Subversive Studies

Heeding the call of the personal daimon. An announcement regarding a transition with the podcast! This is a short solo episode.

A discussion with Dr. Manon Hedenborg White about the goddess Babalon, key women figures in the occult tradition of Thelema, challenging hegemonic notions of femininity, feminine sexuality, the link between sexual liberation and the larger goals of social, political, or psychological liberation, contemporary interpretations of Babalon that question binary and biologistic conceptions of gender, and many of the historical figures that have been influential in bringing forth this Babalon discourse into our contemporary world, such as Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons, and Kenneth Grant.

Dr. Manon Hedenborg White is a postdoctoral research fellow at Södertörn University and Guest researcher at the Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP), University of Amsterdam. Her areas of interest include contemporary Occultism, Western Esotericism, gender and sexuality. Dr. Hedenborg White’s forthcoming book: "The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism" is due later this year from Oxford University Press (link to pre-order below!). She is the author of a chapter entitled "The Other Woman: Babalon and the Scarlet Woman in Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies" in the recently published "Servants of the Star & the Snake: Essays in Honour of Kenneth & Steffi Grant" (edited by Henrik Bogdan and published by Starfire).

Links:

Pre-order "The Eloquent Blood" https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-eloquent-blood/manon-hedenborg-white//9780190065027

Thelemic Women's HIstory Project Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/thelemicwomenshistory/

Thelemic Women's HIstory Instagram: @thelemicwomenshistory

Dr. Hedenborg White's Academia page: http://sh.academia.edu/ManonHedenborgWhite

Miscellaneous Babalon resources:

The Red Goddess by Peter Grey - https://scarletimprint.com/publications/the-red-goddess

Babalon, an album by Knifesex - https://knifesex.bandcamp.com/album/babalon

Rune Soup, "Talking Babalon" with Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey - https://runesoup.com/2016/06/talking-babalon-with-scarlet-imprint-episode-26/

Jeremy D Johnson, MA is an author, editor, integral scholar, teacher and lecturer. We discuss his new book, Seeing Through the World: Jean Gebser and Integral Consciousness, from Revelore Press, exploring Gebser's theories of consciousness, animism, ontology, Deleuze and Guattari, and much more.

He has worked as a staff editor for Reality Sandwich magazine, and contributed to publications such as OMNI, Disinfo, Evolve and Ascend, Conscious Lifestyle Magazine, and Evolve Magazine. Jeremy is the founder of Nura Learning, a conscious media learning platform, and editor—Curator of Philosophies—at Revelore Press.

Fascinated by the intersections of new media, integral philosophy, depth psychology, and cultural studies, he received his MA from Goddard College in Consciousness Studies. Jeremy is the current president of the International Jean Gebser Society, an academic society that hosts annual conferences and aims to further integral pedagogy. Jeremy is also editor for the forthcoming Revelore Press anthology, Mutations: Art, Consciousness, and the Anthropocene from Revelore Press. In late 2018, Jeremy launched the MUTATIONS podcast, a show inspired by the forthcoming Revelore anthology, featuring conversations that explore consciousness, culture, and architecting a better, planetary future.

LINKS to Jeremy's work:

http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/

https://anchor.fm/mutations

https://www.nuralearning.com/

https://revelore.press

I'm joined by Dr. Jason Josephson-Storm, chair of the Department of Religion at Williams College, to discuss his book, The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. In it, he writes, "The most familiar story in the history of science is disenchantment - magic's exit from the henceforth law-governed world." In a thorough examination of science, philosophy, critical theory, and their connections with magic, Jason argues that this notion of disenchantment is in fact a myth. Along the way we discuss anti-disciplinarity, critiques of overspecialization, complexity, how to be vulnerable as an academic, how we were never modern or postmodern, Nagarjuna and emptiness in Buddhist philosophy, and the future of theory after postmodernism.

Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe

Music by Poddington Bear

Eric G. Wilson and I explore themes of melancholy and madness, the value of artistic ambiguity, finding your voice as a writer and person, William Blake and David Lynch, longing, dark nights of the soul, Gnosticism, letting go of trying to find meaning, and vulnerability and the complexities of masculinity while discussing his new book Polaris Ghost, a "fascinating hybrid rising from a mix of memoir, journalism, scholarship, and cultural analysis."

Eric G. Wilson is Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University, where he teaches British and American Romanticism as well as Creative Writing. He is author of several books of creative nonfiction: Keep It Fake, Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck, Against Happiness, and The Mercy of Eternity: A Memoir of Depression and Grace. Wilson has also published a creative writing handbook, My Business Is To Create: Blake's Infinite Writing. His scholarly books include The Strange World of David Lynch, Secret Cinema, The Melancholy Android, Coleridge's Melancholia, and The Spiritual History of Ice. His essays have appeared in The Virginia Quarterly Review, The Georgia Review, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Oxford American, The Southern Humanities Review, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and Our State.

*Links*

http://www.ericgwilson.net/

Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe

Theme music by Poddington Bear

Have you ever thought about the fact that you put a series of symbols on a piece of paper or a screen, share it with others, and directly transmit messages and ideas that can change their consciousness? It's called writing and I say it's actual magic - and I'm not alone! This solo episode is a brief exploration of the links between writing and magic from both a historical and practical perspective, including how we understand art, the imaginal, magic, and scholarship.

Works mentioned:

JF Martel, Reclaiming Art in the Age of Artifice: http://www.reclaimingart.com/

Iain McGilchrist: The Master and His Emissary https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain

Gary Lachman: The Secret Teachers of the Western World https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/314994/the-secret-teachers-of-the-western-world-by-gary-lachman/9780399166808/

Mitch Horowitz article "Is Your Imagination God?" https://medium.com/s/real-magic/is-your-imagination-god-b55dc78e93bb

Related episodes:

An Introduction to Creative Inquiry: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/ci-podcast-episode-one

Alfonso Montuori - Complexity, Improvisation, and Learning: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-2-alfonso-montuori

Shah Hussein - Creative Inquiry as Magic: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-6-shah-hussein-creative-inquiry-as-magic

Eric Peterson - Ecological Consciousness, Animism, and Story: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/episode-14-eric-peterson-ecological-consciousness-animism-and-story

JF Martel - Art Unearths What Normality Buries: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/art-unearths-jf-martel

Angela Voss - A Methodology of the Imagination: https://soundcloud.com/subversivestudies/angela-voss-methodology-imagination

Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe

Theme music by Poddington Bear

Writing as an Act of Magic material copyright © 2019 Dan Glenn

Dr. Angela Voss and I discuss “A Methodology of the Imagination,” transformative learning, magical and divinatory ways of knowing, balancing the rational and the intuitive, scholarship as initiation, the personal daimon and the daimonic, and Marsilio Ficino’s astrological music therapy.

Dr. Angela Voss is Programme Director for the MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University. Previously she was the Director of the MA in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination at Kent. As a graduate student, she was introduced to the writing of the Renaissance philosopher, musician and astrologer, Marsilio Ficino, and became thoroughly immersed in the world of 15th-17th century music and philosophy, then decided to embark on a PhD to explore Ficino’s astrological music therapy - her dissertation was titled: 'Music, Astrology and Magic: the astrological music therapy of Marsilio Ficino and his role as a Renaissance Magus’. She has published numerous papers on Ficino, as well as an edited collection of his astrological writings for North Atlantic Books, Western Esoteric Masters series, and is the author and editor of several other books, including Seeing with Different Eyes: Essays on Astrology and Divination, The Imaginal Cosmos: Astrology, Divination, and the Sacred, Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, and Re-enchanting the Academy. Angela is now moving deeper into the territory of symbolism and the imaginal, exploring statue-magic, the spiritual dimensions of music, and past-life therapy, ancient Greek mysteries and the metaphysics of divination. She is engaged in creating a framework for the MA within Transformative Learning, linking esoteric and wisdom traditions with soul-work and consciousness raising within the academy.

-- Notes --

Dr. Voss on Academia - http://canterbury.academia.edu/AngelaVoss

Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred MA - https://www.canterbury.ac.uk/study-here/courses/postgraduate/myth-cosmology-and-the-sacred-19-20.aspx

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Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe

Music by Poddington Bear

Dr. Vanessa Sinclair and I explore psychoanalysis, society, the unconscious, sexuality and its subversive power, identity, the cut-up method, creativity, art, magic, and more.

Dr. Vanessa Sinclair is a psychoanalyst in independent practice who sees patients internationally, specializing in online and remote treatment. A founding member of Das Unbehagen: A Free Association for Psychoanalysis, Dr. Sinclair facilitates events and conferences internationally, including Civilization and its Bliss-contents: On Violence and Psychoanalysis, NYC 2015, with Manya Steinkoler, which has evolved into a book forthcoming from Routledge On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (2019), and Psychoanalysis, Art & the Occult, London 2016, co-hosted with Carl Abrahamsson. Collected papers from this conference were published as a special edition of The Fenris Wolf, volume 9 (2017) available from Trapart Books. Dr. Sinclair hosts Rendering Unconscious podcast and is currently editing a collection of psychoanalytic writing and poetry under the same name (Trapart, 2019). She authored a book of cut-up poetry Switching Mirrors Trapart, 2016), and her book Scansion in Psychoanalysis and Art: The Cut in Creation is forthcoming from Routledge (2020). Together with artist Katelan Foisy, she explores the creative potential inherent in the cut-up method. A book of their work Chaos of the Third Mind is upcoming from Fulgur Ltd (2020).

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http://www.drvanessasinclair.net/

Vanessa Sinclair & Carl Abrahamsson's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl

Chaos of the Third Mind (cut-up art w/Katelan Foisy): https://chaosofthethirdmind.com/

Books: http://www.drvanessasinclair.net/books/

Rendering Unconscious Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/highbrowlowlife

Psychoanalysis, Art, and the Occult interview with Gordon White (Rune Soup) https://runesoup.com/2016/04/psychoanalysis-art-and-the-occult-video/

Vanessa on Leosaysays Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNiiMvdhNV4

Fenris Wolf 9 (Papers from the Psychoanalysis, Art, and the Occult Conference) https://www.carlabrahamsson.com/tag/the-fenris-wolf-9/

We discuss ancestor work and its particular significance for queer, trans, and "gender blessed" folks, sexual liberation, sexual trauma, the intersection of sex, magick, and science, and more.

Pavini Moray (pronoun: Pe) is a somatic sex therapist and ancestral lineage healing practitioner in private practice in San Francisco, mainly working with queer and trans clients who have experience sexual trauma. Pavini hosts a podcast called “Bespoken Bones: Ancestors at the crossroads of sex, magick, and science” inspired by pe’s dissertation interview research. The podcast addresses topics of transgenerational trauma, erotic wellness, and ancestral support.

Pavini is also a Certified Sexological Bodyworker, a Certified Ancestral Lineage Healing practitioner and teacher, and teaches a variety of public workshops and classes relating to these same topics. Pavini is published in the recent Queer Magick anthology, and is the author of “Putting the Edge in Education: An anarchist cookbook for teachers” and “Free Your Sex: Your toolkit for erotic liberation.” Pavini also wrote and produced a short erotic film called “Holy MILF: A queer, eco-sexual ritual film” that headlined at the San Francisco Sex Worker Art and Film Festival in 2015. As a queer trans witch, Pavini walks the glitter path of dancing bones, ridiculous delight and old magick.

Links to Pavini's work:

www.emancipating-sexuality.com

www.bespokenbones.com

Podcast cover art by Jeff Wolfe

Ted Hand and I explore the worlds of the science fiction writer Philip K. Dick and the relationship of his work to Gnosticism, alchemy, Renaissance magic, late capitalism, and power structures. We discuss questions of reality, madness, and a new wave of scholar/practitioners in esoteric studies who are blazing new terrain, bridging personal experience and scholarship.

Ted Hand is a scholar of Philip K. Dick and Western esotericism, including Renaissance magic, alchemy, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and more. He is a teacher by trade, and did his undergraduate studies at UC Davis and graduate studies at Graduate Theological Union at UC Berkeley. Ted is currently working on creating a Philip K. Dick tarot deck.

---Notes---

Ted’s blogs and social media:

http://pkdreligion.blogspot.com/

http://alchemicaldiagrams.blogspot.com/

facebook.com/pkdtarot

Twitter @t3dy

Instagram @t3dyhand

Other works mentioned:

http://bostonreview.net/literature-culture/henry-farrell-philip-k-dick-and-fake-humans

https://urbigenous.net/library/how_to_build.html

TechGnosis by Erik Davis

The Super Natural by Jeffrey Kripal and Whitley Strieber

Ted on Occult Sentinel Podcast:

https://occultsentinel.com/2012/10/17/os-ep-38-ted-hand-entering-the-world-of-philip-k-dick/

https://occultsentinel.com/2013/09/11/ted-hand-2/

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Cover art/logo design by Jeff Wolfe

Theme music: A1 Rogue by Poddington Bear