Reality Deviants Book Club: Arthur Machen

Reality Deviants Book Club: Arthur Machen

From Mage: The Podcast by Mage: The Podcast

March 21, 2026 · 34 min · Season 10 · Episode 354

About this episode

Adam and Pooka explore the weird fiction of Arthur Machen and its relevance to modern Mage games.

Adam and Pooka discuss the weird fiction of Arthur Machen , Welshman extraordinaire. Do turn of the century horror stories offer anything to modern Mage games? Is this a boon to Victorian Mage Storytellers? Do the powers of darkness really want to redecorate your office? Tune in & hear story ideas, horror commentary and hermetic code names. Show Notes The Great God Pan and ”The White People” , both tied to Machen’s reputation in weird fiction. Machen’s ties to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , a hush-hush British magic club from back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, where folks mixed Rosicrucian ideas, Masonic style, and occult study in hopes of climbing a little closer to the spiritual stars. Reality Deviant Book Club: King in Yellow - Adam and Pooka discuss Robert W. Chambers ’ The King in Yellow mythos and other stories. Video on ternary computers - Ternary computing is a 3-state system (−1, 0, + 1 or "trits") offering higher information density, faster processing, and greater energy efficiency than binary. Oldstyle Tales Press - Publisher of classic horror, ghost stories, and weird fiction from Mary Shelley to M. R. James. Annotated and illustrated. The…

People in this episode

Hosts: Adam, Pooka

Topics covered

  • weird fiction
  • horror stories
  • Mage games
  • Victorian storytelling
  • occult studies

Keywords

  • Arthur Machen
  • weird fiction
  • horror
  • Mage games
  • Hermetic Order
  • occult
  • The Great God Pan
  • The White People

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Oldstyle Tales Press

Books & works: The Great God Pan, The White People, The King in Yellow

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