Mike Magee (journalist)

This article is about the journalist. For the soccer player, see Mike Magee (soccer).

Mike Magee
Born	(1949-12-07) 7 December 1949
Occupation	Journalist
Nationality	British citizen

Mike Magee (born 7 December 1949–) is a British journalist. He co-founded The Register in 1994, which he left in 2001 to found another well known technology news website, The Inquirer. He is credited with introducing a tabloid-style approach to the coverage of technology news.

In 2001, Magee was one of 100 people honored by E-consultancy.com "for their input and influence on the development and growth of e-commerce and the internet in the UK over the last ten years."

On 18 January 2008 it was announced that Magee would leave the Inquirer at the end of February and pursue other interests. He has since founded the technology news website IT Examiner, and tabloid site The News.

In September 2009 the Daily Telegraph named him number 35 in its list of Top 50 most influential Britons in technology

On 15 January 2010 he launched a new UK technology magazine TechEye

Career

Mike Magee is one of the more colourful members of the IT community. He worked for VNU Business Publications on PC Dealer before becoming involved with that organisation's initial attempts at placing IT news on the Internet—the VNU Newswire. He left the Newswire to pioneer what was to become the UK's first Internet based IT tabloid, The Register which he founded with John Lettice in 1994. It started as a news letter with Magee specialising in writing about computer chips, and John Lettice, who mostly covered software.

"We realised the chip industry was worth about $200 billion a year then, and we were down the pub one day and said, ‘Why don't we do a newsletter because we can and this is a big, big market, and nobody else seems to be doing much about it.' "

The Register was irreverent and in most cases outright rude about the PR culture that fed the IT press at the time-its masthead states: "Biting the Hand That Feeds IT". It attracted a following among IT professionals and investment. In December 2000, Magee suffered a heart attack and when he returned from hospital posted to a Silicon Investor message board that he had a disagreed with the way the Register was going. He wondered if he should start the whole project over. He quit to form a 'back to basics' version called the Inquirer The expansion of this project was delayed as in September 2001 he had a heart bypass operation. Unlike 'the Register' which had substantial capital investment The Inquirer received little in the way of financing, but still managed to make a profit. It was also unique in that Magee was the only full-time employee. The entire magazine was based on freelance submissions, and staff and its advertising were outsourced.

In 2006 Magee had an argument with his former bosses at VNU Business Publications over their alleged use of a web layout similar to that of The Inquirer. The meeting went a little differently from what many predicted and laid the groundwork for Magee to sell the Inquirer to VNU Business Publications later that year. Magee remained as the editor of the Inquirer until February 2008 when he left to pursue other publishing ventures including Techeye.

Tantra and the Occult

During the 1960s Magee experimented with the occult teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Order leading to his work being cited in Grant's books Cults of the Shadow, Nightside of Eden, and Outside the Circles of Time. In 1971 he started a small occult magazine called Azoth, and in 1973 in conjunction with David Hall, and his girlfriend Janet Bailey, started a more ambitious six monthly magazine called SOTHiS.

In 1978, he went to India and met with an English tantrik guru (and former student of Aleister Crowley) called HH Shri Gurudev Mahendranath (1911–1992) who was a 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. Magee took the tantrik name of Lokanath. 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 the way it bought Tantrik teachings to the West. In the UK it had about 500 members. In 1990, Mahendranath claimed, despite some evidence to the contrary, that he had not ever given Magee the right to form AMOOKOS and the group fragmented. Since then Magee has concentrated on providing translations for Tantra website Shiva Shakti Mandalam.

Marriage and family

He married Jan Bailey in a civil ceremony at Edgware Registry Office in 1978. There were two witnesses, one of whom was pulled in from the Street. They have separated and he now lives in Oxford. His son, Tamlin Magee, occasionally also wrote articles for The Inquirer. he now works as the News Editor on TechEye

Published works

• Editor: The Cipher MSS of the Golden Dawn, Azoth Publishing 1973
• Tantrik Astrology, Mandrake Press, Oxford 1989 ISBN 1-869928-06-7
• Tantra Magick, Mandrake Press, Oxford 1990 ISBN 1-869928-11-3

Translations

• Kaulajnananirnya of the School of Matsyendranath, Prachya Prakashan, Varanasi 1986
• Vamakeshvarimatam, Prachya Prakashan, Varanasi 1986
• Matrikabhedatantram, Indological Book House, Delhi, 1986
• Kaulopanishad, Worldwide Tantra Series 1995
• Ganapati Upanishad, Worldwide Tantra Series 1995
• Dhvajadi Prasna, Worldwide Tantra Series 1995
• Magic of Kali, Worldwide Tantra Series 1995

External links

• Mike's Blog
• IT Examiner
• TechEye