They were called the destroyers of civilization and accused of all mortal sins. They really knew a lot about sin and redemption. This book is about people who turned society's ideas about creativity, mysticism and extreme lifestyles - about British experimenters who experimented on themselves and on listeners. Coil, Throbbing Gristle, Current 93, Nurse With Wound - the history of music at the turn of the century is unthinkable without these groups, their traces are visible everywhere: from the underground to pop culture. "The Esoteric Underground of Britain" is also the pedigree of the rich tradition of the English eccentric and visionary art: on the pages of the book there are the great mystic William Blake, the otherworldly artists Louis Wayne, Charles Sims and Austin Osman Spare, director Derek Jarman and many other seekers of the beyond. It can also be read as a saga of desperate creators, sorcerers and madmen who mixed the boundaries of the real and the imaginary. In the fate of her heroes intertwined incredible ambitions, resistance to everyday life, magic pursued by the authorities of the queer movement, struggle with oneself and the search for light in the midst of pitch darkness. This edition of the famous book by Scottish journalist and prose writer David Keenan is based on the text expanded by the author in 2016.