Good story about a person's journey with manifestation, but might be a bit too off topic for most people deep into their magic.

Once upon a time there was a much rumoured and long-awaited book called Pop Magic! by Grant Morrison — an expanded version of his essay in Disinformation's 'Book of Lies' which any chaos magician worth their salt should check out.

Sadly this is not that book.

Pop Magic! the book never happened. I got my hopes up when I saw that Pop Magick had endorsements from Richard Metzger, the Grand Poohbah of Disinformation, and Fiona Horne who wrote the Disinformation classic 'Pop! Goes The Witch.'

Disinformation were an American media and publishing company and over-the-counter counterculteral phenonemon in the 1990s. If you ever saw the Disinformation TV show (called Disinfo Nation when it aired in the UK) then we're probably already friends.

So what is Pop Magick by Alex Kazemi? Magick for Millennials as far as this gnarly old chaos magician is concerned. It's the first phrase that popped into my head when I started reading the book and, no matter how much I enjoyed reading it, it did nothing to disavow me of this notion.

It is exactly what you'd expect a Millennial to come up with.

Billed as the one book all you cool kids need to read so that you can skip reading all those dusty old occult books you bought to make your bookshelves look cool.

It reads like it was written by someone who couldn't be bothered to read Crowley, let alone any other books about the occult, but has decided to start a YouTube channel about it anyway.

Vaccuous, celebrity obsessed, and full of contradiction. It defines magick in a hand-wavy way that suggests a lack of even a basic understanding about what magick is.

Want to know how to use Instagram for Glamour Magic? It's all in here. Want to understand magick? Picky a dusty old tome at random and actually read the damned thing.

My favourite bit is Kazemi's anecdote about how he used magick to get in touch with his hero Marilyn Manson.

Get this, right? Kazemi knew a girl who knew Marilyn Manson, So, after performing all the relevant rituals and all that, he asked her for Marilyn Manson's phone number and sent him a text message.

Guess what, people? The magick worked. All hail the powerful wizard!

To be fair, despite my reservations, I enjoyed this book a lot more than I'm letting on. It is exactly what you'd expect Magick For Millennials to look like, but so what? At least it's interesting.

I'm a grumpy old man. What do I know about anything? You kids have fun.

This is a very great, inspirational, informative book. It provided a lot of useful insight into all things magick such as rituals, lunar phases, meditations and much more. I also enjoyed the author providing background into his own personal situations that he applied his knowledge into, and insight into actual experience in modern culture is very useful especially for younger generations. I learned a lot from this book and I really enjoyed it.

Pop magick is a fast paced read through one person’s approach to magical workings.

I enjoyed the forgoing of typical Wiccan and pagan focuses that tend to show up in writing on this topic. As a result of trimming out the ritual and tool obsession that many other writers have Kazemi is able to present their reader with a process for doing magic that is approachable regardless of your income or current skill level.
That said poor transitions between topics , constant name dropping, and a somewhat arrogant tone leave me unable to recommend this book to the average witchcraft student.
I do look forward to reading more from this author and would recommend this piece as a casual read for students of chaos magic or those who enjoy discordian magic.

If you can make it through the relentless name dropping, ludicrous grandstanding and tinder app sex magick you will find a kick arse book on the subject of straight shooting magick. Refreshingly the author rejects Pagan and Wiccan dogmatic philosophies rooted in outmoded rules, non inclusivity and sexist beliefs. Instead delivers cut to the chase magick for now! No casting circles or ridiculous time consuming rituals here.

It’s unfortunate that the author is obsessed with the violence towards women perpetrator, Marilyn Manson, piece of shit - look up a Evan Rachel Wood. Kazemi does include a quote from Rose McGowan which sums this book up well, “Magick is the art of utilizing natural forces around us to bring about change. I stand for change. That’s what this book does. It brings change—change of thought, change of action, change of spirit. Magick is neutral—neither good nor evil. Take this book for what it is: a look behind and beyond the mirror. Come on the journey.”

*eARC provided by the publisher and Netgalley

The author spends an awful lot of time discussing his own magical triumphs and the interesting life magic gives him. With that, too, we see a bit of lifestyle editorializing on the subject of things like drug use and pornography.

He also talks a bit about celebrities through an occult lens. “ARIANA GRANDE IS A POWERFUL MAGICKAL ALCHEMIST,” he writes.

These things didn’t really add to the book very much - I’m not particularly interested in the author’s peculiar perspectives on drug use, strippers, and his relationships with celebrities.

I picked up this book to read about magic, not 25-year-old Alex Kazemi’s personal life philosophy. I get that life lessons are often entwined with magic lessons, but so little of it seems relevant here, and runs awfully close to just bragging.

The author assigns a definition to the phrase “pop magick,” portraying it as a flavor of results-oriented magic, albeit with heavier witch influences. So much of his theory, and many of the practices in the book, recall older chaos magic techniques.

Strangely, though, Mr. Kazemi describes magic as creating “order” out of “chaos” through imposition of one’s own divine will on nature. This is a little odd, and seems to blend high magic with the chaos magic paradigm.

I spent a few years in the late 2000s studying chaos magic, and then the first half of the 2010s focused on Thelema and other high magical systems. They can work well together, but the author ought to provide more to work with.

There’s bits about which color candles “do” what, correspondences for the moon phasesTo be honest, it would have been prudent for the author to talk more about the origins of these techniques (such as Spare sigilization) rather than flying past them at breakneck speed.

About halfway through, the author declares himself (and the reader) to be Illuminati members. To be Illuminati, he claims, just means “bring[ing] order to chaos” via the imposition of your divine will on reality. I would’ve liked more context, and maybe a bit of the relevant history of Illuminati legends.

Some portions of the book felt a little disjointed in a way I can’t quite describe - I feel like the transitions between different sections could flow a little better. Keep in mind that I received an advance reader copy, and that issue might vanish in the final book when published; we’ll see.

I didn’t really come across anything that was new to me in this book, but I could see a beginning chaos witch finding it a bit helpful. You can find much of the same information online, though, or in more detailed, existing books.

For this reason, I’m giving this book two out of five stars. I didn’t really enjoy reading it, nor did I learn much from it.

Please note that much of this book discusses adult subject matter - this isn’t one for the kids! There are plenty of references to drugs, alcohol, and sex magic - though the author admits he’s never tried sex magic.

It was a fun read that cover all the basis and entertains at the same time.
I liked the style of writing and the humour.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Very interesting and practical. No extravagent materials needed. Love, money, more success. they are all covered. Excellent book that teaches in steps how to improve your life or others if you think its possible.

An accessible and simple introduction to magic for Gen Z and the Instagram baddies of the world. I can see this acting as a good branching off point for people to delve deeper into witchcraft and magick practices, but I can also see this not going down well with those who might see it as disrespectful to the craft.

While this book was more approachable than other Magickbooks (you can perhaps picture someone in your circle writing it) it didn't differ too much from other Magickbooks to stand too highly above the others. On the other hand, it was less woo woo than other books (but also a bit more woo woo than I'd like). I'd recommend this as a good introduction to Magick for those new and somewhat (but not completely) skeptical.

Funny, entertaining and irreverent. Alex takes all the mysteries of the Craft and presents them in a simple way. Perfect for the Millenial Witch!