Monthly Archives: November 2018

BLK Celebration 2018 – Servants of the Star & the Snake North American Launch

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Starfire Publishing, The Occult Bookstore and Black Lotus Kult proudly present the North American launch party for

Servants of the Star & the Snake.

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Compiled and edited by Henrik Bogdan, Servants of the Star & the Snake is a collection of eighteen essays exploring the work of Kenneth and Steffi Grant.

  • Kenneth Grant: Servant-Satguru-Savant, by Martin P. Starr;
  • From Zos-Kia to the As-If: Kenneth Grant and Austin Osman Spare, by Michael Staley;
  • Advaita Vedanta in the Works of Kenneth Grant, by Henrik Bogdan;
  • Kenneth Grant and Lord Kusum Haranath, by Ruth Bauer;
  • From Central Africa to the Mauve Zone: Gerald Massey’s Influence on Kenneth Grant’s Idea of the Typhonian Tradition, by Christian Giudice;
  • Lam and the Typhonian Tradition, by Michael Staley;
  • Inside Outer Space, by Kyle Fite;
  • The Other Woman: Babalon and the Scarlet Woman in Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies, by Manon Hedenborg-White;
  • The Nuclear Art of Steffi Grant, by Henrik Bogdan;
  • The Art of Darkness: Kenneth Grant and the Unity of the Soul, by Vadge Moore;
  • Kenneth Grant and Maat, by Nema;
  • Clarity versus Weirdness: A Vital Tension Within Magical Culture, by Ramsey Dukes;
  • Foundations of the Typhonian Trilogies, by Michael Staley;
  • Beyond Crowley: The Foundations of Sexual Magick, by Jan Fries;
  • Evocation of the Fire Snake: Kenneth Grant and Tantra, by Henrik Bogdan;
  • The Magic in Fiction, by Alistair Coombs;
  • The Role of H. P. Lovecraft in the Work of Kenneth Grant, by Stephen Dziklewicz;
  • Shakti in Chinatown, by Michael Bertiaux.

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This launch event occurs during the BLK Celebration weekend, and is part of The Occult Bookstore’s Centennial celebration. All copies purchased at this event will include a signed and numbered certificate. Book contributors, including Michael Staley and Michael Bertiaux, will be present to sign copies.

For more info on this event click – www.facebook.com/events/144558179485539

SSS_backcover

BLK Celebration 2018 – Zalmat Bernstein presents “The Black Pilgrimage of the Lovecraftian Coven”

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Zalmat Bernstein will join us at BLK Celebration 2018 to present

“The Black Pilgrimage of the Lovecraftian Coven”

“The subject of my talk is the Black Pilgrimage to Chorazin as it appears in fiction, apocrypha, Typhonian exegesis, and in the sorceries of the Lovecraftian Coven.
With our reawakening of Michael Bertiaux’s Lovecraftian Coven, we embarked on a nine month ritual to establish it’s current with that which lies Beyond.
To accomplish this we sought to embody within a vessel an egregore of the Black Man of the Sabbath, a mask of Nyarlathotep. Conceived as a moonchild, who would gestate through a nine month working. I will recount the pilgrimage of the Lovecraftian Coven and what slouches toward Chorazin to be born”.

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As a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua (O.T.O.A.), and the La Couleuvre Noire (L.C.N.), Zalmat Bernstein has been active with the work of Michael Bertiaux and Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian tradition for three decades. As an early evangelist of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, he published articles as author of the Liber Atom website. In recent years he has been instrumental in starting a Monastery of the Seven Rays study group that broadcasts from a Theosophical occult library. Immersing himself in the source material from which these traditions drew inspiration enabled him to lead study groups on Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, and the Western Esoteric Traditions for over a decade. This led to an additional calling, seeing him regularly performing the Eucharist, Zalmat is an ordained Catholic priest and the progenitor of the Society for the Reparation of the Astral Light (SRAL), a Gnostic Catholic Spiritualist society modeled after the work of Abbe Boullan. and he is helping to re-establish the current of Michael Bertiaux’s Lovecraftian Coven.

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BLK Celebration 2018 – The Occult Bookstore Centennial Celebration!

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Store

The Occult Bookstore Centennial Celebration

We are excited by every BLK Celebration, but this one includes a truly once in a lifetime event.

For this celebration, please join us and our partners from The Occult Bookstore, as they are celebrating their 100th year of operations.

In 1918, D.G. Nelson first opened a store dedicated to the mysteries of life. 100 years later, this same establishment is staffed with skilled and experienced practitioners who live to served their Community.

We sincerely wish that you can join us in celebration this December as we look back, and forward at The Occult Bookstore!

 

Events include:

 * The North American launch of Starfire Publishing’s Servants of the Star & the Snake, including a talk from Starfire Publisher Michael Staley.

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* A book signing of Servants of the Star & the Snake with Michael Staley, Michael Bertiaux and other contributors.

* Entertainment by Marcus Broderick Montgomery and Kindle Cimmerian.

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Marcus Broderick Montgomery

Kindle Record

Kindle Cimmerian

* A special Q&A/AMA with Michael Bertiaux, Starfire Publishing and Black Lotus Kult!

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BLK Celebration 2018 Performer – Kindle Cimmerian

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Kindle Record

Kindle Cimmerian will be performing at various events throughout the BLK Celebration weekend.

A founding member of international occult art collective, Black Lotus Kult, Kindle utilizes many different styles to celebrate the spiritual, sensual and unusual through her art, with a primary focus on dance and movement.

Her formal instruction in modern belly dance includes:

Rachel Brice’s 8 Elements Phase I Initiation with Recognition July 2012
Rachel Brice’s 8 Elements Phase II Cultivation with Recognition July 2013
Rachel Brice’s 8 Elements Phase III Culmination with Certification October 2015
Rachel Brice’s 8 Elements Phase IV Transmission with Teacher’s Certification November 2016

FatChanceBellyDance American Tribal Style® General Skills Classic October 2017

Zoe Jakes Format DanceCraft Graduation of Key of Diamonds May 2018

In Progress:
Level 1 & 2 in UNMATA ITS– Studying under Dahlia Moon (Seattle WA), Kari Unmata (Sacramento CA), and Amy Sigil (Sacramento CA)

Countless classes and intensive workshops with the likes of:
Zoe Jakes
Sherri Wheatley
Mardi Love
Colleena Shakti
Ashley Lopez
Kami Liddle
Travis Jarrell
Monica Cooley (Bharatanatyam)
Lacey Sanchez

Kindle by Nightbreed

Kindle performs at events coast-to-coast, and offers lessons in Central FL.

witch of the woods

kindlecimmerian.com

www.facebook.com/kindledancer

www.instagram.com/kindlecimmerian

BLK Celebration 2018 – Steven Slane Intermill presents “A Witchcraft Museum of Yesterday & Today”

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Steven Slane Intermill will be joining BLK Celebration 2018 to deliver

“A WITCHCRAFT MUSEUM OF YESTERDAY & TODAY”

witch museum

The current curator and caretaker of the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft & Magick explores the history and significance of Raymond Buckland’s collection, tracing it from its humble beginnings in a Long Island basement to its current home in Cleveland, OH. The collection has had many twists and turns in its history, but through them all it has remained well documented. This presentation will feature photos, news clippings, audio recordings, and promotional materials from its birth in the 1960s to today. This presentation was original presented at the Occult Humanities Conference in 2017 but has been revised to reflect the Voudon Gnostic elements in the collection.

Steve

By day Steven Slane Intermill curates a large pop culture themed museum, by night it is strictly amulets and cauldrons.

More on the Museum can be found here –

http://bucklandmuseum.org

www.instagram.com/BucklandMuseum

www.facebook.com/WitchMuseum

BLK Celebration 2018 Performer – Marcus Broderick Montgomery

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BLK Celebration 2018 Performer

Marcus Broderick Montgomery

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In celebration of the 100 years of operation of The Occult Bookstore, Marcus Broderick Montgomery will be contributing his talent to BLK Celebration 2018.

Marcus Broderick Montgomery is an Interdisciplinary Healer & Creative currently based in Chicagoland—whose work integrates Music, Holistic Narrative, & Ceremonial Work into a uniquely spiritual modality.

However if you let him tell it; Marcus Broderick Montgomery Is.

Works & other info can be found at: MarcusBroderickMontgomery.Online

BLK Celebration 2018 – Michael Staley presents “Kenneth Grant’s New Isis Lodge”

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We’ve known Michael Staley for over 20 years, and have had the honour of watching him speak on a variety of esoteric subjects.

At this year’s BLK Celebration, it is our pleasure to announce that he will present –

“Kenneth Grant’s New Isis Lodge”

In early 1955 Kenneth Grant launched New Isis Lodge, writing rituals, gradework, visualization exercises and instructional papers for the various Degrees, and later published the Manifesto of New Isis Lodge. At the centre of it was Nu-Isis, a compelling vision which was synthesised from Thelema, Advaita Vedanta, and Spare’s Zos-Kia Cultus, and which was subsequently developed throughout Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies. This talk examines the mystical and magical experiences out of which Grant fashioned his conception of Nu-Isis, and the structure of New Isis Lodge which he subsequently developed.

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Michael Staley is the founder of Starfire Publishing. He knew Kenneth Grant for more than forty years, becoming his publisher in the mid 1990s, and across a number of years republished the Typhonian Trilogies in new editions. He lives in north-west London with his wife Caroline Wise.

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BLK Celebration 2018 – J.F. Marc des Jardins presents “The Tibetan Bon Tradition and the Zothyrian Bonpos”

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We are pleased to announce that J.F. Marc des Jardins will be contributing to BLK Celebration 2018.

Marc will deliver –

“The Tibetan Bon Tradition and the Zothyrian Bonpos”

The Tibetan Bonpo tradition is associated with the pre-Buddhist religions of Tibet and remained almost unknown to the scholarly world until the end of the 1980s when religious practices began to be tolerated again by the Chinese government. Since then, the Tibetan Bonpos have reopened their temples and began a renewal of their practices in earnest in order not to lose the traditions that still remained alive with the oldest generation of lama-priests.

A handful of specialists have chronicled and research the beliefs, history, practices, scriptures, and esoteric teachings of the Bonpo lamas and our understanding about this tradition has changed dramatically. While the world remained still in darkness on the ancient ways of Bon, a Chicago priest and hierarch began to write about his visions and insights on that timeless school of wisdom.

Michael Bertiaux began to share with his close students the results of his research and visions on this ancient lore. That moment coincided with the growing worry of Bonpo Lamas for the survival of their traditions. How did these two currents, apparently worlds apart, relate to each others?

This presentation focuses on the Tibetan Bonpo mystical world and the visions and insights of Michael Bertiaux and how the latter’s can inscribe themselves inside some of the mystical ritual and meditative practices of Bon and help deepen their significance.

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J.F. Marc des Jardins Ph.D., C.M.D. is an Associate Professor at the Department of Religions and Culture at Concordia University in Montreal. He completed his Ph.D. in East Asian Studies at McGill University and conducted Post-doctoral Studies at the Institute for Asian Research at the University of British Columbia. He is one a the few specialists on the Tibetan Bon Religion in North America and has lectured extensively at prestigious universities and research institutes in Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. He has been researching Bon since 1991 and has spent several years in the Tibetan regions of Western China among Bonpo communities, their monastic institutions and retreat centres. He has also been a student of Michael Bertiaux since 1981.

BLK Celebration 2018 – Sashah Ruge presents “Lovecraftian Mythos in the the Voudon Gnostic Universe: An introductory look into Bertiaux’s Lovecraftian Coven”

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We are proud to announce that Sashah Ruge will be contributing to BLK Celebration 2018.

Sash

Sashah is an initiated student of Michael Bertiaux, having studied directly with him in Chicago for over a decade.

At BLK Celebration 2018, he will bring to us –

“Lovecraftian Mythos in the the Voudon Gnostic Universe: An introductory look into Bertiaux’s Lovecraftian Coven”.

This presentation sheds light on the foundation and practice of a system that utilizes Transyuggothian Shamanism, Zothyrian Logic, and Necronomicon Physics, and it explores how these weave into the world of Esoteric Voudon.

Sashah Ruge is an artist and a student of magic and the occult for over 20 years. His primary focus is in the grimoire traditions, LHP philosophy/magical techniques, and both traditional and esoteric Voodoo.

Sashah has a strong focus on the utilization of H. P. Lovecraft’s Mythos in a mix of ceremonial magic and shamanism that has led him to become the directing force within the Lovecraftian Coven mentioned in Bertiaux’s writings.

Sashah was consecrated as a Gnostic Bishop by Michael Bertiaux, and is one of two of Michael’s “Hyde Park Lodge” to be initiated into the NU Kult of LAM.

Black Lotus Kult

BLK Celebration 2018 – Caroline Wise presents “Nuit, Isis and the Nu-Isis Lodge”

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We had the honour of viewing the Caroline Wise production of a Florence Farr play in Seattle, Washington and we later performed a special Elen of the Ways ritual for her at a past Black Lotus Kult Celebration.

It is our great pleasure to announce that Caroline will present at BLK Celebration 2018

She will bring to us – “Nuit, Isis and the Nu-Isis Lodge”

There has been speculation and misunderstanding about the Nu-Isis Lodge over the decades. Caroline discusses the rituals of the Nu-Isis Lodge, their structure and purpose. She also explores the goddesses Nuit and Isis through the Typhonian Thelemic lens, showing their relevance to magicians – especially women magicians – today. Will include a visualization exercise based on one of the rituals.

Please see the BLK Celebration’s Facebook page HERE to let us know you are coming and to read updates and details regarding these events.

 

Caroline Wise instigated the republishing of Kenneth Grant’s books at Skoob Esocterica in 1989, which led to previously unpublished works coming into the light, including Grant’s novellas. She co-edited ‘The Secret Lore of London’ with John Matthews (Hodder and Stoughton 2016) and has contributed to several books on the goddesses of the Ancient World; on Austin Osman Spare, tarot artist Pamela Coleman Smith, and on magician Florence Farr, whose Egyptian themed plays she produced at The Rudolph Steiner Theatre in 1993. She gives talks and workshops on the goddesses in Britain, and in USA, Germany and Italy. She works with Starfire Publishing and has a special interest in the work of Kenneth Grant.

Caroline

Caroline in the Spare Room