BLK Celebration 2018 – Ariock Van de Voorde

At BLK Celebration 2018, one of your hosts will be

Ariock Van de Voorde

DSCN7589.JPG

Ariock will act as the event MC throughout the weekend, will deliver two brief talks on. Friday will see “London Calling”, which will reflect on the influence Kenneth Grant has had on him. On Saturday, he will bring us “Chaud-Town”, a talk about his time spent in Chicago while writing “Meeting Le Maître: An Introduction to the Art of Michael Bertiaux” for Abraxas International Journal of Esoteric Studies.

BLKLV

Ariock is a writer, artist and musician living in the US Southeast. In the 1990’s he owned and managed an occult bookstore, which hosted an experimental magick group loosely based on Kenneth Grant’s New Isis Lodge.

As well as his duties within Bertiaux’s esoteric and religious orders, Ariock is also working with Michael on an art sales venture launching in 2019.

***

For more info, read the posts on this page, or click

 BLK Celebration

BLK Celebration 2018 – Michael Bertiaux and Martin Starr!!!

A very special event has been added to the Saturday portion of

BLK Celebration

“The Occult History of Chicago”

Featuring Michael Bertiaux and Martin Starr

Chitown

Martin and Michael will have a live discussion on Saturday entitled “The Occult History of Chicago.” Michael is internationally known through his books and art, but he was a young man with a dream when he arrived in Wheaton, IL in the 1960’s to report for his job with the Theosophical Society. He traveled frequently for lectures to Chicago, and fell in love with the city. Although readers of his work know about his Gnostic Voudon rituals, Church Orders and the work of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua & La Couleuvre Noire and other groups he worked with over the years, Chicago’s occult history stretches back considerably further. Michael has an insatiable lust for knowledge, and being immersed in these bizarre legacies energized him and inspired him to discover more. Over the years, he has learned of the people, places and things of Hidden Chicago, and is eager to share these tales before they are lost.

This talk will cover the little-known “hot points” of the city’s esoteric history with a long-time participant/observer.

BLK Chi

Martin P. Starr is an independent scholar of Western Esotericism and New Religious Movements with four decades of research and writing on the English synthetic occultist Aleister Crowley and his disciples Wilfred Talbot Smith, Charles Stansfeld Jones, C. F. Russell and Kenneth Grant. His current academic interests revolve around the interplay of Neo-Rosicrucianism, Independent Eucharistic Church Movements, Theosophy, and Freemasonry.

***

For more info, read the posts on this page, or click

 BLK Celebration

BLK Celebration 2018 – Q&A with Michael Bertiaux, Michael Staley and Black Lotus Kult

BLK Celebration 2018 is coming next week to Chicago, IL – 14-16 Dec. Read further posts below on this page, or click HERE for details.

As part of the Centennial Celebration at the Occult Bookstore, we will see a special Q&A session with

Michael Bertiaux

MB at work2

Michael Staley of Starfire Publishing

Michael Staley

and members of Black Lotus Kult.

Isis

This is a unique opportunity to tap into these minds and learn about Occult Art, Writing and Publishing, Gnostic Voudon, The Typhonian Tradition, Austin Osman Spare and a variety of other topics.

This will occur late Friday evening, after the launch of Servants of the Star & the Snake

BLK Celebration 2018

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

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

Servants of the Star & the Snake.

SSS_frontcover
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.

BLKLV

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”

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”.

Zal2

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.

Zal1

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

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.

Starfire Logo

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.

Michael Staley.jpg

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

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”

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

Happy Halloween – A new Michael Bertiaux Video…

“The Ophidian Shiva-Set-Saturn”

aka

“Black Snake ‘Guede – Nibbho'”.

This painting has been featured in Kenneth Grant’s books, as well as in various Fulgur Esoterica publications.

It was used for ritual purposes by the Hyde Park Lodge (see fulgur.co.uk/books/michael-bertiaux/ontological-graffiti for more on this).

The Hyde Park Lodge decided it should not go outside of their control, due to its ability to cause change on people close to it (for better or worse, depending on the person’s character).