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Introduction to Tarot Workshop with Melissa Mercury

This workshop is the perfect introduction for anyone interested in learning more about tarot in a fun and relaxed environment. Join Melissa Mercury as she invites you to start your journey with the cards. You don’t need to be ‘psychic’ or have any experience to join, just an open mind. All you need to bring is yourself, notebook and pen, and a tarot deck (preferably the Rider Waite Smith Deck or one similar). There will be the option to purchase a deck on the night if you would like one.

This workshop includes:
+ A brief history of tarot
+ Meanings of the Major Arcana – the first and most famous 22 cards in the deck
+ Guided meditation
+ 3 card tarot spreads – the opportunity to get hands on and practise your skills with supervision and guidance from Melissa
+ Downloadable PDF with the card meanings and spreads

Also included with your tickets:
+ A glass of Devil’s Botany Chocolate Absinthe Liqueur
+ Admission to the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities

About Melissa Mercury, owner of Mercury Tarot:
Melissa qualified in Tarot at London School of Astrology in 2016 and has been reading the cards professionally ever since. She has read for over 10,000 people and been a guest on the Love Island and Paranormal Activity podcasts. In 2024 she appeared on stage with Gail Porter at Paranormal Activity Live to discuss the history of tarot and offer guests a live reading.

Melissa uses tarot as a tool to guide and support people looking for clarity in areas such as love, work and mental health. Tarot can provide clarity, confidence and a safe space to discuss difficult subjects.

Devil’s Botany is the UK’s first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour & Cocktail Bar. Celebrating spirit’s connection to art, literature, magic & mixology, Devil’s Botany is unleashing the future of absinthe with bold expressions for the adventurous drinkers of today.

Wicked Wednesdays: Tarot Reading with Melissa Mercury + Devil’s Botany

Glimpse into what your future holds with an individual tarot reading with Melissa Mercury at The Last Tuesday Society. Guests will be invited to order a Devil’s Botany Absinthe cocktail to sip on while embarking on a 15 minute private tarot reading.

To reserve a table for drinks in The Absinthe Parlour, book via: https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/absinthe-parlour/reservations/

Individual tarot readings will last roughly 15 minutes.

Event is for over 18s only.

MELISSA MERCURY

Melissa qualified in Tarot at London School of Astrology in 2016 and has been reading the cards professionally ever since. She has read for over 10,000 people and been a guest on the Love Island and Paranormal Activity podcasts. In 2024 she appeared on stage with Gail Porter at Paranormal Activity Live to discuss the history of tarot and offer guests a live reading.

THE ABSINTHE PARLOUR

A drinker’s cabinet of wonder filled with unusual spirits, from the old world and new, together in one curious exhibition of extraordinary elixirs. Allow each round to provide you with a passage to the furthest corners of the world, transported to an experience outside the boundaries of time. Seek and you shall find: hidden here are explorations of alchemy & magick, pleasure & fantasy, celebrating the point at which curiosity unlocks a world unknown.

The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour is truly a hidden treasure of East London.

Shortlisted “Bar of the Year 2024” – The Spirits Business 2024
Absinthe Menu Shortlisted “Specialist List of the Year” – Imbibe 2020
Voted “Best Bar in London” – DesignMyNight Awards 2019

Wicked Wednesdays: Tarot Reading with Melissa Mercury + Devil’s Botany

To reserve a table for drinks in The Absinthe Parlour, book via: https://www.thelasttuesdaysociety.org/absinthe-parlour/reservations/

Individual tarot readings will last roughly 15 minutes.

Event is for over 18s only.

MELISSA MERCURY

THE ABSINTHE PARLOUR

The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour is truly a hidden treasure of East London.

The Field Guide to DMT Entities – David Jay Brown – Zoom

Mapping the Beings of Hyperspace: A Guided Exploration

Join psychedelic explorer and consciousness researcher David Jay Brown, author of The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities, for a fascinating and interactive journey into the mysterious realms of psychedelic hyperspace. In this unique presentation for London’s Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History—a haven for the wondrous, the arcane, and the otherworldly—David will discuss his groundbreaking work in developing a taxonomy of otherworldly intelligences encountered during DMT experiences.

Reports from psychonauts suggest that the DMT dimension is populated by a bewildering array of advanced, autonomous beings—entities that appear intelligent, communicative, and at times even more real than everyday reality. As the boundaries of consciousness expand, so too does the need to map the terrain and catalog the inhabitants of this interdimensional ecosystem.

From the trickster jesters and self-transforming machine elves to the mantis and octopoid healers, reptilian time-lords, and classic Grey aliens, David will introduce you to the most commonly encountered DMT entities, drawing from decades of research, firsthand accounts, and his own experiences. This talk invites participants to consider the profound implications of these encounters—whether they are aspects of the psyche, independent intelligences, or emissaries from parallel realities.

Don’t miss this thought-provoking discussion that blends science

[Image by Sarah Phinn Huntley]

Speaker Bio

David Jay Brown is the author of 19 books on the evolution of consciousness, including Dreaming Wide Awake, The New Science of Psychedelics, and The Illustrated Field Guide to DMT Entities. He holds a master’s degree in psychobiology from New York University and has spent over three decades investigating altered states, transpersonal phenomena, and the frontier science of consciousness.

Speaker Bio

Sara Phinn Huntley is an artist, writer, and researcher who has spent two decades exploring the convergence of psychedelics, technology, and philosophy. As a DMT psychonaut and hyperspace cartographer, she’s pioneering the use of VR technology to investigate visual and spatial imagination in real-time.Her multidisciplinary work documents psychedelic states through an innovative blend of mediums exploring chaos mathematics, geometry, and performance, creating what she calls a “cargo cult effect of higher dimensional artifacts.” Her research has been published by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies and featured in notable works including Diana Reed Slattery’s “Xenolinguistics”and “The Illustrated Field to the DMT Entities” with David Jay Brown.

Curated and hosted by

Maya Bracknell Watson is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, retired cult leader and psychedelic researcher.

Her background is in psychedelic parapsychology research with Greenwich University, specialising in exceptional human experience and entity encounters on psychedelics, and as an artist. She has studied shamanism for 10 years, working closely with Amerindian indigenous shamanic cultures of Mexico and Peru and western neoshamanic groups, focusing on the introduction and integration of indiginous and animistic knowledge and perspectives to westerners and western ontologies.

She publicly lectures on the subjects of psychedelics and shamanism, and produces art on the subjects informed by her research and experience, including films, performances, writing and immersive worlds. She has performed and exhibited at the Tate Britain and Breaking Convention and is the creator and host of Psychedelicacies, an online lecture series.

Walking between the worlds of art, psychedelic science and shamanism she works to bridge them and uses each as investigatory tools to inform and articulate each other.

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

Mythical Mothers, Monsters, and Mesopotamia – Dr Louise Pryke – Zoom

Mythical Mothers, Monsters, and Mesopotamia

Despite the antiquity of the topic, motherhood in Mesopotamia has received little attention in modern scholarship. Yet mothers are extremely important cultural figures throughout many periods, with numerous heroes of Mesopotamian epic depicted having close connections to their mothers. Maternal figures often play a pivotal role in myths, and historical kings as well as legendary ones are shown to value their mother’s guiding wisdom. In this talk, we consider the connection of motherhood, wisdom, and protection in Mesopotamia, and discover that even quasi-divine heroes who cut pathways through mountains and battle giant monsters cannot succeed without the support and wisdom of their mothers.

Bio

Dr Louise M. Pryke is a research associate at the University of Sydney. She is the author of several books including Ishtar (2017), Gilgamesh (2019), and Wind (2023).

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.

Image: Plaque with face of the demon Humbaba, Babylon, c. 2000-1600 BCE. The Met. Public Domain.

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

Cholera in Victorian England: Medicine, Myths, and Modernity – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

Cholera in Victorian England: Medicine, Myths, and Modernity

Step into the 19th century and explore the devastating impact of cholera on Victorian England. Learn how this deadly disease swept through crowded cities, challenging public health systems and sparking fear across all classes of society. Discover the evolving understanding of disease transmission, from miasma theory to the groundbreaking work of pioneers like John Snow, whose mapping of outbreaks paved the way for modern epidemiology.

Through vivid historical accounts, we will delve into the era’s social and medical responses, including sanitation reform, quarantine measures, and curious remedies like “cholera belts” and aromatic pouches. This lecture examines how cholera shaped public health policies and attitudes toward urban living, leaving a legacy that resonates to this day. Join us to uncover the interplay between science, society, and the human will to overcome epidemic crises in a rapidly industrializing world.

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

Dark Fairy Tales From Around The World, with Viktor Wynd – LIVE

Please note this is NOT a ZOOM Lecture but an in person lecture at our museum – tickets include a complimentary glass of Devil’s Botany Absinthe

Doors open at 6:00pm and lecture starts at 6.30pm

Dark Fairy Tales From Around The World with Viktor Wynd – LIVE

Join master storyteller Viktor Wynd in the heart of the fairy tale world of his museum for a complimentary glass of Devil’s Botany Absinthe and listen to him telling tales. Be warned these are not the Ladybird or Disney versions and may not be suitable for the tenderist ears.

This evening Mr. Wynd will tells some his favourite tales heard around the world, from nasty Germans chopping up people and eating them to disgusting, macabre and delightful tales from Borneo, learn of the birth of the leeches, the reason mosquitos are always buzzing human ears, why it is best not to suckle caterpillars – or indeed strange babies and something about bedbugs that might give you nightmares. Giant Octopuses, man eating pigs and a buried moon from Papua New Guinea, or possibly shapeshifting magickal creatures from Wales – the world will be your oyster.

Viktor Wynd, proprietor of London’s eponymous (nay infamous) Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History has spent the last twenty five years telling stories to audiences across the globe. Fascinated by traditional fairy tales his repertoire includes tales from The Brothers Grimm, The Arabian Nights, Scandinavia, Russia, Italy, France, Ireland, Africa, Papua New Guinea & North America – so far.

We are unable to give refunds for in person events with less than seven days notice in any circumstances

Devil’s Botany is London’s first absinthe distillery, founded by Directors of The Last Tuesday Society’s Absinthe Parlour & Cocktail Bar.

If you would like to purchase a copy of his new book or from the museum or a signed copy from our e-shop

London Magical Moon Pilgrimage – Parsifal David Solomon – London – LIVE

Walking the Thames Serpent Dream Bridge

With our brave, wild, beautiful imaginations, the grief and laughter of our bodies, the attention of our hearts and desire of our dreams

A small and merry band of pilgrims will join in a ritual journey of visionary geography and psychomagic

Walking with purpose and freedom as a powerful act of creation, change, and healing

All through the long night of the dark moon, along the river Thames, between Lambeth Palace and the Tower of London, crossing every bridge, to make the shape of a giant serpent’s wiggle

Through the collective dream of London

(what actually is it?)

and its many meanings, and how it relates to reality

to liberate the vast wealth buried here

which belongs to the earth, to everyone, to the children of the future

to liberate the life force, soul, imagination

with play, myth, metaphor, silence, poetry, song, sound, shape, movement, make-believe, breath, sacrifice, pareidolia, foolishness, soul, spirit, nonsense, and other ritual technologies of attention and prayer

paying particular attention to the land beneath us and the river beside us, and what they want of us

honouring the land and the river as beautiful powerful beings

what has been hidden in the depths, what is hard to see up here on the crackly surface

dancing luminous songlines

in the personal and the collective

how lightly can we walk upon the earth

and what wants your attention?

PRACTICAL DETAILS:

You are invited to participate in a rite. This is not a guided tour or history walk. Participation requires just your presence and attention. Some advance preparation can help deepen it but is not compulsory – a willing attitude is enough.

The ceremony will last all night until around dawn. The end time is an estimate. Once the walk ends you are free to find your own way onwards, but if you are in any way concerned about eg walking alone at that time of the morning, then we can chat about this and find a way to help).

You need to be fit enough to walk 5 miles at a moderate pace, on the hard stones. We will be walking quite slowly and stopping often.

Numbers are very limited, to maintain the focus of the group. Once you have booked I will be in touch to assist in preparations.

We will be in touch with further details, guidance, preparation, etc. once you book

BIO:

Parsifal Solomon was born in London. At age 3, in his first dream, he fell into the Thames. He has been practising forms of walking as a healing art for at least 15 years, has held many ceremonies, in many forms, bringing together many different traditions, techniques, and ideas, always with the wild weird imagination of the creative life force at the heart.

As performer and organiser (and known as David Piper), he cut his teeth finding ways to create novel, exciting, reality-expanding experiences for people in London nightlife: he co-founded The Last Tuesday Society, performed in Dreams That Money Can Buy and Propaganda For The State Of Love, starred in Prayer Cushions of The Flesh, and ran the infamous Rakehells Revels at The Cafe Royal, and The Modern Times Club.

Please Note This Event is entirely Run and Operated by Parsifal Solomon – though highly recommended by Us – you might even see us there!

Mummified cats & other concealed ritual objects– Wayne Perkins – Zoom

Deliberately Concealed Objects & Ritual Deposits in Ancient Buildings

The phenomenon of old leather shoes and boots being deliberately concealed up the chimney, large caches of worn-out clothes and objects discovered within the voids of old buildings, along with mummified cats found between the walls are a range of attested practices acknowledged by archaeologists.

It is now understood that the objects had been inserted by the inhabitants who believed that they were going to act as a prophylactic (a measure taken to fend off disease and general pestilence), bring good luck to the inhabitants, ward off the evil eye or, in some cases, avert the attentions of the witch’s familiar.

It would seem that secrecy and non-disclosure of the concealment had been crucial to their potency.

Speaker Bio

Wayne Perkins is an archaeologist of 23 years with a special interest in apotropaic graffiti, folklore and concealed objects recovered from ancient buildings.

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

The Werewolf of Hull – Deborah Hyde – Zoom

Was a werewolf really loping around Hull’s Barmston Drain in 2016? Folklorist Deborah Hyde investigates this modern manbeast mystery

In 2016, a peculiar story hit local headlines – a werewolf was loping around Barmston drain, an eighteenth century canal in Hull. Such tabloid gold couldn’t stay local for long and national newspapers amplified the reports to the point that international publications like the Huffington Post repeated them. Rock start Alice Cooper even commented on social media. But what lay behind the sensational spin? How many eye-witnesses were there and what did they really say? The Hull Werewolf’s context – both folkloric and contemporary – is rewarding to examine, to illuminate the content and transmission of this popular twenty-first century cryptid tale.

Bio

Deborah Hyde writes and broadcasts about religion and dark folklore. She regularly appears as a contributing expert on the top BBC podcast Uncanny and she edited The Skeptic magazine for ten years.

The illustration is of the Beast of Gevaudan, a comparatively late (1764-1767) werewolf case from France.

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