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Voodoo In West Africa – Gone With The Wynd Expedition Number V

Join anthropologist Professor Lucciano Riggio, Collector Viktor Wynd & a small group on a trip to the Cradle of Voodoo – Benin & Togo, take part in and watch ceremonies, masquerades & sacrifices, visit shrines, temples and meet priests and a tribal king. Shop in traditional and Fetish Markets.

Highlights

We will attempt to see the Zangbeto Masquerade, where the Guardian of The Night, a tall masked figure possessed by the original pre-human Spirits of the nature and the night, appears spinning, dancing and crawling like a snake to protect the village from evil and dispense justice, we will visit Fetish Shrines, The Python Temple and perhaps see sacrifices and experience divination.   Witness a Egungun Ceremony where the masked Spirits of The Ancestors appear amid much pomp, pageantry, drumming and celebration, Observe The Tem People’s Fire Ceremony where they walk on, touch and eat fire to scare evil away.  We will meet with Vodon priests and Professor Riggio will explain all.  Viktor Wynd will also be actively looking for new wonders for his museum and we will be visiting several markets and looking to buy carvings, Fetishes and other magical objects.

Day 1 – Saturday 14th March – Arrival into Cotonou

Fly into Cotonou Airport, be met and transferred to Hotel Chez Clarisse.  Meet the team and a welcome dinner.

Day 2 – Sunday 15th March Cotonou/Ganvié/Possotomé

Breakfast at the hotel-Assistance for exchanging money and by a local SIM card-Departure to Calavi for a boat excursion to the stilt village of GANVIE- Benin’s Venice where over 20,000 people live on the water, the town was originally founded to protect it’s in habitants from capture by The Fon Tribe  to be sold  as slaves to the Portuguese, as The Fon’s religion prevented them fighting on water.  Back to Calavi and transfer to POSSOTOME’, for lunch before exploring by foot some of the villages on the beautiful LAKE AHEME shores, including the holy wood of OKOME’ and the small market of SEHOMI-Check in at Village Club Ahémé for dinner and the night.

Day 3 – Monday 16th March – Possotomé/Abomey

Breakfast and departure for Abomey – magnificent former capital of The Dahomey kingdom & a visit to the Royal Palace.

In the afternoon/evening we hope to be able to watch an Egungun ceremony – Yoruba Masquerade where ancestral spirits may appear.  Check in at the Hotel Guedevy.

Cerimonia Zangbeto (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

Day 4 Tuesday 17th March – Abomey/Pays Taneka/Natitingou

Breakfast at the hotel, head North to visit the fabled Dankoli Festish Shrine – by repute Africa’s most powerful and a place of pilgrimage for followers the world over & the site of numerous animal sacrifices.  Picnic lunch.  A visit to a Taneka village to meet the King & notables.  Spending the night & dinner  at  Hotel Tata Somba, Natitingou.

Feticheur Somba (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

Day 5 Wednseday 18hth March Natitingou/Somba and Tamberma/Sokodé

-Breakfast at the hotel.  Visit Somba & Tamberna country, stopping of at Koussokoingou to visit the Tata (mud fortress) and the beautiful landscape of the Atakora mountains.  Then crossing the boarder into Togo to visit Nadoba market and hopefully buy some fetishes, visit to Koutammakou village with its fortress like mud houses, guarded by fetishes.  Ending the day at Hotel Central in Sokode and hopefully visit to a Fire Ceremony by the Tem people.

Porto di Elmina (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

Day 6 Thursday 19th March

Sokodé/Atakpamé/Lomé

Breakfast at the hotel, then travelling South to The Grand Marche of Lome for some serious fetish shopping before checking in at Hotel Coco Beach.

Al mercato di Lomé (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

Day 7 Friday 20th March

Lomé/Togoville/Vogan/Grand Popo

-Breakfast at the hotel- Departure to Agbodrafo across LAKE TOGO by boat to visit TOGOVILLE, where we will see many fetish shrines and we will meet a fetish woman (we should be half naked to enter the temple) – Transfer to VOGAN for shopping at the weekly market-picnic lunch on the way-Border crossing into Benin
-Near GRAND POPO we will attempt a ZANGBETO, the Guardian of Night,  spirit ceremony. Check in at Hotel Awale.

Anziani Taneka (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

Day 8 Saturday 21st March

Grand Popo/Ouidah/Cotonou

-Breakfast at the hotel – Transfer to OUIDAH to learn the history of slave trade and see “Door of no return”, see the pythons voodoo temple and the sacred forest – Lunch in a restaurant – Transfer to COTONOU and visit the artisanal market  dinner and transfer to the airport.

Tempio dei pitoni (Foto di Anthony Pappone).jpg

All meals and 3 litres of drinking water per day are included.

All accommodation in double/twin rooms

Single room supplement €200

The Team

Anthropologist Professor Luciano Riggio, from the African Museum of Verona, a specialist in the traditional societies of Benin, Togo, Ghana & The Ivory Coast

Leonardo Francesco Paluzzi,  in charge of Logistics, an Italian resident of Mali  who over many years has guided people across over 23 African Countries, both independently and through his company Kanaga Adventure Tours.

Viktor Wynd, Chancellor of The Last Tuesday Society, author & artist will be collecting items for his eponymous Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & UnNatural History

To Book

–      email [email protected], a 50% deposit will be required to confirm your place, with the balance due by the beginning of February.

–      €2000 – this is an expensive trip as the cost includes not only all transport, accommodation and food on the ground but also access to the various ceremonies.

–      All travellers must have travel insurance

Exclusions

The price does not include – international flights, visas for Benin & Togo, insurance, photo permits, tips, personal expenses, drinks (other than water).

Please note

Even on the best of days things don’t always go to plan. The itinerary shows what we are hoping to do and when, but is subject to change according to conditions on the ground and it may not always be possible or advisable to do everything.  Indeed something more exciting might present itself when we are there.

 Advice

We recommend flying with Air France  via Paris,  leaving London 11:30am on the 14th arriving at 21:30  departing at 23:55 on the 21st returning to London at 8am cost approx. £400

A yellow visa vaccination certificate or exemption is needed.  Please get advise from a healthcare professional about what other vaccinations you will need (your GP’s Surgery will have a dedicated travel nurse).

Visa’s to Benin & Togo must be obtained by travellers before departure

Bring Euros as these can be exchanged everywhere (fixed exchange rate with the CFA), other currencies will need to be exchanged at a bank

Whilst this is a collecting expedition all members are politely requested not to purchase any items containing natural history (monkey skulls etc) as these may be endangered species & very strong laws govern their import and export.  Lets leave them the animals in the jungle where they belong.

Reading

Vodon – Secrecy & The Search for The Divine Power – Timothy R.Landry

VODON – African Voodoo – Fondation Cartier

The Viceroy of Ouidah –  Bruce Chatwin

 

All photos by, and courtesy of Anthony Pappone

The History Of Taxidermy By Dr. Pat Morris, Live On Zoom

This talk will review the history and development of taxidermy as a part of our social and natural history. It will search Europe to find the oldest existing stuffed animals, comment on the use of arsenic and review styles and methods used by the multitude of businesses, small and large, that operated in the 19th and early 20th century. It considers the customers, ranging from huntsmen to bird collectors and householders. A brief comparison is made with developments in American taxidermy. Bad taxidermy is contrasted with how professional taxidermists now strive to attain perfection in this field of artistic endeavour. Lots of different stories, to show that taxidermy has multiple dimensions. People shouldn’t hurry past the next time they see a stuffed animal, but stop and think “Hmm, that’s interesting…”

Licentious Worlds – Sexual Culture In Global Empires – Julie Peakman

Licentious Worlds is a history of sexual attitudes and behaviour through five hundred years of empire-building around the world. In a graphic and sometimes unsettling account, Julie Peakman examines colonization and the imperial experience putting women back in the picture, showing their role in the building of empires, but also how marginalized men and women were almost invariably exploited.

Women acted as negotiators, brothel-keepers, traders and peacekeepers, but they were also oppressed, forced into marriages and raped. The book describes daily life in Turkish harems, Mughal zenanas and Japanese geisha houses, as well as in royal palaces, private households and on board ships. The stories are drawn from many sources – from captains’ logs, missionary reports and cannibals’ memoirs to travellers’ letters, traders’ accounts and reports on prostitution. From debauched clerics and hog-sodomizing Pilgrims to sexually fluid cannibals and homosexual samurai, Licentious Worlds takes history where it has never been before.

 

Dr. Julie Peakman is a historian in eighteenth-century culture and an expert in the history of sexuality, erotica and pornography. She is Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Honorary Fellow at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is a frequent contributor to journals, magazines and television documentaries for BBC, Channel 4 and the Biography Channel. Her books include Licentious Worlds. Sex & Exploitation in Global Empires; Amatory Pleasures, Exploration in Eighteenth-Century Sexual Culture (2016); The Pleasure’s All Mine. A History of Perverse Sex (2013); Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century (2004) and Mighty Lewd Books: The Development of Pornography in Eighteenth-Century England (2003). She has also edited 6 Volumes of A Cultural History of Sexuality (2011); Sexual Perversions 1670-1890 (2009); and 8 Volumes of Whores Biographies, 1700-1825 (2006-7). She is also biographer of Peg Plunkett, Memoirs of a Whore (2014) and Emma Hamilton (2005)

Mark Cocker Master Class On Nature Writing On Zoom

This is a four-hour seminar, split over two days in one week, to explore the techniques of nature writing. It builds on a previous, similar nature-writing course (on 2nd & 8th April), but each 2-part session is entirely free-standing and independent. In these current sessions we will pay special attention to another of the essential parts of all good writing.

Nature is full of stories but how do you choose what to focus upon? How do you order the material to make it engaging, understandable and full of impact. The sessions will look very carefully at fixing your subject and setting the scene. It will look at how the writer creates a relationship with their reader and with their subject matter. Finally it will consider how you choose words to create the deepest emotional connection between those two parts.

This may be an exercise on nature writing, but it has relevance across the genres. All writers draw upon the landscape and the wider environment to create an atmosphere, to illuminate character and to move the narrative along. The class may be online but the aim will be being indoors as much of the outdoors as possible.

Instructor: Mark Cocker is a multi-award winning author and naturalist, whose 12 books include Crow Country, Our Place and Claxton. Over the last four decades he has also published more than 1000 essays on nature in national and international newspapers especially the Guardian.

A Beginner Zoom Course In Conjuring With Oliver Garwood

This Course Will Run over Four Wednesday evenings – the 14th, 21st, and 28th of April and 5th of May from 7:30-9pm. Ticket price is for the full course

Join professional magician, Oliver Garwood, for a beginner’s course in the conjuring arts. Learn the secrets of prestidigitation and legerdemain. No need to buy expensive magic props, everything you need is probably already in a draw at home! Over four 90-minute sessions Oliver will teach you sleight of hand and presentation along with a bit of magical history and probably a story or two, or three. Effects taught will include card tricks, coin vanishing and penetration, rubber band magic and the famous cups & balls trick! If you have ever wanted to be able to amaze and amuse your friends then this is the course for you, or even if you don’t want to do that want to know how the tricks are done then this is still the course for you.

Week One – Card Magic

Types of cards – poker/bridge

Holding and shuffling

Injog/ False Shuffles (card controls)/ Breaks/ Double Lift/ False cut

Simple routine – card between jokers

Forcing – slip force, cross cut (time delay)

Reveals and making a routine (narrative) – ‘moment of magic’

Ambitious card – injog card add, false shuffle, double lift, card in centre final reveal.

Alternatives to cards – business cards, slices of cheese?

Week Two – Impromptu Magic

Betcha’s – fun games to win drinks! 3 glasses, impossible knot

Hunters knot – false knot then routine.

Coin vanish – French drop, retention vanish

Palming coins – classic, finger, Ramsay Subtlety

Pen vanish

Pen & Coin routine

Jumping Rubber Band

Week Three – Parlour Magic

Cups & Balls – history, performance, discussion on cups and ball choices

Paddle Move – knife and dry wipe marker

Grandma’s Necklace – shoe laces and handkerchief

Week Four – Balls and Mentalism

Tissue Paper ball vanish, multiply, ten step routine.

One Ahead Mind Reading Routine

Coin Stack Prediction – multiple out

Equipment Required

Pack of Cards

3 cups

Tin foil

Coins – I will advise on the preceding week what coins and sizes etc.

Handkerchief

Pen and notebook

Rubber band

Knife (not sharp!) – butter knife if possible

Shoelaces (pair of, long as possible)

Cotton thread

Tissues

Viktor Wynd met Oliver a few years ago when he took some lessons and found them wonderful. Oliver Garwood has been a professional entertainer for over 20 years. From managing entertainment in hotels and holiday centres across the UK and abroad he has performed for thousands of enthralled audiences, Oliver was also resident magician at a dedicated magic museum. Oliver has been a keen magician since the age of 8 when received a Paul Daniel’s Magic Set for Christmas, his work in various areas of entertainment has helped hone this skill which he is sharing with you in this beginner’s course in conjuring.

Mark Cocker Master Class On Nature Writing

This is a four-hour seminar, split over two days in one week, to explore some of the techniques of nature writing. We will pay careful attention to language, and also to the power and importance of your initial observations. It is this preliminary work that often determines whether the words you choose will be original, fresh and suggestive.

The other key goal will be to explore how writers select their central theme, create mood and map out the psychological setting and the physical context quickly and in the fewest words. Economy of language is essential, since it is about distilling the essence of a place or season and using a part to evoke the whole scene.

This may be an exercise on nature writing, but it has deep relevance across the genres. All writers draw upon the landscape and the wider environment to create an atmosphere ad to set the scene. The class may be online but we will get as close to the living world as we possibly can.

Instructor: Mark Cocker is a multi-award winning author and naturalist, whose 12 books include Crow Country, Our Place and Claxton. Over the last four decades he has also published more than 1000 essays on nature in national and international newspapers especially the Guardian.

In The Realm Of The Dark Rabbit: A Comic Lecture By David Bramwell

“A nude horse is a rude horse” ran the US campaign slogan for The Society for Indecency to Naked Animals in 1959. The group even picketed the White House, demanding that the Kennedys cover their horse’s private parts with trousers. For its founder, Alan Abel, the society was one of innumerable high-profile pranks at the expense of the media. A few years later he even convinced the media that his 83 year-old grandmother, Yetta Bronstein, was running for president, with policies that included ‘compulsory national bingo and mink coats for all’.

Abel was a classic trickster, the archetypal peddler of mischief whose cunning, deceit and mischief can be found in every culture across the globe.

Whether it’s Sascha Baron Cohen as Ali G, Bugs Bunny, Pussy Riot, Bart Simpson or even – arguably – Donald Trump, tricksters take the role of rule-breakers, subversives and catalysts for change. From email fraudsters to the antics of Banksy, they can confound and delight in equal measure. They are the gremlins in the works. What drives some people to con, deceive and pull pranks and hoaxes, often at considerable risk?

In this funny and fascinating talk, Dr Bramwell unveils the strange and mercurial world of the trickster, from archetypes of Wile E Coyote to real-life examples such as as Chris Morris, Bonsai Kittens and Boatie McBoatface.

But while tricksters change culture, is culture changing our relationship with the trickster? In our digital age has the trickster risen to become a new driving force in politics, culture and social networking? There are even new religions with trickster gods as their figureheads and using meme magic to spread political chaos. Are we living in a ‘golden age’ of trickery or a time in which unprecedented levels of deceit and cunning leave many of us wishing we could put the rabbit back into the hat?

Speaker: David Bramwell is a British writer, musician, performer and broadcaster. For BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, he has made programmes on diverse subjects, including Ivor Cutler, clapping, time travel, and the murmurations of starlings. He is the founder and host of Brighton’s legendary spoken word night, the Catalyst Club.

These are extraordinary times and the plague has hit some harder than others, tickets are by donation – if you possibly can £10 is much appreciated, but £2 is also much appreciated. Thank you for your support.

Introduction To Rune Magic/runic Sorcery – David Lee

Introduction to Rune Magic / Runic Sorcery

Two Day Workshop

Day One Saturday 3rd April 6-8pm

Day Two Saturday 10th April 6-8pm

(tickets are for both events)

What are runes?

How do we use them for spellcasting?

How can we tell if a rune in a reading is positive or negative?

Learn the basics of the Elder Futhark so you can makes spells for anything you wish – prosperity, health, security, inspiration, success, justice, concealment, communication and more – and that’s just the start!

You’ll create your own set of rune-cards and learn how to do divination with them. You’ll learn how to sing rune-galdor, how to create bindrunes, and you’ll put these practices together to make your own runic spells.

Dave Lee is a magician, breathwork coach and writer. He has spent over four decades exploring consciousness and changing realities, using techniques that include meditation, magick, psychedelics and energy work. He is a leading light in the Chaos Magic organization the Illuminates Of Thanateros and a Master of Rune-Lore in the Rune-Gild.

His books include the ground-breaking Life-Force: Sensed Energy in Breathwork, Psychedelia and Chaos Magic