Dave Evans

Just received this in the email this morning from Mandrake. Very sad news.

Dear All

In case you've not already heard, the founder(?) of this list [Society for the Academic Study of Magic] and the one time journal JSM just died after a long journey with illness,

here's a post from Al Cummings:

"Today I found out that a good friend of mine - the teacher, writer, and magician, Dave Evans - has died.

Dave had been terminal for some time - something he seems to have kept from the vast majority of people who knew him, myself included. Faced with a choice of debilitating treatments with slim chance of helping in a hospital bed, or going on a massive adventure round the world seeing beautiful natural wonders, Dave understandably chose the latter.

I met Dave when I first moved to Bristol. A former student of my supervisor - not to mention himself an academic and an occultist - Dave was an incredibly supportive friend to me. He leant me books, introduced me to other lovely fascinating people, put me up on academic email lists, cooked some amazing curries, and shared some brilliant stories. He helped me publish one of my first articles.

Dave was a passionate, funny, independent, and kind person. He was a good man.

I will be very, very sorry not to hear from him again, but I am very pleased to have known him, and glad he left on his own terms happy with his decisions.

Eleutheria and all that. Free at last.

Take care, mate. xxx

---

You can read an interview with Dave here  http://ethandoylewhite.blogspot.de/2012/12/an-interview-with-dr-dave-evans.html

Edges of Freemasonry Conference

Call for Papers:

*EDGES OF FREEMASONRY -- WESTERN ESOTERICISM AND THE ENLIGHTENMENT*

7--8 September, 2012, University of Tampere, Finland -- www.edges.fi

The School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Tampere is organizing an international conference on Freemasonry, Western Esotericism and the development of the Enlightenment ideas. The conference is organized in association with the Research Lodge Minerva No. 27 of The Grand Lodge of F. & A. M. of Finland. The themes focus on historical developments, although other aspects will also be presented.

The conference is a two-day event open to scholars, postgraduate students and students, likewise to the members of masonic lodges and the public. The conference language is English.

The keynote speakers of the symposium are Professor Ronald Hutton (University of Bristol, U.K.), Dr. Róbert Péter (University of Szeged, Hungary), Dr. Henrik Bogdan (University of Gothenburg, Sweden) and Mr. Antti Talvitie, Architect MSc. (Seinäjoki, Finland).

Freemasonry is among the most widespread spiritual communities and has had a significant role in diverse ideological currents often named western esotericism. Freemasonry, which is at least 300 years old, is firmly rooted in the tradition of the Enlightenment.

Western esotericism and freemasonry have increasingly attracted attention from academic research. As a unique yet also controversial phenomenon freemasonry provides a dynamic standpoint for the study of western cultural and intellectual life which from this point of view has been much neglected.

The key themes are:

1 The historical constitution of freemasonry

2 The connections between western esotericism and the development of modern science

3 Symbols as cultural artefacts and transmission objects between the personal and the transcendence

4 Extending the rational: rites, intuition and religious experience in western subjectivity

The conference board welcomes all scholarly presentations, also from postgraduates, related to the themes or concepts of the Enlightenment, freemasonry, esotericism or the occult.

The organizers hope that proposals for the general sessions will be sent not later than November 31, 2011. Speakers are asked to supply their contact information, the title of the presentation and a short abstract (400---600 words). Proposals for other sessions can also be sent later. The abstract should preferably be sent via email to the conference secretary Mr. Antti Harmainen (papers@edges.fi and to conference secretary Ms. Katariina Lehto (papers@symposium.fi).

For registration and details of the conference, please see www.edges.fi. For further information please do not hesitate to contact the secretaries or Professor Risto Harisalo (risto.harisalo@uta.fi ) and Dr. Marko Nenonen (marko.nenonen@uta.fi ), +358 40 577 9737.

Harry Potter and Witchcraft

Satanist to some, saint to others, why have the religious reactions to Harry Potter been so contradictory?

Plus, just how do you make a Horcrux?

New pages on the website exploring my recent work on Harry Potter from fundamentalism to the concept of the external soul. Read it all here http://www.witchology.com/contents/harrypotter/articles.php

Magic, Witches and Parapsychology

Books received for review:

Butler, Alison, Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic: Invoking Tradition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011)

Description
In the midst of increasing secularization and the birth of scientific naturalism, a curious group emerged in Victorian Britain. From 1888-1900, hundreds of men and women were initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn at temples across Britain and in Paris. Amongst them were famous personalities such as William Butler Yeats, Florence Farr, Annie Horniman, Maud Gonne and the infamous Aleister Crowley. These men and women met in secret temples for even more secretive rituals, in order to learn the techniques of ritual magic. Members put this magic to use in various ways including attempting murder, preserving peace, and travelling to other planets.
This examination of the rituals and personalities associated with the Golden Dawn demonstrates how Victorian magic provided an alternative to the tightening camps of science and religion in an intellectual environment that heightened the allure of magic. Victorian Occultism and the Making of Modern Magic explores how nineteenth-century occultism encompassed many of the aspirations and ideals of the middle-class, while completely revolutionizing Western magic.

Pickering, Andrew, and David Pickering, Witch-Hunting in England (Amberley, 2010)

Description
This book will address the origins of witch-hunting in England in the sixteenth century, the methods by which it was conducted, its distribution, its causes and consequences, and its decline. While addressing a general readership it will be a scholarly work that is informed by the historiography of the subject - e.g. feminist perspectives, functional explanations, post-modern interpretations. The text will be rich in primary source material including trial records and contemporary literature, including demonological texts and the papers of the Royal Society. Most of the illustrations will also be engravings from the period but some maps and location photographs will be included.

About the Author
David Pickering is an experienced reference books compiler. He has contributed to (and often been sole author and editor of) some 150 reference books, mostly in the areas of the arts, language, local history and popular interest. These include a Dictionary of Theatre (1988), an Encyclopedia of Pantomime (1993), Brewer's Twentieth-Century Music (1994; 1997), a Dictionary of Superstitions (1995) and a Dictionary of Witchcraft (1996). Andrew Pickering is Senior Lecturer in History and Archaeology at Strode College, Somerset, and is Programme Manager of the History, Heritage and Archaeology Foundation Degree with the University of Plymouth.

Smith, Matthew D., Anomalous Experiences: Essays from Parapsychological and Psychological Perspectives (McFarland, 2010)

From the back cover:
Thirteen essays on the psychology and parapsychology of anomalous experience explore extrasensory perception, haunting experiences, apparitions, alien contacts, séance room phenomena, and out-of-body experiences. The contributors are Daryl Bem, Etzel Cardena, Jezz Fox, Chris French, Craig Murray, Ciaran O'Keeffe, Chris Roe, Simon Sherwood, Christine Simmonds-Moore, Paul Stevens, Caroline Watt, Richard Wiseman and Robin Woofitt

Contents:
Feeling the future: studies of precognitive emotional arousal / Daryl J. Bem — Experimenter effects in parapsychology: three studies — With a remote helping task / Caroline Watt — The role of altered states of consciousness in extrasensory — Experiences / Chris A. Roe — Are our assumptions more anomalous than the phenomena? / Paul Stevens — Will we ever know whether extrasensory perception exists? / Jezz Fox — Towards a sociological parapsychology / Robin Wooffitt — Psychological perspectives — Anomalous experiences during deep hypnosis / Etzel Cardea — Haunting experiences: an integrative approach / Ciarn O'Keeffe and Steve Parsons — Apparitions of black dogs / Simon J. Sherwood — Psychological aspects of the alien contact experience / Christopher C. French, Julia Santomauro, Victoria Hamilton — Rachel fox and michael thalbourne — Observing the impossible: eyewitness testimony for — Darkroom seances / Richard Wiseman — Developing a dissociational account of out-of-body — Experiences / Craig D. Murray — Anomalous experiences and boundary thinness in — The mind and brain / Christine Simmonds-Moore.

Reinventing the Renaissance Occult

Review of 'Reinventing the Renaissance Occult in Modern and Postmodern Culture' now available at http://jwmt.org/v2n20/reinventing.html

Five hundred years ago the occult – what we think of as ‘the occult’ – was taught in university and practised by many of the foremost personalities of the age. Still it was persecuted. Dangerous. Between the Church and the deep blue sea: Scylla and Charybdis. It was the high point of ‘the occult’ and also its low point. To some it promised to reveal the secrets of the universe, to others it automatically meant a pact with the Devil and damnation. Such contrasts have thrown long shadows that still play across the present.

Published in the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition, No. 20, Vol. 2. Vernal Equinox 2011.

Reinventing the Renaissance Occult

Review of the 'Reinventing the Renaissance Occult in Modern and Postmodern Culture' conference accepted by the Journal of the Western Mystery Tradition (JWMT) for the forthcoming edition, vol. 2, no. 20. Will post link when the journal is published.

At the Mountains of Madness

Just heard about this new exhibition, thought I would pass it on. From the press release:

Gallery Nucleus Presents
AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS: H.P. LOVECRAFT TRIBUTE EXHIBIT
October 16, 2010 – November 8, 2010
Opening Reception: October 16, 2010 (7 pm – 11 pm)

Alhambra, CA – Gallery Nucleus presents an art exhibit tributing H. P. Lovecraft who is considered by many to be the most influential horror writer of the 20th century. Lovecraft’s stories deal with the terror of the unknown or incomprehensible and have inspired modern day talents like Clive Barker, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and H. R. Giger. It has been recently announced that one of Lovecraft’s best known stories will receive big screen treatment at the hands of director Guillermo del Toro and James Cameron. It is difficult to deny Lovecraft’s influence on our culture.

The art exhibit promises to touch on the writer’s best known stories such as “The Call of Cthulhu” as well as some lesser known ones showcased in a variety of mediums in both two and three-dimensional format. It features several premier artists currently working in the film industry including Jordu Schell who was the character designer behind the “Na’vi” people depicted in Cameron’s Avatar. Several award-winning illustrators will also offer their interpretations of the classic horror tales including the acclaimed John Jude Palencar whose paintings have been commissioned for several Lovecraft publications. All works will be available for view online as well.

Learn more about the exhibit and the fifteen contributing artists by visiting online at:
http://gallerynucleus.com/gallery/exhibition/249

CONTACT wade buchanan gallery@gallerynucleus.com

www.gallerynucleus.com
210 East Main St.
Alhambra CA 91801
p: (626) 458 – 7482

History of the Devil

New two-part history of the Devil to be published in Paranormal magazine.

In the first of a two-part feature Leo Ruickbie reveals the history of the force of evil known in the Western tradition as variously Satan, Lucifer, the Enemy, the Adversary, and most commonly the Devil. In part one Leo reveals the Devil's origins and traces his evolution into the Middle Ages.

Paranormal asked me to delve into the dark history of the Devil. I'll be looking at possession, The Exorcist, and how the Devil started out as God's hard man (or angel). When did he get those horns? And who gave them to him? All and more will be revealed.


The first part is out September 2010. You can get an advance glimpse of some of the graphics for the article from editor Richard Holland.

Get a copy from the publishers here.

Witchcraft Collection: New Acquisitions

Fourth Quarter 2009

Amulet. Described as a goodluck amulet. Inscribed with unidentified symbols. Metal. 20th century.

Amulet. Christian ‘Schutz-Amulette’. Provenance: Trier, Germany. Metal. 1933.

Carnival Mask. Carved wood in the form of a ‘witch’. Provenance: Tirol. Wood. 20th century.

Poison Bottle. Marked with skull and crossbones. Glass. 20th century.

Ritual Object. Described as a ‘Voodoo Skull’. Decorated animal skull said to have been used by a female shaman. Bone, skin, hair. Acquired from Mannheim, Germany. Of unknown date.

Tarot Cards. Albano-Waite deck. Card. Published by Moewig, no date, circa 1999.

Voodoo Doll and Coffin. Product name ‘Love Never Dies’. Card and fabric. Contemporary.

Renaissance Occult - Conference Update

Prof. Sarah Annes Brown has posted a summary of my talk 'Dealing with the Devil: The Faustian Pact in Magical Culture':

Leo Ruickbie gave a very engaging account of the Faustian pact in magical culture, moving from the responses of Faust’s near contemporaries, to an account of an eighteenth-century man apparently saved at the last moment when on the brink of selling his soul to the devil, and concluding with some unexpectedly up to date examples. We heard of people attempting to sell their souls on eBay, and also of the curious case of S. Jason Black who claims to have reaped substantial benefits after making a pact with princes of Hell. (Afterwards Marina Warner drew a wholly convincing parallel between such magical pacts and Catholic indulgences – both equally the targets of Protestant disapproval.)

Dealing with the Devil

This paper given at Reinventing the Renaissance Occult, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, 14 November 2009, explored the development of the Faustian Pact, looking at how the Renaissance magician Faustus came to be condemned as having made a pact with the Devil, and how this condemnation itself came to be a pattern for magical practice.

Pacts with the Devil have been a mainstay of Christian legend, used to reveal the saintliness of some and revile the Satanism of others – a two-edged weapon in the war of words fought between sanctioned ‘truth’ and outlawed knowledge. And it is a sword that has landed firmly on the neck of one sixteenth century magician in particular.

[...]

Reinventing the Renaissance Occult

The aim of the day was to explore the different ways in which modern culture has returned to Renaissance esotericism. Some have been drawn to the intriguing remoteness of such teachings from our own more scientific and sceptical age. Others, by contrast, have sought to discover unexpected points of contact between the mysteries of the occult and more modern mysteries, such as quantum science. The lure of the occult today may partly be explained by a growing dissatisfaction with Enlightenment rationalism and its perceived failure to address fundamental human concerns.

Reinventing the Renaissance Occult in Modern and Postmodern Culture, Saturday 14 November 2009, Helmore 201, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

Jennifer Mckimm, ‘“Sounding Alchyme:” The Politics and Aesthetics of Milton’s Alchemical Verse in Paradise Lost’ [Cancelled]

Diana Barsham, ‘"That Miracles are Ceased": Reginald Scot and the Rediscovery of Witchcraft’ [Cancelled]

Ewan Fernie, ‘The Possessed’.

Gyorgy E. Szonyi, ‘Three "New Age" Interpretations of the Book of Enoch'.

Urszula Szulakowska, 'Art and the Esoteric Tradition in Australia'.


Sophia Wellbeloved, 'The Conquest of Time in the Writings of GI Gurdjieff'.

Leo Ruickbie, 'Dealing with the Devil: The Faustian Pact in Magical Culture'.

Monika Smialkowska, 'Magicians and Scientists: David Calcutt's Prospero's Island and Elizabeth Nunez' Prospero's Daughter'.

Patricia MacCormack, 'Occultism and Continental Philosophy: From Solomon through Spare to Serres'.

Mark Goodall, 'L'Occhio Selvaggio: Towards an Occult Film Studies'.

Rowlie Wymer, 'Science, Religion and Magic in James Blish's "After Such Knowledge" Sequence'.

Marina Warner, reading from Phantasmagoria.

Listing from http://www.witchology.com/contents/faustus/conference_renaissanceoccult.php

On the Shelf Review – Ruickbie’s Faustus: The Life and Times of a Renaissance Magician

I don’t know what I pay you guys for, because nobody mentioned to me that the most thorough treatment of the Renaissance magus Faust, Leo Ruickbie’s Faustus, had just appeared. Nevertheless, you’re all forgiven, and I’ll review it for you.

Writing a biography of Jorg Faust is an extremely daunting task. [...] This is the task that Leo Ruickbie sets out to do, and his solution is novel.

[...] enjoy the first full biography of Faustus as a window into the life of a fascinating, and likely very misunderstood, individual.

Thanks to Dan Harms for this review. You can read the full review at his webiste.