Digital Event Type: Zoom Lecture

Black Magic on Trial: Aleister Crowley, Libel, Litigation and the Law Courts – Andrew Wiseman – Zoom

Black Magic on Trial: Aleister Crowley, Libel, Litigation and the Law Courts

This presentation aims to survey the various legal battles faced or initiated by one of the twentieth-century’s most notorious and influential practitioners of the occult. By anyone’s standards Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was a litigious individual who sought recourse to the law on more than a few occasions. Of the three main legal disputes (1911, 1922 and 1934) in which he was either a defendant or plaintiff, the most notorious case was the trial dubbed the ‘Black Magic’ Libel Action of 1934 in which Crowley sought legal redress to an incident dating back to his Cefalù days, where he had established the Abbey of Thelema. A memoir entitled Laughing Torso (1932) by Nina Hamnett (1890–1956), in which a lurid passage appears, raised Crowley’s hackles as he claimed that he was being libelled by referring to his occult practices as black magic. Having lost the case and having to pay damages, Crowley’s precarious financial problems ended in declaring bankruptcy the next year. Coverage of the trial was syndicated throughout the press and helped to seal Crowley’s notorious reputation.

No stranger to the law courts, Crowley’s first brush with the legal system dates back to the incident known as the ‘Battle for Blythe Road’ in 1900 but which did not go any further due to a solicitor’s wise piece of advice. His divorce case, initiated by his estranged wife, Rose Kelly, became a cause célèbre. His involvement, however, with the law did not all end in losses as in the case of the ‘Looking Glass’ Trial (1911) and also the one involving his novel The Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922), both involving libel, and both of which concluded in Crowley’s favour.

Given his self-inflicted and self-promoted notoriety, particularly from the yellow press of the 1920s onwards, Crowley’s reputation, one in which he sometimes relished, became a challenge for him as it preceded him and the trials he went on to lose, it may be argued, tended to eschew evidence. Trial by character rather than by evidence seems to have been the order of the day.

Speaker Bio:

Andrew Wiseman is a cultural historian, specialising in the Scottish Highlands from the late medieval to the modern period, who has developed a keen interest, perhaps even an unhealthy one, in Boleskine House and its long-held association with the iconoclastic occultist Aleister Crowley. He is currently editing a number of works and has authored around twenty chapters and articles as well as numerous blogs and mainstream publications. As author of the forthcoming title Lord Boleskine: Aleister Crowley and the House of the Beast 666, a detailed and engaging account of Crowley’s residence at his Highland home will be offered as well as the controversial legacy which he left in his wake.

Curated & Hosted by:

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She lives in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesvos.

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Hellfire, Hanging, and Humiliation: Book Curses through Book History Dr Eleanor Baker – Zoom

Hellfire, Hanging, and Humiliation: Book Curses through Book History

For as long as the written word has existed, so has the desire to protect it. One means by which people have tried to defend their precious texts is through the inscription of book curses: short, maledictory writings that warn the would-be thief, the forgetful borrower, or the malicious eraser with bodily, spiritual, or social damage. This talk will introduce some of the most ferocious and humorous book curses ever inscribed, from fearsome threats discovered emblazoned on stone monuments from the ancient Near East, to elaborate manuscript maledictions, and chilling warnings scribbled in printed books. Baker will discuss her experience hunting these book curses and reflect on how these entertaining writings offer a tantalising insight into literacy, book-ownership, and people’s attitude towards their material texts. This talk is based on Baker’s book, Book Curses (Bodleian Publishing, 2024).

Speaker Bio:

Eleanor Baker is the English Subject Lead for the University of Oxford’s Astrophoria Foundation Year and teaches medieval literature at various colleges across the university. Her doctoral thesis examined the perception of material texts in Middle English literature, and how these material objects were understood as at once practical and fantastical. Chapters of this thesis have been published in Studies in Philology and Recipes and Book Culture in England, 1350-1600 (ed. Hannah Ryley and Carrie Griffin). Eleanor’s research interests include the book culture of late medieval England, twentieth-century medievalism, and folk horror in medieval literature. Her first trade-press anthology, Book Curses, was published in 2024 by Bodleian Publishing.

Curated & Hosted by:

Marguerite Johnson is a cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, specialising in sexuality and gender, particularly in the poetry of Sappho, Catullus, and Ovid, as well as magical traditions in Greece, Rome, and the Near East. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, with a regular focus on Australia. In addition to ancient world studies, Marguerite is interested in sexual histories in modernity as well as magic in the west more broadly, especially the practices and art of Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton. She is Honorary Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. She lives in Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesvos.

Image: Master of the Échevinage of Rouen, Monk (Hermit) Praying for the Dead Man and Struggle for his Soul between Saint Michael and the Devil, about 1470, Rouen, miniature taken from a manuscript breviary, McGill University Library. c.1470. Public Domain.

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Lilith, Maman Brigitte & Pomba Gira : The Dark Goddesses of Your Dreams – Lilith Dorsey – Zoom

Lilith, Maman Brigitte & Pomba Gira: The Dark Goddesses of Your Dreams

These are not gentle goddesses.

They do not whisper comfort or ask for permission.

This talk is an exploration of three powerful feminine figures who have been feared, worshipped, invoked, and misunderstood for centuries — sometimes millennia.

We begin with Lilith, the first rebel, the night-walker, the woman who refused obedience. Cast out, demonised, sexualised, and vilified by patriarchal traditions, Lilith survives as a symbol of raw autonomy, erotic power, and refusal to submit.

We then move into the graveyard fire of Maman Brigitte, Queen of the Dead, guardian of the crossroads between life and death. Fierce, sharp-tongued, protective, and just, she is called upon when boundaries are crossed, wrongs must be addressed, and protection is needed — especially for those with little power of their own.

And finally, we meet Pomba Gira — laughing, seductive, clever, bare-breasted, and unapologetic. A spirit of desire, agency, and clever survival, she turns shame into power and pleasure into strategy. Pomba Gira does not ask to be liked. She asks to be respected.

We will talk about who these figures are and where they come from and how they have been distorted, feared, or sensationalised. If you are drawn to dark goddesses, this is your chance to slow down, listen carefully, and approach them with clarity rather than projection.

They are older than fear.

And they do not belong to anyone — but they may still answer.

Speaker Bio:

Lilith Dorsey M.A., hails from many magickal traditions, including Afro-Caribbean, Celtic, and Indigenous American spirituality. Their education focused on Plant Science, Anthropology, and Film at the U.R.I. , N.Y.U. , and the University of London, and their magickal training includes numerous initiations in Santeria aka Lucumi, Haitian Vodoun, and New Orleans Voodoo. Lilith Dorsey is a Voodoo Priestess and has been doing successful magick since 1991 for patrons, was publisher of Oshun-African Magickal Quarterly, filmmaker of the experimental documentary Bodies of Water :Voodoo Identity and Tranceformation,’ and choreographer/performer for legend Dr. John’s “Night Tripper” Voodoo Show. They are the proud Black author of 6 traditionally published books including the most recent Tarot Every Witch Way.

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

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Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism – Lilith Dorsey – Zoom

Voodoo and Afro-Caribbean Paganism

The world of voodoo is a universe populated with sacred gods, spirit possessions, and natural grace. Despite media portrayals of zombies and wild abandon, the religion is actually a complex system of nature-inspired belief. This class will answer your questions, and introduce you to the voodoo gods of fire, love, lightning, and more.

Speaker Bio:

Lilith Dorsey M.A., hails from many magickal traditions, including Afro-Caribbean, Celtic, and Indigenous American spirituality. Their education focused on Plant Science, Anthropology, and Film at the U.R.I. , N.Y.U. , and the University of London, and their magickal training includes numerous initiations in Santeria aka Lucumi, Haitian Vodoun, and New Orleans Voodoo. Lilith Dorsey is a Voodoo Priestess and has been doing successful magick since 1991 for patrons, was publisher of Oshun-African Magickal Quarterly, filmmaker of the experimental documentary Bodies of Water :Voodoo Identity and Tranceformation,’ and choreographer/performer for legend Dr. John’s “Night Tripper” Voodoo Show. They are the proud Black author of 6 traditionally published books including the most recent Tarot Every Witch Way.

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

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The 13 Most Haunted Objects in The World – Lena Heide-Brennand – Zoom

The 13 Most Haunted Objects in The World

Some objects are not owned. They cling to you.

Throughout history, certain objects have been feared not for what they are, but for what they carry. They are the things passed down in whispers: the skull that murmurs in the dark, the doll that shifts between glances, the mirror that refuses to give back an honest reflection. A ring that ruins every hand that dares wear it. A necklace that tightens of its own accord. A comb that must never touch living hair. A charm woven to imprison a spirit—only to break open decades later.

Across continents and centuries, humans have believed that objects can absorb tragedy, hunger, desire, curses, or even entire personalities. Some artefacts were sealed in iron cages and dropped into rivers. Some were locked in churches for generations. Some were burned—yet refused to stop coming back. Others were simply hidden away by families who could not bear to destroy them, but were terrified to let them go.

This lecture opens the doors to a cabinet of the world’s most unnerving relics:

• African power-objects that must be fed or they wake

• Japanese dolls that develop human hair

• Slavic household spirits bound inside handcrafted figures

• Chinese ancestor items that punish disrespect

• Irish witch-knots designed to steal a life

• Scandinavian grave goods that cannot rest

• American cursed antiques that destroy every owner

Each object reveals a deeper truth about fear, memory, and the uneasy relationship between the living and the dead. Why do some items become vessels? How does a curse attach itself? Can an object be “alive” in a ritual or spiritual sense? And what happens when such things move from their original cultures into modern hands?

Enter with curiosity—but tread carefully.

Some stories have a habit of following you home.

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

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The Philosophers’ Stone Is Real: How Chemistry Shaped Alchemical Allegory – Sergei Zotov – Zoom

The Philosophers’ Stone Is Real: How Chemistry Shaped Alchemical Allegory

Early modern alchemists did not invent their imagery in a vacuum. It emerged from engagement with real chemical and metallurgical processes observed in laboratories. This lecture explores how such processes generated the weird and often disturbing allegorical language of alchemy: hybrid bodies, hermaphrodites, cannibalistic kings, green lions, and Christ-eagles. I argue that these strange images often functioned as visual models for thinking about matter, transformation, and causality before the modern chemical theory of elements.

Drawing on illustrated alchemical manuscripts and albums from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, the talk shows how allegory became a practical cognitive tool — a way to stabilise, remember, and communicate experimental knowledge in a world without standardised chemical notation.

Speaker Bio:

Sergei Zotov is a historian of science and visual culture specialising in alchemy, magic, and iconography in medieval and early modern Europe (c. 1400–1800). He received his doctorate from the University of Warwick and is currently an Associate Fellow at the Warburg Institute (University of London). His research has been supported by major international fellowships held in Baltimore, Glasgow, Berlin, Gotha, Wolfenbüttel, and Überlingen, and has involved extensive archival work across more than 100 collections worldwide. Sergei has published in leading journals, including Nuncius and the British Journal for the History of Science, and is the author of five books on early modern iconography, two of which have received prestigious prizes and others shortlisted for major awards.

Curated & Hosted 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

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Dwell with Osiris – Death and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt – Dr Chris Naunton – Zoom

Dwell with Osiris- Death and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt

What happens when you die?

The ancient Egyptians developed a rich and complex set of beliefs about death, the afterlife, and the journey beyond the horizon. Among the most vivid and influential of these is the Amduat — an Egyptian term meaning “That Which Is in the Netherworld.”

The Duat was the hidden, underground realm through which the sun god travelled each night, dying with the setting sun and being reborn at dawn. This nocturnal journey was not his alone. It was also the path taken by the spirit of the king, who hoped to dwell eternally within the Amduat alongside Osiris, the mythic first king — and yet also to emerge renewed, transformed, and reborn into a perfected next life.

This lecture follows that perilous passage: through darkness and transformation, danger and renewal, as we trace one of humanity’s earliest and most compelling maps of death, rebirth, and cosmic order.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Chris Naunton is a British Egyptologist, author, and public historian, widely respected for his ability to bring the beliefs, texts, and lived realities of ancient Egypt vividly to life. He holds a PhD in Egyptology and is particularly known for his work on Egyptian religion, funerary literature, and conceptions of the afterlife, including the Amduat, Book of the Dead, and related underworld texts.

He has served as Director of the Egypt Exploration Society, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious Egyptological organisations, and has been closely involved with research, fieldwork, and scholarly outreach connected to major collections such as those of the British Museum. Alongside his academic work, Naunton is a prolific communicator, appearing frequently in documentaries, lectures, podcasts, and radio programmes, where he bridges rigorous scholarship with compelling storytelling.

Naunton is the author of several acclaimed books, including Searching for the Lost Tombs of Egypt and The Story of Egypt, which combine archaeology, history, and cultural analysis to explore how ancient Egyptians understood their world — and how we continue to interpret it today. His lectures are known for their clarity, depth, and narrative power, guiding audiences through complex religious ideas while remaining firmly grounded in historical evidence.

With a rare talent for making ancient texts feel urgent, strange, and profoundly human, Dr Chris Naunton is one of the leading contemporary voices interpreting Egypt’s gods, dead, and eternal landscapes for modern audiences.

Curated & Hosted 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

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Haunted Waters: River Spirits, Drowned Ghosts & Water-Witches – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

Haunted Waters: River Spirits, Drowned Ghosts & Water-Witches

Where something ancient watches from beneath the surface—hungry, patient, and older than the land itself.

In every culture on earth, water is a threshold—a mirror, a mouth, a silent witness—and often, a predator. This immersive lecture journeys through the world’s most haunting aquatic folklore, from the still pools of rural China where drowned maidens rise for revenge, to the river-goddesses of West and Central Africa who demand offerings, to Japan’s kappa lurking beneath bridges with a child’s laugh and a demon’s appetite.

Meet the Slavic Rusalka whose beauty kills; the Nøkken of Scandinavia who sings travellers to their deaths; the storm-witches of the Baltic who can raise waves with a whisper; and the restless river-ghosts of Eastern Europe and East Asia, forever tied to the waters that claimed them.

Drawing on global folklore, mythic ecology, and the anthropology of water-spirits, we reveal why lakes, rivers, wells, estuaries, and shorelines are universally feared as borders between worlds. Discover the ritual offerings once cast into sacred springs, the ceremonies performed to calm offended rivers, and the bone-deep belief that the drowned do not sleep—they linger.

A night of mythology, terror, beauty, and the uncanny pull of the deep: a lecture on the ancient, living waters that have shaped human imagination for thousands of years

Speaker 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

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Ossian 2: James Macpherson’s Epic Journey – Dòmhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart – Zoom

Ossian 2: James Macpherson’s Epic Journey

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the landscape of Scotland and the way of life of its inhabitants were changing fast, under the influence of the Enlightenment and the ingenious innovators of the Agricultural Revolution. In thinking about and trying to understand these changes, contemporary Scots turned to accounts from other lands, and accounts from history, in the hope that these comparisons might tell them about themselves and where they stood.

Lowland thinkers also looked at their neighbours in the Highlands. Some of them at least viewed the Scottish Gaels who lived there as ‘contemporary ancestors’, the original Scots, supposedly still living in a patriarchal, primitive, semi-barbarian clan-based society. But how to find out more about the mysteries of their history?

In 1760 the literary nation was electrified by the claims of a twenty-four-year-old from Badenoch in the eastern Highlands: that in his native Gaelic oral tradition he had collected fragments of an epic dating back one and a half millennia. Over the next three years James Macpherson would publish what he claimed were authentic prose translations of these ancient poems, telling of fierce, heroic battles fought by Highland warriors in a gloomy, sublime landscape. But Macpherson’s characters, women as well as men, were strangely contemporary too: noble, sensitive, emotional, even civilised. These warriors fought, and died, for love as well as for glory. With his poems of Ossian, it seemed that Macpherson had given Scotland, and all of northern Europe, literature to rival the Mediterranean classical epics of Homer and Vergil.

In this talk we’ll investigate the life, work, and legacy of James Macpherson. How did he create his epics – and who helped him? What poems did he draw upon for inspiration, from his own Gaelic culture? What impact did Macpherson’s poems have, in Britain and beyond—and on Scottish Gaelic culture too? And, of course, how did the fierce Ossianic controversy over the epic’s authenticity first begin?

Speaker Bio:

From the Isle of Lewis, Domhnall Uilleam Stiùbhart is a leading scholar of Scottish Gaelic language, folklore, and oral tradition. He is Associate Professor at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, University of the Highlands and Islands, where he lectures in Scottish Highland history and material culture, and Gaelic literature and folklore. He has written numerous academic articles, and is often interviewed on radio and television.

Curated & Hosted 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

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The Dead Who Walk in Dreams: A Global History of Dream-Ghosts – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

The Dead Who Walk in Dreams: A Global History of Dream-Ghosts

When the dead step into your sleep: messages, warnings, and mythic encounters.

Across millennia, the dead have visited the living in dreams: to warn, to guide, to accuse, to soothe—or simply to remind us they remain. Drawing on her upcoming book Dreamwalking, Lena Heide-Brennand explores dream-ghosts from ancient Mesopotamia to Viking Age Norway, from Arctic spirit-visitations to Victorian séances held entirely in sleep.

Travel through the shadowy terrain of hypnagogic visions, ancestor-dreams, revenant-warnings, and the strange psychological landscapes where love, grief and the supernatural blur.

Discover why so many cultures believed the dream-soul leaves the body at night, how the newly dead communicate through symbolic dream language, and what it means when someone you’ve lost appears at your bedside at 3am.

This lecture blends folklore, anthropology, psychology, and the occult—illuminating the secret nights of humanity.

Speaker 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