Trans- States: The art of crossing over University of Northampton 9-10th September

This conference has been hosted by the University of Northampton and is sponsored by the European Society for the Study of Western Escotericism (ESSWE).

Conference Committee:

Conference Organiser Cavan McLaughlin

Conference Coordinator Roy Wallace

Curator Stefan Gant

Illustrations: Aries Lunation 3 and Aries Lunation 4 by Carlos Ruiz Brussain.

Cover art: Aleister Crowley and Frieda Lady Harris Thoth Tarot © Ordo Templi Orientis. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Day One: Friday 9th, September

9.00-9.45 Registration & coffee W13

9.45-10.00 Opening remarks W13

10.00-11.00 First Keynote: Richard Kaczynski W13 Chair: Charmaine Sonnex

11.00-12.30 Panel 1A & 1B

1A Blood and Ordeal W13 Chair: Jasmine Shadrack

11.00 Becoming No-Man: The Blooded Path to Babalon Peter Grey

11.30 Bleed for the Devil: Self-injury as Transgressive Practice in Contemporary Satanism, and the Re-enchantment of Late Modernity Per Faxneld

12.00 The Sweat Lodge: Ancient Technology in Modern Context Geoff Greentree

1B Artistic Practice and the Other W10 Chair: Roy Wallace

11.00 Within the Hyperdream Magic Circle: Manifesting the Unconscious through Illustration Play and Games Carlos Ruiz Brussain

11.30 Transgender Characters and Otherworldly States of Mind in Sci-Fi and Fantasy Fiction Sophie Sparham

12.00 Of Shadows: Reflections on an artist residency at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall Sara Hannant

12.30-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Panel 2A & 2B

2A Artistic Practice and Transformation W13 Chair: Simon Magus 14.00 Treasure House of Images: Mysticism and Transcendence in the Art of J.F.C. Fuller Krzysztof Azarewicz

14.30 Curating Trans- States Benedetta d’Ettorre

15.00 Saving the Lives of Angels: Joséphin Péladan’s Vision for Redemption Through the Arts Sasha Chaitow

2B Transnormativity W10 Chair: Yoshe Watson

14.00 Queer Sex Magic, Transindividual Affect, and Nonrepresentational Criticism Rebekah Sheldon

14.30 Tantric Transhumanism: An Esoteric History of Human Enhancement Scott Jeffery

15.30-16.00 Break

16.00-17.30 Plenary Panel W13 Chair: Vanessa Sinclair

Austin Osman Spare

16.00 The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare Jonathan Allen

16.45 Androgyny, Biology and Latent Memory in the Work of Austin Osman Spare Robert Ansell

17.30-18.30 Second Keynote: Patricia MacCormack W13 Chair: Christina Oakley Harrington

18.30 Wine Reception & Dance Performance W13 Performance by Alkistis Dimech

Day Two: Saturday 10th, September

8.30-9.00 Registration & coffee W13

9.00-10.00 Third Keynote: Marco Pasi W13 Chair: Lorna Jowett

10.00-11.30 Panel 3A & 3B

3A Liminal Spaces W13 Chair: Per Faxneld

10.00 Kenneth Grant’s Borderland of Mystic Horror Alistair Coombs

10.30 Ritual Occultation and the Space between Worlds: Exploring the Application of the “Flow” State in Pagan and Black Metal Performance Practice Jasmine Shadrack & Charmaine Sonnex

11.00 Where the Daimon Dwells: A Chorography of the Space Between Alkistis Dimech

3B Transdermality / The Cinematic W10 Chair: David Simmons

10.00 Modern Angels: A Documentary Exploration of Transdermal, Body Art and Body Modification in the Kingdom of Belgium Roy Wallace

10.30 Written in Skin: Flesh as a Language Frontier Stefanie Elrick

11.00 Cinematic Possession: Trance in Films by Maya Deren, Jean Rouch, and Andrzej Żuławski Kristoffer Noheden

11.30-12.00 Break

12.00-13.30 Panel 4A & 4B

4A The Mind and Magic W13 Chair: Sasha Chaitow 12.00 Third Mind work and Pandrogeny Vanessa Sinclair

12.30 The Place of Snakes or Seraphs?: Schizotypy, Esoteric Hermeneutics and Παράνοια Simon Magus

13.00 Epistemology of Magic. A Transdisciplinary Approach to the Quest for Results in Ars Magica. Ana Belén González-Pérez

4B Transnatural Culture W10 Chair: Scott Jeffery

12.00 Asemic Occultism: Hélène Smith’s Martian Writing Riikka Ala-Hakula

12.30 The Ghetto Tarot Georgia van Raalte

13.00 Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the Art of the Dream Jonah Locksley

13.30-15.00 Lunch

15.00-16.30 Discussion Panel W13 Chair: Robert Ansell

Black Mirror: Journal & Research Network

Anne Crossey, Marco Pasi and Judith Noble

16.30-17.30 Fourth Keynote: Alan Moore W13 Chair: Cavan McLaughlin

17.30-17.45 Closing remarks W13 Performance Art, Workshops & Screenings

Friday 9th, September

14.00-14.45 Modern Angels W5 Film Screening - Roy Wallace

14.45-15.30 Chess Symbolism and the Alchemical Marriage W5 Screening and Performance - Orryelle Defenestrate

15.30-17.00 ReInState W25a Performance Art – Stefanie Elrick

Saturday 10th, September

11.00-12.30 Lucid Dream Chamber W13 Surrealist Performance Art/Magickal Working - Aepril Schaile

15.00-16.30 Experimental Séance: Writing and Performing a W25b Fictional Disembodied Entity Workshop - Julia Moore & Nicolas Morgan The Trans- States Exhibition

A collection of works specially selected for exhibition at the Trans- States conference:

Carlos Ruiz Brussain

Aries Lunation 3 Illustration

Aries Lunation 4 Illustration

Orryelle Defenestrate

Alchemical Chess Set Bronze, glass & clay figures (16), chess board oils on canvas

Menstruum Oils, egg tempera and acrylics on canvas

Tunnel of Ingress Oils, egg tempera, copper leaf on canvas

Sara Hannant

Baphomet Photograph from the publication Of Shadows: One Hundred Objects from the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

Mandrake Photograph from Museum of Witchcraft and Magic

Cavan McLaughlin

Kyrie Eleison by Denigrata Video art/music video, S16mm film

Alexander Small

Excarnation (2015) Oil and Acrylic

The Divels Privihouse (talking shit) (the metaphysics of shit) (2015) Oil and Acrylic on canvas The Passing (the metaphysics of shit) (2015) Oil and Acrylic

And featuring:

A collection of original oil paintings by Sasha Chaitow, created especially for the Trans- States Conference.

Saving the Lives of Angels

This collection of artwork is inspired by the legend of the angelic and human fall from grace, as told by Josephin Péladan (1858-1918), a forgotten enfant terrible of the French occult revival.

According to Péladan’s retelling of Genesis, mankind was created by the angels, who then fell because they sought to initiate their beloved creations into the divine mysteries. The angels’ punishment was to guide humanity until they became conscious of their divine origins.

Once awoken, the task of mankind was to liberate both the angels and themselves from matter, allowing a reunification with each other and with the divine. The only way to do this, according to Péladan, was through becoming creators themselves. The only way to redeem the fall of both angels and men was through art.

I. Rewriting Genesis And on the sixth day On the seventh day was the Fall Genesis 3:24 Lost in the Light Perfect Union

II. Life embedded in matter Ghost of Plato Vives Unguibus et Morsu The Unforgiving Sphinx Revenge of the tall poppy

III. Theodicy: Three ways to God Theodicy: Way of Prometheus Art: Way of the children of angels Science: Way of Mankind

All works, oil on canvas board. Handprinted mount on canvas board. Lost in the Light, (Black and white reproduction) oil on canvas board. Handpainted mount on canvas board. Sasha Chaitow. Conference Participants

Riikka Ala-Hakula is writing a doctoral Envoy – The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman thesis on asemic writing at the University Spare is published by Strange Attractor of Jyväskylä. She is working on developing Press (2016). Allen’s writing has featured methods for analyzing asemic writing in the elsewhere recently in Truth is Concrete context of literary theory. In addition, she is – A Handbook For Artistic Strategies translating an anthology of Henri Michaux’s in Real Politics (Sternberg Press, 2014), aphorisms, poems and essays from French Notes on The Magic of the State (Lisson into Finnish. Gallery & Beirut, 2013), and Curiosity and Method: Ten Years of Cabinet Magazine Asemic Occultism: Hélène Smith’s Martian (Cabinet Books, 2012). He has exhibited Writing and performed widely in the UK and internationally since the early 1990s, Hélène Smith* (1861–1929) was a famous including at Singapore Biennale (2006), late nineteenth century medium who Frankfurter Kunstverein (2008), Arnolfini produced “Martian writing” at her seances. in Bristol (2013), and currently in Explode She wrote Martian automatically during Ever Day at the Massachusetts Museum somnambulatory trances and was known of Contemporary Art. In 2009, he initiated as ‘the Muse of Automatic Writing’ by the and co-curated the Hayward Gallery Surrealist. In the context of the linguistic touring exhibition Magic Show. www. theory, Smith’s Martian alphabets can be jonathanallen.info classified as a constructed language. A Swiss psychologist, Théorode Flournoy, The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare explored Smith’s Martian language and noticed that it had a strong resemblance In Two Tracts on Cartomancy by Austin to French, which was Smith’s mother Osman Spare (Fulgur, 1997), Gavin W. tongue. He suggested that her automatic Semple examined the English mystic writing was “romances of the subliminal and artist’s lifelong interest in fortune- imagination, derived largely from telling cards. Semple described Spare’s forgotten sources (for example, books translation of the “rational meanings” read as a child).” Anyone other than of divination cards into “cryptic symbols Smith could not read Martian before [that] by their chance alignments and she translated it into French. I suggest juxtapositions …reveal their positions that this was part of the compelling as connective media.” In 2013 a deck of nature of her writing. The Martian text 79 hand-painted tarot cards constructed was ‘asemic’, it did not express verbal by Austin Spare c.1906 was discovered meanings until Smith revealed them. In my in the archives of London’s Magic Circle presentation, I analyze Martian alphabets Museum. This previously unknown relic and two examples of Smith’s writings in of the British occult revival is conspicuous the point of view of asemic writing. for a number of reasons, not least for the interconnecting images and texts that (*Her real name was Catherine-Elise Müller.) are formed between cards when two or more are placed contiguously alongside Jonathan Allen (London, England) is one another. Across this unfixed region an artist and writer, and a curator at The – one never before activated within the Magic Circle Museum where, in 2013, context of cartomancy – Spare drew and he rediscovered Austin Spare’s forgotten wrote freely, as if articulating the oracular tarot deck. His subsequent book Lost responses of his deck through a miscellany of fractured motifs. This presentation did not integrate with contemporary introduces Spare’s tarot deck, tracing its occult groups. As early as 1904 he began provenance through the related artworks developing ‘a religion of my own’ and this and writing of its creator, and through found expression in a handful of books, the records of The Magic Circle Museum, largely self-published. In The Book of the cards’ home since 1944. As well as Pleasure (Self-Love) The Psychology of examining the deck’s unprecedented Ecstasy (1913) he advocated the use of structure and variant iconography, I will automatic drawing and magical sigils as focus in particular on its experimental means for accessing the subconscious. system of “connective media”, and In The Focus of Life (1921) he employed draw parallels with contemporary an abstract narrative style to express modes of interstitiality and montage. a personal ontology founded on his ‘Neither-Neither’ principle. In 1949 Spare Robert Ansell is is a publisher, curator and was introduced to Kenneth Grant (1924- scholar. His field of expertise is esoteric art 2011) who served as his confidante and of the 20th century with a specific focus on amanuensis until the artist’s death in 1956. Austin Osman Spare. Through his company This paper will explore the visual FULGUR he has represented esoteric artists treatment of androgyny in Spare’s work in book form since 1992. In recent years he between 1904-1921. It will illustrate how has also gained note as an independent the symbol of the androgyne evolved art curator specializing in the esoteric. for the artist, with a particular focus on Robert is also the publisher and art editor his self-portraiture. It will also explore of Abraxas Journal, which has been Spare’s ontological position with regards described as ‘today’s pre-eminent voice to androgyny; his ideas toward identity, for the serious study of occult and esoteric biology and latent memory, and how expression.’ He has been interviewed for these correspond with select published the BBC Culture Show, the blog Boing works of the day. It will also discuss Spare’s Boing, and Dazed and Confused. concept of ‘the Neither-Neither I’ and his idea of ‘Self-Love’ as a means to creativity, Androgyny, Biology and Latent Memory in ecstasy and spiritual wholeness. My aim is the Work of Austin Osman Spare to demonstrate that Spare was attempting to integrate a developed visual aesthetic Austin Osman Spare (1886-1956) was one with philosophical and magical intents. of the first 20th century artists to explicitly express an interest in the occult. From an Krzysztof Azarewicz is a Polish-born early age he excelled as a draughtsman traveller, publisher, psychonaut and and subsequently received a formal art explorer of magical realms of existence. education, attending Lambeth School A founder and director of Lashtal of Art and the RCA. Over a professional Press that publishes books by Aleister life of fifty years he produced in excess Crowley, Austin O. Spare and others of 2500 finished works (including many in Polish, Krzysztof has also written self-portraits) and employed a variety several essays on Thelema, Magick, of approaches and styles to his occult Tarot and Alchemy that were translated subjects. Common among them was a into English, French and Spanish. predilection for the grotesque and an often-latent sexualisation. Despite these He holds a M.A. in Political Science. interests, for the majority of his life Spare He travels extensively with his wife, Ania, He is a member of the Drawing Research exploring magical realms of existence from Network; the Archive for Research in Tibetan plateau, through pyramids and Archetypal Symbolism; the Teaching deserts of Northern Africa, to occult scenes Innovation Network: Play and Learning of Berlin, London and New York. (University of Girona); and the research group Play and New Technologies Applied Treasure House of Images: Mysticism and to Teaching Innovation (University of Transcendence in the Art of J.F.C. Fuller Girona).

J.F.C. Fuller (1878 – 1966) was a British Within the Hyperdream Magic Circle: Army officer, military historian, strategist, Manifesting the Unconscious through early theorist of modern armoured warfare, Illustration Play and Games whose analysis helped to develop a tactics called blitzkrieg. He was also a student During the last decades a number of Aleister Crowley and a member of of academic studies explored the his magical order called AA. Not much relationships between play and creativity attention is put on his career as an artist. (Winnicott, 1971; Csikszentmihalyi, 1975; He created extraordinary mystical paintings Landau, 1984; Martin and Bateson, 2013). and drawings used by Crowley to illustrate his periodical of scientific illuminism, Still, the link between play, creativity and “The Equinox”. Fuller’s paintings were magic; the thought processes involved; also supposed to decorate walls of the and, the creative rituals that predispose AA temples in order to create a specific artists for their “shamanic journeys” has mystical atmosphere allowing aspirants been almost neglected. Beyond the to transcend everyday state of mind isolated cases of A. O. Spare, X. Solar, and and enter the state of Gnosis. Similar J. Pollock, Dadaists and Surrealists were experimental attitude was adopted by the most important antecedent in the Paul Gauguin in his House of Pleasure and conjoint practice of the three disciplines Aleister Crowley in his Abbey of Thelema. but, even there is some literature on their ludic activities (Brotchie & Gooding, In this richly illustrated presentation 1995; Laxton, 2003; Dickerman, 2005; Krzysztof will discuss symbolism of Malone et al., 2009), and some that Fuller’s artwork and also will share his analyses the link between both avant- experiences from magical workings gardes and magic (Balakian, 1971; conducted in the modern temple Choucha, 1992; Warlick, 2001; Moffitt, decorated with murals inspired by Fuller. 2003; Rabinovitch, 2003; Lepetit, 2012; Bauduin, 2012), formal investigation Carlos Ruiz Brussain is an artist and a about the relationship between games, lecturer. His practice is in the fields of magic and art is scarce. Additionally, drawing, illustration, concept art and fantasy thinking and rituals cannot be painting. He lectures in illustration, creative separated from ludic nor magic activity, methodologies and creative techniques but within the arts they have not been at ERAM Escola Universitaria-University of studied with the attention they deserve. Girona (Spain). He holds a Master’s degree in Design from the University of Lincoln My practice-led research analyses the (UK) and a Postgraduate Diploma in Art development of a play-based creative Therapy from the University of Girona. framework for visionary and fantastic illustration practice. It is inspired by for the general reader. She has delivered the world of dreams, reverie states, numerous academic and public lectures on and fantasies and explores how fantasy related subjects, and is currently revising thinking might be increased by the her PhD dissertation for publication use of active imagination and play with Brill Academic Press in 2017. dynamics for their value as motivators for creativity. It encompasses different Sasha is also a prolific visual artist and runs ludic approaches, techniques, and tools a gallery specialising in sacred art and designed to provoke motivation through heraldry in Corfu, Greece, representing randomness and unexpectedness, over 30 artists as well as some of her which allows the emergence of raw own work. Since 2000 she has exhibited archetypal and symbolic material. in Greece, the UK, Sweden and Spain, and her artwork has been included in I have been using Surrealist games, international cultural publications. Her work the theory of flow introduced is found in private collections worldwide. by Csikszentmihalyi, and depth psychology as key references. Saving the Lives of Angels: Joséphin Péladan’s Vision for Redemption Through In conclusion, I argue that the thought the Arts processes involved in the creation of visionary and fantastic illustration Abstract should be related to fantasy thinking, During the artistic explosion marking which can be provoked by playful the Parisian Belle Époque, the Salons activities practiced as magical rituals. de la Rose et Croix (1892-1897), though short-lived, were perhaps one of the Sasha Chaitow, Ph.D. is a British-Greek most ambitious artistic undertakings scholar, author, and artist. She completed seen by 19th century French art her doctoral research on Joséphin world. They sought to unite the arts Péladan’s life and work in 2014 at the into a revival of initiatory drama, with University of Essex. She initially trained philosophical foundations rooted in in figurative art at Vakalo College of Art Western occultism and idealist thought. (Athens, Greece), and she holds two MAs in Western Esotericism (University The Salons were the brainchild of one of Exeter, 2008), and English Literature of the enfants terribles of the French (University of Indianapolis, 2004). Occult Revival; esoteric philosopher and author Joséphin Péladan (Sâr Merodack, Now an independent scholar, she is 1858-1918), a key figure in the inception interested in the interdisciplinary study of and development of fin-de-siècle French the intersection between esotericism and Symbolism. His ultimate goal was a art and is currently exploring the symbolism revolution against realism and the re- of Greek icons, both artistically and from a enchantment and spiritual regeneration scholarly perspective. She has published a of what he saw as a disintegrating and monograph on Péladan (Salonica, 2013), decadent society. Influenced by Platonic several academic articles on Péladan and philosophy and Luciferian theology, his other topics in Western Esotericism for grand vision comprised an imaginal world international academic journals, and has in which artist-initiates would form the published internationally on related topics inner circle, designed to ignite a collective awakening in society and replace religion own symbolic stories and concepts, with art. The artist-initiates would raise she builds symbolic compositions the souls of the masses to ecstasy through encapsulating various aspects of his aesthetic bombardment with symbolic esoteric philosophy, demonstrating how images that would simultaneously he intended art to become a portal into stimulate the intellect and the soul. The self-awareness and esoteric awakening. ultimate end of this awakening would be restitution for the Fall of man and Alistair Coombs is writing his Ph.D. on angels through human creativity. fire and light symbolism within Buddhist consciousness, from fire ritual, mediation Péladan’s work attempts to dissolve and cosmology (University of Kent). His boundaries on several levels. He broke writings have otherwise appeared in with esoteric “secrecy” and published self- Darklore, Nexus and New Dawn. initiation manuals proclaiming his message; he used every artistic communication Kenneth Grant’s Borderland of Mystic channel available to disseminate his Horror message; inspired scores of artists to take up his cause; and produced a vast Grant’s symbolic and perplexing universe literary oeuvre to support and explain is deeply embroidered with fictions his philosophy. Very much the product selectively sourced from the genre of of his time, his work reflects the birth supernatural horror. His alternative vision, of Modernism and the growing social or one might say, siderealisation of turmoil during the early 20th century. Thelema, therefore follows a highly visual narrative that unites eastern mysticism with After a brief introduction to Péladan’s images of the literary nightmarish, and life and times and a contextualisation more besides. The strange and super- of his core message, this paper focuses exotic figures of his iconography inhabit on his concept of the role of art a hidden borderland or netherworld and artists and their power to effect between wakefulness and sleep, between individual and social change according inner consciousness and outer space. The to his esoteric-aesthetic philosophy. nodules between wakefulness and sleep are emphasized as portals accessing such Art exhibit realms wrought from surrealistic design One of Péladan’s key premises was and a host of unearthly, hypnagogic that art should speak to both the encounter. Located beyond rigid objective intellect and the soul, spurring viewers categories and limited perception, this to cultivate their understanding of the world is a playhouse of imaginative underlying symbolic messages, and to transformation that has coloured and grasp esoteric truths that could not be informed the western esoteric tradition. as effectively expressed in words. Benedetta d’Ettorre is a current Curating This collection of original oil paintings Contemporary Art student at the Royal by Sasha Chaitow, created especially for College of Art. One of her first greatest the Trans-States Conference, illustrates interests was a research on the life and key esoteric concepts from Péladan’s the political and religious thinking of the work that are also discussed in the French philosopher and mystic Simone conference paper. Using Peladan’s Weil. This led to a one yearlong research exploring the cyclical peaks and downs transgressed. She curated the exhibition of faith in Western culture, through arts following her artistic practice, infused with and the process of secularism (with her own shamanic experiences and based selected examples from literature, visual on 16 years of research on alternative and arts, theatre and philosophy), from nomadic communities. The exhibition Zoroastrianism up to the twentieth century. assumes a high degree of performativity Weil’s religious attitude is contrasted where visitors can re-enact the shaman’s with the one of another philosopher, journey of death and re-birth. The show Emil Cioran. They are taken as symbols is based around a commissioned film, for of the two religious sentiments left to which she decided to do a shamanic ritual. Europeans after World War Two. She summoned spirits from the Upper and Under Worlds to help the ‘re-birth’ of the Her interest around art has then turned, Mackintosh building, historic building of during her previous cycle of studies, into the Glasgow School of Art, damaged in a focus around alternative practices and the 2014 fire. The process of re-birth is organisations like artist-run spaces and art- inherent in the exhibition space itself. It squats. In particular, she explored defining strives to cross over to the museum’s state and contrasting elements among these condensing Nditiru’s research on ways to spaces, suggesting that their sustainable bring museums back to life. Finally, what set of practices may represent an option significance can have this exhibition and for developing management structures “non-logical” curating in the context of in arts organisations. She presented her the art school in inspiring young artists? research paper on the topic at the 2015 edition of the international Journal of Arts Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule is an and Design Education conference. At the esoteric artist in many media, including moment, she is interested in alternative painting, writing, sculpture, sound, video curatorial approaches and their cultural and performance art. His ‘Tela Quadrivium’ implications. series of alchemical art books are published by Fulgur Limited (Conjunctio Curating Trans- States 2008, Coagula 2010, Solve 2011, Distillatio June 2015); his text-based book ‘Time Can an exhibition be a medium to Fate and Spider Magic’ by Avalonia reach “trans-states”? Exhibitions are the Books (UK), and The Book of Kaos Tarot medium for curatorial experimentation (iNSPiRALink.Multimedia Press); in addition and a relative new discursive space around to contributions to several esoteric artistic practice. Curators use exhibitions collections and journals such as XVI (Scarlet as a medium to present works, convey Imprint), Mandragora (Scarlet Imprint), knowledge, challenge ideas and conform Abraxas 2 CD (Fulgur), Atua (Fulgur), to specific discourses, but what happens Hekate: Her Sacred Fires (Avalonia), when the curator is also a shaman? The Fenris Wolf #8 (Edda, imminent). exhibition takes on the curatorial project, re-positioning the exhibition space in He is the writer-director of Australian-based the contingency. “Return to Normalcy: Metamorphic Ritual Theatre Company Birth of a New Museum”, Grace Nditiru’s (www.crossroads.wild.net.au/morph.htm) show at the Glasgow School of Art, who have presented many major original challenges the desynchronised space of productions based in (and updating/ exhibition, where boundaries are actively mutating) various ancient mythos, and he often performs (solo and with others) as well as eastern esoteric context. The and exhibits internationally (UK, Belgium, most obvious parallel between the game Australia, USA, Italy, Norway, Austria…), of chess and the quest of Alchemy is that and has given several presentations at it deals with opposites and duality, and the Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle. ultimately transcendence thereof. What I discovered when applying alchemical His work engages with connecting the symbolism to the set is that it transforms subconscious and conscious through into a game of Love rather than a game employment of magical and mythical of War. In alchemy the aim is to unite symbols and archetypes, as a part of the rather than conquer opposites, so all vanguard of current resurgence in esoteric the dualities in the game are resolved arts balanced between the conceptual and and dissolved in sacred Conjunctio. the aesthetic. Alkistis Dimech is a dancer/ Chess Symbolism and the Alchemical choreographer, whose practice is Marriage principally grounded in the ankoku butoh of Hijikata Tatsumi, a discipline/philosophy Orryelle will be performing live at Trans- of dance that she has trained in and States, using voice and violin with loop performed since 2002. Sabbatic dance is and FX pedals in conjunction with the her progression of this ‘dance of darkness,’ screening of his new Alchemical Chess film. a project exploring the intersection of the The actual Alchemical Chess set (crafted of dancing, affective body, consciousness and bronze, glass and clay) he will be using in practices associated with magic, witchcraft the performance will also be on exhibit for and shamanism. With Peter Grey she co- closer inspection. Orryelle will introduce founded Scarlet Imprint in 2007. Her essays the concepts and symbolism involved in will be gathered in The Brazen Vessel later a brief talk preceding the performance. this year.

There is a lot of Alchemical and Magical Where the Daimon Dwells: A Chorography symbolism inherent in the game of Chess. of the Space Between It is my intent to bring out these esoteric undertones, and by making them more I will explore the liminality of performer extant also transform the game itself and and performance space, and their its metaphorical context in relation to our relationship in presencing the invisible civilisation. It seems that modern western reality – the other, sacred or daimonic. chess has become primarily a game of war — it is based on strategies derived In his final extant letter, written from battles and is highly competitive. It on 24th February 1948, Artaud does however have deep philosophical resolved to devote himself to: subtexts and was originally devised in India by a sage to give a king new insight into a theatre of blood the profundities underlying social roles a theatre which with each performance and interactions. The form of the game will have done something and many of the pieces has changed bodily to the one who performs as well as considerably since then. Here I aim not to the one who comes to see others perform change it back, rather return some of the but actually magical symbolism but within a western the actors are not performing they are doing. The theatre is in reality the In May 2014 a live art piece Written in genesis of creation. Skin was held in Manchester, executed in five stages over six months it explored Performance potentially generates a space the exchange meaning through verbal, for materialisation, for transformation visual and visceral discourses. This paper and for the dissolving of boundaries. explores the construction of a multifaceted Movement itself engenders this female identity within the project as the transfigured space, and makes it visible poetry of strangers was blood-lined into to the eye and tangible to the senses. In skin and the healing process documented. this presentation I will trace the relation of this interstitial space with the dancing Using Hélène Cixous’s essay The Laugh body, grounded in an aesthetics and of the Medusa and her concept of kinetics of the interval. I will discuss the l’écriture feminine, I’ll argue why I believe techniques of trance and transformation performance art is the most potent way as a method of presencing the Other, to articulate transcendental identities. I in space and in the body; and chor(e) also argue that the presence of duality ography as an art of crossing the was crucial to the project’s success. threshold, where the daimon dwells. Written in Skin was essentially an act of protest in response to our cultural notions Alkistis Dimech will giving an exclusive of beauty, sexuality and our fear of and solo performance. She has written a reluctance to expose ourselves to pain. short piece that contextualises her Through the act of embodiment, with the performance here: http://sabbaticdance. understanding of flesh as an alternate com/corpus/arax-scorning-bridges/ language frontier, notions of passivity, strength, beauty, vulnerability, expression, Stefanie Elrick is a writer, artist and regeneration and the rigidity of gender performer with an MA in Performance, stereotypes themselves were unravelled. Screen and Visual Studies from Manchester University. In her 20’s she toured fantasy So if the skin can fully regenerate stage shows with Hawkwind, The Levellers, after undergoing such a process, are The Age of Glass, Peaches Christ, Zsa Zsa our interior worlds capable of similar Noir and others and devised the immersive transformation? Is pain, whether emotional LABOLIS theatre series. In collaboration or physical, a positive and necessary with Loren Fetterman, she’s blood-lined catalyst towards self-realisation? poetry into her skin during ‘Written in Skin’ and been strapped to a 12ft spinning Per Faxneld, Ph.D. obtained his Ph.D. timepiece for ‘KAIROS’. She’s published in in the History of Religions at Stockholm Martain Migraine Press’s “Cthulhusattva : University in 2014. Currently, he is pursuing Tales of the Black Gnosis” and has lectured a post-doc at Mid-Sweden University, and at Manchester University and Wimbledon has been a visiitng scholar at Cambridge Art College. She’s fascinated by hybrids, University (Fall term 2015). He is the author shape-shifting, the languages of the flesh of two monographs on the history of and rites of passage. Satanism, co-editor of two books on the same topic for OUP, and has published Written in Skin: Flesh as a Language more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and Frontier book chapters on various matters related to Western esotericism. 2010-2015 he She did a three months research period on served as editor of the ESSWE Newsletter. Pragmatism in the University of Sheffield. She started and abandoned a Ph.D. in Bleed for the Devil: Self-injury as Susan Haack in the University of Málaga. Transgressive Practice in Contemporary Satanism, and the Re-enchantment of Late She has been a student and practitioner of Modernity Magic and Astrology for more than fifteen years. She is a writer, with four novels for Using ethnographic method combined children published and a historical novel with analysis of primary sources like mass in progress. She teaches Philosophy at the media appearances, song lyrics and high school level in Spain. She is planning websites, the paper examines ritualized to do a Ph.D. in Western Esotericism to self-injury in the Black Metal milieu. It is join her passions, Philosophy, Esotericism, shown that this type of ascetic mortification and Teaching into an academic career. is no aberration in the history of religions at large, yet diverges from older forms Epistemology of Magic. A Transdisciplinary of Satanism. Self-injury functions in Approach to the Quest for Results in Ars Black Metal Satanism as a symbol of Magica transgression and virile bravado, and as a means to display allegiance to the Satanic The magical theory is based upon the cause by permanently marking the body. It idea of modifying consciousness and is typically described by practitioners as a the environment through non-causal blood sacrifice to Satan. This ritualization actions. From an emic perspective, magic of self-injury, where it is explicitly framed works. From an etic perspective, scientific as a practice completely different from analysis deems magic as refutable. Either anything occurring in a secular context, we suppose magic and science live in is part of a broader endeavor in the parallel worlds or one of them is wrong. milieu, which seeks to re-enchant a late modernity perceived to be devoid of In this paper, I try to explain why traditional spiritual values. Increasing mass media science has no tools to evaluate if magic attention to self-injury, there postulated as obtains valuable results, and to outline a (secular) mental health problem among a pragmatist approximation to the adolescent girls, has therefore lessened its methods of evaluation used by magic. usefulness as a sacralized and masculine For that purpose, I will mention Marco transgressive symbol. This, it is argued, Pasi’s attempts to define magic. I will explains the declining emphasis on it also distinguish the subjective from the in the Satanic milieu in recent years. objective effects of magical work.

Ana Belén González-Pérez has a five With respect to subjective effects, I year Degree in Philosophy at UNED, will mention the current crisis of the Madrid. She also has a DEA (equivalent to psychology attempts for mathematizing a master) in Philosophy of XXth century, its results. I will set the thesis that the with a final work on “The Pragmatism human being cannot be seen as a finished of William James” at the University creature that is ruled by eternal rules, of Malaga. She has specialized her and this is the source of the problems philosophical research in Philosophy of psychological investigation is facing. Science, Pragmatism, and Epistemology. From this perspective, magic considers the human being a creature in transition context. Starting with the evidence of which purpose is precisely the change. heat treatments from natural thermal I will mention some esoteric authors springs and historical antecedents from like Don Webb or Stephen Flowers, Parmenides, Imhotep, Hippocrates et and some literary works like “The al in the near East city-states; looking at Neverending Story” by Michael Ende the evidence for use of hot stones for and “Promethea” by Alan Moore. cleansing and purification in long barrows in Europe and elsewhere; re-appraising our To deal with the objective effects, I will archaeological view on group ceremonies develop a pragmatist concept of truth that of transcendence and transformation. is not limited by the positivist view which considers the only truth is scientific truth. Some details, will be given, on the I will define a concept of reality based on suppression of the Lodges in Native the “Innocent Realism” of Susan Haack American post-colonial culture and how and the perspective on Parmenides by the ceremonies have re-emerged and are Peter Kingsley. I will plant some doubts now being shared with other cultures. about the existence of eternal laws and the reproducibility of any event. I will I will explain how the Lodge is built and mention Hume and Goodman’s paradox. how its structure and symbolism are intrinsic to one another; how ceremonies To conclude, I will formulate my can be adapted to the modern need for thesis of Magic as the discipline transcendence in a supportive group of the Unique Events. context. How important for us moderns to re-connect on the earth as equals and Geoff Greentree has travelled extensively, how the blend of elements enables us visiting many remote areas in Africa and to transform our everyday perception to the Middle East initially in the early 80’s be outside ourselves and modern time. while working on irrigation projects and Connecting with ancestral practices. subsequently studying tribal beliefs in Darfur, Upper Egypt and Madagascar. This Peter Grey is a writer and co-founder led on to an interest in Native American of occult publisher Scarlet Imprint. He practises and a desire to bring these into is the author of three books, The Red a modern context. After qualifying as a Goddess, Apocalyptic Witchcraft and Shiatsu practitioner (he also teaches) in Lucifer: Princeps. His essays have been the late 80’s, he was based in Northern disseminated widely in print and online, California working with HIV positive and he has lectured internationally. An people in Chinese medicine practises and exponent of low witchcraft and high ritual; discovered a Lakota Shamanka running he is particularly noted for his work on Sweatlodges for HIV positive people with eschatology, ecology and Babalon. incredible results. Becoming No-Man: The Blooded Path to The Sweat Lodge: Ancient Technology in Babalon Modern Context The transformation of the male erotic I propose to present an illustrated talk landscape through magical and on The Sweat Lodge; it’s history, uses witchcraft practices as constellated and how it works in a modern social about the female mysteries of Babalon. Special attention is given to the pact of as ‘soul taker’, ‘shadow catcher’, or ‘face transformative blood rituals: menstruation, stealer’. The camera itself was perceived modification, ordeal and the meaning of as a magical object, and photographs animal sacrifice. An account of ongoing were thought to possess supernatural magical work by a modern practitioner powers, or be amenable to witchcraft. following the skein of menstrual magic anticipated in such partnerships as In witchcraft, magic is practiced to bring Marjorie Cameron and Jack Parsons, about transformation and sometimes Penelope Shuttle and Peter Redgrove. objects are made or charged with magical intent for this purpose. Similarly, the Sara Hannant is a photographer and photographic process can transform author whose work over the last ten years objects, images and ideas that contribute has explored magical belief, seasonal to its meaning. I became fascinated cycles and folklore. Her first book to explore how light and darkness Mummers, Maypoles and Milkmaids: A define and articulate our relationship Journey through the English Ritual Year to enchantment and if this mechanism (2011) received the runner-up Katharine can be employed to suggest narrative Briggs Folklore Award in 2012. Sara has and significance. Of Shadows: One exhibited widely including at The Royal Hundred Objects from the Museum of Society of Arts, The Horniman Museum, Witchcraft and Magic will be published The South Bank Centre and Towner by Strange Attractor Press in 2016. Art Gallery. Her photographs have been featured on the BBC, and in The Scott Jeffery, Ph.D. The human Scott Guardian and The Sunday Times among Jeffery received his Ph.D. from the School others. Since 2010, she has lectured in of Applied Social Science at Stirling photography at City University in London. University in 2013. His time is currently divided between lecturing in Sociology Of Shadows: Reflections on an artist between Perth College, UHI and Stirling residency at the Museum of Witchcraft University. When not teaching he can and Magic in Cornwall be found performing stand-up comedy and updating his blogs, including the In this presentation I will show images from main hub Nth Mind which covers many my recent artist residency at the Museum topics related to Post/Humanism, comics of Witchcraft and Magic, and consider studies, film and the esoteric. His first object biographies of the artefacts book, entitled The Posthuman Body in depicted. I photographed a wide range of Superhero Comics: Human, Superhuman, objects including wax dolls, wands, statues, Transhuman, Post/Human will be published daggers, pendants, robes, and amulets, by Palgrave in the spring of 2016. all used in the practice of witchcraft. I chose to photograph at night, enabling Tantric Transhumanism: An Esoteric the objects to emerge from the darkness, History of Human Enhancement where it is said magic begins. Reflecting on this process, I found parallels with This paper proposes a model of Tantric photographic practice. Superstition and Transhumanism as a counterpoint to magic have encircled photography from the dominant intellectual frameworks the beginning. In many cultures, the word underlying much Transhumanist for photography/photographer translates philosophy. Though it is concerned with the proactive enhancement of human field of neuro-theology all speak of the bodies and minds with technology many need to rediscover Transhumanism’s argue that Transhumanism is an ideological hidden history, with the hope of providing descendent of the Enlightenment with its a corrective to the rational-libertarian roots in rational humanism. Viewed this discourse that currently marks its territory. way, Transhumanism lends itself easily to both utilitarian and neo-liberal economic Richard Kaczynski Ph.D. is the author of visions. While both the European Utilitarian Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley model and the American Libertarian (2002; rev. exp. ed. 2010)—widely model both present as rational, materialist considered the definitive biography of philosophies (albeit differing along the Great Beast—along with Forgotten ideological lines) there remain strands of Templars: The Untold Origins of Transhumanist thought that have a more Ordo Templi Orientis (2012) and The problematic relationship with these very Billionth Monkey (2015). He has spoken same Enlightenment ideals of rationalism internationally on the creation and cultural and materialism. Never the less, a second impact of the Thoth Tarot, with papers on strain of “irrational” Transhumanism which the subject published in Tarot in Culture appears to betray a metaphysical or (2014), Mathematics in Popular Culture even mystical streak can be discerned. (2012), and Tarosophist International (2009). He maintains the Thoth Sightings This strain of Transhumanism runs through webpage, which tracks appearances of the the Western occult tradition (indeed, Thoth Tarot in popular media including the founder of Theosophy Madame movies, television, graphic novels, and H.P. Blavatsky was writing of the ‘post- record covers. Richard’s other books Human’ as early as 1888). An alternative include The Weiser Concise Guide to history of Transhumanism, which might Aleister Crowley (2009), Panic in Detroit: be dubbed “Tantric Transhumanism” The Magician and the Motor City (2006), presents itself; one which takes in Crowley and Perdurabo Outtakes (2005), as well as and contemporary chaos magick, as contributions to the anthologies A Rose well as the transpersonal psychologies Veiled in Black (2016), Success Is Your Proof of Maslow, Groff and Timothy Leary. (2015), and Aleister Crowley and Western Tantric Transhumanism merges modern Esotericism (2012), among others. He has science and new technologies and archaic appeared in the television documentaries spiritualties in a matrix of mutual influences Secrets of the Occult (2006) and Aleister that cultural theorist Erik Davis attempts Crowley: The Beast 666 (2007). to capture with the term ‘techgnosis’. Tantric Transhumanism may be said to Jonah Locksley is a cultural historian and focus more on the transformation of writer. Some of his essays have appeared consciousness rather than the body or in Abraxas Journal, Atlas Obscura, linear, ‘rational’, intelligence. As in the Disinformation, and Ultraculture. He has Human Potential Movement of the 1960s, also appeared on The Hermetic Library. which found archetypal expressions in the Jonah curates The Thinker’s Garden, Esalen Institute, emphasis is placed on an educational venture which seeks to transpersonal and spiritual experience. encourage speculative thought through Contemporary ‘trans-spirit’ research explorations of the sublime and arcane including a renewed scientific interest in aspects of art, history, and literature. He psychedelics, meditation and the emerging is broadly interested in the longue durée evolution and interplay of philosophical- College of Physicians and Surgeons of religious ideas in Europe from Antiquity to Glasgow, and as an associate lecturer the Renaissance, but is primarily a fancier in Anatomy and Embryology at the of occult and supernaturalist fiction. University of Glasgow. After initially following a neurosurgical path, he Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the Art of the changed to psychiatry in 1996. Dream Simon’s interest in esotericism predates his Edward Bulwer-Lytton was arguably medical studies by a number of years. He the most influential English populariser completed an MA in Western Esotericism of occultism in the Victorian era. His at EXESESO, The Exeter Centre for the metaphysical romances, such as “Zanoni” Study of Esotericism, the University of and “The Coming Race”, are types of Exeter in 2008/9. His thesis was entitled tropological compendiums of Western Austin Osman Spare and the Conquest esoteric thought which offer novel of the Imaginal: Paranoia, Metanoia and interpretations of the psychic dimensions Phronesis of the Magical Mind. He is of human intelligence; touching on interested in the interplay of descriptive movements like Mesmerism, Spiritualism, psychopathology and the phenomenology and Rosicrucianism. This talk examines of magical praxis, and spirituality and Bulwer-Lytton’s conception of the use psychosis. During his MA studies he and purpose of meditation, trance, and developed broad perspectives in dreaming, mysterious techniques which esotericism on subjects including alchemy feature prevalently in several of his works. and its transmission to the Latin West, Alexandrian Hermetism, and Renaissance Patricia MacCormack Ph.D. has Kabbalah. His specialist field of enquiry published extensively on feminism, now centres on Victorian and Edwardian the philosophies of Deleuze, Guattari, literary expressions of occultism, and he Lyotard, Serres and Bataille, posthuman is currently reading for a PhD at Exeter, theory, teratology, animal rights, European his thesis entitled Rider Haggard and the horror films, chaos magick, Lovecraft Imperial Occult: Hermetic Discourse and and other trajectories of alterity. Romantic Contiguity.

She is the author of Cinesexuality (2008) The Place of Snakes or Seraphs?: and Posthuman Ethics (2012), the co- Schizotypy, Esoteric Hermeneutics and editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis Παράνοια of Cinema (2008) and The Animal Catalyst: Toward Ahuman Theory (2014) In 1902 William James enquired in The Varieties of Religious Experience as to the Simon Magus, MB BS is a psychiatrist reasons why some individuals found the with a special interest in Early Intervention magical and mystical in their experience Psychosis. He studied medicine in London of alterations in consciousness, and why at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical some found madness: the place of seraphs School, now part of the Imperial College or the place of snakes respectively. In of Science, Technology and Medicine. the following paper I shall explore the relationship of kinship between what I After qualifying, he taught Anatomy as shall call for convenience the ‘magical’ the Royal College Prosector to the Royal mind-set and the ‘paranoid’ mind-set. themes found in popular, surrealist I shall deploy Antonie Faivre’s original and avant-garde narrative film and criteria for esotericism which although promotional music videos. criticised for a long period in the Academy are now being re-evaluated in terms of He is a practicing freelance filmmaker, the original notion of a ‘mode of thought’ graphic designer, editor, producer and − associated with his concept of l’aire director. As a media professional of some de famille to denote the compass of 14 years, he has been involved in almost esoteric literature − and compare these all aspects of audiovisual production, directly with the diagnostic criteria for specialising in promotional music videos Schizotypal Personality and Disorder and album sleeve artwork. His music videos as described in the DSM V and ICD10 have been broadcast on various digital classifications. Central to this discussion satellite channels including Kerrang! TV, is Gordon Claridge’s original concept of Scuzz and Redemption TV (now Rockworld schizotypy in the normative personality, TV). and its emphasis therefore explicitly avoids pathologisation. To illustrate my Exhibition Screening of Kyrie Eleison by arguments empirically, I shall deploy Denigrata a number of clinical vignettes of case studies to illustrate the commonalities Kyrie Eleison is the first single from and differences between the ‘magical’ Denigrata’s compelling debut album. mind and the ‘paranoid’ mind, without Denigrata know that their styling and their reducing one to the other in either music speaks very much for itself and are direction. This is in keeping with the ‘Trans’ wisely sparing, with their self-explication. theme of the conference as it focuses What they do say packs a punch and on the importance of transdisciplinarity likewise sets the entire tone for this between psychiatric and esoteric studies: collaborative audiovisual intrepretation I shall employ imagistic representations of their work, so it is worth repeating of the ‘mad’ and the ‘mystical’ as an here: “Denigrata are an ambient, tech- important emphasis of the presentation. fuelled black metal collective […] born from nihilism, avant-garde darkness This approach attempts a comparative and filth.” And so this film is an equally phenomenology of psychosis and quasi- avant-garde, dark, visual exploration of psychotic phenomena as described in the these themes, fully grounded — in filth. language of descriptive psychopathology with that of the experience of magical and Featuring a cameo from author and magus, mystical praxis as documented by esoteric Alan Moore, the primary setting is the literature and hermeneutic methods. very peculiarly British natural surroundings of Delapré Abbey’s public parks. The Cavan McLaughlin is a broadcaster, location is really one of the players, and creative media practitioner and Senior plays the part of Wyrd Northampton’s Lecturer in Media Production at the chthonic and earthy underbelly. The film University of Northampton with research focuses on contrast and interplay in all interests around the role of spirituality of its aspects. From the black and white and occultism in contemporary visual grade, to the contrast of extreme close up culture. He is particularly fascinated (ECU) textural photography against the by Western Esoteric symbolism and barren and bleak wide shots; the interplay of long, slow, lingering shots and furiously intuitive methods inspired by mediumship rapid montages and jarring jump cuts. It is development and surrealist games non-narrative and non-linear. Abstract and in academic practices of reading and unconsciously meaningful. writing. She is also an artist with a practice encompassing film and video, In short, it is an experimental piece of collaboration and automatic techniques. collaborative audiovisual art that seeks to Recent works include Experimental knowingly add to the occultural reservoir. Séance parts I and II (2014/2015).

Alan Moore is a prolific and much- Nicholas Morgan is an independent celebrated writer and artist, perhaps best artist and curator based in London. He known for his writing of comics and graphic has performed self-written pieces at novels. His many titles include Promethea, the Battersea Arts Centre (2014/2015), Lost Girls, League of Extraordinary is co-creator of Action Pulpeuse, a Gentlemen, his long-awaited epic second monthly performance event, and (in 2003) novel Jerusalem and his upcoming co- performed at What work does the artwork authored book on magic, The Moon do, a symposium with the conceptual art and Serpent Bumper Book of Magic. group Art & Language..

A self-proclaimed practicing magician, Experimental Séance: Writing and Alan frequently speaks authoritatively Performing a Fictional Disembodied Entity on the subject of magic and Western Esotericism is a feature in a number of A participative workshop event inspired his creative works (perhaps most notably by mediumship research carried out by From Hell and Promethea). He directly a group of Canadian researchers, led by associates magic with art and the writing George and Iris Owen in the 1970s. The process: “I believe that magic is art, and Owens were interested in the entities that art, whether that be music, writing, encountered in séances. The group sculpture, or any other form, is literally experimented with the séance format magic. Art is, like magic, the science of with little success until they decided to manipulating symbols, words or images, co-create a fictional character, ‘Philip’, to achieve changes in consciousness … developing a personality and life story Indeed, to cast a spell is simply to spell, for him, with the aim of contacting Philip to manipulate words, to change people’s through séances. Their experiment was consciousness, and this is why I believe successful: Philip took on a life of his own, that an artist or writer is the closest thing communicating with the Owen’s group in the contemporary world to a shaman.” through table movements, raps and noises.

Born in Northampton, where he still Inspired by the Owen’s experiments, resides, Alan has a very strong connection this workshop leads participants through with the local area and we are delighted a series of group exercises designed that he has agreed to come and speak for to co-create and communicate with a us. fictional character, using drawing, writing, automatic techniques and roleplay. Julia Moore is a Ph.D. researcher at Exercises draw upon surrealist writing Canterbury Christ Church University. games, mediumship and séance strategies Her research investigates the role of as well as experimental theatre techniques, and are collaborative and open-ended. Noheden is also a publisher and editor at Sphinx Press (www. sphinxforlag.se), and The exercises are informed by a diverse the translator into Swedish of books by set of theoretical concerns encompassing William S. Burroughs, Leonora Carrington, the ontology of thought forms, imaginary Max Ernst, and Dorothea Tanning. friends and other fictional entities; the status of nonsense (delire) in its various Cinematic Possession: Trance in Films by manifestations; the unconscious as it Maya Deren, Jean Rouch, and Andrzej manifests itself through techniques Żuławski drawn from art and psychotherapies, and the nature of imagination and play. Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 feature film Possession features a scene that tends to Participants need no formal expertise stay with spectators. In a blue dress, Virgin in art, creative writing or theatre, but Mary-style, the female protagonist Anna an interest in theory is good, and a walks through a metro station; suddenly, readiness to experiment as a group is her gaze becomes transfixed, her body essential. A belief in the reality of spirit tenses up, and she starts moan. Shaking entities is not required, although an and convulsing, Anna is launched into a open-minded attitude is encouraged. several minutes long trance, during which she emits inhuman-sounding groans, The workshop addresses the conference smashes her groceries against the bare themes of transformation (making a ‘Philip’ concrete walls, and milky-red fluids pour out of nothing); the transhuman (is ‘Philip’ from various parts of her body. Żuławski as more, less or other than human?); the claimed to have actually put the actress transpersonal (working to co-create a Isabella Adjani into a trance, with methods ‘Philip’ as a group) and the transdisciplinary learned from “Haitian voodoo”. Regardless (blending humanities research with of the truth value in this claim, the techniques of performance and art). mentioned scene in Possession appears to break through the film’s fictional frame, a Kristoffer Noheden is a research fellow documentary rupture of the diegesis. In this in cinema studies at Stockholm University. way, it can be related to earlier attempts at His research focuses on surrealism in capturing trance and possession with the relation to occultism, primitivism, and, film camera. This paper places Possession most recently, animal studies. He has in relation to the American avant-garde forthcoming book chapters in Surrealism, filmmaker Maya Deren’s subjective take Occultism, Politics (Ashgate, 2016), A on trance in Meshes of the Afternoon Cultural History of the Avant-Garde in the and the ethnographic film-maker Jean Nordic Countries, 1925–1950 (Brill/Rodopi, Rouch’s infamous depiction of a Hauka 2016), Black Mirror 1: Embodiment (Fulgur, possession ritual in Les Maîtres fous 2016), and Occult Modernism: The Occult (1955). These films depict states of trance in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema as a solipsistic, shamanic descent into (Palgrave, 2017). He is currently working the self and as a collective, revolutionary on two book manuscripts, tentatively manifestation of unconscious energies titled Haloed Objects on Mental Parade: on the body, respectively. The paper Myth and Magic in Post-War Surrealist examines how these different takes on Cinema, and Imagination Against trance resonate with Anna’s state of Anthropocentrism: Surrealism and Animals. possession. It looks to how Żuławski, informed by Jerzy Grotowoski’s notion Performance Art/Transdisciplinary that theatre ought to confront established Magickal Working religion in order to regain a more acute sense of the sacred, lampoons both An intimate, interactive, immersive Christianity and new age throughout space that is a “lucid dream”. I act as Possession, only to posit Anna’s trance as a the Dreamer; my presence in the room transformative, transgressive experience. being an ongoing “performance piece”. Dreamers enter the space one at a Marco Pasi is Associate Professor in time, and have direct interaction with History of Hermetic philosophy and related me, and with the environment. Each currents. He holds a Laurea degree in participant entering is being dreamed Philosophy from the University of Milan, into my field of consciousness; that said, and a DEA and a PhD in Religious studies each participant coming into the room from the Ecole Pratique des Hautes would also be the Dreamer, with me as Etudes (Sorbonne, Paris). He has focused a projection of her/his consciousness. his research mainly on the relationship The room itself is also being dreamed. between modern esotericism and politics, modern esotericism and art, the history of The intent behind this piece multi-layered: the idea of magic, and on methodological issues related to the study of western First and foremost, it is play. It is esotericism. He is the editor in chief of an exploration of the subjective the Aries Book Series (Brill), founding nature of reality; a transgressive member of the European Society for the challenge to assumptions. Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE), co-chair of the Western Esotericism Group Via this interactive performance/invitation, I at the American Academy of Religion endeavor to point out the Russian-doll-like, (AAR). Since 2014 he is the General parallel nature of the physical and the astral Secretary of the European Association planes; “copy planes” of one another; for the Study of Religions (EASR). thinly veiled by perception. We will cross these boundaries and hold liminal space. Aepril Schaile is an internationally recognized performance artist/priestess/ It is an exploration of the vibrational nature poet working through the ancient and of consciousness on this plane; that the ever-evolving art of Bellydance. Incarnating physical world, too, is a projection of the epithet of “The Dark Goddess”, consciousness—a lucid dream. Is there a Aepril shamanistically becomes Trickster, line? What happens when its blurred? Warrior, Ghost, Storm, Grieving Mother, Killer, Graal, Seductress. Aepril draws on It is an exploration of intimacy; the one- her experiences of lucid dream and astral on-one nature of the piece brings two travel, creating an experience of visceral/ psyches into intimate, blurred contact in aetheral ritual theatre. She has taught and the co-creation/co-projection of the interior performed in Paris, London, Rome, New world. Two aspects of the One regarding York, and throughout Europe and the US. one another, experiencing one another; She is also an astrologer and holds an MFA the alchemy which transpires creating in Interdisciplinary Art. the tone and happenings in the room.

Lucid Dream Chamber: Surrealist It is a challenge to assumptions about the linearity and measurement of time perception. This presentation examines the concept of the “flow” state and applies it to Jasmine Shadrack is a Senior Lecturer Pagan ritual workings and black metal in Popular Music at the University of performance. The flow state is “the Northampton and is in the final stage of holistic experience that people feel her Ph.D. She is also the guitarist and front when they act with total involvement” woman in an avant-garde black metal (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, p 36). It is a liminal collective, Denigrata. Jasmine’s research state of consciousness (Turner, 1974), and explores the ways in which women as is induced during ritualistic performance performers are engaged with by black in Pagan and black metal contexts. These metal. The value and impact of this original disparate praxes reveal through their research lays in its engagement and shared aesthetics, a realm through which analysis of its gendered performance; there transcendental performativity is delivered. are few women black metal performers so by foregrounding female subjectivity The transformative powers offered by flow, as a fundamental of the research, her advances a spiritual engagement with black thesis seeks to investigate issues of metal. Pagan symbology when applied to identity, self-embodiment and musicality. black metal performance leads to adoption of the flow state. Pagan ritual workings are Charmaine Sonnex is an Associate a mental operation where the practitioners Lecturer in Psychology at the University raise energy, imbue it with a purpose, of Northampton and is in the final stages and then send it out to its intended of her Ph.D. Her research interests target. This work cannot be conducted include Transpersonal Psychology, in an ordinary state of consciousness; an non-contact healing, Paganism, and altered state must be realised to craft spirituality. Charmaine’s thesis includes a the singularity of intent necessary (Adler comprehensive meta-analysis of the current , 1986; Orion, 1995; Starhawk, (1986). empirical research into various form of Pagan ritual is understood as a form of non-contact healing, explores Pagan ritual performance (Butler, 2004; Hume, 1998; workings through a psychological lens, and Roundtree, 2006) with emphasis on set seeks to establish the efficacy of Pagan and setting, and ritual tools considered healing practices through a randomised as props. This staging aides the Pagan controlled trial (RCT). This research makes as performer to achieve and maintain an original contribution to a number of the altered, liminal state of flow. research fields; the meta-analysis is the most recent and comprehensive review of The ways this liminal state performs, its kind, the application of psychological demarcates a specificity of engagement theory to investigation of Pagan praxis is within a black metal performance that unique and original as is the application uses Pagan ritual as a conduit. This means of the RCT method to Pagan healing that the value of flow in Pagan ritual is practices. equally as significant in black metal which consolidates the props in Paganism, Ritual Occultation and the Space between consuming and excising them into black Worlds: Exploring the Application of the metal performance as key signifying “Flow” State in Pagan and Black Metal practices. As it is in Pagan ritual, flow’s Performance Practice singularity of intent becomes the crux of the subject in process; the raising of and systemic causality? To think these energy through black metal performance in things, I propose reconsidering the order to project it out seeks to access the presumptive emptiness and passivity of flow state in order to achieve its purpose. the future. Rather than understanding the future as a necessary entelechy or as Rebekah Sheldon is Assistant Professor of container for the present’s consequences, English at Indiana University Bloomington. I offer a conception of the future as an Her first book, The Child to Come: active plenum rippling with the forces Life After the Human Catastrophe, of distortion, iteration, resonance, and is forthcoming from the University of distribution. To do so, I take up Kenneth Minnesota Press. Anger’s short film “Invocation of my Demon Brother” as a case study in the Queer Sex Magic, Transindividual Affect, aesthetic-cum-magical torquing of the and Nonrepresentational Criticism future and as an apt location to make good on the title’s promise to theorize This presentation sketches a speculative the role of queer sex in ritual magic. ontology of magic through the rubric of the transindividual. It is a part of a broader Vanessa Sinclair, Psy.D. is a psychoanalyst investigation into 20th century Anglo- and clinical psychologist in private practice American queer magicians influenced by in New York City. She is a founding Aleister Crowley. In its fullest ambitions, the member of Das Unbehagen: A Free project looks to the nonrepresentational Association for Psychoanalysis, which qualities of theurgic practice such as facilitates psychoanalytic lectures, classes composition, movement, gesture, and events in and around New York City. sound, and rhythm to unfold a theory She curates a series on Psychoanalysis, of and method for nonrepresentational Art & the Occult at Morbid Anatomy criticism. Ritual practices such as these Museum in Brooklyn, and contributes to are explicitly calibrated to produce future a variety of publications including The effects. I argue that they implicate a Fenris Wolf, DIVISION/Review: A Quarterly performative causality markedly distinct Psychoanalytic Forum, ERIS Magazine, and from either representational modes of the Brooklyn Rail. persuasion commonly employed by scholarly exposition or the embodied Third Mind work and Pandrogeny performativities theorized by queer studies. My project is not to produce knowledge The abstract to this presentation is about esoteric or scholarly traditions but presented as a cut-up. (See fig.1 overleaf) to generate new intuitions from out of existing philosophical, literary, theoretical, Alexander Small. Based in Northampton, and aesthetic modes and schemas. Alexander studied Art and Visual Culture in Bristol, Fine Art at the University of My more limited remit in this talk Northampton and has been a practicing responds to the following questions: What artist for the past ten years completing his ontological conditions are necessary for MA at Camberwell College of Art London us to be able to affirm the productivity in 2011. He has regularly exhibited around of magic (and its nonrepresentational the UK, Europe, and North America and qualities) on the unfolding of the future? travelled to India researching traditional With what notions of individual agency art forms. He has been a resident artist, ourselves and based on you ever

identity/ ego is first formed during the child experiences he/r self and the mirror, the mirror image appears

Sexuality is a force of nature that yourself. Be possessed by

in New York City.

currently representing via our bodies, consider object,

Gysin and Burroughs showed the cutting up of language creates the space for something

slowly Third Being . embodies countless numbers

POLYMORPHOUS PERVERSITY

transsexual.

(p)androgeny is divine. a being possessed, repossess

As These sites are relaxation.

We are simply sexual.”

repression,

apparent

Vanessa Sinclair,

psychoanalysis.

the pores of the skin

We learn about as these are the constricted to nor constructed penetrated and expel. and biology are limited, how

anymore. Only

Figure 1. Cut-up (2015) by Vanessa Sinclair. trustee and volunteer at the Artist characters and feminist issues within her Sanctuary in Northampton and a member genre of fiction and believes that they of the Northampton Arts Collective as need to be more prevalent. a voluntary board member. He received the Juliet Gompert’s Trust Award in 2010, Transgender Characters and Otherworldly was selected for the Future Map 11 States of Mind in Sci-Fi and Fantasy exhibition at the Zabludowicz Collection Fiction and has completed an AIR mini residency at Archway London in 2012. Past projects I’ve always written a wide range of include a collaborative practice ‘Art ] genders and sexualities into my work. iculating History’ placing art concepts in Some would could it queer fantasy, I just historical contexts and Gallery S6X a pop believe it’s the way I chose to write. In up gallery in Northampton . my next novel, ‘God Sized to Go’, my main character is a transgender female The Metaphysics of Shit: A Selection of that ends up becoming trapped in her Recent Paintings own mind and making friends with her conscience. Together, they battle a Referring to Jean Fischer’s 2002 essay creature that’s trying to create a new world ‘Towards a Metaphysics of Shit’ this series for godly purposes. In my presentation, of paintings examine ideas of the trickster I plan to discuss how I visualised and not only as a potent symbol of the liminal wrote a transgender character; from state but also as a method for realising the research to the representation and its re-creative potential. Using historic decisions made in print. As well as images as a starting point particularly this, I want to discuss the concept of images from European wood block print the mind being another world in a sci- imagery portraying themes of defecation, fi and fantasy story and interpretation time and de-individuation these images of this when creating the world. are re-presented as paintings. This process of translating the image from one media The interpretation will include the choices to another is an absurd act in itself, made when deciding the aesthetics mocking both systems of representation of the world and decisions taken of known as painting and print. how to connect all the minds of beings together in one landscape. I will discuss Generally, Alexander’s work occupies the how I used description and language space between ideas of the Dionysian and to help my audience picture the world, the Absurd, moving from one to the other despite it not being a physical entity. exploring themes of futility, pointlessness, The whole concept of the book is about hopelessness, nuisance, de individuation, questioning the idea of a god, what it death, rebirth and the irrational. takes to become a god and perception of what a god’s power is. Within my Sophie Sparham is a sci-fi fantasy writer, presentation, I intend to discuss this in spoken word artist and music journalist relation to the world that I have created. from Derby. She has released her first book, Snow in Hell, and is currently half Georgia van Raalte. I completed an way through penning her follow up, God Undergraduate degree in Theological Sized to Go. She’s extremely passionate Studies at the University of St Andrews. I about the representation of LGBT+ studied for my MA degree at the University of Amsterdam, in the Western Esotericism between Western and non-Western forms track of their Religious Studies program. of occultism, the Ghetto Tarot confronts My thesis was titled “Tea, Scones and the colonial gaze. Taking the liminal Socially Responsible Sex Magic: the political subject and projecting him to the Egalitarian Occultism of Dion Fortune”, realm of art, the Ghetto Tarot transforms and explored how Fortune attempted an object of pity to one of enlightenment. to balance esoteric practice with normal As a performance of the occult, the social life. I have been accepted to begin Ghetto Tarot collapses the boundaries my PhD studies at the University of Kent, between art and life, between the sign Canterbury, in October. The working title and what is signified. In order to explore of my thesis is “The Price of Magic: the the boundary-breaking nature of the mechanics of ritual magic and the effects Ghetto Tarot I will follow the presentation of prolonged magical work.” Focusing on of my paper on the deck a participatory a number of key esoteric practitioners in tarot reading session, focusing on the 20th century Britain, I will be exploring theme of liminality and the collapse of the modern practice of magic. The the boundaries between art and life. An manipulation of esoteric symbolism and image of each card drawn will be projected the ritual use of taboo-breaking acts will be for the audience to see, and I will ask particularly important as I consider whether audience members to contribute readings it is possible to be both an occult ‘adept’ of the cards, based both on their prior and a functioning member of normal knowledge and spontaneous intuition. society. Roy Wallace. In 1998 he began work on The Ghetto Tarot Modern Angels as a video exploration and document of the body art scene in Belgian photographer Alice Smeets Belgium at the turn of the millennium. and Haitian art collective Atis Rezistans His most recent work includes, The Day created the Ghetto Tarot deck in 2015. the Country Died a documentary history A photographic interpretation of the of the Anarcho-punk scene in the UK Rider-Waite tarot deck, the images were during the early 1980’s and Bloody Bloody created in the Haitian slums using only Belgium an exploration of the subcultural material the artists were able to find activities of the underground music scenes locally. Smeets chose the name Ghetto in Northern Ireland, UK and Belgium. Tarot, hoping to stimulate discussion about poverty and privilege. Without His next project I Believe in Buzzcock is trivializing poverty, she argues that it is an experimental ‘documentary art video’ important to recognise that the ghetto can which explores concepts of identity. The be a place of happiness, spirituality and work seeks to question and redefine creativity. Christian Liberation Theology relationships between concepts of video has begun to recognise this, and it is fiction and documentary, drawing upon time the study of esotericism does too, staged and unreconstructed events which for it is in the social margins that we find constructs a secondary narrative around the occult still alive and productive. the videographer’s relationship with both character and band. The cards use symbols from the Voodoo religion to embody the meaning of Modern Angels: A Documentary the Rider-Waite deck. Crossing the line Exploration of Transdermal, Body Art and Body Modification in the Kingdom of argues, Foucault suggests a view of the Belgium body as “oscillating between modes of inscription, internalization, and In this video essay, I will examine interpretation.” Foucauldian terms such aspects of ‘body ritual’ as a means of as ‘marked and engraved’ refer to bodily expression and resistance to prevailing processes of inscription, while his use of dominant cultural representation of the ‘moulded, shaped and trained’ alludes individual and how ancient ritualistic to the body/power nexus, and finally practices have evolved into mainstream when he references how bodies ‘respond art forms and anti-religious symbolic and increase their forces’ he implies an resistance at the second millennium of active body (McLaren 2002:106). It is Christ. The work will explore issues of with this formulation in mind that I set identity and religious/spiritual belief out to explore the self-inflicted pain associated with such body art practices wrought on the body in the search for and their symbolic meaning across individualistic liberation from dominant real different ritualistic activities including, and imaginary forces that helps me step tattoo, piercing, branding, scarification, ‘behind’ the subject into other creative performance and within these particular imaginings, beyond documentary. elements to further explore the nuance of practice between different approaches.

The implicit theme underlying this work embraces occult practice as performance as seen through the eyes of a number of key participants active in the Belgian Underground scenes which cross- over and interconnect with a range of complimentary subcultural movements including, punk, goth, rockabilly and various sexually explicit transdermal groups who engage in ‘performance’ as both ritual and practice involving the ‘spectator’ and in my case the ‘documenter’ which poses a range of ethical and moral considerations when documenting and recording such activities, as acknowledged or unacknowledged participant.

The focus of my work is to help situate the individual within the ‘universal’ and to allow key voices to speak and represent the beliefs, values and customs of many in contemporary societies which are reflected by my particular chosen culture as a collective anarchist narrative in the Kingdom of Belgium and beyond. As McLaren (2002:106)