Featured Speakers

Fixed stars are the new cutting edge astrological talismans, but what about their "cousins" constellations? Chris Warnock discusses what are constellation talismans? How do they differ from fixed star talismans? What are our sources for constellation talismans? How do you elect and create constellation talismans? Ample electional charts and talismans will be shared to ground the exploration of the topic in applied examples.

Christopher Warnock has been a traditional astrologer and Renaissance astrological magician since 1998. He has been called "the father of the traditional astrological magic revival" and the "elder statesman" of astrological magic. With John Michael Greer, Mr. Warnock translated the Latin Picatrix, the most important grimoire of traditional astrological magic and has written and published many books on astrological magic and traditional astrology. Mr. Warnock also teaches astrology and magic courses and offers authentic astrological talismans. 

In this presentation, we will explore the use of sound and ritual based upon the astrological chart for the moment. As such, it is a form of 'resonant theurgy' whereby coherence is sought between the forms of musica mundanos, musica instrumentals, and musica humanis: the sky, sound creation tools, and the practitioner.

Astrological traditions of various cultures can be used to arrive at the choice of placement in the local space environment of related objects and/or frequencies. Within this particular exploration, we will use midpoint structures as an official tool for gaining a focus. It is one thing to place things in various directions related to the Sky and Earth, and it is another to select the altitude of the expression in space based on the astrological declination (the altitude within the zodiacal band relative to the Celestial equator).

Dr. William Morris began his astrological career with his first consultation in the fall of 1977 while working as a professional musician. Upon leaving the road, he began using music from an astrologically informed perspective for healing purposes. Understanding that, to thoroughly practice medical astrology, one also had to study medicine, he earned a doctorate in Chinese medicine and a PhD focused on practice-based ways of knowing, extending into all disciplines, including astrology and homeopathy. His approach to astrology is eclectic, employing methods throughout the history of the Western tradition and India.

The intellectual pursuit of astrological knowledge can span a lifetime, but what of the embodiment of the celestial archetypes? How might our relationship to the starry heavens and the great wanderers of the solar system be deepened through a more embodied astrological practice?

In this session, we will explore an emerging field of astrological work coined ‘embodied astrology,’ a discipline that incorporates a variety of disciplines including ritual theatre, psychodrama, and creative expression. These types of practices help us develop a more personal relationship with the planets, and can yield more potent, transformative, and powerful client work. Offering ourselves as vessels for the divine transmissions of astrological archetypes can also add surprising new dimensions to devotional practice, if we embrace the vulnerability and humility this type of work asks of us.

Charly McCreary is an astrologer, ceremonialist, plant medicine practitioner, and ritual theatre artist based in Hawai'i. Her astrological focus is archetypal astrology, informed and inspired by sacred stories of the ancient world, and how they can inform our lives today. She and her partner Isaiah Dearborne are The Inner Circle IC, a collaboration dedicated to education, ritual, ceremony, and healing.

The Orphics were an ancient counter-cultural Mystery community whose ritual life included embodied practices of erotic cosmo-navigation. Through poetry, song, dance, and ritual, they curated spaces where grief, longing, and desire for the divine could be performed, metabolized, and instantiated in the bodies of the initiates, who were understood to sail the Milky Way to the immortal stars through the winds of Aphrodite’s love.

We are fortunate to have a vast body of work surviving from this tradition—including The Orphic Hymns, a text beloved by many astro-magical practitioners. However, the cosmology underlying the Hymns has remained murky to both scholars and practitioners alike—in large part because the Hymns were intentionally composed in an elliptical manner, using puns, wordplay, and esoteric associations based on extremely ancient Mystery teachings. Close reading of the original Greek reveals a deep and startlingly original pre-Socratic cosmology centering on Heavenly Aphrodite (Aphrodite Ourania), who is not only a cosmic force (as we find her in Diotima’s teachings from Plato’s Symposium), but is actually Herself “the All” or “the One" who exceeds and inter-penetrates all facets of the cosmos. For modern practitioners, understanding Heavenly Aphrodite's role in early Orphism offers exciting new and ancient alternatives to the more familiar hierarchies of Platonist cosmologies.

In this presentation I will give a brief overview of my original work reconstructing Orphic erotic cosmology, as well as examples of how the Hymns were used by early Orphics to steer the helm of the initiate’s soul-body towards the immortal stars. Slides will feature excerpts from my own Hymn translations, as well as star charts, astrological diagrams, and abundant artwork and archaeological finds. Attendees will come away with a refreshing "take" on old myths and astrological material--one that helps shed light on the origins of all Western magic and astrology, including later traditions in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic cultures.

Kristin Mathis is a poet, translator, and educator in Lenapehoking, aka Brooklyn, NY. She is currently at work (The Mysteria Mundi project) translating the Orphic Hymns in a way that allows readers to access the (hither-to unexplored) hidden esoteric wordplay and meanings of the original Greek text. A spiritual peripatetic herself, she has grown to love the Orphics for their counter-cultural "take" on the familiar Greco-Roman myths, and for their star-worship based on a fractal, animist, erotic cosmology.

Ancient views of the cosmos include the notion of daimons, a host of semi-divine beings living in the celestial spheres who were tiny, invisible, and linked divine and human realms as agents of planetary fate. I am proposing that the asteroids, which were unknown until the beginning of the nineteenth century, correspond to the daimons in this cosmological model, and that the ancients had a philosophical category for a class of celestial entities that would not be discovered physically for another two thousand years.

From among 23,000 asteroids, this presentation will focus upon those that were named after legendary wizards, mythic deities associated with enchantment, magic and herbalism, and historical alchemists. Learn immediately how to find the zodiacal positions of the asteroids such as Merlin, Circe, Isis, Eros, Hermes, Paracelsus, John Dee, Spirit and others and identify which are most significant in a chart. Reflect upon which traditions and teachers are best supported in a nativity as an integral part of a person’s lineage, studies, and practice.

Demetra George, scholar, translator, and practitioner, brings the practice of contemporary astrology back to its ancient roots. Early in her career with the publication of Asteroid Goddesses (1986), she looked to cross-cultural mythologies to draw out the archetypal meanings and psychological expression of newly available planetary bodies. She then turned to Greek and Latin texts, articulating the history, cosmology, and techniques of traditional astrology. Author of seven books, her most recent is Ancient Astrology in Theory and Practice: A Manual of Traditional Techniques, Vols. 1 &2 (Rubedo Press, 2019,2022).

Astrological magic is based on the idea of an interconnected cosmos mirrored in nature, which is alive and impregnated with meaning, intelligence, and purpose. If astrology is regarded as a philosophical practice rather than just a set of ancient and modern techniques, what are the implications of practising astrological magic in a contemporary world rooted in the split of mind and body, humankind and nature (including the sky)?

Soledad Davies M.A., is an astrologer from Patagonia Argentina, and holds an M.A. in Cultural Astronomy and Astrology (University of Wales TSD, UK). She also has studied Western Esotericism (University of Amsterdam, NL). Her main interest lies at the intersection of astrology, philosophy, and religion. In 2016, she founded PsicoCymática, an international centre for the study of astrology & esotericism.

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