Peter Rollins - The Archive

One of the greatest comedic characters to come out of the UK in recent years is undoubtably David Brent. Created and performed by Ricky Gervas, Brent is a pitiful character; constantly hiding from his self-loathing by unsuccessfully trying to play the part of a successful, funny, attractive and popular Renaissance Man.

In the figure of Brent, Gervas has been able to create a character who manifestly wrestles with repression, neurotic symptoms, and eruptions of the unconscious. However, while the character is largely comic, there is a tragic element to him that is fleshed out at the end of The Office and at the conclusion of the movie David Brent: Life on the Road.

In this Pyro-seminar, I’ll be using Brent as an example of the universal struggle that is human existence. Not only that, but I’ll be showing how Brent can show us how to bear the weight of that struggle and find a depth of meaning.

With the help of Brent, I'll attempt to delineate the type of freedom that a pyrotheological community offers.

In this short reflection I look at the pleasure we can get from self-sabotage, and how we might sabotage our self-sabotage.

In this seminar from 2014, Peter explores how the categories of Idiot, Imbecile and Moron can give us insight into different ways of engaging with the social order, and touches on the theological significance of this in relation to the theme of conversion

This is an interview from December 2014 that Peter did with Pete Holmes. The cover ghosts, suffering, loss and love.

This is a talk I gave at my Wake festival in Belfast. Here I look at idolatry and its relationship to both fantasy and self-sabotage. For more information about Wake 2019, visit my website.

This is the introductory talk from Wake 2018. In it I talk about how Pyrotheology relates to the notion of Lack. It deals with some of the material I wanted to cover, but I never got to the theme of Idolatry that was my original aim, so I'll cover that at a later date. I also thought I'd give you a little taste of Adam at the beginning (the friend who I run Wake with).

What if the problem with meditation as it's mostly practiced in contemporary society, isn't that it doesn't work, but that it does. That it helps us to integrate more seamlessly into our world, minimizing our discontent, rather than helping us mobilize and enjoy our discontent.

This is an early Pyro-seminar that explores the relation between pyrotheology and atheism. For lots more seminars, sign up at pyrotheology.com

This was the first ever pyroseminar, from 2016. In it Peter explores the idea of the absurd and religionless Christianity. For over 30 hours of pyroseminars (video and audio), become a Flame at pyrotheology.com.

This facebook live reflections on Rudolf Otto's notion of the Holy and connects it with the Freudian unconscious