MARK OF THE WEREWOLF
Almost every country in which wolves have been found has legends of people who can transform into wolves and half-human monsters. This talk explores a selection of such legends and the possible explanations for how those stories started – from medical and psychiatric explanations, to shamanic transformations of consciousness, to ritualistic costumed performances. Alongside mythology and magical traditions, the talk will draw on trial records from people accused of being werewolves in centuries past to reveal what were (at the time) widely held beliefs about the kinds of monsters that dwell alongside us. We will also pause to consider the impact of Hollywood and literature on changing what we think about lycanthropy.
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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AN ANIMIST ETHICS
An overview of animist philosophies and how they impact ethical choices and interactions with the world around us. How do we relate to a world where every tree, rock, and river might be regarded as a living being with needs and agendas of their own? This talk will draw on notions of personhood, reflect on changing laws from around the world as we reconsider our relationships with the non-human, and also reflect on the changing ways we have viewed our fellow humans over the last few centuries. How might living according to animist philosophies change the ways we act and treat the people around us?
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.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
GREEK FLOWER POWER
The myths of Ancient Greece are filled with accounts of tragic heroes and heroines transformed into flowers, trees, and other plants. This botanical tour will look at some of these old tales and contemplate what they tell us about humanity, spirituality, sexuality and our relationship to the green world around us. Brief retellings of the old tales will be interspersed with explanations and reflections, including such characters as Hyacinthus, Syrinx, Crocus, Narcissus, and others.
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.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
WILDE AND PAGAN?
Tracing the influence of Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology on the poetry and prose of Oscar Wilde. A genius who stood with one foot in the philosophies and romances of the ancient world and one in Catholic theology, Wilde’s passions continue to inspire and influence literature and art to this day. This talk will combine an overview of Wilde’s life and philosophy peppered with readings from his poetry and prose to illustrate how he saw the world and what this can teach us about the ways in which we understand ourselves today.
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.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
The Great God Pan
An introduction to the mythology of the Greek deity Pan and how the goat-foot god has cast his influence into art, literature and popular culture to this very day. This talk will reflect on the Victorian and Edwardian fascination with Pan and his appearance in the stories of Saki, Grahame, Benson, Machen and others. To most of the ancients, Pan was a minor rural god beloved of shepherds and rustics, but to the mystics of the Orphic Cultus he was the supreme being, embodiment of all things. The changing views of Pan will be considered along with ways in which he can be understood by modern Jungian theorists.
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.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
The Mythology of Wolves
An overview of some key mythological and esoteric traditions about wolves from around the world. How have we come to understand this mysterious, elusive beast – sometimes demonised as a fearsome predator and sometimes romanticised as the very spirit of the wild itself? This talk will consider Norse, Celtic, Greek and Roman views of the wolf and how they have shaped the ways we think about these beautiful creatures today. Robin Herne’s latest book, “The Magic of Wolves” from Moon Books, explores a wide range of lupine folklore and mythological traditions from the ancient world through to modern cinematic and literary understandings.
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.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
The Magicians of the Golden Dawn
At the greatest of their seasonal festivals, the Spring Equinox, this is a fit time to consider the most celebrated order of ceremonial magicians in the history of the world, which established the template for most modern ritual magic. The group also contained some of the most vivid characters in the story of that magic, including Samuel Mathers, William Butler Yeats, Arthur Waite and Aleister Crowley. The talk will take a fresh look at how the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded, who inspired and led it, and how its rituals were developed. It will examine the complex and controversial place of religion in the order, and the relationship between paganism and Christianity in it. Finally, it will deal with the dramatic and traumatic end of the order and consider its legacy.
Speaker: Professor Ronald Hutton is a Professor of History at the University of Bristol. He is a leading authority on history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on ancient and medieval paganism and magic, and on the global context of witchcraft beliefs.
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Antone Minard: The Mari Lwyd: Death, Beer, and Poetry in Victorian Wales
The Mari Lwyd is a distinctively South Welsh tradition where guisers lead a figure made from the skull of a horse, challenging for their right to enter. Once moribund, the tradition has revived and become a popular symbol of Welsh culture. While the individual ingredients in the ritual are not unique to Wales, the combination of elements does reveal distinctively Welsh ideas about the natural world and humanity’s relationship to it. This talk will discuss the nineteenth-century evidence for the Mari Lwyd and its parallels elsewhere in Welsh tradition and the ritual’s meaning in traditional Wales.
Bio
Antone Minard holds a PhD in Folklore and Mythology, specializing in Welsh and Breton Folklore. He currently teaches Latin and Mythology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and researches the intersection between the supernatural, cultural world and the natural world of plants and animals.
Curated and Hosted by Dr Amy Hale
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 is the author of Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently working on several Colquhoun related manuscripts. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and she is a curator and host for the Last Tuesday Society lecture series.
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ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS – The Story of The Snowshill Collection at the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle
In the years before his death, the arts and crafts inspired architect, artist and collector Charles Paget Wade bequeathed both his lovingly restored Cotswold home, Snowshill Manor, and his collection of hand-crafted objects sourced from near and far to the National Trust. On his passing in 1956, the Trust approached Cecil Williamson, owner of the Museum of Witchcraft – then located in nearby Bourton-on-the-Water – to investigate a small attic space within Snowshill known as ‘the Witches Garret’. This tiny room housed Wade’s collection of items relating to witchcraft and the occult, which Williamson determined to be ‘especially dangerous’. Despite claiming to have burnt the items he removed from Snowshill, Williamson in fact did something altogether very different with them. Join Mark Hewitt who will delve into the personalities of both Wade and Williamson as well as exploring the tangled journey this collection has been on, examining why it is indeed an especially dangerous group of objects and the impact this collection may yet have on wider culture.
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Bio
Mark Hewitt is originally from Coventry, but lives and works in Chester, England. He has a degree in International History and has held a lifelong passion for the subject. Having been exposed to the supernatural documentary writing of Peter Underwood at a young age, it was not long before the subject of occultism became another perennial interest, blossoming into an eclectic magical practice informed by both early modern and contemporary methodologies. He is currently the custodian of the Chester Occult Society and has been published in both The Cauldron and the Enquiring Eye. His book ‘Especially Dangerous: Charles Paget Wade, Cecil Williamson and the Snowshill Collection’ is due to be published by Troy Books.
Curated and Hosted by Dr Louise Fenton
Dr Louise Fenton is a senior lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and a cultural and social historian and anthropologist. She teaches contextual studies in the School of Art and supervises PhD students; she is also an artist and illustrator and uses drawing within her research. Dr Fenton has been researching West African Vodoun, Haitian Vodou, New Orleans Voodoo and Witchcraft, especially curses and cursed objects for many years. She has appeared on the BBC Radio 4 programme, ‘Beyond Belief’ and is a consultant on a new drama for BBC 3.
The Beastly Prophet: Aleister Crowley and Thelemic Magick
Join Julian Vayne for this informed and accessible deep dive into the story of the most notorious occultist of the 20th century. Discover the backstory of Crowley the man, his role as prophet of a new age, and how his approach to ‘magick’ continues to influence occulture today. Ground breaking and maddening in equal measure, Crowley was an accomplished mounteer, poet, chess player as well as philosopher, prolific writer and founder of a new religion. This lecture will set Crowley in his historical context, trace his influences through later 20th century popular culture and beyond, as well as providing a clear introduction to his esoteric teachings.
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
Bio
Julian Vayne is a British independent scholar and author with over four decades of experience within esoteric culture: from Druidry to Chaos Magic, from indigenous Shamanism through to Freemasonry and Witchcraft.
Growing up in the Britain of punk and then rave culture Julian immersed himself in the philosophy and techniques of magic. His journey into group ritual practice began within the Western Esoteric Tradition when he was 16. Since then he has worked in ceremony with practitioners from many different lands and lineages. Julian is a senior member of the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros and widely recognized as one of Britain’s leading occultists.
