A Short History of Modern Occultism in three lectures, each lecture will be sold separately, see below for details of the other lectures in the series (if missed, these will be available on demand)

1. Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society – 11 Jan 2022

2. Aleister Crowley: The Wickedest Magician in the World – 8 Mar 2022

3. C.G. Jung, Lord of the Underworld – 27 Mar 2022

 

Aleister Crowley, the 20th century’s most infamous magician, was known in his day as “the wickedest man in the world” and “the man we’d like to hang.” Today his portrait hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery and in 2002 he came in at no. 73 in the BBC’s Top 100 Britons poll, beating out J.R.R. Tolkien, Johnny Rotten, and Sir Walter Raleigh. Crowley swaggered through the fin-de-siecle, climbed Himalayas, was polymorphously perverse before the phrase was even invented, and took more drugs than anyone I know. But he was also a remarkably serious and devoted practitioner of the dark arts and took as his mission their revitalization in the modern world. After his death in 1947 Crowley sank from view, only to be resurrected in the 1960s as a poster boy for the psychedelic, sexual, and social revolutions of that decade, his philosophy of “Do what thou wilt” informing the acid-fueled guruship of Timothy Leary, and the psychedelic sounds of the Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Today Crowley’s religion of “excess in all directions” continues to inform popular culture, from heavy metal and gangsta rap, to the tepid sounds of the Jonas Brothers

 

Gary Lachman is the author of many books about consciousness, culture, and the Western esoteric tradition, including The Return of Holy Russia, Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power in the Age of Trump, Lost Knowledge of the Imagination, and Beyond the Robot: The Life and Work of Colin Wilson. He writes for several journals in the US, UK, and Europe, lectures around the world and his work has been translated into more than a dozen languages. In a former life he was a founding member of the pop group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Before moving to London in 1996 and becoming a full time writer, Lachman studied philosophy, managed a metaphysical book shop, taught English literature, and was Science Writer for UCLA. He is an adjunct professor of Transformative Studies at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He can be reached at www.garylachman.co.uk, www.facebook.com/GVLachman/ and twitter.com/GaryLachman