The Absinthe Parlour invites your to explore what the future holds with an individual palm reading hosted in our most curious venue.
Individual palm readings will last roughly 15 minutes.
Guests are invited to join us in The Absinthe Parlour for a curious cocktail or two after their reading. Bar reservations can be made via: https://thelasttuesdaysociety.org/absinthe-parlour/reservations/
This workshop is the perfect introduction for anyone interested in learning more about tarot in a fun and relaxed environment. Join Melissa Mercury as she invites you to start your journey with the cards. You don’t need to be ‘psychic’ or have any experience to join, just an open mind. All you need to bring is yourself, notebook and pen, and a tarot deck (preferably the Rider Waite Smith Deck or one similar). There will be the option to purchase a deck on the night if you would like one.
This workshop includes:
+ A brief history of tarot
+ Meanings of the Major Arcana – the first and most famous 22 cards in the deck
+ Guided meditation
+ 3 card tarot spreads – the opportunity to get hands on and practise your skills with supervision and guidance from Melissa
+ Downloadable PDF with the card meanings and spreads
Also included with your tickets:
+ A glass of Devil’s Botany Chocolate Absinthe Liqueur
+ Admission to the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities
About Melissa Mercury, owner of Mercury Tarot:
Melissa qualified in Tarot at London School of Astrology in 2016 and has been reading the cards professionally ever since. She has read for over 10,000 people and been a guest on the Love Island and Paranormal Activity podcasts. In 2024 she appeared on stage with Gail Porter at Paranormal Activity Live to discuss the history of tarot and offer guests a live reading.
Melissa uses tarot as a tool to guide and support people looking for clarity in areas such as love, work and mental health. Tarot can provide clarity, confidence and a safe space to discuss difficult subjects.
Devil’s Botany is the UK’s first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour & Cocktail Bar. Celebrating spirit’s connection to art, literature, magic & mixology, Devil’s Botany is unleashing the future of absinthe with bold expressions for the adventurous drinkers of today.
Glimpse into what your future holds with an individual reading with resident Tarot Reader, Tobias, at The Last Tuesday Society. Tickets include a Devil’s Botany Absinthe to sip on while embarking on a 15 minute private tarot reading.
Tobias is an experienced reader who provides personal and inclusive sessions, tailored to each individual’s preferred experience. Do you want to ask the cards a question? Perhaps you seek general advice? Or maybe you simply wish to try it out as a new experience! Whatever you would like to gain from your reading, you are welcome.
To reserve a table for drinks in The Absinthe Parlour, book via: https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/absinthe-parlour/reservations/
Individual tarot readings will last roughly 15 minutes.
Event is for over 18s only.
Glimpse into what your future holds with an individual tarot reading with Melissa Mercury at The Last Tuesday Society. Guests will be invited to order a Devil’s Botany Absinthe cocktail to sip on while embarking on a 15 minute private tarot reading.
To reserve a table for drinks in The Absinthe Parlour, book via: https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/absinthe-parlour/reservations/
Individual tarot readings will last roughly 15 minutes.
Event is for over 18s only.
MELISSA MERCURY
Melissa qualified in Tarot at London School of Astrology in 2016 and has been reading the cards professionally ever since. She has read for over 10,000 people and been a guest on the Love Island and Paranormal Activity podcasts. In 2024 she appeared on stage with Gail Porter at Paranormal Activity Live to discuss the history of tarot and offer guests a live reading.
Melissa uses tarot as a tool to guide and support people looking for clarity in areas such as love, work and mental health. Tarot can provide clarity, confidence and a safe space to discuss difficult subjects. It’s a fantastic way of exploring and growing.
THE ABSINTHE PARLOUR
A drinker’s cabinet of wonder filled with unusual spirits, from the old world and new, together in one curious exhibition of extraordinary elixirs. Allow each round to provide you with a passage to the furthest corners of the world, transported to an experience outside the boundaries of time. Seek and you shall find: hidden here are explorations of alchemy & magick, pleasure & fantasy, celebrating the point at which curiosity unlocks a world unknown.
The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour is truly a hidden treasure of East London.
Shortlisted “Bar of the Year 2024” – The Spirits Business 2024
Absinthe Menu Shortlisted “Specialist List of the Year” – Imbibe 2020
Voted “Best Bar in London” – DesignMyNight Awards 2019
The Gods of Egypt
Ancient Egypt! Mysteries and wonder! Hieroglyphs, mummies, kings, pharaohs and the Book of the Dead, but all of this would not be possible without the Gods! This lecture will give an overview of the different types of Egyptian Gods, where they lived when visiting earth and how the Gods were depicted. RavenRissy will share a glimpse into the life of an Ancient Egyptian and how the ideology took a drastic turn for a period of time with the Amarna Period, all the way from sunny Brisbane Australia.
Speaker Bio
RavenRissy has a degree in Graphic Design, as well as a BA in the Art and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, specializing in Egyptology, Art History and Archaeology. She has studied internationally in Cyprus, Italy, and Germany. RavenRissy has over 15+ years of experience working within Paganism and Mythology. She is the founder of the Pagan Folk band Hem Netjer, founder of Pagan Folk Nights event group, co-founder of Wyld Women’s Weekend, May Queen, featured in the book Spinning Wyrd and has studied at Magic Universities based in Scandinavia, Latin America and Europe. She is an accomplished artist, musician, author, lecturer. RavenRissy is currently teaching classes privately. You can find RavenRissy at: https://linktr.ee/RavenRissy
Hosted & Curated by:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
Medieval Graffiti: Apotropaic Symbols & Ritual Protection Marks
Surveys undertaken by the author have recorded a fascinating corpus of medieval and historic graffiti which includes compass-drawn circles, ‘Marian’ marks, pentangles & saltires, all of which will be discussed in this illustrated talk.
Many of the marks are so-called ‘ritual protection marks’ – also known as ‘apotropaics’ (from the Greek, ‘to turn away evil’) – whose purpose was to defend the buildings against evil spirits and to confer good luck. This graffiti spans the entire medieval period but appears to peak between AD 1650 –1850, the time of the so-called ‘witch craze’ in Europe. Recent re-evaluation of these marks has revealed many more subtleties and diverse meanings than hitherto imagined, and we’ll explore them tonight.
The talk will begin with examples culled from the medieval buildings of England, then expand the discussion to compare the corpus of graffiti with international examples.
About the Speaker
Wayne Perkins is an archaeologist of 23 years with a special interest in apotropaic graffiti, folklore and concealed objects recovered from ancient buildings.
Don’t worry if you can’t make the live event on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day.
The Hallouminati Club Sponsored by Devil’s Botany
A Cheesy Speakeasy in the Austin Osman Spare Room at The Last Tuesday Society
Join Raw Cheese Power for an evening of cheese tasting, talk & tales! An experienced cheese trader & occultist, our host – also known as the Dark Knight of Cholesterol – brings five courses of rare & exquisite cheeses direct from the French countryside.
Fun & informal, the event is a chance to try, learn about and discuss cheese history, heritage & artistry within a cultural & geographical context, plus anything else, of course!
Tickets include a free glass of Devil’s Botany Chocolate Absinthe Liqueur to end the tasting.
Doors open at 18:30. Event Time: 19:00 – 21:00. Please arrive beforehand. Guests are welcome to stay for a drink after the event as the venue’s bar will remain open to the public throughout the evening.
Mansion of Gloom: The Unsettling Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’
Edgar Allan Poe’s atmospheric tale of madness and premature burial has intrigued and disconcerted readers ever since it first appeared in 1839. In the twentieth century, it attracted interpretations from all fields of artistic creativity: film, television, theatre, opera, music, literature and art.
There have been around twenty film and television adaptations: European filmmakers, from the aesthete Impressionist Jean Epstein in 1928 to schlockmeister Jess Franco in the 1980s, American directors Roger Corman and Curtis Harrington, Czech animation wizard Jan Svankmajer, and British directors such as Ken Russell and Ivan Barnett, whose 1946 adaptation was filmed at a Hastings guesthouse which at the time was the home of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley. Roderick Usher has been played by many eminent actors including Martin Landau, Denholm Elliott, Oliver Reed and, of course, Vincent Price.
The story remains relevant – 2020 saw the release of Lady Usher and in 2023 horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan created the acclaimed eight-episode series The Fall of the House of Usher for Netflix. Musically it has inspired an opera by Philip Glass, an unfinished opera by Debussy and concept albums by The Alan Parsons Project, Peter Hammill and Lou Reed. Steven Berkoff has adapted the story for the stage, Ray Bradbury wrote a science fiction story ‘Usher II’ and numerous artists including Arthur Rackham, Harry Clarke, Alastair and Leonor Fini have produced illustrations.
The House of Usher’s fortunes continue to rise.
About the Speaker
London-born and now living in Hastings, Antony Clayton is the author of Subterranean City: Beneath the Streets of London (2001 & 2010), London’s Coffee Houses (2003), Decadent London (2005, 2019), Secret Tunnels of England, Folklore and Fact (September 2015), Netherwood: Last Resort of Aleister Crowley (2012 & 2017) and Mansion of Gloom: The Unsettling Legacy of Poe’s ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ (December 2024). He has given talks at the British Library, ICA, Conway Hall, Freemason’s Hall and various other venues in and out of London.
Your curator and host for this event will be the writer Edward Parnell, author of Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country. Ghostland (William Collins, 2019), a work of narrative non-fiction, is a moving exploration of what has haunted our writers and artists – as well as the author’s own haunted past; it was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley 2020 prize, an award given to a literary autobiography of excellence. Edward’s first novel The Listeners (2014), won the Rethink New Novels Prize. His latest book is Eerie East Anglia (pub. Aug 2024) for the British Library’s Tales of the Weird series. For further info see: https://edwardparnell.com
Don’t worry if you can’t make the live event on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day.
[Image: a scene from Roger Corman’s 1960 adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher.]
Richard Dadd-the Artist of Bedlam Asylum
Discover the enigmatic world of Richard Dadd, the brilliant yet troubled artist who created mesmerizing works during his time at Bedlam Asylum. Join us for an intriguing lecture that delves into the life and art of Dadd, whose masterpieces reflect a unique blend of fantasy, madness, and the haunting beauty of the human psyche. From his vivid depictions of mythical creatures to his intricate landscapes, Dadd’s art offers a glimpse into his tumultuous mind and the turbulent era in which he lived. As we explore his captivating journey from promising artist to asylum inmate, we’ll uncover the themes of obsession, isolation, and imagination that permeate his work. This lecture promises to be a visual and intellectual feast, inviting art lovers and history enthusiasts alike to engage with the legacy of a man whose genius was forever intertwined with his struggles. Don’t miss this opportunity to unravel the complexities of Richard Dadd’s artistry and the shadows of Bedlam.
Bio:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
The Birth of Horror: Exploring Early 1900s Horror Cinema
Join us for a captivating lecture on the origins of horror cinema, delving into the eerie and groundbreaking films of the early 1900s. Discover how pioneering filmmakers like Georges Méliès and F.W. Murnau crafted some of the first horror masterpieces, such as “Le Manoir du Diable” (1896) and “Nosferatu” (1922). We’ll explore the cultural and historical contexts that influenced these early works, the innovative techniques used to create suspense and fear, and the lasting impact these films have had on the genre.
We’ll also examine the profound impact of silent films on the horror genre. Without the use of sound, early filmmakers relied heavily on visual storytelling, expressive acting, and innovative special effects to convey terror and suspense. This era laid the foundation for many of the visual and thematic elements that continue to define horror cinema today.
Additionally, we’ll discuss the transition to sound in horror films and how it revolutionised the genre. The introduction of sound brought new dimensions of fear through eerie sound effects, chilling scores, and the power of dialogue. This transition allowed filmmakers to create more immersive and psychologically complex horror experiences, forever changing the landscape of horror cinema.
Whether you’re a horror aficionado or a curious newcomer, this lecture promises to be a spine-chilling journey into the dawn and evolution of horror cinema.
Bio:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
