Magical Momentum
I’ve had a wild ride over the autumn, and want to discuss the magical momentum building around The Visible College’s projects and courses. TVC is now a fully-fledged part of the European magical community, and I’m proud to share our recent adventures and upcoming work.
September was a huge rush of exciting UK events, from my appearance in London teaching Trithemius Conjuration leading into the incredibly successful International Thelemic Symposium with Mogg Morgan in Oxford, then speaking at PanDaemonium the following morning and this year’s Star Club Initiations in Bristol a week later. Four different strands of magic weaving together to showcase our syncretic approach to the esoteric arts.
At the Symposium, we had speakers from across academia and occultism speak to different approaches of Thelema, from its roots and history to Daoism and Egyptian practice, leading to wonderful performances and Star Club offering a Mass of Babalon. We’ve had such brilliant feedback about the stalls, lectures, workshops, and evening, but for me it was a moment of relief that I still have the ability to pull off a major event - with good help from Mogg and OGDOS. I’ve had a few years in the wilderness and decided that, if I was going to return to the occult community, I wanted to make sure what I had to offer was the best of my practice and understanding. Our line-up for next year is exciting, and with David Rankine and Harper Feist as our keynotes you won’t want to miss out.
PanDaemonium was a fantastic event too, and a triumph for Veneficia Publications. While I don’t consider myself a Left-Hand Path practitioner, I certainly engaged with the magical current and my lecture on and performance of the Headless Rite gave the attendees plenty to think about. I joked that I ambushed everyone with a ritual to put them in touch with their own Great Work, but I think really we’re all engaged with that journey however we practice so long as we remember that the community has work to do, and working together will always triumph over division and in-fighting.
In October, we began by celebrating my birthday and performing my first Gnostic Mass as Priest in 7 years with the Glastonbury OTO Oasis. I was looking forward to attending the Occulture Retreat as a participant when I received a remarkable email - one of the teachers had needed to pull out suddenly, and I had been put forward to teach in their stead. I offered the Fellowship of the White Mountain a course in Thelemic Cosmology & Magick, and they accepted - giving me ten days to put a lecture, meditation, workshop, and ritual together! The event gathered over sixty attendees, speakers, and team-members from across the world, and really highlighted the breadth and depth of occult practice.
I’m very pleased to say that everything I offered went down well, even for those who had not had any prior experience of Thelema. My approach to Thelemic Cosmology has always revolved around the relationship between the inner and outer forces, from Hadit through Therion to meet Nuit through Babalon, and allowing the Magician to encounter the admixture within themself as Baphomet. Through my lecture on the concepts to my workshop on differentiating and combining these forces, participants learned to assume god-forms and use devotional excerpts from Libers CCXX, XV, CDXVIII, and CLVI, and we had moving feedback from those who really connected with the Thelemic current. We finished our course with a performance of the Mass of Babalon, fresh from it’s recent celebration at the Symposium, and had wonderful discussions with everyone who took part on the Mystery of Our Lady.
While it is not for me to speak to the other lectures and workshops offered, and the experiences we shared there, I can say that I enjoyed myself immensely and underwent personal initiatory transformation at the retreat - and I’m excited to host Dave Lee and Coral Carte at our upcoming retreats at Oxwick in 2025. We had a great time in Italy, and the chance to visit San Leo Fortress with the group and see the history of Count Cagliostro was a privilege. Thank you to the Fellowship for asking me to step up to this opportunity and showcase my understanding of the deities and forces of Thelema, and I’ll be sure to attend the next Occulture Conference in Berlin!
I returned from Italy (via the best Italian food I’ve ever eaten) and set about finishing my lecture with Dr. Halo Quin for the South Wales Occult Conference on Death, Dying, and the Underworld. First I went to the Magick Innit Pagan Moot for a talk and discussion on consent and safeguarding in magical groups, and we hosted another Moot for the occultists of Bristol followed by the monthly Star Club event - a workshop on Tarot & the Tree of Life, followed by a lecture by Dr. Liz Williams on Unsympathetic Magic which Star Club Members can view on our sister site.
November brought the Cardiff conference and Halo and I presented our lecture on the Societas Astris Initiation titled Creating Katabasis. We included a short history of the Club and its founding as a modern magical order, our thoughts and experiences of the process of Initiation, and took attendees through an underworld journey through the Egyptian Duat to meet Ra-Herakhti, the Headless One reified by uniting Ra with Osiris in the land of the dead, using the Star Club Framework. Again, the audience enjoyed the experience, and I was particularly pleased that the candles and house lights started to flicker and grow as we brought everyone back to the land of the living with the holy chant of the Stele of Revealing!
Other highlights of the day included Dr. Robert Plimer speaking on ancient Egyptian blood fetishes, and Mark Norman giving us a whistle-stop tour of folk magic in churches and graveyards throughout Britain. Sian Sibley has worked incredibly hard over the past few years to create a sustainable community and events that we’re proud to attend and support, and I’m pleased to announce that I will be speaking at next year’s Cardiff event on Celestial Relationships as part of the Earth, Sea, and Sky Occult Conference. Tickets are now available here with both in-person and online attendance options.
Our magical momentum has continued with a visit to the Isle of Wight, to speak at Dr. Plimer’s Phoenix Club in a double bill, lecturing with him on Thelemic & Typhonian Cosmology. Bob and I had several excellent discussions on magic, including the inter-relation of Thelema and Typhonian practices, where we overlap and diverge, and came to the conclusion which runs through this journal entry - if we are all doing the work, whether that’s our Will, the Great Work, or devotional practices to bring us closer to the universe, then surely we are all working together for the same goal and understanding each other can only help.
That is why I’m so proud of the work we are doing here at Oxwick, as I type in front of the hearth with a roaring fire and sleeping dogs. Our programme for 2025 is now up on our Events page, including conferences we are attending and speaking at or helping to facilitate, appearances at pagan and esoteric events, and our wonderful retreats. These immersive weekends offer you the chance to learn directly from speakers across Europe, steeped in diverse and established Traditions, to help you find your place in the community and strengthen your practice. We’ve worked hard to create experiences that will transform your approach to the esoteric arts, while remaining affordable to the community.
David Rankine opens the season with a Conjuration Masterclass in April. Two days of intensive preparation and discussion of Grimoire techniques, with ritual experience included, at David’s only in-person teaching in the UK in 2025. More than just a critically acclaimed and world-renowned author, David has been studying and practising these skills for decades.
In the Summer the Morgan Witches will build on the success of their Egyptian Serpent Power workshop at the International Thelemic Symposium, and offer a weekend discussing their Egyptian Tantra system, Tankhem. This will be crucial to those who practice any form of devotional work with the Egyptian deities and embody the Gods.
Then Dave Lee and Coral Carte of the Illuminates of Thanateros will lead a transcendental embodiment course here: Body, Breath, & Gnosis, combining Dave’s Connected Breathwork with Coral’s Embodiment techniques, which we experienced at the Occulture Retreat and were blown away. Magic is not just in the mind, but in the breath and the body, and this retreat will activate your innate abilities.
You can find more information and buy tickets here, and we have now changed our payment provider so you can pay in instalments if you need to. It’s our mission to provide access to learning whatever your ability and resources, so we hope that we’ll see you soon at an event in the UK - and in time, build a stronger community based on mutual respect, education, and friendship.
For now, as we look to the end of the calendar year and the Winter Solstice, we can have a pause to breathe and reflect. There are still Star Club events to host in Bristol, and a weekend in London for OTO rituals in December, but I’m looking forward to enjoying the hearth and closeness of family and friends as the nights draw in and we wait for the Sun to return. I wish everyone well, and as much fun in their own magical adventures.