The Hexorian Movement is an interesting group working beyond the limits of modern occulture. Their debut text, #OpGrimoire: the Hexorian Field Guide to Urban Witchcraft, is a fascinating and vital pathworking through the realms of bleeding edge sorcery within the built landscape. Boasting a cosmology that brings such fictitious works as Neverwhere and Urban Gothic to mind, while also staying grounded in real world language, the slimline paperback offers a bold synthesis of old and new in a way that few have done before. Indeed, far from being shallow, the smaller page count instead lends it a razor sharp focus.

The self contained cosmology that the Movement have created is designed to provide both new and experienced occult practitioners the tools to explore their home city through a far more mystical lens. It is a path that requires action, and can only be approached practically, out in the world. Indeed the way the Hexorian’s blend their pantheon of newer gods with the psychogeographic landscape is a really interesting touch, and to see them lean into necromancy as part of their chosen remit is refreshing considering the pains many groups will go do when trying to distance themselves from the death current wholesale.

The 80 page text, while arranged slightly chaotically, is generally easy to understand and can be approached in any order. While the DKMU get more than a passing nod throughout, prior knowledge of their methodology is not required as any time the rituals in #OpGrimoire shade into their territory explanations are provided. Indeed a grounding in chaos magick and witchcraft is more than sufficient to fully utilise the Hexorian Spellbook and Book of Shadows sections, or to approach the spirits of the city for aid. This is far from a one way flow, however, and the adept is encouraged to influence their surroundings in return.

Amazon print on demand messing with the formatting for the different sections does cause a few visual issues, but those who know their way around a small press spell book should be able to look past them. Some may also dislike the dreamlike narrative elements. As a reader who actively prefers to have a framing device this was a positive for me, though others may consider the less ritual heavy sections filler. To do so would be to miss out on much of the hidden meaning in those words, however. Cities love their stories, and above all others it is the magickian who should attempt to put those tales to work.

Ultimately this is a great book that suffers a little through printing issues that are obviously not its fault. As a way for urban adepts to re-weird their local landscape #OpGrimoire is a short, but content rich, primer that does exactly what it sets out to do within a limited page count and deserves high praise for achieving those goals in such a succinct way. It is intriguing to note that the text also falls firmly in line with my own work to mythologise the streets which criss-crossed the London of my late teens, perhaps pointing to the loose threads of a shared current within both the Hexorian Movement’s work and mine.

Title: #OpGrimoire: The Hexorian Field Guide to Urban Witchcraft
Author: The Hexorian Movement
Genre: Occult Non-Fiction
Tradition: Chaos Magick/Witchcraft
Difficulty: Starter/Intermediate
Published: 2022
ISBN: 9798846337398
Score: 8/10