‘The Masons that Made the Tarot!’

    

This month, the Chancellor Robert R. Livingston Masonic Library of the Grand Lodge of New York will bring to the lectern Bro. Oliver Ash, who will present “The Masons that Made the Tarot!” From the publicity:

Tarot cards can be found everywhere in modern culture. There are hundreds of decks available all over the world, and the global tarot card market is expected to keep growing. Despite their popularity, many people are unaware of tarot history and, in particular, they are unaware of the profound influence that Freemasons have had on its creation.

Oliver Ash

Join Oliver Ash for a dive into the history of tarot cards, with special attention paid to those Masons who helped to begin one of the most intriguing modern spiritual traditions.

Oliver Ash is currently completing his Master’s Degree in Theological Studies at Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School in Rochester. He is constructing his thesis around tarot history, which he has been studying for five years. He received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Champlain College in Vermont.

Ash was initiated into Masonry in 2022, and is acting as junior master of ceremonies in his mother lodge. His interests include Masonic ritual and history, Western esotericism and occultism, mystical spirituality, and interfaith studies. He has worked with institutions in the past related to tarot education and stimulating interfaith dialogue.

Click here to register. Photo ID is required to enter Masonic Hall. The library is located on the fourteenth floor.

     

‘Taschen to release Waite-Colman Smith tarot collection’

    

Taschen has done it again. This time the publisher of lavish books and other sumptuous treats is poised to release its take on the A.E. Waite/Pamela Colman Smith tarot deck. You know, the one we all get started with, although it is more than enough for a lifetime of contemplation. Coming soon, and open for pre-ordering now, is a box of book and deck. From the publicity:

Doors into Our Uncharted Depths

The Story of the World’s

Most Popular Tarot

A unique edition of bright texts, brilliant images, and historic reprints, this kit provides everything that both beginners and advanced Tarot users might need and want to read cards for themselves and to study and experience this cultural gem in all its beauty and significance. The valuable collector’s box includes a complete deck of the Waite Smith Tarot cards and Waite’s famous companion book The Key to the Tarot. In this illustrated book, with texts and images compiled by Johannes Fiebig, the Tarot cards become psychological mirrors and signposts leading toward new answers and personal solutions. The fact that this works well can be attributed to certain advantages inherent to the Waite-Smith cards, and these points are illuminated in an essay by Rachel Pollack.

All 78 cards are presented individually and in detail. The explanatory texts provide several dimensions and levels of interpretation, including concrete practical tips. Further, the book offers a new feature: the quick check. This presents a concise hint regarding the meaning of each card in each possible position of all the spread patterns featured in the book.

When Arthur E. Waite and Pamela Colman Smith developed their Tarot deck in London in 1909, nobody could have predicted that it would have an overwhelming renaissance starting around 60 years later. What were the lives, works, and passions of these creators like? Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur E. Waite are brought vividly back to life in essays by Mary K. Greer and Robert A. Gilbert.

The authors

Johannes Fiebig is one of the most successful authors in the field of Tarot and a leading expert in the psychological interpretation of symbols. He published his first book in 1984. Since then, his books have sold more than 2 million copies, translated into more than a dozen languages. In 1989, he co-founded and co-owned Königsfurt publishing house, which later became the publishing houses Königsfurt-Urania and AGM-Urania, of which he was managing director until 2018. Since then, he has been an independent writer based in Kiel.

Mary K. Greer is one of the world’s leading Tarot scholars and experts, famous by her outstanding, both exciting and useful Tarot blog. She is an author, teacher, and professional tarot consultant known for her innovative teaching techniques. With an M.A. in English Literature, she taught Tarot in colleges for fifteen years. Since the 1980s and her book Tarot for Your Self (1984), Mary belongs to the pioneers of the tarot as self-experience and as a tool of personal transformation and empowerment. She is a co-author of Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story (2018). She lives in California.

Rachel Pollack is the author of 46 books, including two award-winning novels, a book of poetry, a translation, with scholar David Vine, of Oedipus Rex (2012), and a series of books about Tarot known around the world. Her first book, Seventy-Eight Degrees Of Wisdom, was published in 1980 and has been in print ever since. Her work has been translated into 15 languages, and she has taught and lectured on four continents. She also is a visible artist, creator of The Shining Tribe Tarot, and has collaborated with artist Robert M. Place to create the Raziel Tarot, and the Burning Serpent Oracle. She lived in Rhinebeck, New York for many years, where she died in 2023.

R. A. Gilbert is a retired antiquarian bookseller and a prolific author and editor in the field of Western Esotericism, specializing in the life and work of A. E. Waite and in the history and lives of members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. His books include A.E. Waite: Magician of Many Parts (1987); The Golden Dawn Scrapbook (1997); Gnosticism and Gnosis (2012). Gilbert read Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Bristol, and received his doctorate from the University of London for a thesis on the publication of esoteric literature in the Victorian era. He lives a Somerset Village, England.

Click here to explore the pre-order process. Treat yourself or someone else important to something extraordinary for the holidays.

     

‘New Masonic tarot deck from Lewis’

    

Lewis Masonic has a new tarot deck with Masonic symbolism available. From the publicity:

We have a new and interesting arrival! Masonic Tarot.

By artist and researcher of Chilean origin Patricio Diaz Silva and based on his studies of Masonic symbolism, the Masonic Tarot is a summary to show the integration and interaction between these two systems of self-knowledge (Tarot and Masonic symbolism).

The structure of this deck is also based on the four elements of alchemy: earth, water, fire, and air. Seventy-eight cards, standard size (120 x 70mm). Languages: Italian, English, French, Spanish, German. PDF Instruction booklet: Italian, English, French, Spanish, German.

Click here.

     

‘Knapp-Hall tarot returns!’

     

PRS

It is time for a follow-up to last October’s post about the purported return of the Knapp-Hall tarot deck from the Philosophical Research Society. The PRS now advises there is a delay in shipping, but the decks are available. This is a limited run of 1,500 in a design consistent with the original 1929 printing. Price: $100. From the publicity:

PRS

The Revised New Art Tarot aka the “Knapp-Hall Tarot” was originally published in 1929, a collaboration between illustrator & artist John Augustus Knapp (1853-1938) and writer, sage & teacher Manly P. Hall (1901-1990). It was released the year after Hall’s monumental encyclopedia of esoteric traditions and symbols, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, illustrated by Knapp, and over the years this exceedingly rare and beautiful Tarot has come to be known as the Knapp-Hall deck–with original examples selling for thousands of dollars, when they can be found.

It initially was issued with 78 cards, a two-piece, plum fabric-covered box, and a 48-page booklet containing “An Essay on the Book of Thoth” written by Hall. The Knapp-Hall Tarot Deck has been re-printed several times over the years but always with different dimensions and new designs for the reverse of the cards. For this Limited Edition of 1,500, we have replicated the graphics, texture, feel and dimensions of the original 1929 Revised New Art Tarot as closely as possible given modern printing methods. Card images were taken from scans of an original 1929 deck with only minimal corrections for wear and tear. The sepia tone of the card stock, due to aging, has been preserved to reflect what a 1929 deck would look like today.

Please note that this beautiful Tarot is smaller and more delicate than most modern decks, so treat it with care in handling. Any imperfections in the cards (for example, the Knight/Warrior of Pentacles has a smaller border than the other cards) are present in the original 1929 deck scanned for this edition.

     

‘Knapp-Hall tarot to return again’

    

No details were given, but a brief remark on social media Thursday promises the return of the elusive Knapp-Hall tarot deck.

As in J. Augustus Knapp and Manly P. Hall.

Out of stock at the Philosophical Research Society, the historic cards have been wait-listed for a long while. Looks like the wait is nearly over.

Some background info here and here.

     

‘Pamela Colman Smith at the Whitney'

    

A.E. Waite

Born on this date in 1857 in Brooklyn: Arthur Edward Waite, initiated into Freemasonry September 19, 1901 in Runymede Lodge 2430 in Buckinghamshire, England (Worshipful Master in 1910).

His is a vexing biography. Click here for R.A. Gilbert’s paper from the 1986 Ars Quatuor Coronatorum and read of Waite’s—what I’ll call—duality of nature. He is remembered for books on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Golden Dawn, but it seems some personality foibles leached into his mystical life. We’re all human. I have no problem with him, except that his A New Encyclopædia of Freemasonry is so disorganized as to prove the mystics ought to keep out of the reference and history book business.

It is beyond the confines of Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Golden Dawn where Waite’s name is best known, as he was the designer of the most ubiquitous tarot cards: the Rider-Waite deck. Rider was the publishing company that printed the cards. Waite provided the concepts for the illustrations. And the third wheel was the artist who brought those ideas to life: Pamela Colman Smith. Thus we reach the point of this edition of The Magpie Mason.

Pamela Colman Smith (1878-1951) was an English mystic and artist known to Waite through the Golden Dawn, and she was chosen to create the seventy-eight images of this new tarot deck. Following Waite’s specifications, we understand how some of these cards display Masonic hints. Anyway, the Whitney Museum of American Art currently exhibits “At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth Century American Modernism,” which includes Smith and the tarot cards. The show will close February 26, 2023. From the publicity:

“At the Dawn of a New Age: Early Twentieth Century American Modernism” showcases art produced between 1900 and 1930 by well known American modernists and their now largely forgotten, but equally groundbreaking peers. Drawn primarily from the Whitney’s permanent collection, it provides new perspectives on the myriad ways American artists used nonrepresentational styles developed in Europe to express their subjective responses to the realities of the modern age.

America’s early modernists came of age during a time when the country’s predominant mood was one of youthful confidence. Racial violence and social and economic injustices existed, but so too did insurgency and social reform. American technological and engineering ingenuity had made the country the world’s largest industrial power at the same time that political Progressivism and cultural shifts, such as women’s suffrage, had upended bourgeois codes of respectability. The combination gave rise to an excitement about an era that critic Walter Lippmann characterized as “bursting with new ideas, new plans, and new hopes.”

Against this backdrop, large numbers of American artists embraced the new over the traditional and fixed by rejecting realistic depictions of the world in favor of art that prioritized emotional experience and harmonious design. The results were largely ignored by the Whitney Museum, whose loyalty was to the urban realists who formed the core of the Whitney Studio Club, out of which the museum had grown. A handful of non-representational works were acquired when the museum was founded in 1930 and more were added in subsequent decades, but it was not until the mid-1970s that the museum vigorously began to acquire vanguard art made between 1900 and 1930. While extensive, these acquisitions largely excluded work by women and artists of color. The Whitney had already begun rectifying these biases, but in anticipation of the opening of “At the Dawn,” it added more works by these artists to the collection. The result is an exhibition that recasts the story of American art by celebrating the mood of optimistic excitement with which American artists embraced modern styles and illuminates the complexity and diversity that are at the heart of the American experience.

In 1909, Pamela Colman Smith was commissioned to design a set of seventy-eight tarot cards by A.E. Waite, the leader of the Independent and Rectified Rite of the Golden Dawn, a secret, mystical society to which Smith belonged. Known as the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, it was the first to feature fully illustrated, symbolic images on each card, and integrated Judeo-Christian ideas into a visual vocabulary that often drew heavily on occult magic. Stylistically, the designs in the deck reflect the era’s widespread embrace of the sinuous, organic lines of Art Nouveau and the flowing patterns of Japanese prints. Smith used the style in her tarot cards and in watercolors, such as The Wave to suggest the existence of a mystical occult world beyond the visible one.

Click here for a quick video.

Seeing how Smith was English, I’m not sure how she fits into an exhibition of American artists, but that’s okay. In closing, let me offer the stock disclaimer on how tarot cards are for reflection, circumspection, contemplation, etc., and never for divination.

     

‘Taschen launches Library of Esoterica with Tarot book’

     

Click to enlarge.

I prayed this day would come, and, well, it’s almost here.

The “it” is the launch of a Taschen series of books on esoterica. I have no information on what this group of books will address, but the first volume, due out next month, will be titled simply Tarot.

Maybe you recall me telling you years ago about Taschen’s The Book of Symbols and Alchemy & Mysticism?

Anyway, from the publicity:

Trace the hidden history of tarot in the first volume from Taschen’s Library of Esoterica, a series documenting the creative ways we strive to connect to the divine. Artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the Major and Minor Arcana, this visual compendium gathers more than 500 cards and works of original art from around the world in the ultimate exploration of a centuries-old art form.

To explore the tarot is to explore ourselves, to be reminded of the universality of our longing for meaning, for purpose, and for a connection to the divine. This 600-year-old tradition reflects not only a history of seekers, but also our journey of artistic expression and the ways we communicate our collective human story.

For many in the West, tarot exists in the shadow place of our cultural consciousness, a metaphysical tradition assigned to the dusty glass cabinets of the arcane. Its history, long and obscure, has been passed down through secret writing, oral tradition, and the scholarly tomes of philosophers and sages. Hundreds of years and hundreds of creative hands—mystics and artists often working in collaboration—have transformed what was essentially a parlor game into a source of divination and system of self-exploration, as each new generation has sought to evolve the form and reinterpret the medium.

Author Jessica Hundley traces this fascinating history in Tarot, the debut volume in Taschen’s Library of Esoterica series. The book explores the symbolic meaning behind more than 500 cards and works of original art, two thirds of which never have been published outside of the decks themselves. It’s the first visual compendium of its kind, spanning from medieval to modern, and artfully arranged according to the sequencing of the 78 cards of the Major and Minor Arcana. It explores the powerful influence of tarot as muse to artists like Salvador Dalí and Niki de Saint Phalle and includes the decks of nearly 100 diverse contemporary artists from around the world, all of whom have embraced the medium for its capacity to push cultural identity forward. Rounding out the volume are excerpts from thinkers such as Éliphas Lévi, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell; a foreword by artist Penny Slinger; a guide to reading the cards by Johannes Fiebig; and an essay on oracle decks by Marcella Kroll.

The editor and author: Jessica Hundley is an author, filmmaker, and journalist. She has written for Vogue, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times, and has authored books on artists including Dennis Hopper, David Lynch, and Gram Parsons. Hundley often explores the counterculture in her work, with a focus on metaphysics, psychedelia, and magic.

The designer: Thunderwing is a Los Angeles-based multi-disciplinary studio co-founded in 2007 by Nic & J. B. Taylor. Collaborating on a diverse array of projects, Thunderwing creates branding and design for film, publishing, fashion, food, music, and interior design.

The contributing authors: Johannes Fiebig, born in Cologne in 1953, is one of the most successful authors on tarot and a leading expert of the psychological interpretation of symbols and oracles. His main field of interest focuses on the use of tarot and other symbolic languages as humanistic, psychological tools.

Marcella Kroll is an artist, tarot reader, metaphysical teacher, and host of the podcast Saved by the Spell. She is a program director for the Los Angeles Public Library, leading public classes for teens on Tarot and other divination subjects, and is the creator of two popular oracle decks.

Library of Esoterica explores how centuries of artists have given form to mysticism, translating the arcane and the obscure into enduring, visionary works of art. Each subject is showcased through both modern and archival imagery culled from private collectors, libraries, and museums around the globe. The result forms an inclusive visual history, a study of our primal pull to dream and nightmare, and the creative ways we strive to connect to the divine.


The book is divided into four chapters:

Stepping into Oblivion: The Evolution of the Arcana
Magic & Manifestation: The Attributes of Archetypes
Visionary Exploration: The Progression of a Practice
Speaking in Symbols: The Cards as a Tool

Tarot will be a hardcover book of 520 pages and measuring 6.7 by 9.4 inches. $40.
     

'Tomorrow at Mount Vernon Lodge 3'

     

‘The wise man knows himself to be a fool’

     
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

Touchstone in As You Like It
William Shakespeare
1599


The visual medium of the tarot deck, laden with lessons in symbols, could be an ideal way to unpack the varied meanings intertwined in the plots and dialog of William Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies. This Shakespeare Tarot might be proof.

This is not the first attempt to marry Shakespearean meanings with the voice of tarot cards, but I want to share the news of the publication of this deck because the art created here is arresting for its fascinating (but sometimes a little too busy) Renaissance-style imagery.

Click the images to enlarge.

Touchstone, Page of Crowns.

Ace of Cups.

Edmund, 5 of Swords.

Malvolio, 4 of Crowns.

Ophelia, 9 of Swords.

Othello, The Devil.

Richard II, 2 of Staffs.

Virgin Queen, High Priestess.

Designed by Chris Leech and published by Welkin, this 78-card deck has the 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor, and there is an explanatory book available to decode it all. The cards measure 5.75 x 3.5 inches, bigger than typical decks.

The deck can be purchased for $50; the key also costs $50; but they can be bought together for $75 by clicking here. As far as I can tell, it is due out in July.

Read the content of the website and peruse all the cards. There is a passion here I can admire.
     

‘A Hermit’s Winter Night’

     

Hermit card of the Rider-Waite tarot deck, c. 1910.

I’m not saying either Robert Frost or his poem here has any connection to tarot symbolism. I’m only personally putting the two together during a cold weekend on the precipice of winter. H/T to the Academy of American Poets for all the text below.

“An Old Man’s Winter Night”

By Robert Frost

All out of doors looked darkly in at him

Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,

That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.

What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze

Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.

What kept him from remembering what it was

That brought him to that creaking room was age.

He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.

And having scared the cellar under him

In clomping there, he scared it once again

In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,

Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar

Of trees and crack of branches, common things,

But nothing so like beating on a box.

A light he was to no one but himself

Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,

A quiet light, and then not even that.

He consigned to the moon,—such as she was,

So late-arising,—to the broken moon

As better than the sun in any case

For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,

His icicles along the wall to keep;

And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt

Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,

And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.

One aged man—one man—can’t fill a house,

A farm, a countryside, or if he can,

It’s thus he does it of a winter night.

Bro. Colin Browne’s Masonic tarot deck Hermit.    

“An Old Man’s Winter Night” was originally published in the 1916 edition of Mountain Interval (Henry Holt and Company) and appeared again in the revised edition of Mountain Interval in 1921 (Henry Holt and Company).

Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco. His collections of poetry include New Hampshire (Henry Holt and Company, 1923), Steeple Bush (Henry Holt and Company, 1947), and In the Clearing (Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1962). Frost won four Pulitzer Prizes during his lifetime and served as U.S. Poet Laureate from 1958 to 1959. He died on January 29, 1963.
     

‘Brand new Masonic tarot deck’

     

The pollination of Masonic symbolism to tarot cards has intrigued me for a number of years. Both systems of symbols have venerable histories, coming into their own at approximately the same time (eighteenth century), and sharing in common influential personalities (Waite, Levi). When an artist marries the two traditions, the results can be noteworthy.

Before continuing, let me restate that for Magpie purposes, tarot cards are not for fortune-telling, but their symbols are useful for meditative and contemplative purposes—and not necessarily only when the cards bear Freemasonry’s symbols.

It’s certainly okay if you’re an experienced and well traveled Freemason who doesn’t know much about tarot cards. I’m no expert. But it is a quirky topic that I promise will engage you if you study it, as tarot definitely is “a peculiar system…illustrated with symbols.” Tarot decks of the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith variety, that do not even speak directly to Freemasons, nonetheless offer many images recognizable to the initiated eye.

Tarot decks that deliberately do consist of Masonic symbolism on the major arcana cards have been around for a while. Actually, you can find tarot cards with just about any theme depicted. There is a brand new Masonic deck published just this month by Lo Scarabeo in Torino, Italy.

Artist Patricio Diaz Silva of Chile has created 3x5 cards that put images from the Masonic lodge into the tarot milieu, and they’re beautiful. Seventy-eight cards, with the minor arcana cards being unillustrated. I think his concept of Masonic life is formed by what one generally might term “Continental Masonry,” meaning there are Scottish Rite and Templar images, plus women wearing aprons.

The following photos are copyright © Patricio Diaz Silva 2016, and are found on the web. The deck is available via Amazon and other on-line retailers.

 

‘Occult Humanities Conference to return to NYU’

     
Phantasmaphile and New York University will conspire again to host the Occult Humanities Conference next February.

Pam Grossman and Jesse Bransford will welcome you at the university’s Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions, located at 34 Stuyvesant Street in Manhattan, February 5 through 7, for a weekend of lectures, performances, and art exhibits exploring “Contemporary Art and Scholarship on the Esoteric Traditions.”

Click here for the schedule, and click here to buy tickets.

From the publicity:


The 2016 Occult Humanities Conference is a weekend conference to be held in New York City on February 5-7, 2016. The conference will present a wide array of voices active in the cultural landscape who are specifically addressing the occult tradition through research, scholarship and artistic practice.

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 when 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.
This year’s conference coincides with the exhibition “Language of the Birds: Occult and Art” on display at 80 WSE Gallery, the art gallery of NYU’s Steinhardt Department of Art and Art Professions, curated by Pam Grossman.

There will be an onsite exhibition of prints from Carl Jung’s The Red Book, courtesy of DigitalFusion.

Books and editions from a variety of vendors will be available for sale throughout the duration of the conference. Vendors include Inner Traditions, Ouroboros Press, Wonderella Printed, and more.

MEMES OR SCHEMES
If we consider a consciously magical approach to art in contemporary culture, should we be fascinated by memes of potential or paranoid about manipulative schemes? History shows us that more than anything else, it is culture that defines how “posterity” will regard a certain area or region. Logically, this would extend to our times too, then. In transcending the causal and rational approaches to human existence (economy, politics, science, etc.), we find that our culture is increasingly infused with magical approaches, not only in thematics but also in attitude and content. How will this shape our immediate future and, beyond, how will later generations regard our phase of experimentation?

Carl Abrahamsson (b. 1966) is a writer, publisher, and filmmaker based in Stockholm, Sweden. He has been writing about occultural people, phenomena, tendencies and movements since the late 1980s. He is a lecturer at art institutions, colleges, and universities, and is the editor and publisher of the annual journal The Fenris Wolf, which contains material from the vital intersection between art and esotericism.

Dionysus Stardust: Theater, Masks,

and the Spectacle of Rock and Roll

Peter Bebergal, author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, will discuss the relationship between theater, ritual, and popular music, with a look at the influence of ancient religious practice, turn of the century art, and occult lodge rites on the performance and culture of rock. From Robert Plant’s Dionysian swagger to Bowie’s alchemical transformations, Bebergal will reveal the gods under the masks of rock’s most arresting moments.

Peter Bebergal writes widely on the speculative and slightly fringe. His essays and reviews have appeared in NewYorker.com, The Times Literary Supplement, Boing Boing, The Believer, and The Quietus. He is the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood, The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God (with Scott Korb). Bebergal studied religion and culture at Harvard Divinity School, and lives in Cambridge.

Swallowing the Stone

with the Brothers McKenna:

Psychedelics, Alchemy,

and Media at La Chorrera

The “Experiment at La Chorrera,” which Terence and Dennis McKenna performed in the Columbian jungle in 1971, and which became the core of Terence’s True Hallucinations, stands as one of the most storied trips in the annals of modern psychedelia. As an exploration of what Wouter Hanegraaff calls “entheogenic esotericism,” this talk will unpack the various threads of alchemy, science fiction, and media theory that formed the matrix for the protocols, phenomenology, and after-the-fact interpretations of the McKenna’s unparalleled encounter with high weirdness.

Erik Davis is an author, podcaster, award-winning journalist, and lecturer based in San Francisco. He is the author, most recently, of Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica (Yeti, 2010). He also wrote The Visionary State: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape (Chronicle, 2006), Led Zeppelin IV (33 1/3, 2005) and TechGnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information (Crown, 1998), which has been translated into five languages and recently reissued with a new afterword by North Atlantic Books. His essays on music, technoculture, psychedelics, and esoterica have appeared in dozens of books, including A Rose Veiled in Black: Art and Arcana of Our Lady Babalon (Three Hands, 2015), Zig Zag Zen (Synergetic, 2015), Rave Culture and Religion (Routledge, 2009), and AfterBurn: Reflections on Burning Μan (University of New Mexico Press, 2005). Davis has contributed to scores of publications, including Aeon, Bookforum, Wired, Salon, Slate, the LA Weekly, and the Village Voice. He has been interviewed by CNN, the BBC, Wisconsin public radio, and the New York Times, and explores the “cultures of consciousness” on his weekly podcast Expanding Mind. He graduated magna cum laude from Yale University, and recently earned his Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Rice University.

Delphic Oracle - Saturday Evening Performance

Christiana Key began classical violin training on her fifth birthday, followed by piano and opera a few years later. During those formative years, she was also active in community theatre, as an actor and costume designer, and started a bespoke evening and holiday gown label for her young friends’ parties. She was accepted into the University of North Florida as a double music major in Performance Violin and Voice at 16 years old, though she left two years later to pursue her interests in punk, rock, electronic, and experimental music, first moving to London, then settling down in New York City. She began recording original compositions in her bedroom in 2006 and joined Cult of Youth in 2009, and Zola Jesus in 2012 as a touring member.

During her time in New York and as part of Cult of Youth, she met several occultists who introduced her to different and innovative ways of fusing music and magick, and through that, Delphic Oracle was born. Christiana saw there was a lack in both the accessibility of experimental magical music and the (powerful) intentions of mainstream pop and hip-hop. Delphic Oracle aims to fuse the power of magickal intent and the power of sound, and additionally, the power of spectacle into every performance. Each performance is based on astrological vibrations, current events, popular culture, and the audience's subtle emotional dynamics felt before and during the show. The intentions behind each show can range from self-love to financial stability to gratitude to wisdom, and are represented by obvious things such as the songs' timbre, lyric matter, and costume choice, down minute details such as color and number of candles, types of metals and wands used, and the planetary and elemental correspondences of the homemade incenses burned during the performance.

Delphic Oracle has self-released one EP, “Watching the Fern,” and a cassette through Popnihil, “Mirrors/Crows/Echoes.” She performs solo using only a sampler, violin, drum pad, and vocal microphone. She now lives in St. Augustine, Florida, and after a year’s forced-hiatus from touring, she is working on a full-length album to be released fall 2016.

Bohemian Occult Subculture in Britain’s 1890s: How Artists, Actors, and Writers Made the Golden Dawn

The Order of the Golden Dawn is an icon for modern occultists: it is the late Victorian ceremonial magic organization which created the template for subsequent occult magic. Western mysteries, Kabbalah, Celtic mysticism, and even Wicca would follow forms it developed in its 25 short years, c.1885-1925. It was an occult renaissance, sudden and powerful.

Historians stress the first founders’ connection with Freemasonry, giving the impression that it was a club of old establishment men with gray suits and gray beards. Their rites and study course were, one imagines, equally boring and patriarchal. But in fact, the Golden Dawn core group were a bunch of young creatives - friends working in creative collaboration, inspired by the mysterious. They were the kind of people who, if they lived today, would perhaps hang out at Observatory.

The women, first. One was a polyamorous working actress who wrote for feminist magazines. Another was a feisty trust-fund girl who staged avant-garde plays with her friends. A third was gorgeous Swedish art student who liked older men and doing portraits. The guys: a very cute poet from Irish parentage; a bright researcher with no money and a bad temper; and a rich kid who did a lot of drugs and a lot of boyfriends. They were all bright, feisty, achievers; by old age each had made real impact in their chosen fields. Together they made art, made ritual, did meditations, hung out, had romances, had breakups, studied old texts, and tried to reach into something beyond normal human experience. As we see them anew via this illustrated presentation, it is hoped we can see the Order of the Golden Dawn anew.

Dr. Christina Oakley Harrington is the founder and managing director of the legendary Treadwell’s of London, a bookshop and events center for the British pagan and esoteric community. She is co-editor of the Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies. A former assistant professor of History, she feels passionately that esotericism is an important strand in Western culture, to be addressed, studied, celebrated—and, of course, practiced.

John Augustus Knapp and His Circle

Perhaps most famous for his watercolor illustrations that populate Manly P. Hall’s esoteric encyclopedia The Secret Teachings of All Ages (1928) and his illustrations for John Uri Lloyd’s curious novel Etidorhpa (1895), J. Augustus Knapp was an illustrator at the center of a circle of the most influential members of the American Occult Revival. I will discuss Knapp’s personal occult interests and beliefs and his circle of friends and collaborators.

A Curtis G. Lloyd Fellow at the Lloyd Library and Museum, Ken Henson is the author and illustrator of the treatise Alchemy and Astral Projection: Ecstatic Trance in the Hermetic Tradition (LLM, 2014), the illustrated novella/grimoire HIGH GRAVITY: Werewolves, Ghosts, and Magick Most Black (Oneiric Imprint, 2015), and the illustrator of Blue Jay Slayer (Aurora Press, 2015), which is a collaboration with poet Matt Hart. He also recently collaborated with the Philosophical Research Society to restore and reissue Manly P. Hall and John Augustus Knapp’s Revised New Art Tarot. Ken’s writings and art have been published in periodicals such as Abraxas, Clavis Journal, and The Gnostic Journal, and he has presented at the Esoteric Book Conference, SCIENTIAE, Babalon Rising, and the Left Hand Path Conference. He is an Associate Professor and the Head of Illustration at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in Ohio where he teaches studio courses and Art and the Occult.

Blues Magic

References to witchcraft, and magic spells appear frequently in the lyrics of popular songs, but, in general, these references are metaphoric. For example, when Frank Sinatra sings about “that sly come-hither stare” in his classic “Witchcraft,” few listeners think that the subject of that song is actually practicing dark arts.

A prominent exception exists in blues and its descendant, rhythm and blues (R&B), whose lyrics are permeated with references to actual magical practices. Magic is alive in the blues; very specifically the magical practices that first arose in the African-American communities of the southern United States, the traditions of Hoodoo and Conjure. Blues is the crossroads where music and magic meet:
• Blues songs praise and excoriate Conjure women and Hoodoo doctors.
• Songs document historical magical practitioners, like the Seven Sisters of New Orleans or Caroline Dye, the seer of Newport, Arkansas.
• Blues lyrics are studded with mention of magical practices such as mojo hands, John the Conqueror roots, hotfoot powder, and the fidelity-enforcing Nation Sack.
• An occult aura surrounds some musicians, too: reminiscent of the legend of Faust, blues stars Robert Johnson and Tommie Johnson were both reputed to have met the devil at the crossroads, so that they could barter their souls in exchange for spectacular musical prowess and success.

During this talk, we'll explore the musical genre, as well as the specific magical practices celebrated within its songs.

Judika Illes is a native New Yorker and an independent scholar and researcher. She is the author of eight books devoted to spiritual traditions, witchcraft, and the magical arts including the Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells, the Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, as well as the forthcoming The Weiser Book of Forgotten and Fantastic Tales. In her younger days, Judika hosted The Low Budget Blues Show on WRSU-FM.

An Invisible Art: Maya Deren and Experiments with Absence

Experimental filmmaker Maya Deren traveled to Haiti four different times with the ultimate aim of making a film that would compare children’s games, Balinese dances, and the rituals practiced for Voudoun that she had gone there to film. In the process, her work began to focus on generating connections through which what is seen and what is unseen might traffic. She gives precedence to that which is accomplished through suggestion or association rather than through causal links, and takes pains to represent that which seems not to be present but is actually simply not visible. Such strategies underline Deren’s obsessions, including how to access inaccessible states of being and present them cinematically. The work that comes out of her Haitian experience draws on energies related to the incomplete, missing, or desired but absent object that she labored to represent.

Sarah Keller is Assistant Professor of Art and Cinema Studies at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She co-edited the collection Jean Epstein: Critical Essays and New Translations (Amsterdam University Press, 2012), and her book Maya Deren: Incomplete Control (Columbia University Press, 2014) examines the role of unfinished cinematic works by focusing on the Maya Deren oeuvre. Keller’s current project, Cinephilia/Cinephobia, focuses on the history and theory of love and anxiety in the cinema.

Lykanthea - Opening Performance

Lykanthea is Lakshmi Ramgopal, a solo electronic musician from Chicago, IL. With lyrics rooted in ancient mythologies, a haunting voice smoked in cave-like reverb and the gauzy drone of synths, Lykanthea writes the soundtrack of thresholds. Drawing on a decade of Carnatic vocal training, Ramgopal "sings hymns of the ancients in a tale that breaks against oppressive hands to expressions and emotions that emerge from behind the veil" (IMPOSE). Her sound is ritual chanting for the electronic age.

Ramgopal began writing and performing as Lykanthea while pursuing a doctorate in Classics at the University of Chicago. She found herself drawn to the narrative of legacy and rebirth in ancient Sumerian texts about the goddess Inanna. While isolated on an uninhabited Greek island in 2013, she began writing lyrics, collecting field recordings, and laying down the soundscapes that became her debut Migration. The EP was released in July 2014 digitally and on cassette to local acclaim, with the initial physical run selling out in months.

A fixture in Chicago’s dark fashion and witch house scene, Ramgopal’s passion for atmosphere and texture has made her music an inspiration for collaborators. Her music has been featured in promotional videos for Velvit and Vespere Vintage, and her style was praised by dark fashion blog FAIIINT and Culture Magazine. She also collaborated with Hvnter Gvtherer to release a capsule collection of jewelry inspired by Migration’s lyrics. While living in Italy earlier this year as a winner of the prestigious Rome Prize, Ramgopal has performed across Europe, including Leipzig’s Wave Gotik Treffen. She also partnered up with sound artist Paula Matthusen for the sound installation “Prex Gemina” for exhibition in Rome and worked with Austrian artist Krist Mort on the video for “Parturition.”

Lykanthea has been featured in Noisey, IMPOSE, MTV Iggy, Culture Magazine, No Fear of Pop, Warren Ellis’ SPEKTRMODULE podcast, Chicago Reader, Largehearted Boy and Artribune.

Art, Technology, and the Mysterious Imagery of C.G Jung’s Red Book

In 2007, Jung’s Red Book was released from the family vault for the first time in decades and given to Hugh Milstein from DigitalFusion to evaluate and archive for future generations. This behind the scenes journey into how The Red Book was digitally captured begins in 2002 and will provide insights into the technology, process, and care undertaken in Zürich during the photographic process. Hugh will reveal the technological transformations that have occurred in the last 12 years, allowing this masterwork to be printed with amazing clarity as fine art prints. He will share conversations with Massimiliano Gioni from the Venice Biennale, where The Red Book and fine art print reproductions were exhibited in the world famous art show, making a transformative historical statement about Jung’s art into a modern reality. Hugh will also share in-depth closeups of the masterwork, revealing mystic imagery and hidden themes that were hand crafted by Jung.

Hugh Milstein, co-founder and President of DigitalFusion. DigitalFusion is a leading Creative Services company headquartered in Los Angeles. With a base in photography, and an expansion into motion, DigitalFusion is a cutting edge provider to major publications and entertainment outlets worldwide. Hugh’s expertise in image making led him to be name to the “100 Most Important People in Photography” by American Photographer. Hugh continues to design and develop new image styles and services that appear on digital newsstands, moving billboards, iPads, and mobile devices.

The Tarot and its Gifts

When I asked the Shining Tribe Tarot what it wanted to talk about at the conference, I received three cards about receiving gifts and being willing to join with the cards to utilize them. In the Gift of Trees (Queen of Wands) two snakes wind around a tree, so that the three figures, snakes and tree, form the caduceus of Hermes. Between them, the snakes hold up the alchemical Philosopher’s Stone of transformation. In the Gift of Birds (Queen of Swords), a shaman wears a bird-headed helmet and carries a feathered shield and a banner with a bird on it. However, a flute falls from the sky, and in order to play this Gift (many people believe that flutes originally were inspired by bird songs) he will have to drop the shield and banner and take off the helmet. Finally, in the Two of Rivers (Two of Cups), a dark and light fish swim head to tail, forming the famous yin-yang symbol (the card is a tribute to the I Ching). The message is clear: in order to truly work (and create) with the Tarot, whether for readings, story telling, or spiritual discovery, we need to meet it as a partner, open up to its gifts, and merge with it.

Rachel Pollack is the author of 36 books of fiction and non-fiction, including two award-winning novels, a poetry collection, a translation (with David Vine) of Sophocles’s Oidipous Tyrannos (Oedipus Rex) and a series of books about Tarot that have become known around the world. Rachel has taught and lectured in the U.S. Canada, Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and China. Rachel has designed and drawn The Shining Tribe Tarot, and recently worked with artist Robert Place to create The Burning Serpent Oracle. Her work has been translated into 14 languages. Her most recent book is a novel, The Child Eater. Until her recent retirement, Rachel was a senior faculty member of Goddard College’s MFA in Writing program. She lives in New York’s Hudson Valley.

The Forms of Hidden Things: Surrealism Through the Mirror of Magic

Artists, like alchemists, employ matter to reveal its transformative properties as magic and metaphor. Celia Rabinovitch, artist, author, and pioneer in the field of art and religion, uncovers surrealist art as a special form of knowledge related to insight and imagination. In The Forms of Hidden Things: Surrealism Through the Mirror of Magic, she investigates the Swiss American artist, Kurt Seligmann (1900-62) who immigrated to the USA in 1938, becoming the acknowledged expert on magic in surrealism. A decade later his book, Through the Mirror of Magic, (New York: Pantheon, 1948) was welcomed into the effervescent cultural mix that included Joseph Campbell, Wallace Stevens, Carl Jung, and others. Neglected until recently, Seligmann’s art has come to the fore, while the recognition of his book in the history of religions was constant. Celia shows how Seligmann’s magical imagination arises from his personal history and experiences as well as his occult research. She illuminates how his understanding of Jewish mysticism informs his art and defines his identity, while remaining hidden from others and even from himself.

Celia Rabinovitch (Ph.D. History of Religions, McGill, Montreal; MFA, Painting, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is an artist and writer and professor whose work has been exhibited in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Her book, Surrealism and the Sacred: Power, Eros, and the Occult in Modern Art, is cited in new approaches to art, literature, and spirituality, and considered an authority in the field. Using cultural anthropology, the history of religions, and art history she uncovers a history of hidden knowledge that includes magic and the imagination. She has written for Artweek, The Dictionary of Art, American Ceramics, C Magazine, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at Cornell University, and contributed chapters to The Spiritual Image in Modern Art, ed. Katherine Regier, and was interviewed by Louis E Bourgeois, ed., in Complete with Missing Parts: Interviews with the Avant-garde. Her atmospheric paintings have been exhibited at The Florence Biennale; Galerie Mourati, Vienna; University of California; California Institute of Integral Studies; the Winnipeg Art Gallery; the Beck Center Museum, Cleveland, and published in Cerise Press: A Journal of Literature, Arts and Culture (2012), with awards for her art from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Millay Colony for the Arts, New York. She has held teaching and director appointments at the University of Colorado-Denver, California College of Art, the San Francisco Art Institute, and at Stanford University. As a Visiting Artist at Syracuse University she co-chaired the graduate program in painting, and was Program Director for Fine Arts and Graphic Design at the University of California, Berkeley (1992-2002). Currently she is professor at the University of Manitoba (on leave) and Director of Research at the Seligmann Center for the Arts, NY.


Janaka Stucky - Saturday Evening Poetry Reading

Janaka Stucky is the author of The Truth Is We Are Perfect (2015), the first title from Jack White’s new publishing imprint, Third Man Books. He is also the Publisher of award-winning indie press, Black Ocean. Janaka’s poems are at once incantatory, mystic, epigrammatic, and spiritual. His meditative sensibilities and minimalist style create ritualized poems acting as spells-transcribed to be read aloud and performed in the service of realizing that which we seek to become. His influences draw on his Vedantic upbringing, as well as interests in Gnosticism and 20th century magickal traditions. His poems have appeared in such journals as Denver Quarterly, Fence and North American Review, and his articles have been published by The Huffington Post and The Poetry Foundation. He is a two-time National Haiku Champion and in 2010 he was voted “Boston’s Best Poet” in the Boston Phoenix.

Picture Yourself in a Burning Building

Artist Scott Treleaven talks about the furtive role of mysticism, occultism and theories of consciousness in historical abstractionism and his own work.

Scott Treleaven (born Canada, 1972) is a painter and filmmaker. He has written extensively about the intersection of art, mysticism, sexuality and marginal culture, and his influential ’90s underground publications are included in the book In Numbers: Serial Publications by Artists Since 1955. Recent solo shows include Invisible-Exports, New York, and Jessica Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. Group exhibitions include Contemporary Art Museum Houston, ICA Philadelphia, Palais de Tokyo (Paris), and the British Film Institute.