Dr. Richard Kaczynski will be presenting three talks at Black Sun Lodge, OTO, in the Valley of Cleveland, Saturday, January 19
Sex and Sex Magick in the Victorian Age
The 19th and early 20th centuries were a hotbed of discourse on intercourse which spilled over into religion and esotericism. Beginning with the seminal works of Gnostic saints Richard Payne Knight, J.G.R. Forlong, Richard Burton and Hargrave Jennings, we’ll uncover both the literature and practice of sacred sexuality as it sprung up before and beside Ordo Templi Orientis. Come one, come all to hear goodies about:
– the Golden Dawn’s favorite sexual mystic, Thomas Lake Harris, who taught about breathing exercises, group marriage, and the fairies living in your breasts
– the sexual mischief of Golden Dawn wanna-be’s Madame and Theo Horos
– the less than Rosy relationship between sex magick pioneers Hargrave Jennings and Paschal Beverly Randolph
– Carl Kellner’s encounter with sacred sexuality and its entry into Ordo Templi Orientis
– the unlikely two degrees of separation between Crowley and New York tantric initiator Oom the Omnipotent (and it doesn’t involve Kevin Bacon)
– Ida Craddock’s tell-all book about her marriage to an angel with godlike technique
– Clément du Saint-Marcq’s strange yet compelling argument for what really happened at the Last Supper.
The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion: The Scientific Method and How To Apply It to Magical Practice
A common assertion in ritual magick is that magicians apply the scientific method to spiritual practice, following rigorous rules in their rituals and keeping detailed records of their activities. However, few teachers actually discuss the scientific method. This talk will describe how to apply research methodology to magick, and how to become a critical evaluator of your own magical work. How do you prove causality? What are possible alternative explanations? How to improve your approach? What does Occam’s razor have to do with this? Dr. K has taught graduate level courses in research design and statistics since 1988.
Séances and Suffrage: The Victorian New Age and Equal Rites
Spiritualism became immensely popular on both sides of the Atlantic in the latter part of the 19th century, fostering the emergence of esoteric societies that promulgated the teachings of their figureheads like H.P. Blavatsky, Anna Kingsford and Annie Besant. A common theme in all these mystical groups was an enlightened view of gender and sexuality. Organizations like the Theosophical Society, Golden Dawn, Ordo Templi Orientis and Co-Masons broke with the tradition of admitting only men into their fraternities, instead welcoming spiritual seekers of either gender. The result of this worldview was that individuals frequently crossed into participation in the emerging equal rights movement, with some jailed–and in one case dead—in defense of their beliefs. This paper examines the role of Victorian popular interest in esotericism in the equal rights movement.
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Richard Kaczynski is the author Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2010), which the Times Literary Supplement deemed “the major biography to date” of the Beast. He has also written Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis (2012), The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley (2009), and the novel The Billionth Monkey (2015), among others. His writing has also appeared in anthologies such as The Art and Science of Initiation (2019), Success Is Your Proof (2016), Tarot in Culture (2014), Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism (2012), and Mathematics in Popular Culture (2012). Since 1990, he has lectured internationally on these and other topics and has been featured in the television documentaries Secrets of the Occult (2006) and Aleister Crowley: The Beast 666 (2007). He edits and typesets the proceedings books for the National O.T.O. Conference, is secretary of Academia Ordo Templi Orientis, and serves U.S. Grand Lodge as a Sovereign Grand Inspector General and a Bishop of EGC. By day, Richard is a social psychologist, biostatistician and research scientist whose 1993 doctoral dissertation examined metaphysical beliefs and experiences among occult practitioners.
Open to Public, $20 fee
RSVP form at: https://goo.gl/forms/kEnN8GkEouMZyhLs2
RSVP deadline 17 January.
