Archives: Digital Events

Ritual Protection Marks & Apotropaic Graffiti in the London Churches – Wayne Perkins

Ritual Protection Marks & Apotropaic Graffiti in the London Churches

The Medieval buildings in the London Boroughs were ravaged by the Great Fire and assailed by the Blitz. They have suffered modern development, demolition, restoration and numerous re-building projects.

You would be right to suspect that little remains of the Medieval fabric of London ….

And yet, and yet…many mysterious symbols can still be found on the ancient masonry which attests to the beliefs and fears of the city’s medieval populace. Apotropaics* and ‘ritual protection marks’ in the form of protective compass-drawn circles and ciphers inscribed to invoke the Virgin have survived.

Close examination of St Bartholomew the Great, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey – and now, recently, the Inner Temple church – have all given up their secrets to reveal a ‘secret history’ of the capital…

*Apotropaic = from the Greek, apotropaios –

‘having the power to turn away evil influences or bad luck’

Bio:

Wayne Perkins has been an archaeologist for over 22 years, seven of those spent excavating in France. He is a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists.

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The Occultural Art and Music of David Bowie – Anthony Ryan

The Occultural Art and Music of David Bowie

David Bowie was one of the most influential and evocative artists of the 20th century. Where did he get his inspiration from? From his early devotion to Buddhism to his Cabbalistic workings, this talk will explore the impact of the Occult on David Bowie’s art, moving between conjecture and overt displays of his interest, in the liminal, ambiguous zone that his androgyne creations inhabit. Special focus shall be on his Cabbalistic works, including the hidden symbolism in his art.

Bio

Anthony Ryan’s lifelong interest in the strange and bizarre has taken him through a career in Mental Health, where his interest in depth psychology complimented his fascination with the Occult. His current interest area is the Cabbala, and his fascination with John Dee doesn’t get in the way of his having a healthy relationship too much.

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Romance of the Grail: Joseph Campbell and the Arthurian Romances – Prof Evans Lansing Smith

Romance of the Grail: Joseph Campbell and the Arthurian Romances

After completing his M.A. Thesis under the direction of Roger Sherman Loomis, Joseph Campbell went to Paris to study the Old French romances of Chrétien de Troyes, bringing with him his mentor’s thesis that the Grail Romances originated in the Celtic mythologies of Brittany, Wales, and Ireland. He then went on to Munich, where a completely new view emerged, focusing on Near Eastern and Oriental sources. This radically shifted his work to a lifelong engagement with Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival. This presentation explores that shift through imagery and storytelling.

Bio

Professor Evans Lancing Smith edited the first collection of Joseph Campbell s writings and lectures on the Arthurian romances of the Middle Ages, a central focus of his celebrated scholarship. Throughout his life, Joseph Campbell was deeply engaged in the study of the Grail Quests and Arthurian legends of the European Middle Ages. In this new volume of the Collected Works of Joseph Campbell, editor Evans Lansing Smith collects Campbell s writings and lectures on Arthurian legends, including his never-before-published master s thesis on Arthurian myth, A Study of the Dolorous Stroke. Campbell s writing captures the incredible stories of such figures as Merlin, Gawain, and Guinevere as well as the larger patterns and meanings revealed in these myths. Merlin s death and Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, for example, are not just vibrant stories but also central to the mythologist s thinking. The Arthurian myths opened the world of comparative mythology to Campbell, turning his attention to the Near and Far Eastern roots of myth. Calling the Arthurian romances the world s first secular mythology, Campbell found metaphors in them for human stages of growth, development, and psychology. The myths exemplify the kind of love Campbell called amor, in which individuals become more fully themselves through connection. Campbell s infectious delight in his discoveries makes this volume essential for anyone intrigued by the stories we tell and the stories behind them.

Evans has degrees from Williams College, Antioch International, and The Claremont Graduate School. He is the author of ten books and numerous articles on comparative literature and mythology, and has taught at colleges in Switzerland, Maryland, Texas, and California, and at the C.G. Jung Institute in Kusnacht. In the late 1970s, he traveled with Joseph Campbell on study tours of Northern France, Egypt, and Kenya, with a focus on the Arthurian Romances of the Middle Ages and the Mythologies of the Ancient World. His books include:

  • The Descent to the Underworld in Literature, Painting, and Film: 1850-1950: The Modernist Nekyia
  • Figuring Poesis: A Mythical Geometry of Postmodernism
  • Haiku for Aphrodite
  • The Hero Journey in Literature
  • The Myth of the Descent to the Underworld in Postmodern Literature
  • Postmodern Magus: Myth and Poetics in the Works of James Merrill
  • Rape and Revelation
  • Ricorso and Revelation: An Archetypal Poetics of Modernism
  • Sacred Mysteries: Myths About Couples in Quest
  • Thomas Pynchon and the Postmodern Mythology of the Underworld

His areas of emphasis include: Myth in Literature from Antiquity to Postmodernism; Arthurian Romances, and The Hermetic Tradition. He currently teaches: Myth and the Underworld; Alchemy and Hermeticism; Arthurian Romances and the Grail; Folklore and Fairytales; Theoretical Approaches to Mythological Studies; Cultural Mythologies; and Native Mythologies of the Americas.

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Winter Tales of Ice & Fire – Hannah Brailsford

Winter Tales of Ice & Fire – Hannah Brailsford

Hannah will tell a collection of European tales to both chill and warm the heart for a Winter’s night. Stories filled with the heat of desire and the ice of envy, with appearances from a devilishly hot stranger and Father Frost himself.

Bio

Hannah Brailsford is a storyteller based in Essex, who tells both traditional and modern tales to young and old alike. Driven by a passion to engage and inspire communities with storytelling, she draws on her acting background to take her audiences on playful and poignant journeys into folk and wonder tales from around the world and has a particular interest in European tales with a female focus.

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Closer to the wisdom – Mark Bedford

Closer to the wisdom.

Are we born wise or does age bring wisdom? If we could go back and do it all again, would we? Tales that explore the theme of ageing from various traditions.

Bio

Mark Bedford is a storyteller and speaker of poetry. He has performed in the UK and internationally for over 20 years.

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The Embers of 50 Years: The Iconic Legacy of The Wicker Man – Peg Aloi

The Embers of 50 Years: The Iconic Legacy of The Wicker Man

This iconic film, dubbed “the Citizen Kane of horror films” by Cinefantastique Magazine, starred the legendary Christopher Lee in a role he referred to as his all-time favorite. Beset with production difficulties, its initial disastrous release in the UK eventually inspired an enormous cult following in the US. The Wicker Man spawned a controversial remake in 2006, a tepid sequel in 2011 (The Wicker Tree), and a final film (The Wrath of the Gods) with a Norse-mythology themed story of human sacrifice in a contemporary theme park was planned, but ceased production when director Robin Hardy died in 2016. Erotic, satirical, inventive, relentlessly weird, and truly terrifying, this genre-transcending 1973 film was eventually named one of the “Unholy Trinity” progenitors of the folk horror genre. Its legacy is still seen in contemporary films like The Village, The Ritual, Apostle, Kill List, Midsommar, and Men, and in TV series like Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. It also had an indelible impact upon the culture of modern pagan witchcraft. Fifty years on, The Wicker Man is still one of the best loved and most influential horror films of all time, with a fascinating and often uncanny history as mysterious as the folklore at the heart of its unforgettable story. This talk will explore the film’s ongoing influence and legacy.

Bio:

Peg Aloi is a freelance film and TV critic, a former professor of media studies, and co-editor (with Hannah Sanders) of The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture (Routledge) and Carnivale and the American Grotesque: Critical Essays on the HBO Series (Macfarland). With Hannah she also co-organized two scholarly conferences at Harvard University on paganism, witchcraft and media. Peg’s forthcoming book The Witching Hour: How Witches Enchanted the World is a cultural analysis of the witch in contemporary media. Recently Peg was featured in the documentary film The Witches of Hollywood. She is currently editing a collection of essays for The University of Liverpool Press: Women in Folk Horror: Cradles, Cauldrons, Forests and Blood. Peg was also one of the co-founders of The Witches’ Voice and wrote about film and TV for the site for over a decade, and her long-running blog “The Witching Hour” can now be found on Substack. Peg also works as a professional gardener.

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Sigurd and Fafnir – Katy Cawkwell

Sigurd and Fafnir

Katy will be telling the tale of Sigurd and Fafnir, a bloodthirsty, gripping legend and the original story of the Ring from the Norse Volsung Saga, that inspired Tolkien and Wagner.

Bio

Katy Cawkwell has been storytelling for 25 years, featuring in international festivals from India to Iceland and captivating audiences from the Barbican stage to a burial chamber on Anglesey. She was shortlisted for an Arts Foundation Award and has featured on Radio 3 and 4. She is well-known for unravelling complex traditional narratives into richly entertaining, glittering stories that linger in the mind long after they are told.

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Tamra Lucid and Amy Hale In Conversation

Tamra Lucid and Amy Hale In Conversation

This special edition of the Last Tuesday Society will be a rare “in conversation” session between Amy Hale and her guest, the pioneering journalist, writer, filmmaker and riot grrrl Tamra Lucid. We will talk about Tamra’s journeys through the esoteric community of Los Angeles, and her intimate and delightful book Making the Ordinary Extraordinary about her friendship with occult luminary Manly P. Hall and the LA metaphysical milieu. We will also discuss her exciting new project with Ronnie Pontiac, an updated translation of the Orphic hymns for the contemporary magician.

Speaker Bio’s

Tamra Lucid is author of Making the Ordinary Extraordinary: My Seven Years in Occult Los Angeles with Manly Palmer Hall and co-author of The Magic of the Orphic Hymns. She produced the award-winning feature documentary Viva Cuba Libre: Rap is War and associate produced the Emmy nominated End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock. As a riot grrrl she started the punk trio Lucid Nation which evolved into an experimental rock band that was #1 on college radio in December 2002.

Dr. Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator, and critic, ethnographer and folklorist, speaking and writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. She has written widely on the life and work of Ithell Colquhoun and is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (2020). She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (2022) and is currently preparing an edition of Colquhoun’s magical essays. She has contributed essays for Tate, Burlington Contemporary, Correspondences Journal, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and Spike Island, Bristol. She is currently a curator and host for the internationally loved Viktor Wynd’s Last Tuesday Society lecture series.

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The Egyptian God Setekh – Robin Herne

The Egyptian God Setekh

This talk explores the nature and role of the deity known variously as Set, Seth, Setekh and other variants. We will examine the way in which the Lord of the Desert was understood at different periods of Egyptian history and the factors that led to these differing views.

As well as understanding the theological views of ancient and modern polytheists, we will also consider the stories of Setekh from a Jungian perspective and the insights into the human psyche that can be found in them.

Bio

Robin Herne is the author of a number of books on pagan and esoteric subjects, including “Pantheon – the Egyptians” (published by Moon Books) which explores the realm of Kemetic mythology. He lives in East Anglia and regularly lectures on a wide variety of topics both academic and spiritual. He enjoys painting, poetry, baking, history, and is owned by a malamute.

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Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft (Part 2) – Zoom lecture by Anna Björg Þórarinsdóttir

Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft – Part 2 Upstairs

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft is located in the Westfjords of Iceland, in a small town called Holmavik. This lecture by the director of the museum,

Anna Björg Þórarinsdóttir, will continue to introduce you to the museum and the exhibitions. The European Witch-craze swept across Iceland in the seventeenth century, with over 200 cases and 21 executions. The Museum combines the history of magic with knowledge of magic in Iceland and how it appears in folklore. Join Anna as she talks about the Museum and the spells and objects that are on display. At the Museum, the downstairs gallery represents how magic arts lived in folklore and what people imagined could be achieved with the help of supernatural powers, this was presented in Anna’s first lecture; the upstairs gallery shows who prosecuted and judged the witchcraft cases in Iceland. Also, hear about Jón lærði who is now considered the most significant folklorist of the 17th Century, he left behind a number of publications and drawings that shed light on the spirit of the times. This is what Anna will be covering in this lecture. Join us for an evening of Icelandic Magic.

Bio

Anna Björg Þórarinsdóttir has been the manager of the NPO Strandagaldur which runs the Museum of Icelandic Sorcery and Witchcraft. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Tourism from the University of Iceland where she wrote her final thesis about rural development and how tourism can create new opportunities and researched how the case was for the Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft. After that she worked for two summers at the museum and then stepped in when the former manager and one of the founders passed away at the end of 2018.

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