Archives: Digital Events

The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Prehistoric places of Britain and Ireland – Andy Burnham

The Old Stones: A Field Guide to the Prehistoric places of Britain and Ireland

A highly illustrated and fast paced talk based around many of the themes, new discoveries and mysteries highlighted in our book The Old Stones, along with a look at many lesser known but interesting sites around the UK. The Old Stones is the most comprehensive and thought-provoking field guide ever published to the iconic standing stones and prehistoric places of Britain and Ireland and was a winner of Current Archaeology Book of the Year.

Bio:

Andy Burnham is lead author of ‘The Old Stones – the Megalithic Sites of Britain and Ireland’ book, along with other contributors to the huge Megalithic Portal web resource which he founded and has been running continuously since 2001.

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Blood, Toili, Tears and Sweat Death Customs and Morbid Folk Beliefs in Wales – Dr Delyth Badder

Blood, Toili, Tears and Sweat Death Customs and Morbid Folk Beliefs in Wales

In centuries past, where rudimentary medical knowledge and unexpected death were commonplace, it should come as no surprise that mortality featured heavily within the cultural landscape of Wales. With intricate funerary rituals and a propensity for portents of death – where any sign, from the mundane to the fantastical, might be perceived as premonitory – morbid traditions play an integral and often unique role within Welsh belief systems.

From sin-eating to spectral hell hounds, join Dr Delyth Badder as she takes us on a dark tour through Wales’s folkloric relationship with death.

Bio:

Dr Delyth Badder is a folklorist, author, and Honorary Research Fellow with Museum Wales who has channelled a lifetime’s interest in Welsh folklore into academic study, and a library of some of Wales’s rarest antiquarian folkloric texts. She has expertise in Welsh death omens and apparitions, with particular academic interest in the appearance of spirits within the Welsh tradition.

As well as being a regular contributor to discussions on Welsh folklore in the media, Delyth has co-authored The Folklore of Wales: Ghosts with researcher and podcast host Mark Norman – an exciting new study of Welsh ghost-lore through the ages examined through a contemporary lens, using rare, unpublished and never before translated material.

Delyth also works for the NHS as the world’s first Welsh-speaking Consultant Paediatric and Perinatal Pathologist, and as a Medical Examiner for the Welsh Medical Examiner’s Office.

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Bedtime Stories: Stories of Morgan La Fay – Cath Little

Bedtime Stories: Morgan La Fay

The old Welsh myth of the nine sacred sisters who live on the magical island of apples, Ynys Afallon, still weaves a spell of fascination through time.

The name of the eldest sister is Morgan. One of our oldest fragments of myth tells the story of the mother, Modron, who has lost her child, Mabon.

Some researchers think that Morgan and Modron are one and the same and that she is folklore’s memory of a Celtic Mother Goddess.

There are other references to Morgan in early medieval legends, when Morgan is known for her knowledge and power as a healer, as Morgan the Wise.

But in later accounts Morgan is vilified as a spiteful sister and a wicked witch.

How and why did Morgan’s story change? How can Morgan’s story help us understand our own stories?

In this masterful weaving together of ancient myths from Wales and other Celtic lands, Cath Little breathes the stories of Morgan La Fay back to life.

Bio

“Mesmerising mythic stories from a wonderful Welsh storyteller” Cardiff Storyteller and Singer Cath Little has “rough magic” in her voice, and in her words “the gift of the story comes through.” She has a strong belief in the power of stories to connect us to one another, to the land, and to the people who once lived here. Cath is passionate about sharing the ancient British wonder tales of The Mabinogion. She loves to share myths of the goddess and to re-imagine traditional stories with women at their heart.

Cath helps run the Cardiff Storytelling Circle and curates their seasonal concerts, Tales for the Turning Year. She tells and listens to stories at Oasis, a Cardiff Charity which offers a warm Welsh welcome to refugees and asylum seekers. Cath is a mentor for Riverside Young Storytellers, helping to give young people in her community the confidence to imagine and speak out for themselves. #TogetherLandStories

Cath keeps busy sharing stories in schools, libraries, museums, castles, cafes and fields. She has performed at clubs and festivals across Britain and Ireland and is the author of Glamorgan Folk

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Your Money or Your Life: The Myths and Legends of the British Highwayman – Icy Sedgwick

Your Money or Your Life: The Myths and Legends of the British Highwayman

The highwayman has become a dashing figure within British history, immortalised as both an attractive anti-hero in Plunkett & Macleane (1999), and a fashionable dandy by Adam and the Ants (‘Stand and Deliver’, 1981). BBC comedy series Blackadder the Third even lampooned the mythic status of highwayman through Baldrick’s slavish devotion to a new thief named The Shadow (1987). Tales of the highwayman’s derring-do and apparently legendary exploits have turned him into an anti-establishment figure. Yet with such mythic stature comes actual myths that become difficult to dispel in the face of reality. For example, Dick Turpin is most famous for a midnight gallop north to York on his faithful mare, Black Bess. Yet the real Turpin was a brutal robber, rapist, and murderer. Yet the legend has stuck, and is still repeated as genuine fact today. This talk explores some of the myths and legends associated with the highwayman, and we’ll dig into possible reasons for the myths enduring where the truth does not.

Bio

Icy Sedgwick is working on a PhD exploring the representation of the haunted house in contemporary Hollywood horror films. She runs the Fabulous Folklore podcast, investigating European folklore and its appearances in popular culture. In case she tires of the research, Icy also writes dark fantasy and Gothic horror fiction.

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Folk fatales: women in morris dancing, past and present! – Lucy Wright

Folk fatales: women in morris dancing, past and present!

The English morris dance is having a renaissance—and it’s women who are leading the charge! But some people think that women’s participation in morris dancing is a modern invention—and potentially represents a threat to the tradition. During the ‘women’s morris revival’ of the 1970s and 80s, some deeply entrenched misogyny suggested that women shouldn’t morris dance, and that the performance was a remnant of an all-male priestly rite, a belief that was never founded in facts or evidence. However, women have always danced morris, from Will Kemp’s female dance companions in the ‘Nine Daies Wonder’ of 1601, to Mary Neal and the suffragettes who ‘saved’ morris dancing during the early 20th century, and the unbroken tradition of girls’ carnival morris dancing in the Northwest—in this talk, we’ll look at some of the hidden histories of women in morris, as well as some of its rebellious new manifestations.

Bio

Dr Lucy Wright is an artist and researcher based in West Yorkshire. Following a stint as the lead singer with BBC Folk Award-nominated act, Pilgrims’ Way, she turned her attention to researching and making art about folk instead, with a particular focus on under-recognised and lesser-known practices by women and other marginalised people. A Visiting Research Fellow in Folklore at the University of Hertfordshire, she has published and exhibited widely, including at Cecil Sharp House, Compton Verney and Leeds Art Gallery. In 2021 she launched the ‘Folk Is A Feminist Issue’ manifesta to advocate for a broader, more inclusive understanding of ‘folk’, as the art that we ALL make, regardless of background, training or endorsement.

www.lucywright.art

[Photography credits: Jonathan Cherry, Rachel Adams, Lucy Wright]

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Art of the French Occult Revival: Joséphin Péladan and the power of Symbolist art – Dr Sasha Chaitow

Art of the French Occult Revival: Joséphin Péladan and the power of Symbolist art

Joséphin Péladan was one of the most important figures of the Fin de Siècle occult revival yet his impact is not nearly as recognized as it should be.

During the artistic flowering of the Parisian Belle Époque, the Salons de la Rose et Croix (1892-1897) exploded into the 19th century French art world. With foundations in Western occultism and idealist thought, artists of the time sought to unite the arts into a revival of initiatory drama. The Salons were the brainchild of one of the enfants terribles of the French Occult Revival; esoteric philosopher and author Joséphin Péladan (Sâr Merodack, 1858-1918), a key figure in the shaping of fin-de- siècle French Symbolism. His grand vision was a revolution against artistic realism promoting instead the re-enchantment and spiritual regeneration of what he saw as a disintegrating and decadent society. The crescendo of this awakening would be restitution for the Fall of man and angels through human creativity. A misunderstood and forgotten visionary, he left a rich body of work immortalised in the work of the artists he inspired.

Bio

A British-Greek artist, author, and cultural historian, Dr Sasha Chaitow is the author of research studies Atalanta Unveiled: Alchemical Initiation in the Emblems of the Atalanta Fugiens (2020) and Son of Prometheus: The Life and Work of Joséphin Péladan (Theion, 2022), Series Editor of The Leon Chaitow Library of Bodywork and Movement Therapies (Elsevier), and has contributed book chapters to several scholarly volumes in esoteric studies, and numerous peer reviewed articles. She is currently preparing a three-volume scholarly anthology of Péladan’s work for Theion Publishing, annotated translations for Black Letter Press, and editing two health education volumes for Elsevier. A practicing artist and gallerist, Sasha trained in an icon-painting workshop in Corfu, Greece, later attending the Vakalo School of Fine Arts in Athens, Greece. Since 2015 she has curated Icon Gallery and The Attic Gallery in Corfu.

She is currently preparing a three-volume scholarly anthology of Péladan’s work for Theion Publishing, annotated translations for Black Letter Press, and editing two health education volumes for Elsevier. Sasha has taught at universities and in adult education for over 20 years. Her most recent taught courses (2020-2022) include Introduction to the Academic Study of Western Esotericism; Secrets of Greek Sacred Art; Hesiod’s Theogony; and Péladan’s System for Self-Initiation for Treadwell’s Events (London). She is also course co-designer and seminar leader for specialist skills in the health sciences at the University of Patras, Greece.

A practicing artist and gallerist, Sasha trained in an icon-painting workshop in Corfu, Greece, later attending the Vakalo School of Fine Arts in Athens, Greece. Since 2000 she has presented 14 solo art exhibitions in the UK, Greece, and Sweden, and participated in many curated group exhibitions in the UK, Greece, and Spain. Her neosymbolist artwork draws on her early training as well as her scholarship of esotericism. Since 2015 she has curated Icon Gallery and The Attic Gallery in Corfu.

Full CV: www.sashachaitow.co.uk/about-2

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Hags and Crones: The Weird, the Wicked, and the Wise – Peg Aloi

Hags and Crones: The Weird, the Wicked, and the Wise

Popular culture has been saturated with occult imagery in recent years, thanks in part to a rebirth of interest in modern witchcraft and the paranormal. The figure of the witch, with us since the first century BC, continues to fascinate. Witchcraft as portrayed on social media has evolved into an almost impossible continuum from malevolent evil to aesthetically-pleasing self-care. Mass media offerings in film, television, animation, graphic novels and video games portray the figure of the witch in a myriad ways, from adolescent to ancient, from kind healer to malevolent magic-user.

The majority of witches are still portrayed as female, perhaps in keeping with the many narratives from history and the witch hunts that were gruesome expressions of misogyny. While many more recent stories focus on younger witches, with coming of age narratives being an increasingly popular and intriguing genre, there is still a great deal of emphasis on the older witch in the form of the hag, the crone, and/or the wise woman.

The hag may be viewed as a complex archetype. She is part Hollywood stereotype based on (often disturbing) fairy tales, and part expression of a woman who has moved beyond sexual utility, who is considered no longer attractive, useful, productive, etc. Portraying older women as witches is of course a common cultural meme, one that attempts to justify relegating such people to the edges of society, especially if such a woman is alone/not surrounded by family. No longer encumbered with child care or the domestic duties of being a wife and/or mother, the single older woman is a problematic entity.

For witches are the ultimate outsiders. Frequently the hag, crone or witch is portrayed as an edge-dweller: the witch who lives in a forest cottage, the hag dressed in rags who lives on the streets, or the solitary old woman ignored by her neighbours and teased by children, to name a few examples. She is often assumed to be dangerous, and is often the target of negative propaganda, for no apparent reason. The persecution of the hag has been with us practically since the dawn of human history, and continues unabated. This piece will explore the hag, the crone and the wise woman as controversial figures embodying a range of positive and negative connotations, through an examination of their presence in contemporary horror narratives and mass media.

Bio:

Peg Aloi is a freelance film and TV critic, a former professor of media studies, and co-editor (with Hannah Sanders) of The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture(Routledge) and Carnivale and the American Grotesque: Critical Essays on the HBO Series (Macfarland). With Hannah she also co-organized two scholarly conferences at Harvard University on paganism, witchcraft and media. Peg’s forthcoming book The Witching Hour: How Witches Enchanted the World is a cultural analysis of the witch in contemporary media. Recently Peg was featured in the documentary film The Witches of Hollywood. She is currently editing a collection of essays for The University of Liverpool Press: Women in Folk Horror: Cradles, Cauldrons, Forests and Blood. Peg was also one of the co-founders of The Witches’ Voice and wrote about film and TV for the site for over a decade, and her long-running blog “The Witching Hour” can now be found on Substack. Peg also works as a professional gardener, is a traditional singer, and award-winning poet.

Curated & Hosted by

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.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

History and Practice of Geomancy 4: Geomantic Spellcraft – Prof Alexander Cummins

History and Practice of Geomancy 4: Geomantic Spellcraft

Considered a “sister” to astrology, the system of divination known as geomancy was an incredibly popular and well-regarded form of divination in Renaissance Europe. It was not simply a divination system however. The talismanic use of geomantic figures – ‘betwixt images and characters’ – was considered by many Renaissance magicians to bridge a divide between divination and operative sorcery: offering a range of elemental, planetary and zodiacal magical techniques.

These and other examinations of how early modern geomancer magicians worked their Arts begins to demonstrate the ceremony, invocation, spell-craft, evocation, spirit-work, and theurgy underlying this once-popular art of divination. Much more than a party-trick of simple fortune-telling, geomancy apprehends, interrelates and articulates grounded lived realities fundamentally dependent upon occult cosmological meaning and the conscious sorcerous manipulations of ritual magic.

This class will guide those new to geomancy and astrological magic through the options geomantic magic presents – from the sorceries emergent from sortilege, the image magic of characters and letters, talismanic spell-craft, and simple but potent folk magics of candle, bath, prayer, and charm, as well as techniques for working a variety of tutelary elemental, planetary, and necromantic spirits of geomancy.

This illustrated lecture is taught by professional diviner and consultant sorcerer Dr Alexander Cummins, a geomancer with over a decade of personal and professional experience in geomantic divination and remediation, spirit conjuration, spell-work, and talisman-craft. He can be found at his website www.alexandercummins.com, where he can be booked for talks, readings, and private coaching.

Bio:

This presentation is delivered by Dr Alexander Cummins, himself both a historian of magic and professional geomancer. And so, in this class, we will not only examine the historical practice of this incredibly popular Renaissance system of divination, students new to it will be taught how to consult this most worldly oracle. And even seasoned geomancers should appreciate the shared techniques and tips on exploring geomancy’s spirits and spell-craft!

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

See all the events in the series – Collection: Al Cummins – Geomancy Series

History & Practice of Geomancy 3: Mastering Shield Charts – Prof Alexander Cummins

History & Practice of Geomancy 3: Mastering Shield Charts

The fundamental act and process of European Renaissance geomantic divination, of “casting geomancy”, is setting a shield chart. So called because of the shield-like shape of the chart, this charting of geomantic influences distills down assessment of any and all aspects of the querent’s situation into a careful and stable judgement concerning how likely things are to happen, as well as offering advice on what will help and hinder one’s success in such matters.

The geomantic shield chart generally consists of fifteen (or, as we shall see, sixteen) ‘places’, not unlike the places of, say, a classic cartomantic three-card spread. As a sister art to astrology, geomancy of this sort uses the Twelve Houses of the Heavens as the first twelve of a shield chart’s places to assess the various specific moving parts of any given set of circumstances, situations, and conditions. As such, this class will carefully consider what information, perspectives, and insights can be gleaned from assessing the placements of the Sixteen Figures across the Twelve Houses.

This class will also offer some training in the so-called “advanced” techniques of analyzing geomantic shield charts, presenting how to locate and interpret the Via Puncti for considering underlying influencing factors in a reading; as well as setting and understanding the place of the Index of the shield chart for beneficial spiritual foci and the Part of Fortune for grounding the reading’s advice in practical action. Finally, this class will offer some tips and tricks on best phrasing your questions to minimize confusion and maximize helpful clarity in one’s own geomantic divination.

Bio:

This presentation is delivered by Dr Alexander Cummins, himself both a historian of magic and professional geomancer. And so, in this class, we will not only examine the historical practice of this incredibly popular Renaissance system of divination, students new to it will be taught how to consult this most worldly oracle. And even seasoned geomancers should appreciate the shared techniques and tips on exploring geomancy’s spirits and spell-craft!

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

See all the events in the series – Collection: Al Cummins – Geomancy Series

History and Practice of Geomancy 2: The Sixteen Figures – Prof Alexander Cummins

History and Practice of Geomancy 2: The Sixteen Figures

Systems of divination divide the universe and its events between various sets of icons of power and potentiality. The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, the Sixty Four Hexagrams of the I Ching, even the Seventy Eight Cards of the Tarot. The Sixteen Figures of European Renaissance geomancy are no exception.

Geomancy as a system consists of only sixteen figures, each attributed an astrological identity in terms of a ruling planet and a corresponding zodiacal sign. These sixteen figures are combined in specific charts (known as shields) to render very particular answers, often employing the twelvefold Houses of the Heavens to answer specific questions, and locate deeper perspectives in the querent’s life.

But the Sixteen Figures themselves represent not only working lots of fate in geomancy’s engine of divination; the Figures are coherences of differing patterns of possibility and potential, each with their own unique expression and instantiations of events, influences, energies, and spirits.

In this class, contemporary cunning-man and professional geomancer Dr Alexander Cummins will take us an on in-depth exploration and celebration of the practical mysteries of the sixteen figures of European Renaissance geomancy: considering the messages they bring when they show up in readings, particularly considering the blessings and obstacles they can represent, as well as assessing the ways the occult virtues and spirits of these patterns of energy can be actively engaged with and worked in our spiritual and material lives.

Bio:

This presentation is delivered by Dr Alexander Cummins, himself both a historian of magic and professional geomancer. And so, in this class, we will not only examine the historical practice of this incredibly popular Renaissance system of divination, students new to it will be taught how to consult this most worldly oracle. And even seasoned geomancers should appreciate the shared techniques and tips on exploring geomancy’s spirits and spell-craft!

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

See all the events in the series – Collection: Al Cummins – Geomancy Series