Latest news with #blackmagic
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pan by Michael Clune review – a stunning debut of teen psychosis
The narrator of American nonfiction author Michael Clune's first novel is the 15-year-old Nicholas, who lives with his father in a housing development so cheap and deracinated it inspires existential terror. It's a place exposed to 'the raw death of the endless future, which at night in the midwest in winter is sometimes bare inches above the roofs'. Just as frightening is Nicholas's sense that 'anything can come in'. One day in January, what comes into Nicholas is the god Pan – a possessing, deranging, life-threatening spirit. Or that, anyhow, is how Nicholas comes to interpret his increasingly disabling anxiety. Pan is remarkable for the honesty of its treatment of both mental illness and adolescence. It shows more successfully than any other book I've read how these can be experienced as black magic – indeed, it allows that they might be black magic. Nicholas successfully prophesies trivial events (the wind rising, someone saying the word 'diabetes') and is haunted by a dead mouse's squeak. Another boy finds a means of divination in a schlock fantasy novel. Even the pop anthem More Than a Feeling is a path to the uncanny; it's a song with 'a door in the middle of it … like the door on a UFO'. Nicholas becomes convinced that he is perpetually at risk of leaving his body – specifically, that his 'looking/thinking could pour or leap out' of his head – and his friends, also being 15 years old, are ready to believe it, too. They are easy prey for Ian, a college-age man who sets himself up as a small-time cult leader among these high-school kids. Ian particularly targets Nicholas, telling him that only they are capable of real thoughts; the others in the group are 'Hollows' who have 'Solid Mind', a deterministic mentality with no animating self. 'The sound of words from a Hollow mouth,' says Ian, 'contains an abyss.' Soon the group is staging rituals incorporating sex, drugs and animal sacrifice. Meanwhile, Nicholas loses his ability to sleep and spirals toward psychosis. Clune is brilliant on the loss of control and exaggeration of terror that follows. Falling out of your face can be transcendence, but can also represent extinction. When Nicholas sees a black-and-white photograph of a group of long-dead priests, he reflects: 'Now they'd all stepped out of their faces … The faces hung there like rows of empty sneakers in a shop window. The priests had stepped out.' At his hardware-store job, Nicholas sees the racks of garden tools and realises, 'These are animals too … These are the husks, the waiting bodies, the body traps of animals.' He knows that if he stares at the hand spades and rotary tillers long enough, he can inhabit them; even household objects now have a door in the middle of them. Nicholas's reality becomes fluid. Among his friends, he becomes the object of semi‑religious, semi-voyeuristic fascination. What is truly remarkable here is that the extravagance feels meticulously true to a certain state of altered consciousness. I doubt that anyone has had Nicholas's exact experiences, or even ones that resemble them in obvious ways. Still, anyone who has experienced mental illness – and many who have just been 15 years old – will find even Clune's most phantasmagoric pages uncannily familiar. There are trade-offs to fiction that strives to be honest. Here, one is that the other characters never fully become people. They're external experiences that inform the way Nicholas relates to his own mind, and it's often very credible that they are 'Hollows' with no real consciousness. This may be a truthful depiction of the isolation characteristic of extreme mental states. It also means the story is unrelentingly solipsistic. The plot centres on inner epiphanies. While these present themselves as life-saving answers, they all turn out to be brief respites, some evanescing so quickly that they're forgotten seconds later. It's no surprise that Sisyphus appears as a reference here. This is certainly true both of coping with mental illness and surviving adolescence. It also risks making the reader feel as if we're going nowhere. But this is not really to criticise the book: it's just to say what it is and isn't. A reader who approaches Pan expecting the usual rewards of a coming-of-age story will be sorely disappointed. It offers not answers but visions; not growth but lambent revelation; not closure but openings. 'Good writing,' Nicholas tells us, is 'the careful, painstaking replacement of each part of this world with a part that [looks] the same, but [is] deeper, more mysterious, richer.' This feels like a fair description of Clune's own process, with the proviso that he is not replacing but supplementing; not substituting for reality, but adding to it. Nicholas ends his inner journey without arriving at the cure he has been pursuing. But when we close the book, we find ourselves in a larger world. Pan by Michael Clune is published by Fern Press (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@ You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Pan by Michael Clune review – a stunning debut of teen psychosis
The narrator of American nonfiction author Michael Clune's first novel is the 15-year-old Nicholas, who lives with his father in a housing development so cheap and deracinated it inspires existential terror. It's a place exposed to 'the raw death of the endless future, which at night in the midwest in winter is sometimes bare inches above the roofs'. Just as frightening is Nicholas's sense that 'anything can come in'. One day in January, what comes into Nicholas is the god Pan – a possessing, deranging, life-threatening spirit. Or that, anyhow, is how Nicholas comes to interpret his increasingly disabling anxiety. Pan is remarkable for the honesty of its treatment of both mental illness and adolescence. It shows more successfully than any other book I've read how these can be experienced as black magic – indeed, it allows that they might be black magic. Nicholas successfully prophesies trivial events (the wind rising, someone saying the word 'diabetes') and is haunted by a dead mouse's squeak. Another boy finds a means of divination in a schlock fantasy novel. Even the pop anthem More Than a Feeling is a path to the uncanny; it's a song with 'a door in the middle of it … like the door on a UFO'. Nicholas becomes convinced that he is perpetually at risk of leaving his body – specifically, that his 'looking/thinking could pour or leap out' of his head – and his friends, also being 15 years old, are ready to believe it, too. They are easy prey for Ian, a college-age man who sets himself up as a small-time cult leader among these high-school kids. Ian particularly targets Nicholas, telling him that only they are capable of real thoughts; the others in the group are 'Hollows' who have 'Solid Mind', a deterministic mentality with no animating self. 'The sound of words from a Hollow mouth,' says Ian, 'contains an abyss.' Soon the group is staging rituals incorporating sex, drugs and animal sacrifice. Meanwhile, Nicholas loses his ability to sleep and spirals toward psychosis. Clune is brilliant on the loss of control and exaggeration of terror that follows. Falling out of your face can be transcendence, but can also represent extinction. When Nicholas sees a black-and-white photograph of a group of long-dead priests, he reflects: 'Now they'd all stepped out of their faces … The faces hung there like rows of empty sneakers in a shop window. The priests had stepped out.' At his hardware-store job, Nicholas sees the racks of garden tools and realises, 'These are animals too … These are the husks, the waiting bodies, the body traps of animals.' He knows that if he stares at the hand spades and rotary tillers long enough, he can inhabit them; even household objects now have a door in the middle of them. Nicholas's reality becomes fluid. Among his friends, he becomes the object of semi‑religious, semi-voyeuristic fascination. What is truly remarkable here is that the extravagance feels meticulously true to a certain state of altered consciousness. I doubt that anyone has had Nicholas's exact experiences, or even ones that resemble them in obvious ways. Still, anyone who has experienced mental illness – and many who have just been 15 years old – will find even Clune's most phantasmagoric pages uncannily familiar. There are trade-offs to fiction that strives to be honest. Here, one is that the other characters never fully become people. They're external experiences that inform the way Nicholas relates to his own mind, and it's often very credible that they are 'Hollows' with no real consciousness. This may be a truthful depiction of the isolation characteristic of extreme mental states. It also means the story is unrelentingly solipsistic. The plot centres on inner epiphanies. While these present themselves as life-saving answers, they all turn out to be brief respites, some evanescing so quickly that they're forgotten seconds later. It's no surprise that Sisyphus appears as a reference here. This is certainly true both of coping with mental illness and surviving adolescence. It also risks making the reader feel as if we're going nowhere. But this is not really to criticise the book: it's just to say what it is and isn't. A reader who approaches Pan expecting the usual rewards of a coming-of-age story will be sorely disappointed. It offers not answers but visions; not growth but lambent revelation; not closure but openings. 'Good writing,' Nicholas tells us, is 'the careful, painstaking replacement of each part of this world with a part that [looks] the same, but [is] deeper, more mysterious, richer.' This feels like a fair description of Clune's own process, with the proviso that he is not replacing but supplementing; not substituting for reality, but adding to it. Nicholas ends his inner journey without arriving at the cure he has been pursuing. But when we close the book, we find ourselves in a larger world. Pan by Michael Clune is published by Fern Press (£16.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@ You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting
CNA
03-07-2025
- CNA
Man granted protection order against ex-wife, who tracked down his former boss about 'black magic'
SINGAPORE: A family court granted a man a personal protection order against his ex-wife, who had contacted his former boss with claims about black magic being used against him. The woman also sent her ex-husband a photo of a man in bed, saying: "I sleep with a man." Magistrate Soh Kian Peng found that the woman's actions had caused her ex-husband distress and amounted to emotional or psychological abuse and granted the requested order. According to a judgment made available on Thursday (Jul 3), the man complained that his ex-wife had engaged in "a pattern of conduct that caused him no small amount of stress and grief", despite his attempts to move on. MAN COMPLAINS OF ABUSE BETWEEN 2012 AND 2025 The man, who has since remarried, said he had suffered emotional and psychological abuse from his ex-wife's behaviour in several incidents. First, his ex-wife applied for a personal protection order against him in 2012, even though he could not have committed family violence against her as he was on reservist training. The case was dropped, but the man said he suffered "significant stress and fear" of the woman's "unpredictable behaviour and random baseless accusations". In 2017, the woman tracked down the man's former boss, known only as C in court documents. She told C that her ex-husband and his mother had been using black magic on C's wife. This supposedly caused C's wife to fall ill and die. She purportedly told C that "your wife actually passed away" due to her ex-husband's late mother. C testified at the trial and confirmed that this had happened. He said his wife had been bedridden for almost eight years at the time. "(The woman) told me that the reason why my wife was bedridden was because (my ex-employee) and his mother put a black magic spell ... on my wife, which I ... found very strange, but I didn't want to say much," he said. At the time, he knew his ex-employee was not in Singapore, so he sent him a message to call him straight away. "So he called me ... and I told him about the whole thing. And that was where he told me that his uncle or ... some relative was also contacted along the same lines to basically just to mention negative points about (my ex-employee)," said C. He showed the court a text message from the woman, who identified herself and said her ex-husband had performed black magic on C's wife, in order to "take revenge" on C. C said he did not make a police report because his ex-employee decided not to. The third incident occurred in 2021, when the man received a message from his ex-wife saying she had slept with another man, along with a photo of an unknown man on her bed. The latest incident was on Valentine's Day this year, when the man received a summons to attend court. His ex-wife had applied for a personal protection order against him, which he said caused "significant emotional and mental stress" to him and his current wife. THE COURT'S FINDINGS The magistrate found that the woman had indeed contacted C to spread false rumours, which falls squarely within the definition of emotional or psychological abuse. The conduct had caused her ex-husband distress. However, the magistrate found that the woman's filing of a personal protection order against her ex-husband did not amount to emotional abuse, as parties are entitled to file their complaints. There are safeguards to minimise the filing of frivolous or meritless complaints, said the magistrate. He found that the woman had committed family violence on her ex-husband and was likely to continue causing emotional or psychological abuse to him. He added that there is evidence that the woman has an undisclosed psychiatric condition, which she was receiving treatment for at the Institute of Mental Health. In her testimony, she described dreaming of her ex-husband and his family members regularly, and seeing him in places she frequented, leading her to believe she was being followed. She had filed police reports and applications for personal protection orders against her ex-husband. Her overall behaviour demonstrated "a clear pattern of conduct" on her part, continuing to harass him despite the man resolving to go his separate way after their divorce. The magistrate said it was necessary to order the personal protection order against the woman for her ex-husband's personal safety. "It was clear to me that the present case was one where (the woman's) conduct had impacted (her ex-husband's) living circumstances and thus exacted a toll on him," he said. "The way (she) had acted was clearly affecting (his) personal life, as well as his professional relationships."
Telegraph
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Ian Greaves
In 1974, the 'black magic' of Penda's Fen horrified its audience – but left an extraordinary impression on director Danny Boyle
News.com.au
20-05-2025
- News.com.au
‘He was my saviour': Astrologer confronted over $67k claim
A man claiming to be 'Brisbane's best astrologer' has been confronted on national television after a family claimed to have paid him $67,000 for his services. Govindu Shastri, who claims to perform cosmic miracles for those struggling with everything from business, court and sexual problems to voodoo and black magic, told a Queensland father his services were the only thing that could save his children, to the tune of $67,000. 'He closed his eyes basically and then he said that 'I can see your aura right now and it's been covered by dark forces and there's an indication of black magic being performed on your family',' the man told A Current Affair on Monday night. 'I tried to save my family. I was so convinced there was no way out.' Before meeting Govindu, the man and his wife had sought help from a psychologist and psychiatrist to help one of their children, who was struggling with poor mental health. 'Nothing was working, and then I thought, try (an) alternative cure,' the man said. He booked an appointment with Govindu, who told him during their first meeting that a 'black magic' was growing among his family and had 'real potential to disrupt and destroy' them. The first ritual Govindu performed involved him saying 'nine days of special prayers', for which he charged the man $2000. 'And he said that you have to pay another $14,000 because (the black magic) has moved onto your child now and that's more serious,' the man, who has not told his family about the money he has lost, claimed. Govindu then said he needed to perform a third ritual – this one even more bizarre. 'He asked me to bring a jar and he asked me to breathe into the jar, basically, and he started chanting things, and the ball of flame just evolved from there, from the jar, big thick ball of flame,' the man recalled. 'And he (Govindu) said, 'I got it, I got it!'. He held the thing. Then he said that, 'This is alive now and if this one escapes, that's going to go after your child'.' The man claimed Govindu told him he 'needed a dead person's body (of) similar size to (his) child to perform the next ritual', which would cost $50,000. 'So he told you he needed a dead person's body similar size to your child to perform the next ritual?' A Current Affair asked. 'Yes,' the man confirmed. After he gave Govindu the money, however, he said he was ghosted by him and the ritual was never performed. Asked why he didn't notice any 'red flags' in Govindu's behaviour, the man said it was because he 'was so convincing'. 'My personal condition was so overrun with my family situation,' he added. 'He was just my saviour.' When confronted by A Current Affair at a Brisbane petrol station, Govindu denied knowing what an astrologist was – or that he was one at all. 'I'm not an astrologist, sorry for that. I don't know who that is,' he said. Presented with advertisements from his Facebook page, Govindu said: 'I think you are coming for the wrong person.' In a statement to he said: 'I have not done any scam, not even $1 scam. I feel to leave my life, and end my life here (in Australia). I am getting calls from my back home county. I have 2 kids and my wife here. 'We had a good positive life from the day. But now it has destroyed (my) entire life.' An Office of Fair Trading spokesperson said that it does not regulate spiritual or astrological services specifically, but urged consumers to 'exercise caution when engaging with individuals or businesses offering services that involve unverifiable claims or require large financial commitments'.
