One of the legends of the IT industry, tantric guru, and the inventor of the cynical red-top tech tabloid, Mike Magee, has died at 74.
What you just saw above is an intro that I wrote for Fudzilla this morning. It is weird when a part of yourself switches off to write something “formal” about someone you have known for decades and who prevented you from starving by hiring you to write his crazy magazines.
I met Mike at VNU Newswire, where I was starting to shift to what was becoming Internet journalism. He was a handful for his editors. His technique was simple: He would disappear for most of the day and somehow write the lead story. If needed, he could be found in one of Soho’s nearby waterholes. If you were a good editor you learnt not to interfere.
One December, on the way to a PR party, Mike and I talked about the occult and the esoteric. His story, which I will get to later, was involved and fascinating.
He left the Newswire and co-founded The Register, the UK’s first Internet-based IT tabloid, with John Lettice in 1994. In December 2000, Magee suffered a heart attack and died on the operating table only to revive and being told that he would have to do the same operation in ten years (he didn’t). When he returned to work, he left to found The Inquirer, which reflected the original editorial philosophy. Unlike The Register, which received a lot of investment, The Inquirer received little financing but made a profit. Magee was the only full-time employee.
He was important to the tech industry. In 2009, the Daily Telegraph placed Magee 35th among the Top 50 most influential Britons in technology. It was telling that among his get well cards (presumably ordered to do so by their PR departments) were all the top names of the IT industry who he had taken the piss out of.
The Inquirer was based on freelance submissions, and staff and advertising were outsourced. Many technology journalists who got their start at the INQ owe something to Mike. I was one of them. I was living in Bulgaria and INQ money kept me well off. All that ended when Mike flogged the Inquirer to VNU. Later that year, Magee sold The Inquirer to VNU. He remained as editor of The Inquirer until February 2008, and left. I remained. But the PrivateEye style remained, the fun had gone.
He set up TechEye (which folded when the funding was cut) and ChannelEye (which kept running on promises of future cash that never arrived, and by then I had given up). He joined Fudzilla as Editor-at-Large in July 2016.
Mike was a poster child for ignoring the doctor’s advice. Despite some severe illness in later life, he continued his life as always.
While most people know about his fame as a tech industry gadfly, fewer are aware of his interest in the esoteric and the occult. This began with his work with Alistair Crowley’s secretary, Kenneth Grant.
In 1971, he started an occult fanzine called Azoth, and in 1973, in conjunction with David Hall and his then-girlfriend later-wife Janet Bailey, he started a more ambitious six-monthly magazine called SOTHiS.
This brought him into contact with Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. Despite his fame, his accountant did not allow Page to have much money, so he approached Magee for a loan to buy an esoteric bookstore. The loan was never repaid.
In 1973, while on holiday, he had a lucid dream about the Indian goddess Kali, which left him keen to learn more about Indian traditions. After various mystical experiences, he became interested in the tantric tradition.
In 1977, he went to India and met with an English tantrik guru called HH Shri Gurudev Mahendranath (1911-1992) who was a guru (some say the last guru) of the Uttarakaula Tantric Order of northern India. Mahendranath gave him the title of a guru and a charter to form a group of students.
Later, this was to become a nucleus for the “Arcane Magical Order of the Knights of Shambhala” (AMOOKOS). This group was highly influential, particularly in bringing Tantrik teachings to the West. In the UK, it had about 500 members.
In 1980, Mahendranath claimed, despite physical evidence, that he had never given Magee the right to form AMOOKOS and the group fragmented. Magee went on to do his own thing, concentrating more on Tantra. He has also provided translations for Tantra website Shiva Shakti Mandalam.
He formed his own publishing company producing translations of Indian tantric texts.
He married Jan Bailey in a civil ceremony at Edgware Registry Office in 1978. Two witnesses were present, one of whom was pulled in from the Street. They had a son, Tamlin, who was an occasion Techeye writer.
Writing a mate’s obit is an arse. Whatever you want to write about, cannot do justice to a bloke who lived life to the full and made a difference to many. You want to write something like, “I am sure he is in the heavenly Star and Garter with Dave Evans and others he worked with.” But that would dumb down someone who was incredibly complex and multifaceted. How can you be sad that someone who walked through Indian cemeteries to find a death goddess finally found what he was searching for?
Last week, he sent me a contribution for the Hermetic Tablet, probably coming out in November. I set the deadline for the end of September and was not expecting anything from anyone in August. However, Mike had sent something on Tantric magic based on his translations. He must have known something.
While I can’t speak for others, life will be like working at the Inquirer after Mike had gone. It is like visiting school during the holidays, and everything that gave the place life has gone.
Mike will be missed.
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