Remembering GW
So Long, and Thanks for All the Robofish
The world is a little dimmer today. Gordon White, the forever 27 year old pirate magician has journeyed beyond the western horizon. His impact on the magical community cannot be underestimated, and the intellectual void he leaves is abyssal. He was, without doubt, one of the most influential thinkers and practitioners of the 21st century and his work has been the catalyst for a host of others to find a collective home beneath the midnight-black banner of the weird kid. There has already been a cascade of memorials to him; testament to the broad reach and love of his Rune Soup project, and whilst I didn’t always agree with some of his perspectives, his impact on my own work has been immense. I have gifted more copies of Star.Ships and Ani.Mystic than any other book, and will continue to nail my own colours to the theses those twin masts represent.
Gordon’s work first came into my life through an interview he hosted with Julian Vayne and Nikki Wyrd back in 2014, and from that point the interviews he curated introduced me to some of the most exciting people in contemporary magical practice. The show served as a powerful vector for “the best of new and old ideas for living in this world”, providing a platform for a diverse ensemble of voices to explore a multitude of subjects with intelligence and wit. His writing on the nascent Rune Soup blog was as informative as it was entertaining and I always enjoyed catching up with his prodigious output. When the RSPM membership was created in 2016, I jumped straight in, devouring each course as they were created. Aside from the profound learnings these excellently collated and delivered courses provided, they often had unforeseen consequences, with one course memorably causing a temporary global scarcity of St Cyprian statues.
By 2017 the network he created online would find a crew of like-minded weirdos meeting in person on a bright summer day in Chester. Getting to talk and explore actual magical practice in the real world was ground-breaking for me, and members of that crew would go onto form not only the Moelyci Project, but the core of an ongoing magically operant cell that is as committed in its work as it is eclectic. His clarion call to find the others will be a loved and lasting inheritance. Gordon personally helped me with research for my own work, and was a kind and patient listener to my many questions. I very much doubt I’d be custodian of the Chester Occult Society if it were not for his rhizomatic approach to community, or the contagious sense of curiosity he engendered.
From a practical magical perspective, Gordon’s presence, and now legacy is considerable, and I expect his work will be referred to for decades to come. Aside from being one of many practitioners who gifted the fire, I will forever smile when I think of a handful of the works he directly (and successfully) inspired. From fruit-machining planetary hours, incorporating robofish sigils and launching them via skating, invoking Agathos Daimon during the fever pitch crescendo of Jubilee Street at a Nick Cave gig in Ireland, to conjuring a treasure hunting spirit which would be part of a long magical campaign to be completely debt-free by 40. All of this within the context of the re-establishment of an animist, inspirited world; both human and non human, living and dead. Whilst there were thoughts and avenues he pursued I didn’t follow, I cannot deny that he hasn’t made my world (and that of many others) a larger and more exciting place to be.
Following the 2020 Avenging Angels event in London, I decided to paint up a limited edition sculpt of Gandalf the Grey for him. The model was painted several times and I could never get it quite right. It was only finished it at the end of last year, and I had been intending to send it to him when he returned home from his current trip to Peru. I’m saddened this will never reach him now, but it will be a fond and bittersweet reminder of the traveller and the treasures he bequeathes. My love and condolences go out to all those he leaves behind, his family and friends and the wider world he brought together.
Journey well you weird kid. You will be incredibly missed.
Loved reading this Mark. I remember also, as well as the global shortage of St. Cyprian statues, a brief period when second hand hardback Golden Hoard Hygromanteias where selling for big bucks. So much so, I think, that eventually a paperback edition was printed. And all because G was recommending it as his current fave grimoire, to those doing his first course on sigils. Funny to reflect on it all now, those early days.