A few of the more LAShTAL.com-relevant talks from the current Treadwell’s lecture series:
A German Occult Secret Society Revealed: the Fraternitas Borealis
with David Beth
Crowley’s “Adept of Adepts”: The Eccentric Occultist Evan Morgan
with Paul Busby
Hell in a Handbasket: A Portable Summary of Demonic Conjuration
with ‘Pharaon’
A German Occult Secret Society Revealed: the Fraternitas Borealis
David Beth
12th July (Thursday) 7.15 for 7.30pm start £5
Nineteenth and early twentieth century Germany saw an uprising of Cultural and magico-religious paganism movements, including the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Fraternitas Saturni, runic societies and neo-pagan groups of various stripes. One highly secret order, never before revealed, is the Fraternitas Borealis. Established in the late 1800s with likely links to the Cosmic Circle (Kosmiker-Kreis) and possibly to Carl Jung, its secrecy deepened as the German occult scene furthered its racial obsessions – the F.B. was committed to inclusive, non-racist, universalist principles, and was far from being a typical volkish organization. The F.B. never interested itself in a physical master race but instead in a metaphysical Übermensch to be created using initiatory techniques of the hyperborean (Northern) tradition. Tonight’s speaker reveals the history of this intriguing group and its ideas, including: Kosmogonic Eros, Wotan-Krist, Blood-Gnosis, Black Sun, Esoteric Love and Rune Empowerments. David Beth is the current Hochmeister of the F.B., as well as a leading proponent of Michael Bertiaux’s interpretation of voudon. A university-educated German historian he was born and raised in West Africa, and has lived in Europe and the USA.
Crowley’s “Adept of Adepts”: The Eccentric Occultist Evan Morgan
Paul Busby
26th July (Thursday) 7.15 for 7.30pm start £5
Tonight Paul Busby, biographer, introduces us to an almost-unknown occultist and eccentric, Evan Frederic Morgan, 2nd Viscount Tredegar (1893–1949). A friend of Aleister Crowley, Morgan was (as Busby has discovered) actually a practitioner of the art magical. Crowley himself called him “Adept of Adepts”. Morgan was known in his own day not so much for his occultism but, in aristocratic society, for his extravagant lifestyle, and wild week-end house parties, which attracted the likes of Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and Augustus John as well as The Great Beast. This eccentric also kept at the house a menagerie of animals including a boxing kangaroo, honey bear, baboon and macaw. Tonight’s speaker has recently written a biography of Morgan, and has discovered a great deal about the man’s magical practice. Tonight he reveals his findings and in so doing provides a greater insight into the life in the 1930s of the work of Aleister Crowley, as well as allowing a fuller appreciation of the nexus of ideas and personal links that made up the the 1930s British occult community. Intro: www.redflame93.com/Tredegar.html.
Hell in a Handbasket: A Portable Summary of Demonic Conjuration
‘Pharaon’
2nd August (Thursday) 7.15 for 7.30pm start £5
The author of the demonic grimoire Liber Niger Legionis presents a practical and historical talk, in which he details the variety of techniques for conjuring, summoning and communing with demons in the Western grimoire tradition. After touching upon the methods of mystical illumination (as we see, for example, in the Abramelin), he will turn to concentrate upon the various methods for interacting with the demons of the grimoires. Beyond the standard monotheist texts in the Solomonic tradition, the speaker will make especial reference to the Grimorium Verum (aka the Red Dragon), the Icelandic Galdrbok and Graeco-Egyptian goetic texts. This talk follows on from the 12th July talk overviewing grimoires. ‘Pharaon’, author of the celebrated and highly collectable Liber Niger Legionis (2005); he is a practising sorcerer of some years’ standing. By day he is a doctoral student in the history of religio-magical traditions in Western Europe, and he holds a Master’s Degree in near-eastern religion.
More at the Treadwell’s website.