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Psychoanalysis, Art and the Occult: Cutting Up a New Conversation

...Each piece seems to be created at the boundary of meaning and meaningless-ness, chaos and order. Some, like Sinclair’s or Eyfjord’s work explicitly invoke symbolic systems. Others evoke concepts inherent to the visual medium, raising the oppositional and inextricable ideas of negative and positive space, color and line, content and form. Together, the works of these artists raise a question about meaning and madness. These artists create from this edge, a line their work crosses, it seems, in order to define. The positioning of Dr. Sinclair’s work next to her mother’s situates this question within a psychoanalytic context. If Rawlings’ paintings represent two infinitudes divided by a line—the boundary between one color and another, one self and one other—Dr. Sinclair’s work represents the system of meaning which must emerge in this space between two bodies.

For Freud, this space is demarcated by the bodily drive, and by the repression of it, which invokes the division between self and other. For Lacan, a theorist who followed him, it is organized in language punctuated by grammar and syntax. For Jung, it is to be found in projections—in images. If Jung’s focus on the imago as the domain of subjectivity invites a discussion of the occult, the theoretical implications of mapping the mind at the level of both the body and language are perhaps helpful to consider when to traversing the space between these two disciplines, one embodied, the other ideational.

The historical exclusion of the occult, from psychoanalytically informed discourses, has its origins in the split between Freud and Jung. The cause and consequence of this split was addressed by two panelists, Dr. Steven Reisner, a clinical psychologist and activistcurrently running for President of the American Psychological Association, and Gary Lachman, a writer formerly of the band Blondie. While Lachman believes that Freud’s resistance to the occult stemmed from his personal neurotic fear of the dissolution of rational thought, Reisner argues that Freud’s hesitation was ethical and concerned the occult being incorporated into his theoretical system as a rejection of the death drive—a fear which, in Reisner’s estimation, was “practical and temporary.” As a creator of discourse, Freud was very concerned with the integrity of the system he was creating. Interestingly this discursive dimension is also that which lends an entrance point for this new discussion.
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Talking Tarot with Michael M. Hughes

This week we chat to novelist and Fortean researcher, Michael M. Hughes, about one of my absolute favourite subjects -the tarot. We also chat about a few other favourite topics, too -including UFO encounters and quality weird fiction.

It’s a splendid, splendid chat. Download the episode directly here or listen along on YouTube below.


Show Notes
This week’s guest has been gracious enough to share some suggestions and pointers for the listeners, which you can find below:

The Way of Tarot: The Spiritual Teacher in the Cards ?
by Alejandro Jodorowsky

One of the best books about Tarot ever written. Deep, philosophical, yet incredibly practical teachings from a true visionary. Jodo’s “rebuilt” deck that he produced with Phillipe Camoin includes details that are iffy (the Papesse’s “egg” being a prime example), but those are minor points in an otherwise essential text. Jodo’s numerology system is brilliant and the one I use for working with the minor arcana. Favorite quote: “To comprehend the Arcana, we have to enter inside them stripped of words. Better, we should allow ourselves to be possessed by them.”


Meditations on the Tarot

by Anonymous (Valentin Tomberg)

A profoundly spiritual work that uses the Tarot as introduction to esoteric Christian Hermeticism filtered via an unorthodox Roman Catholic lens. Definitely not for everyone, but if the description piques your interest, pick it up—its insights are revelatory. There is an intriguing photo that shows this book on Pope John Paul II’s desk.
http://corjesusacratissimum.org/2013/12/meditations-on-the-tarot-and-the-vatican/



The Inner Guide Meditation: A Spiritual Technology for the 21st Century
by Edwin C. Steinbrecher

A carefully constructed program to contact and work with one’s inner guide (HGA, daemon, genius) via the tarot archetypes, Jungian active imagination, and astrology. Israel Regardie called this book “One of the most significant contributions to occult history in modern times” and he was not exaggerating. This is true tarot magic, and, if you follow the program, the results may astound you.


Tarot—The Open Reading

by Yoav-Ben Dov

Another must-have if you decide to explore the Tarot de Marseille, it is especially useful for free-form spreads and readings “outside the box” with any deck. Ben Dov’s “open reading” style, an elaboration of methods he learned while studying with Jodorowsky, is very similar to the process I teach.



The Magical World of the Tarot: Fourfold Mirror of the Universe

by Gareth Knight

All of Knight’s books on the tarot are worth reading, but this is my favorite. It teaches you to approach the cards as spiritual beings through meditations and visualizations. If your interests lie in the magical use of Tarot and using the cards as a spiritual practice, grab everything Gareth Knight writes.



Tarot Magic: The Treasure House of Images (Second Edition)

by Gareth Knight

Another superb book by Knight. It complements The Magical World of Tarot and elaborate on his Fourfold Structure of the major arcana that is well worth studying in depth. The book also includes pathworkings as well as a number of rituals.



Recommended Decks

CBD Tarot de Marseille

This is a high quality reproduction of the traditional Tarot de Marseille published by Nicholas Conver in 1760, with the expressions on the faces of the characters somewhat softened. The creator and artist is Yoav Ben-Dov, who wrote an excellent book on reading the TdM, Tarot – The Open Reading. Ben-Dov has also released the images of the cards under a Creative Commons license for personal use. It’s a great first TdM.



TdMs from Tarot of Marseilles Heritage

Yves Reynaud and Wilfried Houdin are master card designers who produce stunning facsimiles of historical decks that contain all the ink smudges, color mismatches, and paper imperfections of the originals. The decks include TdMs by Pierre Madenie (1709), François Chosson (1736), François Heri (1718), and Claude Burdel (1751). You can’t go wrong with any of them, and it feels like you are holding a historic relic in your hands. They come in a solid, telescoping box with a reproduction of the original packing sheet and are printed on very sturdy stock.



Tarot de Marseille de Jean Noblet

The oldest known Marseille tarot (c. 1650), restored and reproduced by Jean-Claude Flornoy, and one of my favorites. It is weirdly phallocentric, with the Fool’s fully exposed genitalia about to be shredded by the dog/cat/lynx and the Magician’s forefinger transformed into a penis. The cards are sturdy but smaller than average and easy to shuffle. This deck has a unique, iconoclastic charm and remains a favorite among many TdM loyalists.



Ancient Italian Tarot (also known as Soprafino)

A traditional Marseille design embellished in the 19th century with luxurious, richly detailed art. Hands-down one of the most beautiful tarots ever, with my favorite Star card of any deck. It has a warm, inviting feel and is one of my go-to decks for professional readings as well as personal use. Il Meneghello has a typically well-produced Soprafino that is essentially the same as the Lo Scarabeo version but on heavier stock and fancier packaging.



Minchiate Florentine
Not a traditional tarot, as it has 97 cards, with 41 major arcana cards instead of the usual 22. This facsimile deck from 19th century Florence has special relevance for magicians as it contains cards for each of the four elements and signs of the zodiac, which I find much more useful than the shoehorned Golden Dawn and Thelemic astrological correspondences. The gorgeous, limited printing of 1500 is available from Il Meneghello, and comes in a handcrafted box with a wax seal.

http://www.arnellart.com/osvaldo/taro-no-minchiate-fl.htm



Mantegna Tarot

A fifty-card deck from the middle of the 15th century, based upon a series of engraved prints by an unknown Italian artist. This deck is essentially a treatise on late Medieval/early Renaissance society and spirituality, and is decidedly Neoplatonic, with the nine muses and Apollo, seven traditional planets, fixed stars, the Primum Mobile, and Prima Causa. Another non-traditional deck, like the Minchiate, that can be put to specific magical purposes, especially for those working with Hermetic and Neoplatonic systems. The Lo Scarabeo edition is embossed with silver foil and looks truly magical in candlelight.



The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed 4th Edition

One of the only modern decks I use with my clients. Robert M. Place is a tarot scholar and artist, and this deck is based in the alchemical tradition, with art drawn from historical manuscripts and integrated into the traditional tarot (with some similarities, especially among the minors, with the Rider-Waite-Smith, making it an easy transition deck for RWS aficionados). Place’s artistic style is appropriately ancient, and this deck feels and performs like an object out of time. This is a deck you can read with right of the box, and if you’re drawn to alchemy, it’s a must-have.



Sola-Busca Tarot

The Sola-Busca is the oldest complete tarot, and the first to use scenic art on the pip (minor) cards. The imagery is grotesque and oddly modern, at times resembling the work of the surrealists and H. R. Giger. It is a symbolically elusive deck and I have yet to crack its mysteries, but with the upcoming book by Scarlet Imprint, there is sure to be renewed interest in its enigmatic (and allegedly alchemical) imagery. The only available deck I am aware of is the lovely (but pricey) limited edition version printed by Wolfgang Mayer in 1998 and distributed by Giordano Berti.
https://solabuscatarot1998mayer.wordpress.com
 
Jack Chick Was Right: How ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Made Me an Occultist

Confession time: I’m a practicing occultist. Not an armchair Crowleyite bedecked in Hot Topic jewelry or fluffy RenFaire Wiccan, but someone who has worked extensively with a number of practical magical systems. And if it hadn’t been for the magical education I got playing and DMing D&D as a kid, I probably wouldn’t have spent so much time reading about occultism before taking the plunge into actual practice about twenty years ago. And from informal surveys of my magician friends, D&D was definitely our gateway drug. So, in fact, that Jack Chick pamphlet was somewhat prophetic (although, I feel compelled to add, my brand of occultism does not involve harming anything or anyone, much less anything that could be remotely described as “evil”).

And although the opponents of D&D harped on mostly apocryphal psychological dangers (like sensitive kids committing suicide after the death of a beloved character), it was the magic and spells in the game that sent religious conservatives and evangelicals into paroxysms of panic. And understandably so, as the game featured not just the fireballs, lightning bolts, and healing potions of popular fantasy fiction, but necromancy, dark rituals, and demons and devils ripped from medieval grimoires. The tiny-print, hardback Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) books included diagrams of magic circles, hierarchies of demons and devils, tables of medicinal plants (like something out of Cunningham’s Encyclopedia of Magical Herbs or Skinner’s The Complete Magician’s Tables), and ritual elements gleaned from historical and popular occultism.

AD&D’s magical lexicon was deep and rich, too. In the years before Gary Gygax, how many kids knew the meaning of words like thaumaturgy, thurible, and phylactery, much less folkloric concepts like the Irish geas and parapsychological terms like clairaudience and psionics? Where, in material aimed at kids, could you find descriptions of Neoplatonic elementals and diagrams of Blavatskian astral planes? Playing D&D was an introductory course in parapsychology, demonolatry, popular occultism, and western esotericism. And I devoured it—though the Christian fundamentalists, of course, would say it devoured me.
 
TALKING PANDEMONIUM WITH JAKE STRATTON-KENT

jake-title1.jpg


This week we welcome back to the show none other than Jake Stratton-Kent to talk about his latest book, Pandemonium: A Discordant Concordance of Diverse Spirit Catalogues.

We also talk implicit and explicit ritual structure, the origins of spirit catalogues, how to think usefully about hierarchy and a whole lot more.

Always, always a pleasure. Download the episode directly here or listen along on YouTube at my channel.

SHOW NOTES
 
This guy I discovered yesterday. I have been hearing about his channel a lot and he has a pretty big following. I sifted through some of his videos, and came away unimpressed? Apparently he is an atheist occultist Satanist? He used to be a christian, now he rants about Christianity and politics. He does believe in an afterlife and reincarnation and some components of "Alternative" medicine. Most of the superstitious stuff he believes he thinks can be deduced mostly to naturalism. He also believes in Aliens and other stuff, personally I don't see the big deal about him? He seems smart, but nothing mind blowing

https://www.youtube.com/user/Styxhexenhammer666
 
INTERVIEW WITH TOMMIE KELLY, CREATOR OF THE FORTY SERVANTS

I discovered Tommie Kelly on my ongoing Gordon White-esque "Find The Others" quest through his excellent blog Adventures in Woo Woo (best name.) From there I learned about his divination deck, The Forty Servants. The art is visually stunning on it's own, but what really got me excited was the concept of a deck that could be used as a standalone magical system in addition to a divinatory method. It's rare that you see people pushing the limits of what can be done with cards and magic, and while it's great that there's a tarot for everyone, in my opinion the last thing the world needs is yet another Golden Dawn-style Rider Waite-Smith clone, or as Jason Miller would say, another "Tarot of The Cat People."

After using the deck for only about a week at the time of writing this, I've already had some exciting results and experiences (shout out to The Levitator) so I reached out to Tommie and he was kind enough to chat with me a bit.
 
TALKING MARSILIO FICINO WITH DR ANGELA VOSS

This week we speak to musician, scholar and astrologer, Dr Angela Voss. Dr Voss is Programme Director for the ‘Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred’ MA at Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral University and is the author of the western esoteric masteries series book on Marsilio Ficino.

Ficino is one of the most fascinating people in European history, a cornerstone of the Renaissance and the story of western magic. So this is a great chat.

Download the episode directly here or listen along on YouTube below.

SHOW NOTES
 
Found this guy while ordering two books by Jeff Kripal. Seems interesting, although his books are mostly geared towards an academic audience. His book "New Age Religion and Western Culture" is apparently the first comprehensive study in the historical background of New Age Religion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wouter_Hanegraaff


Other notable authors on the subject of the occult would include Colin Wilson and Gary Lachman.
 
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Went to an occult class yesterday. It was really cool to learn more about the subject, it was the first class and there was plenty of talk about invisible forces and science. There was a chemist there who said he had over 30 years of experience, he said he had taken a liking to the "occult" for many reason and said Science and Mysticism are not that far off as the general public believes. He had some good questions and excused himself from coming from a science background of over 30 years. Nice Guy, not dogmatic.....the people teaching the class were very knowledgeable as well. Quantum Mechanics was talked about, String theory was mentioned and a host of other things, they encouraged his "scientifically framed questions" They actually encouraged it.

Occult dogma was also briefly touched upon....the chemist brought up dark matter and a discussion brewed. One of the Occultists said people who practiced the occult were talking about dark matter for 1000s of years called the "informed void" Which I have yet to look up. The chemist also touched upon how Alchemy was the original "chemistry" before it became formalized I think the word was used. Lots of great info I picked up
My goal of the day is to research the informed void and see what I can dig up. I was happy to see a bridge being built were "two sides" can meet. The Chemist also mentioned that Spirituality, Science and Religion must became a one functioning unit Science needs a more holistic approach
 
Went to an occult class yesterday. It was really cool to learn more about the subject, it was the first class and there was plenty of talk about invisible forces and science. There was a chemist there who said he had over 30 years of experience, he said he had taken a liking to the "occult" for many reason and said Science and Mysticism are not that far off as the general public believes. He had some good questions and excused himself from coming from a science background of over 30 years. Nice Guy, not dogmatic.....the people teaching the class were very knowledgeable as well.
That sounds interesting. I know there was some early reports of occult chemistry - relating to the structure of small molecules - was he talking about that, or something more recent - even something that he used himself!

David
 
Alright, so I am convinced 95 percent now that there is more to this world. I just went through an anomalous experience with a group of people at my occult class. There is no point of going back and forth with articles proponents, neutral and the pseudo skeptics keep posting on here. The Occult is real, and I am not going to spend my life trying to convince anyone. It was a very simple experience and will now be diving deeper in the the practice. All those weak PSI experiments with weak controls will get no solid answers.....no pun intended. You have to study practice and develop this stuff, if not you are just on here to mentally masturbate yourself, I don't know how the mechanism works, i'll probably never know, but I seen 2 anomalous experiences in a week and a half.

Skeptics if you want results go practice, if not your arguments are beginning to bore me, sorry for being abrasive
 
Alright, so I am convinced 95 percent now that there is more to this world. I just went through an anomalous experience with a group of people at my occult class. There is no point of going back and forth with articles proponents, neutral and the pseudo skeptics keep posting on here.
Obviously a lot of what goes on here is not argument with sceptics, but I do think it is valuable that we give the sceptics a chance - because I like the many who presumably read this forum without joining, to see how feeble most of their comments really are. Likewise, the podcast interviews with sceptics are remarkable because most of them put up a really poor show.

If a sceptic actually does manage to criticise something meaningfully, that is also worth noting. Not everything posted by non-sceptics is fully reliable :)
The Occult is real, and I am not going to spend my life trying to convince anyone. It was a very simple experience and will now be diving deeper in the the practice. All those weak PSI experiments with weak controls will get no solid answers.....no pun intended. You have to study practice and develop this stuff, if not you are just on here to mentally masturbate yourself, I don't know how the mechanism works, i'll probably never know, but I seen 2 anomalous experiences in a week and a half.
My impression is that people's brains vary in how much of this stuff they shut out. This often seems to change after someone has had an NDE.

I've had very very little ψ experiences, but I am a proponent for several other good reasons.
Skeptics if you want results go practice, if not your arguments are beginning to bore me, sorry for being abrasive
I guess it is hard for people to practice well if they don't believe. I'd love to have an OBE or even a lucid dream, but so far I have only experienced one very brief lucid dream as a teenager.

David
 
Apocalyptic Witchcraft in Brazil

Much has been written about witchcraft, its practices and beliefs, its history and the witchcraft trials. The sheer amount of literature provides a continuous red thread of the witch as malefica and venefici – and it is this that became the icon of the witch proper. The witch is a votary of Circe and Medea, a child of Cain and it is this icon of the witch as ‘other,’ as opposer, as danger, that Peter Grey is painting for us against the backdrop of modernity.

Peter states that the witch is what we find at the end of a pointed finger, and at the end of the pointed finger we find the unruly and the rebellious bound by the otherworldly, the scapegoat and the dangerous. Hence ‘witchcraft is the work of the enemy. Witchcraft is the sex that other people have, witchcraft the drug other people take, witchcraft is the rite other people perform.’ And in truth witchcraft can be defined by ‘the other,’ and as time passes and civilizations and cultures reach new levels of degeneration, misery and alienation from core, nature and soul ‘the same’ becomes gradually more and more like concrete, steel and glass objecting nature in favour of fashion, greed and illusory power over the temporal.

The decay of society stands out in Apocalyptic Witchcraft as a canvas that makes the animus and anima of the witch visible and threatening, because the witch is the opposer, it is the resistance, it is protest done in acts of autonomous self-celebration where ‘the other’ is claimed as both guardian angel and a shade of threat and comfort. It is in this field we find the desire for freedom and in this a rejection of the imposed dictum that we need to be sheep. Instead we realise we are goats lusting for the blood running wildly from bleeding stars that fell to Earth and dress the cloak of the devil. As Peter writes: ‘The Devil as the mask of wild nature and the Goddess, giving us the choice to control our bodies, minds and destiny is at the core of what a witch is.’

Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a war manifesto aiming towards sowing a consciousness that enables the flame to act against oppression, any kind of oppression, it be social, political, psychological or what a given culture has judged to be ‘good manners’ in favour of truth. Truthfulness to one self, to one’s ambitions, to one’s own path and in this we can truly become makers of our own Fate. There is a political agenda in Peter’s book, he is not solely a terrible force for the oppressors, he is also a liberator of those chained by the oppressors, they be real, imaginative, of faith or of society as he call upon the Free Will to recognize the truth of Self in unique ways. We speak of anarchy, but there is a lineage to this anarchy, we are speaking of Thoreau, Tolkien Tolstoy and Chomsky that saw what Peter is seeing and in this saw a similar need, that a return to the laws of nature was necessary. For Peter the realisation of the importance of this return turns into an insistence on rewilding witchcraft and this is only done by aware and willing participation as ‘the other’ in contemporary civilization, this because ‘the Devil is not the hidden hand of history, but has been formed by the glove it wears,’ hence ‘the other’ is in some Foucauldian nightmare always defined by ‘the sameness’ or what we is usually known as ‘the majority.’

This socio-political dimension is important and a factor that often escapes those believing they are doing witchcraft, those who write about it and those who actually do it, that the word ‘witch’ was since the dawn of time defined the scapegoat, the grains of sand in a well-oiled social machinery that made it fail and become imperfect, and of course, instead of turning our eyes within, the search for the scapegoat begins without, and ‘the witch’ has always been the target, willing or unwilling to take the blame in the name of ‘otherness.’ In this respect Peter has taken the very icon of the witch and made him or her tangible and recognisable in our contemporary society. Yet it is not enough to be a rebel, whore or a drug fiend to earn the dignified accusative of a scapegoat, of something other, something that threatens norms and order or society. It takes something else, something much more than just being in opposition, because witchcraft is in the blood, it is a special breed, it is about the Cains and the Liliths of the world, whether they know it or not. As Peter writes: ‘We do not need to begin with an exterior cult if we can diligently apply the basic exercises, and in doing so nurture the flowering of our own gifts. If we do not have the will to do so, seeking it outside will not remedy this.’

And I think it truly lies here, the entire secret of the witches’ blood and brood, you need to recognise this in earnest and be truthful about who you are, because no one can give what they don’t have and the blood of the witch is only ignited, like a match put to gasoline because it is already there.
 
That sounds interesting. I know there was some early reports of occult chemistry - relating to the structure of small molecules - was he talking about that, or something more recent - even something that he used himself!



David
It's been a few months I forgot exactly what he talked about. I know dark matter came up and energy combustion
 
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