‘Occult Conference in October’

     

SOLD OUT

as of October 9

First, some clarity of the word “occult,” because there are too many people with Sunday school mentalities. From John Michael Greer’s The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History:

“Derived from the Latin word occultus, “hidden” or “secret,” the word “occult” was first applied to magic in the late Middle Ages. Until very recent times it was an adjective rather than a noun: the first recorded use of “the occult” in English dates from 1923, while “occultism” is only a little older, dating from 1881. Before then, magic and its sister arts, such as alchemy and astrology, were called “occult sciences” or “occult philosophy,” meaning simply that they were hidden and abstruse.”

Okay? In today’s usage, it is synonymous with esoteric.

Here now the news:

Next month, New York University will co-host, with Phantasmaphile and Observatory, a weekend conference to present a variety of scholars, researchers, and artists who explore various occult traditions. The Occult Humanities Conference: Contemporary Art and Scholarship on the Esoteric Traditions will take place October 18-20 at the Barney Building, the home of NYU’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, located at 34 Stuyvesant Street in the East Village.

The Occult Humanities Conference:

Contemporary Art and Scholarship

on the Esoteric Traditions

October 18 through 20

New York University’s Steinhardt School

34 Stuyvesant Street, New York City

Three-Day Pass: $90 • Single-Day Admission: $50

Tickets are available here.

From the publicity:

Courtesy OHC

The arts and humanities at present are acutely interested in subjects related to the occult tradition. The tradition represents a rich and varied visual culture that displays a complex set of relations at once culturally specific and global in their transmission. Roughly defined, the occult tradition represents a series of culturally syncretic belief systems with related and overlapping visual histories. Though there are as many ways into this material as there are cultural—and personal—perspectives, universal occult concerns often include a belief in some sort of magic; a longing to connect with an immaterial or trans-personal realm; and a striving for inner-knowledge, refinement of the self, and transformation of one’s consciousness—if not one’s physical circumstances.

Intensely marginalized throughout most historical periods, these traditions persist and represent an ‘underground’ perspective that periodically exerts a strong influence on structures of dissent, utopianism and social change. Though history is marked with several so-called “Occult Revivals,” the contemporary digital age is a perfect confluence of several factors that make this moment prime for a re-examination of all of the esoteric traditions. While the information age has allowed for easier access to previously obscure writings, imagery, and social contexts, it alternately elicits a deep desire for sensorial experiences and meaning-making once one steps away from the screen.

The presenters at the OHC represent a rich and expanding community of international artists and academics from multiple disciplines across the humanities who share an exuberance and excitement for how the occult traditions interface with their fields of study as well as the culture at large. The small scale of this conference (approximately 100 attendees) will give ticket holders an intimate look at the presenters and their views.

The visually oriented presentations will be coupled with exhibition of artworks by several presenters and artisanal books from Fulgur Esoterica and Ouroboros Press. Books and editions from Fulgur Esoterica, Ouroboros Press and Catland will be available for sale throughout the duration of the conference.

The Presentations:

Like A Messenger to the Deep:

Deciphering the Occult in Leonora Carrington

The British-born Mexican Surrealist Leonora Carrington created a large body of work including paintings, drawings, sculpture, tapestries, jewelry, theatrical scenery and costumes, as well as a significant amount of fiction (short stories, plays, novellas). Much of the content of her work has been deemed undecipherable and has thus been relegated to the realm of nursery rhyme, surrealist fantasy and mythology. This presentation will use a previously unpublished drawing of Carrington’s as a jump off point with which to explore the artist’s occult interests, which were wide-ranging and actually clearly articulated in her work. The esoteric artwork of other Surrealists, many of whom were her friends, will be used as points of comparison.

Susan L. Aberth is Associate Professor of Art History at Bard College, Annandaleon-Hudson, New York. She teaches modern Latin American art, with a particular interest in Surrealism and religious traditions. She also teaches Latin American art at the Christie’s Education Master of Arts Program, New York. Author of Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy, and Art (Lund Humphries, London and in Spanish with Turner, Madrid, 2004); Agustín Fernández: The Metamorphosis of Experience (with Donald Kuspit, Rocio Aranda-Alvarado and Abby McEwen) (5Continents, Milan, 2012); and numerous other articles and catalogue essays. In addition to the art of Latin America, her teaching and research interests are in outsider art, fraternal orders, the occult, religion and popular culture.

Saturday Night Performance:

Occult Magic With Magician Acep Hale

Until modern times there was no division between the branches of magic. Acep Hale will be presenting a collection of classic street performing tricks that have been passed down through centuries in a continuous link from the times when magicians wandered the earth, entertaining, healing, and divining for the communities they traveled through.

Acep Hale is a street-performing magician, musician, traveler, and rogue gentleman scholar. Driven by the 19th century belief in propaganda by deed he performs daily on street corners everywhere to prove that magic still lives around every bend, you don’t need a nine to five to stay alive, and hope springs eternal between the cracks of every sidewalk.

Adventures in Limbo:

The Neither-Neither World of Austin Osman Spare

Austin Osman Spare was an English occult artist working in the early-to-mid 20th Century. In this 45-minute audio-visual journey, we are invited to explore Austin Spare’s approach to creating magical art through an analysis of his own words and images. His liminal methods are then compared with composers working during his lifetime. The lecture includes a soundtrack by John Contreras (of Current 93 and Baby Dee) that was composed uniquely for this presentation.

Robert Ansell is a publisher, art dealer, curator and scholar. His field of expertise is esoteric art of the 20th century with a specific focus on Austin Osman Spare. Through his company Fulgur Esoterica, he has represented esoteric artists in book form since 1992. In recent years he has also gained note as an independent art curator specializing in the esoteric. Robert is also the publisher and art editor of Abraxas Journal, which has been described as today’s pre-eminent voice for the serious study of occult and esoteric expression. His published work includes; AOS Ex-Libris (1988), The Book of Ugly Ecstasy (1996), Borough Satyr (2005), The Valley of Fear (2008), The Exhibition Catalogues of Austin O. Spare (2011) and The Focus of Life (2012). He has been interviewed for the BBC Culture Show, the blog Boing Boing, and Dazed and Confused.

Jesse Bransford:

The Planets, A Ten Year Working

In the summer of 2013 Jesse Bransford completed a long-term project involving a study of the seven planets of antiquity. Begun in late 2004, The seven celestial bodies, the Sun, Mars, Mercury, the Moon, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn were each taken in turn and studied for approximately a year. The research generated seven discreet bodies of work that trace the self-initiation of the artist into a much larger (and stranger) world.

Jesse Bransford (Conference Co-organizer) is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work is exhibited internationally at venues including the Carnegie Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, PS 1 Contemporary Art Center and the CCA Wattis Museum among others. He holds degrees from the New School for Social Research (BA), Parsons School of Design (BFA) and Columbia University (MFA). An associate professor of art at New York University, Bransford’s work has been involved with belief and the visual systems it creates since the 1990s. Early research into color meaning and cultural syncretism led to the occult traditions in general and the work of John Dee and Henry Cornelius Agrippa specifically. His work is represented by Feature Inc. in New York and can be seen extensively documented on the website sevenseven.com, a site he has operated and maintained since 1997.

Elijah Burgher:

Topple the Table of Correspondences

Elijah Burgher will give an artist’s talk about his drawings and paintings. He will also discuss the influence of artist-sorcerors, such as Austin Osman Spare, William S. Burroughs, Genesis P-Orridge and John Balance, on his work.

Elijah Burgher (b. 1978, U.S.A.) is an artist and occasional writer, currently living in Chicago. He makes drawings and paintings that utilize ideas from magick and the occult to address sexuality, sub-cultural formation and the history of abstraction. He has exhibited in solo shows at Western Exhibitions, Chicago (2012, 2013); 2nd Floor Projects, San Francisco (2011); and Shane Campbell Gallery, Oak Park (2010); and two-person shows at Lump, Raleigh (2012); and Peregrine Program, Chicago (2009). Recent group shows include exhibitions at the Witte de With, Rotterdam (2013); H.F. Johnson Gallery of Art, Kenosha (2012); 92YTribeca (2012), Anna Kustera (2011), and Envoy Enterprises (2010), New York City; Famous Accountants, Brooklyn (2011); and Noma, San Francisco (2011). Burgher has taught in Contemporary Practices and Painting and Drawing since Fall 2010. Recent publications include Vitamin D2 (Phaidon, 2013) and AA Bronson.

Witch-Hunters in the Book-Shops:

The History of the Cornell Witchcraft Collection

(1866-2013)

That Cornell University Library has “the largest and most accessible collection on witchcraft in the world” is widely acknowledged in the academic community, but the whole story of why and how it was built (in the context of both scholarship and political activism) still needs to be told in details. Driven by their liberal/rationalist agenda and by their populist/sentimentalist interpretation of European witch-hunt, two historians, Cornell’s first President Andrew Dickson White (1866-1885) and librarian George Lincoln Burr (who retired in 1922), purchased the largest ensemble of witchcraft trial records and demonology treaties in one repository. Decades later, Cornell acquired the library on occultism of Kurt Seligmann, “the magic expert of the Surrealist group.” In this talk, Laurent Ferri will discuss the formation, use, and occasional misuse, of the amazing and still expanding Cornell Witchcraft Collection.

Laurent Ferri is the curator of the pre-1800 collections of rare books and manuscripts in Kroch Library, Cornell -- where he also holds the position of Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature and Medieval Studies. Prior to coming to New York State, he worked at the National Archives in Paris, and also taught at the école nationale d’administration in Rabat, Morocco.

Art as a Spell:

Resacralizing Urban Space

The word “pagan” means “of the country,” yet so many city-dwellers have magical inclinations and pantheistic leanings. How do we reconcile our metaphysical hunger with our decidedly industrial surroundings? In this meditation on the occult and urban living, with a special focus on New York City, Pam Grossman will explore the idea of art as a conduit between civilization and the divine.

Pam Grossman (Conference Co-organizer) is an independent curator, writer, and teacher of magical practice and history. She is the creator of Phantasmaphile, a blog which specializes in art and culture with an esoteric or fantastical bent, and the Associate Editor of Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies. As co-founder of the Brooklyn arts & lecture space, Observatory, her programming aims to explore mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach.
Her group art shows, Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists, VISION QUEST, Alchemically Yours, and Sigils & Signs have been featured by such outlets as Boing Boing, Art & Antiques Magazine, CREATIVE TIME, Time Out New York, Juxtapoz, Arthur, 20×200, UrbanOutfitters.com, and Neil Gaiman’s Twitter.
She lectures on such topics as “The Occult in Modern Art 101,” and teaches classes on herbalism and ritual. Her writing has appeared in numerous mediums, including The Huffington Post, MSN.com, the Etsy blog, Sciences Occultes magazine, and various Fulgur press publications. As a featured guest on The Midnight Archive web series, Expanding Mind radio, Occult Science Radio, and the C-Realm, Psychonautica, and Labyrinth podcasts, she has discussed the role of magic in contemporary life.
Pam is a graduate of New York University, where she studied anthropology, art history, and comparative religion. A resident of Brooklyn, she lives with her playwright husband, Matthew Freeman, and their two cat familiars, Albee and Remedios “Remy” Varo.

More Brilliant than Crystal:

The Life and Work of Ithell Colquhoun

A Presentation by Dr. Amy Hale

This illustrated lecture will explore the rich artistic and philosophical legacy of Ithell Colquhoun (1906-88). Colquhoun, who was formally associated with British Surrealism for a short time in the late 1930s, was situated at the nexus of British esoteric thought and culture in the mid 20th century. Through her work we can examine the emerging social and cultural contexts of several strands of British esoterica, including Wicca, Druidry, traditionalist witchcraft, and Hermetic magic. Furthermore, Colquhoun anticipates, by decades, movements such as Goddess religion and British earth mysteries. Just as importantly, Colquhoun’s oeuvre provides us with a rare working record of a female occultist working in a male dominated milieu, who dedicated nearly her entire life to magic and the pursuit of enlightenment, always without compromise.

Amy Hale, Ph.D. (Golden Gate University) is an Anthropologist specializing in contemporary Celtic cultures with an emphasis on Cornwall and esoteric cultural history. She is the co-editor of New Directions in Celtic Studies (2000) and Inside Merlin’s Cave: A Cornish Arthurian Reader (2000) in addition to writing over 30 other articles ranging in topic from Neo Druidry to Celtic cultural tourism. She is the past co-editor of the Journal of the Academic Study of Magic (with Susan Johnston Graf), and is working on a biography and several other projects related to the life and work of of Ithell Colquhoun (Francis Boutle).

Alchemical Vessels:

Vehicles of the Hermetic Tradition,

A Presentation by William Kiesel,

Editor-in-Chief of Ouroboros Press

The Royal Art of Alchemy has a long tradition of transmutation. The literature is among the most artistic and thereby recognized, practices in the western esoteric tradition. Despite this fact, alchemy is also one of the most misunderstood arts in the tradition due to the confusion arising from the enigmatic language and imagery employed by its authors. A cursory glance reveals an apparent dichotomy between allegorical and practical methods as expressed by 20th century exponents of the art. Images in alchemy that depict specific alchemical operations along with allegorical references will accompany an explicatory presentation. As various operations in the tradition customarily take place in distinct vessels, ovens and crucibles, several images will be shown where the two methods work in concert.

William J. Kiesel is the director of Ouroboros Press, Editor-in-Chief at CLAVIS Journal of the Art Magical and the founder of the International Esoteric Book Conference. His personal research into variant currents of Western Esotericism and the History of the Book has been augmented by participation in the antiquarian and scholarly book trade dating back to 1991. A strong supporter of Book Arts, his role also includes independent scholarship, art curation and public speaking in the complex and intriguing world of esoterisicm.

Isis Resurrected:

How Madame Blavatsky Reshaped Our World,

A discussion with Gary Lachman and Mitch Horowitz,

moderated by Pam Grossman

Gary Lachman is the author of more than a dozen books on the meeting ground between consciousness, culture, and the western esoteric tradition, including Madame Blavatsky: The Mother of Modern Spirituality, Rudolf Steiner: An Introduction to his Life and Work, Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius, A Secret History of Consciousness, The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus, and mostly recently The Caretakers of the Cosmos. He is a regular contributor to several journals in the US and UK and regularly lectures on his work in the UK, Europe, and US. In a prior life Lachman was a founding member of the rock group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was born in New Jersey but since 1996 has lived in London, England. 

Mitch Horowitz is vice-president and editor-in-chief at Tarcher/Penguin, the division of Penguin books dedicated to metaphysical literature. He is the author of Occult America (Bantam), which received the 2010 PEN Oakland/ Josephine Miles Award for literary excellence. His new book, One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life, is forthcoming from Crown in January 2014. Horowitz frequently writes about and discusses alternative spirituality in the national media, including CBS Sunday Morning, Dateline NBC, All Things Considered, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and CNN.com. Visit him online at www.MitchHorowitz.com and on Twitter @MitchHorowitz.

Symbolic Devices:

On the Hieronymous Machine

and Other Magical Technologies

“If, as Arthur C Clarke famously observed, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, then can we accept that any sufficiently advanced magic is also indistinguishable from technology?”
In this illustrated presentation, Mark gives a historical overview of psychotronic devices—the radiant collision point of magic, art and technology. Psychotronic devices fuse aspects of vitalism, electromagnetic field theory and psychic sciences like telepathy, psychometry and dowsing. From an orthodox materialist perspective they are cargo cult technology, a fantasy of science. But it is too simple to reject all psionic devices out of hand as deceptions or slight-of-mind; Instead, we can perhaps best understand them as technological adaptations of ancient, sympathetic magical practices, a magic that feeds on, and is fuelled by, the conviction of both the practitioner and the subject. Mark will look the development of psychotronic technologies from the 19th century to the present, a journey that incorporates experimental medicines, science fiction fandom and some of the world’s most prestigious art galleries.

Mark Pilkington is the author of Mirage Men (now a feature documentary film) and Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science’s Outer Edge and has written for numerous magazines, anthologies and journals. Mark is the overmind at Strange Attractor, publishing books and curating events and exhibitions. When he’s not working with words you’ll find him fiddling with synthesiers and electronic sound making devices with a number of experimental music groups in his native London. www.strangeattractor.co.uk / www.radionicworkshop.co.uk

Shannon Taggart:

Physical Mediumship and the Search

for Ectoplasm in Modern Spiritualist Ritual

Shannon Taggart is a photographer and independent researcher based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been exhibited and published internationally. She curates a lecture series about the science and aesthetics of the miraculous. Currently, she is working on a book about Spiritualism and physical mediumship.

Opening Night Performance:

The Parlour Trick

The Parlour Trick is a “haunted chamber music” project, founded by Meredith Yayanos in 2006. Recently, she and fellow multi-instrumentalist Dan Cantrell released an LP of spooky seance songs under The Parlour Trick moniker called “A Blessed Unrest”. Thematically, the record is very much a Madwoman in the Attic affair, steeped in melancholy, decay, ritual, channeling, agoraphobia, laudanum abuse.... lots of Grimm, grinning stuff. Hear more at theparlourtrick.bandcamp.com.

Meredith Yayanos is a musician, writer, traveler, and the co-founder/Editor-in-Chief of Coilhouse Magazine & Blog. Her theremin, violin, and vocal work has been featured on tracks with artists including The Dresden Dolls, Beats Antique, Faun Fables, The Vanity Set, David Garland and The Walkmen. She has also done score work for film and television, most notably the Victorian ghost story puppet short The Narrative of Victor Karloch, and the full-length psychological thriller, Empty Rooms.
     

‘The Eleusinian Mysteries...in Brooklyn!’

     
It’s that time of year—fall equinox, colder days, longer nights, harvests, booths, leaves changing, etc.—when the mind turns to the connections to ancient ancestors by way of timeless ritual traditions which celebrate nature’s tireless, harmonious cycling.

The best known of the ancient mystery rites, unquestionably, are the Eleusinian Mysteries. For approximately two millennia, the small town called Eleusis, not far from Athens, was the site of a temple where the myth central to pre-Hellenic Greece’s spiritual understanding of autumn was imparted to initiates. That myth, of course, was the story of how Persephone came to live her dual life, dividing her time between the underworld and Mount Olympus. It is an allegory of the change of seasons, like most sacred stories key to the ancient mysteries.

You probably know the general story of this myth, but here it is with some detail, courtesy of Robert Graves’ The Greek Myths: Demeter (meaning Barley Mother), the goddess of the cornfield, with Zeus, bore a daughter named Core (meaning Maiden), and the two were very close. Hades, god of the underworld, fell in love with Core and asked her father/his brother, Zeus, for permission to marry her. Zeus, fearing Demeter’s reaction if he consigned their daughter to the underworld, declined either to grant or deny this request; Hades interpreted the ambivalence as a favorable decision. While making a rare visit above ground, Hades found Core one day while she picked flowers in a meadow, abducted her, and hastily raced his chariot back to the world of the dead.

Foregoing rest and refreshment, Demeter searched for her daughter for nine days and nights. After some investigation, she learned the truth: that Hades had absconded with Core, hereafter named Peresphone (meaning She Who Brings Destruction), to the underworld. Armed with the facts, Demeter was so angry and despondent that she continued to wander the earth, forbidding agriculture to grow. Mankind was at risk of extinction. Zeus made repeated entreaties to calm Demeter and to restore life to the trees and grain, but she was relentless. Messenger god Hermes brokered the deal: Peresphone may return to the world of the living on the condition that she has not yet tasted the food of the dead.

It was at Eleusis (meaning Advent) where Peresphone and Demeter were reunited, but it was revealed that the daughter had eaten seven seeds of the pomegranate—that fruit so prevalent and so symbolic in so many myths and faiths—while in the underworld. Because of this, Peresphone would not live her life above ground, and because of Demeter’s refusal to retract her curse upon the land, her daughter would not be sent to live in the underworld either. The commonly understood compromise consisted of Peresphone dividing her time equally between life above ground and life below ground denoting, respectively, the warm weather months of abundance and the cold weather months of deprivation and death. (The classical understanding of this schedule puts Peresphone in the underworld for only three months a year.) Placated, Demeter prepared to return home, but first initiated several of her allies, who had aided in the search for Peresphone, into her mysteries and worship. One of these, Triptolemus, son of King Celeus, was sent around the world to teach mankind the art of agriculture.

Triptolemus receiving wheat sheaves from Demeter, and blessings from Persephone, in this 5th Century BCE relief on exhibit at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Click to enlarge.

I won’t bother repeating the sparse information on the orgiastic doings of the Eleusinian Mysteries, but there is a brief sketch of the ritual published by John Michael Greer in his The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Hidden History. Excerpted:

“Initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries involved a strict process that took more than a year and a half to complete. Candidates first took part in the Lesser Mysteries, the Myesis, which was celebrated in February each year on the banks of the Ilissos River near Athens. Each candidate sacrificed a pig to the gods, bathed in the icy waters of the Ilissos, and received instruction in the myth of Demeter, the goddess of the earth, and her daughter Persephone….

“After the Lesser Mysteries, candidates had to wait until September of the following year before they could take part in the Greater Mysteries, called the Teletai. These rites formally began on the 14th of the month of Boedromion, when priestesses from Eleusis came to Athens carrying baskets. The baskets contained sacred objects that were stored in the Eleusinion, a temple in Athens; what those objects were, nobody knows. Candidates began fasting on the 10th, and on the 16th they marched in a procession down to the sea to purify themselves in its water, then went into seclusion for the next two days.

“At dawn on the 19th, the candidates gathered at the Painted Porch in the central marketplace of Athens, donned myrtle wreaths, and formed a procession with the priestesses and their mysterious baskets. They left Athens by the Sacred Gate and proceeded along the Sacred Road toward Eleusis. At a bridge they met priests who gave each of them a carefully measured portion of a beverage called kykeon (meaning The Mixture), containing water, roasted barley, and pennyroyal. At a second bridge, another detachment of priests tied a thread to the right hand and left foot of each candidate. Finally, around sunset, the procession reached Eleusis and marched by torchlight into the sacred precinct. They entered the Telesterion, where the Hierophant, the chief priest of Eleusis, sat on his throne just outside the entrance to the Anaktoron.

“It is at this point that most of the surviving sources fall silent....

“According to Clement of Alexandria, a Christian writer from the fourth century, initiates of Eleusis had a special password, the synthema: ‘I have fasted, drunk the kykeon, taken things out of the large basket, worked with them, put them into the small basket, and then back into the large basket.’ Comments from many initiates indicated that whatever they saw within the Telesterion freed them from the fear of death—a point that merely deepens the mystery that surrounds Eleusis.”

Where was I going with this? Yes! Brooklyn.

On Friday night, Observatory in Gowanus will host a ritual workshop led by Pam Grossman. From the publicity:

Autumn Descent and the Eleusinian Mysteries

Friday, September 27

7:30 to 9-ish p.m.

Observatory

543 Union Street, Brooklyn, New York

Admission: $20

You must RSVP to phantasmaphile(at)gmail.com if you’d like to attend, as space is limited.

Persephone’s descent into Hades, and Demeter’s subsequent mourning, were celebrated in late September in ancient Greece via a 9-day long series of elaborate rites called the Eleusinian Mysteries. Though relatively little is known about these rituals to this day, they mirrored the changing of the seasons, and allowed initiates to reflect deeply upon the cycle of birth, death, and resurrection.

So shall we celebrate this time when the world turns dark and our thoughts turn inward. This evening will be filled with myth, ritual, and meditation to prepare us for the colder months. We will journey to the underworld, and return with messages to help guide us in the coming seasons. Themes will include harvesting, giving thanks, honoring shadow, and letting go.

Please bring:

• Any altar objects you like. These can be decorative (Thanksgiving and autumnal décor of any kind is welcome), and/or personal objects which you’d like to have charged
• A candle and holder
• A cushion, pillow, or fabric, as we will be sitting on the floor (chairs will be available for those who need).

Note-taking is welcome. This workshop is open to men and women, novices and advanced practitioners alike.

Pam Grossman

Pam Grossman is a writer, independent curator, and teacher of magical practice and history. An initiate in the wise woman tradition, she is a graduate apprentice of the green witch, Robin Rose Bennett. She is the creator of Phantasmaphile, a blog which specializes in art and culture with an esoteric or fantastical bent, and Associate Editor of Abraxas Journal. She lectures on such topics as “The Occult in Modern Art 101,” teaches classes on herbalism and ritual, and is the co-organizer of the Occult Humanities Conference at NYU.

Her writing has appeared in numerous mediums, including The Huffington Post, MSN.com, the Etsy blog, Sciences Occultes magazine, and various Fulgur press publications. As a featured guest on The Midnight Archive web series, Expanding Mind radio, and the C-Realm, Psychonautica, and Labyrinth podcasts, she has discussed the role of magic in contemporary life. Her group art shows, Fata Morgana: The New Female Fantasists, VISION QUEST, Alchemically Yours, and Sigils & Signs have been featured by such outlets as Art & Antiques Magazine, Boing Boing, CREATIVE TIME, Time Out New York, Reality Sandwich, Juxtapoz, Arthur, 20×200, UrbanOutfitters.com, and Neil Gaiman’s Twitter. She is a co-founder of Observatory, where her programming aims to explore mysticism via a scholarly yet accessible approach.
     

‘Craftsmen’s Calumet Club’

     
You are hereby invited to take part in a new venture for Freemasons in northern New Jersey and New York City: I’d like to see if I can get a pipe club going. The Faceypage here.

Just about the entirety of my own collection. Nothing exotic.

A purely fun, social, convivial group to meet and smoke, with an educational component as well, since we’ll learn from each other about the countless variations in pipes’ manufacture, design, shape, land of origin, etc.; and the truly inestimable varieties of tobaccos made for our enjoyment.


“To the Plains Indians,” states The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols, the “calumet,” or pipe, and the act of pipe smoking were “part of a unifying ritual.”

“The tobacco used in the pipe is also a powerful magical substance originally intended for ritual use only,” the Encyclopedia continues. “The smoke rising from the pipe signifies a prayer traveling toward the gods, and symbolizes the sacred breath, source of all life. The fire that lights the pipe symbolizes the sun and the male element. The pipe itself is equivalent to the prayer that is offered up from it…. In addition, the bowl is described as an altar, and the stem, the passage of the breath extending from the human body.”

I don’t think this actually is a meer,

but you get the ‘idear.’

You can’t argue with that, so bring your Barlings, let’s see your Savinellis, carry your Kaywoodies, pack your Petersons, and don’t forget your Dunhills. No matter if you prefer briar billiards, calabashes, or clays, come one, come all! Someday we’ll all have fancy meerschaums with Masonic symbols carved into ’em.


Thus far, it’s only Bro. Martin from New Jersey’s St. John’s No. 1 and myself, but you have to start somewhere. I think I can get Bro. Cory to come along. If we grow a little and function somewhat regularly, we might even want to affiliate with the United Pipe Clubs of America, which could help us land guest speakers from the companies that manufacture and sell pipes and tobaccos which, believe me, is a lot of fun. Also, UPCA membership would put us in fraternity with other pipe clubs.

My own pipe passion—distinct from my love of cigars—began in 1996, when I started the first of two part-time stints in the employ of the great Lew Rothman in his flagship store. (Fond memories because Lew has no love for either pipes or pipe smokers, resulting in ample colorful commentary.) Between then and 2008, when I concluded my second tenure there, I accumulated a modest collection of simple briars, with a couple of clays, shown in the photo above. Basically, I’d blow my Christmas bonus on pipes every year.

The health benefits of pipe smoking are well documented and too numerous to list here. I’ll only attest to the simple enjoyment of it all: experimenting with unfamiliar blends of tobacco; making your own mixtures; settling on the one or more that are perfect for you; caring for pipes; aging tobaccos; complementing tobaccos with the best beverages; pursuing your own “holy grail” of pipes among either the new or estate pipe markets; and on and on.

To get involved, pull me aside next time you see me, or send an e-mail, or leave a note (not for publication) in the comments section below, and we shall take it from there.

Below are some photos I shot not too long ago at the New York Pipe Club Show, which is hosted in Newark at least once a year. Used to be every March and September, then they moved it around. As far as I know, the club has not yet scheduled an upcoming show, but I am sure it will.

Pipe shows are wonderful events. Here is just part of one table
of Ardor pipes, a respected maker in Italy.

As above: Pelican, the official tobacco of Rose Croix Masonry!

So below: Hermit’s Mystic blend, the tobacco of tarot.

(Not sure if it is available anymore.)

Click to enlarge. Not easily found, perhaps intentionally, is Esoterica Tobacciana.
Ask. Seek. Knock. It is worth finding.

Quintessence. What can be said?

I think he’s on The Step!

There are even pipes for Hermeticists!

     

‘…and the moon governs the night’

Visitors to the Newman Catholic Community Center at Drexel University in Philadelphia are greeted by audacious symbolism. The fresco rendering of the iconic color photograph of earthrise taken from the lunar surface lends context to the most incomprehensible phrase in human vocabulary: ‘In the beginning, God...’ Superimposed upon it all is the Chi-Rho mounted on a cross. The Chi-Rho, one of the oldest symbols denoting Christianity, is a combination of the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), the first two letters in the Greek spelling of Christ, meaning ‘king.’

On the 40th anniversary of mankind’s arrival on the moon, thoughts inevitably turn to the significance of the moon in Masonic symbolism. There is much to consider.

“The adoption of the moon in the Masonic system as a symbol is analogous to, but could hardly be derived from, the employment of the same symbol in the ancient religions,” says the 1924 edition of Mackey’s An Encyclopædia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences. “In Egypt, Osiris was the sun, and Isis the moon; in Syria, Adonis was the sun, and Ashtoroth the moon; the Greeks adored her as Diana, and Hecate; in the mysteries of Ceres, while the hierophant or chief priest represented the Creator, and the torch-bearer the sun, the officer nearest the altar represented the moon. In short, moon-worship was as widely disseminated as sun-worship. Masons retain her image in their Rites, because the Lodge is a representation of the universe, where, as the sun rules over the day, the moon presides over the night; as the one regulates the year, so does the other the months, and as the former is the king of the starry hosts of heaven, so is the latter their queen; but both deriving their heat, and light, and power from Him, who as the third and the greatest light, the Master of heaven and earth, controls them both.”

Freemasonry as we know it is a product of the Enlightenment, meaning, in part, it is a philosophical society intended for the improvement of man’s station. Its use of universal symbols leads to great confusion among those who mistake it for anything from a continuation of the ancient mystery religions to a form of neo-paganism, like Wicca. Those who hold these opinions miss the point that above all else it is reason that Masonry aims to inculcate, not nature worship. It is thoughtful inquiry into the essence of nature we are taught to pursue, and not satisfaction with the superficial mindset that accepts Creation on par with the Creator.

“Whoever reflects on the objects that surround him will find abundant reason to admire the works of Nature, and adore the Being who directs such astonishing operations,” writes Bro. Charles Leslie in A Vindication of Masonry, his remarks to Vernon Kilwinning Lodge in Edinburgh on May 15, 1741. “He will be convinced that infinite wisdom could alone design, and infinite power finish such amazing works.”

Revealing what later generations of Masons will know as the Middle Chamber Lecture, Leslie continues:

“Speculative Masonry is so much interwoven with religion as to lay us under the strongest obligations to pay to the Deity that rational homage, which at once constitutes the duty and happiness of mankind. It leads the contemplative to view with reverence and admiration the glorious works of creation, and inspires them with the most exalted ideas of the perfections of the great Creator.”

And on Astronomy:

“Astronomy, though the last, is not the least important science. It is that divine art by which we are taught to read the wisdom, strength and beauty of the almighty Creator in those sacred pages, the celestial hemisphere. Assisted by astronomy, we can observe the motions, measure the distances, comprehend the magnitudes, and calculate the periods and eclipses of the heavenly bodies. By it we learn the use of the globes, the system of the world, and the primary law of nature. While we are employed in the study of this science, we perceive unparalleled instances of wisdom and goodness, and on every hand may trace the glorious Author by His works....

“By employing ourselves in the knowledge of these bodies, we are not only inspired with a due reverence for the Deity, but are also induced to apply with more anxiety and attention to the sciences of astronomy, geography, navigation, &c.”

Above, Mackey mentions Diana, the Roman moon goddess, and counterpart to the Greeks’ Artemis, who earns mention on her own in another, exoteric, section of the Middle Chamber Lecture on the subject of the Orders of Architecture:

“The Ionic is a mean between the more solid and the more delicate orders. Both delicacy and ingenuity are displayed in this pillar, the invention of which is attributed to the Ionians, as the famous Temple of Diana at Ephesus was of this order. It is said to have been formed after the model of a young woman of beautiful shape....”

The divine feminine looms large in other systems of symbols, like the tarot deck and astrology. (The Magpie Mason does not advocate use of tarot cards or astrology for divination, but, for reflection, study and exploration of symbols, tarot and astrology are as valid as any other works in the gallery of esoteric arts. Parallels to Masonic imagery are numerous.)

In tarot’s major arcana there is Card 18, called The Moon, which is thus described by Adele Nozedar in The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols:

At the lower level of the three layers that comprise this image, is a square-edged lake with a crayfish in it. Above, there are two dogs – or possibly a wolf and a dog – that look up to the Moon, jaws open, possibly howling. To their left and right are the corners of two buildings, both slightly different. One has a roof; the other appears to be open to the sky and is reminiscent of the Tower that was struck by lightning in Card 16. In the sky at the top of the card is the full Moon, with a face that points to the left and with a halo of rays, like moonbeams, surrounding it. There are teardrop shapes surrounding it that seem to either emanate from the Moon or, alternatively, are sucked into it.

The dogs are a reminder of the hounds that accompany the Moon Goddess. Dogs also act as psychopomps, guardians of souls in the spirit world. There is a nightmarish aspect to this card. The surrounding landscape is barren, only two small plants appear in it, a sort of no-man’s land. This card represents the “dark night of the soul.” However, the preceding card (No. 15, The Star) signifies hope, and the Moon provides the light that is reflected from the Sun (Card 19), illuminating the way ahead, indicating that guidance will come from above.

Left: An elegant interpretation of The Moon tarot card, courtesy of All Posters.

Right: Bro. Colin Browne’s version, from his Square and Compasses Tarot Deck, which connects the moon to the Senior Warden in the West.



There is a lot to work with here. The dogs can remind us of hunting, as in Diana, Goddess of the Hunt. The twin towers may speak to certain pillars Masons know well. That crayfish is important for its shell. In other tarot decks and elsewhere in symbolism, creatures with shells (crabs, scarab beetles, etc.) denote self-protection, and even aloofness. The astrological connection, naturally, is to the crab of the Cancer constellation, which Nozedar describes elsewhere in her book as a female symbol that denotes the moon and, interestingly, spans from June 21 to July 22.

On July 20, 1969, astronauts named for the god of the sun landed on and walked on the moon. And Freemasonry was there. Bro. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, the second human to walk on the moon, was made a Mason at Montclair Lodge No. 144 in Montclair, New Jersey, which was Aldrin’s hometown. That lodge no longer exists; it is one of the many lodges that amalgamated into what today is Essex Lodge No. 7. But, getting back to the feminine, Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was... Moon.