 2001. Half a million dead in Iraq endless wars and suffering since 2001. Of course Victoria Nuland and Hilary Clinton are staunch neo conservatives. Perhaps the author could have looked at the occult roots of the American neo conservative movement?The author appears to be a supporter of the maiden 'revolution, in the Ukraine. But whilst he talks alot about fascism in the book he ignores the strong fascist and neo nazi involement in the maiden 'revolution' in the Ukraine.In conclusion whilst the book does contain much useful information I feel that he is abit soft on present day American/ Western imperialism.2001.Half an million dead in Iraq endless wars since 2001.Nuland and Hilary Clinton are strong supporters of the neo consevative warmongers.Perhaps the author could have looked at the occult roots of the neo conservatives?Regarding the authors apparent support for the maiden 'revolution' in Ukraine he ignores the strong far right fascist involvement in the coup, the svoboda political party for instance.In conclusion while the book does contain some useful information. To a certain extent it is an apologist for American/Western imperialism.