From Xerox to P.O. Box: Self-Published Religious Communication and Theorization—a case study from the archives of the Denver Public Library

This paper examines an understudied dimension of "zine" culture of the 1980s and 1990s, namely, the religious theorization going on between NRMs across America and England. While zines are often discussed for their do-it-yourself ethics, aesthetics, and ‘subterranean’ politics (often attached to a music “scene”), little room has been devoted to analysis of those deriving from the religious underground. My analysis is centered around an archive housed at the Denver Public Library, that of Tom Hallewell—zine author, music promoter, and figurehead of the American network of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth. Hallewell’s archive brings together numerous small-press publications from a range of NRMs such as Satanists, O.T.O. branches, Gnostics, and magickal organizations. Communication between zine creators, and the shared ideas spawned within the pages of their zines, is illustrative of a unique kind of religious theorization stemming from the margins of culture rather than from academic discourse.