Welcome to Issue No. 05 – MAGIC
Magic has always existed at the edges of certainty. It lives in folklore and family traditions, in intuition and ritual, in art, history and the stories we inherit. It is found in the things we can't quite explain, yet somehow know to be true.
FEATURING:
Leonora Carrington: Doors Inside Doors
There is no magic pill: Ozempic & Desire
The Devil’s Teat: A history of the clitoris
The ancient practice of Pompoir
Is it in the cards? Intuitive Tarot
Pleasure in Polaroids: Aura Photography
And more!
Moi is our printed magazine featuring 96 pages of sensory pleasure – hold us close, caress our pages, treasure us dearly and feel the love poured into every feature by our passionate contributors. From the absolute bottom of my heart, welcome to our world of Pleasure – *Moi*.
Editor’s Letter:
As I stand in my kitchen, ingredients loosely organised across the bench, a lovingly cherished family recipe my goal, I chop and prep and mix and fold. My Yaiyai whispers to me, More olive oil. Does that feel like enough pumpkin? More salt … no, that’s enough. Try grating the fennel this time. My ancestors, who are sadly no longer on the same plane of existence, are still with me. My Great Babushka appears whenever I combine flour with water and a dash of sour cream. I mix with bare hands until the dough clings to my fingers. Keep it slightly sticky. It will be better. I knead and fold and thump. She is always right. She helps me make sidinishki – my favourite Russian dumplings, filled with ricotta and finished with melted butter and dill. My Jedushka quietly reminds me of the only proper way to eat them. One bite of sidinishki, a chunk of polskie ogórki and a generous slather of sour cream, all together. I was raised in a family that respects the forces beyond what we can see. When I spill salt, I throw a pinch over my left shoulder to ward off bad luck. A powerful mati hangs opposite my front door, protecting my home from ill intent. We never, ever, kiss goodbye in a doorway. After my divorce, the women of my family gathered around me and promised they would protect me. The last time I saw my Great Aunty, she spat on me for good luck. Magic means different things to different people. Our understanding of it is shaped by culture – inherited through family traditions, felt intuitively as part of our relationship with the world, discovered through personal enquiry or uncovered through art, history and storytelling.
This issue explores magic in all its forms. In Pleasure in Polaroids, we learn about ancestral intuition and energy reading through the practice of aura photography (p.10). We step inside the Musée du Luxembourg’s Leonora Carrington retrospective to explore the Surrealist artist’s extraordinary visual language, rich with dreams, symbols and myth (p.14). In There Is No Magic Pill, we examine the hidden trade-off of drugs like Ozempic, asking whether the pursuit of the ‘perfect’ body is worth the loss of desire (p.26). We revisit the history of the clitoris, tracing centuries of fascination, fear and misunderstanding before arriving at its first complete, high-resolution 3D mapping in 2026 – almost 30 years after the penis (p.36). In the Pleasure Room, ‘Notes from the Field’ shares the latest findings from our ongoing research into products of pleasure – the findings are subjective, the orgasms are real (p.50). You’ll also discover the ancient practice of Pompoir (p.60), explore tarot through an accessible contemporary lens (p.80) and uncover so much more.
Issue 05 dives into the cultural stories, folklore, rituals and ideas that continue to shape the way we understand ourselves. Through art, history, pleasure, feminism and contemporary culture, we examine the things that feel mysterious – not because they are supernatural, but because they have so often been misunderstood. Find your magic and see what pleasure it can bring.
Lila Theodoros
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
