Queerying Occultures - Essays from Enfolding Vol. 1

What is Queerying Occultures? 'Queerying' is a portmanteau word from 'Queer’ and 'Query' — classic Phil Hine word play. Occulture is another portmanteau word meaning 'Hidden Culture' (from ‘Occult’ and 'Culture').

The occult is Queer. Historically. Intrinsically. Radically. Wonderfully Queer. Yet at times this essential fact can feel unacknowledged in wider Occulture dialogues. Addressing this, Phil Hine’s Queerying Occultures is a collection of queer-themed essays exploring, questioning and reflecting on the diverse trajectories that might arise from applying queer questioning to occultural themes and practices. Drawing on perspectives from Queer Theory, history, Continental Philosophy, and shared experience, Hine explores subjects as diverse as Shamanism and gender-variance; the rise of the Queer Pagan approaches; the uncomfortable history of occult homophobia; Queer perspectives on Tantra, Pan, Sacred Spaces, and Crowley in Boy Bar Berlin. This far-reaching, necessary book is both a celebratory resistance text and indispensable investigation of the Queer in Occulture.

*******

Praise:

"Queerying Occulture is thought-provoking, articulate, and delightfully transgressive in a manner that no one other than Mr. Hine could manage, and it belongs on all queer bookshelves." - Mat Auryn bestselling author of Psychic Witch and Mastering Magick

"Queerying Occulture invites occultists, Pagans and esotericists of all stripes into a radical inquiry of practice. Using queer theory as the starting place and traversing terrains as varied as Paganism, Tantra, polari, and masked balls, Hine destabilizes boundaries and disrupts the categories and essentialisms that many modern occultists take for granted." - Amy Hale author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully

"Phil Hine's Queerying Occulture is a brilliant dive into the tributaries of thought and history that flow into a contemporary understanding of what constitutes queer magic, paganism and religion." - Lou Hart co-founder of Queer Pagan Camp