Our monthly newsletter for April has just gone out. You can view it in your browser here.

It’s a summary of what’s new on the site, plus upcoming news and announcements, and calls for writers.

If you’re not already on the list, now is a great time to sign up. Google Reader, poor dear, will be disappearing on July 1st, 2013, and the newsletter is a great way to keep current with the latest essays, articles, interviews and esoteric reviews.

You can sign up here.

It’s free, we only send emails once a month, and of course your address is always kept confidential, and never sold or shared.

If you’re interested in joining our awesome review team, there’s a separate side list, just tick the appropriate box when you sign up.

Thanks & enjoy,

–The Editor

We’ve just sent our first news letter!

A few months ago we quietly added a subscriber box for our newsletter to the right side bar, but haven’t really promoted it until now, and now we’ve just sent our first communication, with updates as to what’s happening with the site, new content, and what we’re looking for in terms of contributors.

You can see the first newsletter archived here, and if it sounds like something you’re interested in, you can subscribe here, or by adding your address to the box on the right.

We won’t send many of these, so you’ll likely only see one e-mail every other month or so. I’d like to start including more industry news in them as well, so if you’ve got a new book or project on the go, let me know, and I’ll see about including it in the next newsletter.

Happy reading!

Please note that as of the end of October, our book and media reviews address will be changing. We will no longer be using the post box.

I’ve e-mailed the new address to the publishers we regularly deal with, but if you’re interested in sending new material, and haven’t received the new address, please contact me.

I request that you please update your records, as we may not be able to receive material at the previous address after that date.

Thanks and best wishes for the fall season.

I’m sorry to report that Mike Gleason (1951-2012) passed away on 30 August. He was a prolific reviewer of Pagan books and music, and contributed hundreds of reviews to this site (among countless others), and there remain dozens that have yet to be posted.

Selena Fox has written a beautiful obituary on the Circle Sanctuary site, which I invite you to read. He’s been cremated, and will be interred at Circle Cemetery at Circle Sanctuary. The above link also lists a page for those who’d like to make donations in his memory.

Rest well, Mike, and thanks for all you’ve done.

After ten years with Esosoft, we’ve moved to Site5. They have great hosting options, and way more features.

In the move the site was down for a couple of days, our apologies for that.

We’ve added a new mailing list for those interested in receiving very occasional updates (we’re thinking we’ll send maybe one e-mail a month), with additional e-mails for those of you interested in writing for Spiral Nature, or joining our reviewer team.

If that sounds cool, you can sign up by clicking here, or using the form on the right.

Some e-mail accounts may have been down briefly as well. Everything should be back to normal by now, but if anyone’s having trouble, please ensure your settings are as per below: Continue reading »

SpiralNature.com is looking for reviewers – bonus if you live in Toronto.

We have more books than we know what to do with, and a back log has been piling up – especially for unsolicited titles. We’d love to review them all, but just don’t have the time.

If you love to read, and are interested in receiving free books and publication on SpiralNature.com, please contact me with your area(s) of interest, and provide a sample review or a sample of writing if you don’t have a review.

Again, bonus points if you live in the Toronto, we don’t have a budget here, and whatever we can save on shipping we can spend on hosting and associated costs.

Thanks!

Update: More than a dozen people responded, and we now have enough new staff reviewers for now. We’re always looking for new contributors though, and if you’re interested, please see our Submission Guidelines.

Thanks again!

SpiralNature.com has had an RSS feed since late October 2008, but apart from a brief, quietly published piece called “What is RSS?”, it hasn’t been properly announced.

Let’s begin with a recap of what RSS stands for, and why it’s useful:

What is RSS?

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. It’s a technology which allows people to receive automatic updates when new content is posted on blogs, news headlines, podcasts, or any website that publishes a feed.

The orange image on the left is a standard icon used to indicate that a feed is published by a website. Some browsers will show it in the address line, and clicking on it will give you the option to subscribe to the feed. SpiralNature.com simply lists it at the top of our menu as “RSS“.

How do I subscribe?

Software that reads an RSS feed is alternately called an RSS reader, feed catcher, or news aggregator. Subscription is always free, and there are several ways to subscribe.

What’s it do?

By subscribing to a feed, you receive content from the website as it’s updated. You no longer need to remember to go back and check your bookmarks: instead, the content come to you. We publish full feeds, so that means each new essay, ritual and review is published in its entirety. The formatting may differ a little depending on your reader, but you’ll get the full text.

Where do I find a reader? Continue reading »

Our Submission Guidelines and Review Submission Guidelines have been revised and updated, and are now give a more straightforward idea of what we’re looking for.

As SN’s focus is to serve as an occult resource dedicated to occult philosophy and metaphysics, alternative spiritualities, and practical magick, we publish essays, articles, book excerpts and reviews.  This can include innovative explorations of personal philosophy, religious territory and magickal practice, as well as essays focusing on more traditional routes.

While we love original content, we’re not opposed to reprinting material.  If the piece has appeared elsewhere either online or in print, please indicate so in your submission.

Additionally, Continue reading »

Spiral Nature's New Logo

SpiralNature.com is an occult resource dedicated to occult philosophy and metaphysics, alternative spiritualities, and practical magick.

Since its inception in 2000, SpiralNature.com has retained the same look and feel.  (To see past versions of the site, check out SpiralNature.com on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.) It was quite dated in terms of its look and its functionality.

This is the first time in SpiralNature.com’s eight year history it’s received a  make-over – indeed, a complete restructuring.

Along with the new design and new logo comes better navigation and new ways explore to SN’s archives.  Clicking on the items in the menu on the left shows you everything Continue reading »

Spiral Nature's Original Logo

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking at a sneak peek of SN 2.0, the new and improved version of SpiralNature.com, the official launch date for which is October 31st, 2008.

But you’re here!  Early!  That’s ok, but we’ve still a bit of tidying to do.

Actually,  there’s still a lot to prepare before we’re ready for the official launch – such as fine tune the design, design the new logo, new favicon, oh, and convert about another 500 pages of dated HTML to our spiffy new content management system.  Right. Continue reading »