An Exploratorium on Magic – December 2024
Sundays December 1, 8, 15, 22 2:00PM ET – 4:00 PM ET
NOTE: Classes are limited to 30 and will be recorded and available to registrants only.
An Exploratorium on Magic is a four-part course investigating the use of image and text to make change. And, through an examination of various Medieval and Renaissance grimoires, Renaissance Neoplatonic philosophies, contemporary linguistic and semiotic theories, and a look at propaganda and advertising, to come to a better understanding of the processes involved in making change and perhaps develop a definition of magic.
The series will begin with a close look at the rather ordinary practice of zine-making as a concrete alchemical talismanic process intended to cause a change.
From there Agrippa’s The Three Books of Occult Philosophy will be taken up and its cosmology and structure of being outlined providing the world view common throughout the magical alchemical writings. Agrippa’s sources identified for those wishing to go a layer or two deeper.
The course will also look at the Ars notoria, The Sworn Book of Honorius, the Arbatel and some of the ideas of philosopher Giordano Bruno concerning image and binding in De vinculis in genere etc. The ideas, concepts, and practices coming from these works will be looked at through the lens of neurophysiology and cognitive science, storytelling, advertisement, semiotics, and a little Finnegans Wake to hopefully open up some unexamined traits and connections in this thing called magic.
I am not sure where it will all end up, but in any event, interesting material will be presented.
Note that although this is a four-part course it is not a finished presentation but an exploration.
I look forward to everyone’s thoughts and participation.