Featured Speakers

Dan Attrell

Ibn Waḥshīyya’s Nabatean Agriculture in the Picatrix

One of the most important sources for the Arabic astro-magical treatise the Ghāyat al-Hakīm, known in the Latin West as the Picatrix, was a text called the Nabatean Agriculture, compiled in the 10th century by the translator, historian, and alchemist Abu Bakr ibn Waḥshiyya (d. 930). This talk will explore the history of this text and its beginnings as a compendium of ethnographic data rather than as an explicit vehicle for the transmission of ancient magical lore. Despite having been primarily intended by its author as a means of preserving the ancestral memory of the peoples who inhabited Mesopotamia before the rise of Islam, and not as a work meant to promulgate magic or encourage pagan practices, large excerpts of his text nevertheless found themselves copied into one of the world’s most influential (and notorious) treatises of astrological magic thanks to i) its preservation of ideas from the mysterious ‘Chaldean’ sages of Late Antiquity, ii) its transmission of herbal folklore, and iii) its vivid descriptions of ancient ritual operations dedicated to planetary gods.

Dr. Dan Attrell is a Canadian intellectual historian, classicist, translator and scholar of various Medieval and Renaissance Latin texts significant to the history of Western Esotericism. These include the Picatrix, Marsilio Ficino's De Christiana religione, and William Fulke's Ouranomachia, among a handful of other lesser known works of theoretical Hermetica and Christian Cabala. Dan is also host of The Modern Hermeticist YouTube channel, which is a carefully curated collection of online resources intended to support the development of students in their study of the history of science, magic, religion and philosophy.

 

 

Dr Alexander Cummins

Ghost-light

Planetary Necromancy & the Astral Lore of the Dead in Early Modern Europe

A particular folk eschatology – a popular idea about What Happens When We Die – haunted early modern Europe way past the important theological debates and schisms of the Reformation: that of certain dead souls awaiting final Judgment Day awake and sensate to the comings and goings of the living. Crucially, many of these souls were thought to congregate about the places, professions, activities, and endeavours they once loved; perfecting craftsmanship as their blessedly “unfinished business”.

Contemporary astrological magicians reported that a certain elevation of the souls of these particularly ‘excellent’ deceased folks to ministering planetary ‘Genii’ was not only possible but a naturally arising benefit of God’s ineffable plan. Such starry tutelary shades benevolently haunted their former workshops, court-houses, and other planetary locales, and their wise counsel was taken as further proof of the occasional minutiae of divine guidance. These posthumously-promoted Great Dead were equally considered to be ‘in society of the Airs’ with other aerial entities, and could potentially even mediate between these other forms of spirits for the folk nigromancer who called them.

These historical crossroads of astrological magic and necromancy present a variety of perspectives, approaches, and techniques for modern practitioners of nigromantic cunning, and indeed anyone else who has called conjurations for a planetary spirit and found the vacancy filled by a dead person fulfilling that very role. In the course of these explorations, we shall find renewed conceptions of ancestry, veneration, the Mighty Dead, and astrological tradition as including active engagements with the shades of the Wandering Ones.

Dr Alexander Cummins is a contemporary cunning man and historian. His magical specialities are the dead (folk necromancy), divination (geomancy) and the grimoires.

His published works include An Excellent Booke of the Arte of Magicke (Scarlet Imprint, 2020) with Phil Legard, The Starry Rubric (Hadean Press 2012), A Book of the Magi: Lore, Prayers, and Spellcraft of the Three Holy Kings (Revelore Press 2018) and contributions to collections by Three Hands Press, Hadean Press and Scarlet Imprint.

He is a frequent speaker on the international circuit, co-hosts the podcast Radio Free Golgotha, and is a founding editor of Revelore Press’ Folk Necromancy in Transmission series.

 

Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen

The Aun Year

Website: nordicanimism.com
Twitter: @NordicAnimism
Instagram: @nordic.animism
Facebook: @nordicanimism
YouTube: @Runehr
Academia.edu: @RuneRasmussen
Patreon: @nordicanimism

With an eight year interval, a specific alignment of solar and lunar cycles would make pre-christian Europeans peregrinate to regional sacred sites. But what relevance does these ancient human responses to celestial cycles have for us today?

Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen is a Ph.D in History of Religions. He has researched how Afro Brazilian orisha religion succeeds in maintaining animist reality in the modern world. He has lived in a number of countries in Europe, Africa North- and South America. His present work focuses on reading North European cultural history from the perspective of rejected animist knowledge and practice. The objective is to recover Euro-traditioanl forms of landconnectedness ecological knowledge and kinship with the greater community of beings.

 

Kadmus

Living Stories

On Mythic Truth

Facebook: @Kadmus Herschel
Twitter: @StarandSystem

This talk will approach myth as a source and foundation for the practice of astral magic through an investigation of the unique nature of truth arrived at through myth. Neither unchanging consistent textual truth nor scientific objectivity, what myth offers us is a living conversation with reality itself – the world talking to us. Within myth we find ourselves implicated, living in and through the very stories we experience. It will be seen how a close investigation of the nature of planetary and astral myths presents living traditions that survive through variation, innovation, and a woven tapestry of echoing without stringent rules of consistency such as would present a singular reality reducible to one Truth. From particular attention paid to the oral origin and nature of myth, we will move on to investigate how the model of mythic truth transforms into the distinctive approach to sources and traditional authorities found in medieval Judaic, Christian, and Islamic intellectual practices – most particularly those found in texts such as the Picatrix and the Three Books of Occult Philosophy of Agrippa. Finally, we will consider the connection between so-called Unverified Personal Gnosis and mythic truth.

Kadmus is a practicing ceremonial magician and a philosophy professor. He has written extensively for the website "Gods and Radicals" and recently published the book "True to the Earth: Pagan Political Theology" through Gods and Radicals Press. He has taught several classes at the 2019 and 2020 Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival on "Pagan Conceptions of the Self", "The Role of Magic in a Pagan Cosmos", "Pagan Approaches to Goetia" and "Learning from Legendary Practicioners: Circe". He has also been teaching in The Mighty Dead Class Series with a class on Teiresius in March and a class on Medea in August. His recent publications include the papers "Neo-Chthonia" and "Seeking the Three-Handed Saint" in "The Fenris Wolf". He has been featured on the podcasts "This Podcast is a Ritual", "Rendering Unconscious" and "Witchhassle".

 

Rachel Lang

Magic as a Spiritual Revolution

We can't talk about magic without talking about power, and broaching the subject of power enters us into a whole inquiry about power within personal and social constructs. The word magic was first used as an ethnocentric derogatory term in the 5th century BCE, and since then, it has been used to marginalize groups of people. As astrologers and mages, we are a part of a post-colonial spiritual revolution, and when we better understand the history of magic, we can better access our inherent supernatural power. We can also engage in magical activism to help shape our world.

In 2014, Rachel Lang wrote her master's thesis on the subject of gender, power, and suprarational knowledge (magic), and she studied the witch trials of the Early Modern Period in Europe. She will share highlights of her research, along with the astrological markers that correspond to notable occult revolutions and movements. Understanding this history, we will envision what's possible for us right now and into the future.

Rachel Lang is a professional astrologer and psychic medium who works with individuals and businesses. She studied in the Spiritualist and Western Esoteric tradition, and began consulting in 2006. She writes a monthly horoscope column for Club Magic Hour, the Omega Institute, and Conscious Living Magazine. She is the author of "Modern Day Magic: 8 Simple Rules to Realize Your Power and Shape Your Life."

Rachel holds a master’s degree in theology from Loyola Marymount University with an emphasis on feminist theology and ethics. Rachel teaches classes and hosts workshops. She leads monthly spiritual development gatherings online and in person in Ojai, CA.

She’s the Vice President of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Council for Geocosmic Research (NCGR) and is the Outreach Director for the international board of NCGR. She has a 6th house stellium and is involved with organizations that address the global polycrisis.

 

Charly McCreary

Books of the Dead

Chthonic Journeying in Myth and Performance

Website: cabiri.org
Twitter: @aquarialist
Instagram: @aquarialist
Facebook: @InnerCircleIC
YouTube: @The Inner Circle IC

Solar god Re steps onto the solar barge and readies himself for a night of trials and ordeals, that he may rise again at dawn. Human priests and gods alike join in apotropaic rites in order to ensure his safe passage through the Duat. Celestial goddess Inanna stands at the gates of Ereshkigal’s domain seeking entrance, not yet knowing that she will first be stripped of her seven holy mè before arriving at the feet of the Queen of the Great Below. These archetypes and tales from the ancient world inform and illuminate the work magical practitioners undertake in our search for gnosis. Through exploring skybound deities’ journeys into the underworldly realms, we can deepen our practices and our relationship with entities both astral and cthonic.

In this presentation, Charly will invite participants to step across the portal into liminal time and space as we explore myth and creative embodiment of these Mysteries. She will share video and photographs from creative performance works exploring these myths and others with The Cabiri, a Seattle-based ritual theatre troupe she co-founded in 1999. All present will be invited to unify their own creativity with their sacred work in order to delve more deeply into the wisdom and magic of the infernal realms.

Rev. Charly McCreary has been immersed in astrological studies, ritual theatre, plant lore and magic, mythology, witchcraft, and astral and divinatory practices for over twenty years and is an ordained priestess. She enjoys blending intuitive and experiential magical practices with academic investigation and study in order to nurture and expand the Above and the Below within herself and those she mentors. In 1999, Charly co-founded Seattle-based ritual theatre performance troupe The Cabiri. Charly and her partner Isaiah Dearborne comprise The Inner Circle IC, a collaboration dedicated to education, healing, elevation, and ceremony currently based in Washington State.

 

Sabrina Moncini

A journey through the Mundus Imaginalis and the Magic of Lunar Mansions

In my experience of working with Astro Magic and Celestial Spirits, I have found a continuum of symbolic layers of meaning that reconcile Astro Magic with other types of working with Images such as Depth Psychology and Shamanism. I will briefly share this and then focus on the Imaginal world, the 'Alam al-mithal or the eighth climate of the Persian Neoplatonism. Within this medial world, Images come alive and then shape reality accordingly. This medial world requires its own faculty of perception: Imaginative Power, a power deeply connected to our art of Talisman-making. This faculty of perception belongs to the Soul and can be pursued with modern or ancient practices. I will finally present a couple of Talismans with which I connected in a special and powerful way ,these are benefic Lunar Mansions Talismans that propitiate deep Soul Connections. I will explore the lore and mythology of the Stars and Constellations that were originally linked to them and share what I found.

Sabrina Moncini D.F.Astrol.S.
I am a Professional Astrologer, a body-oriented Psychotherapist, and a passionate Practitioner of Astro Magic. Being interested in multi-disciplinary contaminations that broaden our world view, I blend Modern and Traditional Astrology, thus actively promote a harmonious and inclusive dialogue between different approaches. I was awarded a Diploma from the Faculty of Astrological Studies (London) and consequently undertook courses in Traditional Astrology with Bernardette Brady, Rob Hand and Christopher Warnock. In addition to my private practice, I am a teacher and collaborate with several schools of Astrology. In providing detailed astrological services like analysis, forecasting, and individual Talismanic suggestions, I pride myself to always serve my clients’ needs.