RASWE - Research Association for the Study of Western Esotericism

Dear all, I would like to share this event on psychedelics with you that will be held in Brno on the 29-30 of November, partnered with Psychedelicare. There will be lectures and an afterparty. The occasion will also be to celebrate the beginning of research on psilocybin in the Czech Republic, and hopefully to have more events to spread psychedelic culture. You can participate actively or passively. For more info, follow the links. Hope to see you there!!! Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/share/1B9oSoU4Ln/
Official webpage with tickets!

Psychonauticon

An amazing exhibition on Hilma af Klint at the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. If you are nearby, you definitely don't want to miss this one.

Hello dear friends, no we are not dead, we were just temporarily hibernating.

With the deadline for the next ESSWE conference drawing near, we've been contemplating applying for a closed panel (as our usual open panel options are not available this time). We are building our panel around the theme of a metamodern approach to the analysis of rationalities in contemporary esoteric practice. If you're planning to participate as well, and would like to join our panel, feel free to drop us a line and we'll include you into our group. We know that it's slightly on short notice, as the deadline is on January 15, but..well..that's how we roll I guess:)

CFP: ESSWE 10 - Esotericism and Rationality (June 26-28, 2025, Vilnius University, Lithuania). Please click here to learn more: https://esswe.org/News/13418680

A movie tip for all you folk horror enthusiasts out there (who don't shy away from extreme slow burning movies) - Starve Acre, 2023 (dir. Daniel Kokotajlo), a British folk horror movie starring Matt Smith and Morfydd Clark as a young couple moving to rural 1970s Yorkshire and gradually experiencing the disturbing depths of the local folklore.
A special mention should go to Matthew Herbert for an unnerving sound design that massively influenced the atmosphere.
Interesting was also the inclusion of the Vajrapani's mantra for cleansing..let's say negative energy (to not give away too much of a story).
Be prepared that the movie, even though not even 100 minutes long, feels very very slow (which, at least according to the ratings, scared away a fair share of the audience:).

Koukokuji Buddhist Temple

Let's keep it simple, elegant and tactful they said..

The additional fun of being an archaeologist next to a scholar of religion is stumbling upon scenes like this - the behind the scenes of the reconstruction of the Saint James ossuary.

Dear friends, recently, due to some research bumps along the road, I came up with a (maybe not original) idea, that might prove usefull in the future.

I created this subreddit (r/researchinoccult):

https://www.reddit.com/r/researchinoccult/

aimed at researchers and/or practitioners, for your standard and non-standard occult, magical, esoteric, spiritual chit-chat. The difference to other, already popular subreddits, (such as /occult, or /chaosmagick) is that this would be also fully usable for data collection, be it quantitative or qualitative (narrative). With other subreddits this can be (and usually is) a bit of a hassle, as it needs to be allowed by the mods, or you have to fight through misstrustful members. Here, you can create a post, questionaire, or a survay that might help you in your research, or just answer some questions of interest. Subsequently, you can use any scrapper, or API to get the data you'd need. This can come in handy especially if your research segments are few and far between (like mine).
And the cherry on top is, that now you'll know the mods, so if anyone is pestering you, we'll ban them faster than they can write "93":)

Since this is a fresh project (I came up with it 2 hours ago), we'd like to ask for your help - social and advisory.

Within the social part, please join this subreddit, and also share the info to your friends, rivals, lovers, neighbours or enemies, so we get the word out.

At the same time, if you have any ideas or suggestions of what can be done better, or in a different way, please let us know.

Bonus points for people who can identify this symbol (which is also used as the avatar of the sub:)

Thank you all!

Let's play a fun game: when you visit a museum, gallery, or any other cultural institution, look for outstanding, eccentric, bizarre, or just kinky expressions of spirituality, esotericism, or religiosity altogether. Let's see who will find the most unique pieces. We start - during our visit at the Museum of Applied Arts in Brno, Czech republic, we found among the obligatory skulls and demons (but this time made od porcelain) a sculpture piece called "The 10. Commandments of Ma********on" by Markéta Špundová, or an uranium glass fragment of the thorn crown by Rony Plesl. Let's see what else we can find. May the games commence!:)

This time we deviate from movies, and go into a slightly different form of visual entertainment, and that's video games.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a action-adventure, mythological game with horror elements, developed by Ninja Theory, 2017.

The main hero, Senua a Pict warrior must travel to Helheim to confront the godess Hela, in a struggle for her deceased lover's soul. This combination of Celtic and Nordic mythology is not the driving force behind the uniqueness of this game. What makes it stand out is it's take on mental illnesses. Senua suffers from psychosis, something interpreted by her clan as a curse. Her journey can be understood as a representation of dealing with psychosis, as well as loss, abandonment and death.

Among others, Paul Fletcher a neuroscience professor from Cambridge University was among the advisors during the development of this game. Thanks to the interactivity of games as a visual medium, an empathic view was introduced to the audience - the combiantion of audio and video stimuli, reflecting the perceptory and emotional experiences of patients suffering of psychosis was brought to the players. Dissembodied voices and visual halluciantions are just a few examples of how psychosis feels like. This game is not a pleasant journey, nor is it relaxing or entertaining. It is a visually stunning nightmare, that has left a lasting impression.
Probably not everyone will share this sentiment, but the combination of history, mythology and cognitive sciences left me more then impressed.
Ou, on a side note, if you own a VR headset, you can make it even more immersive..but again, not exactly pleasant:)

Another weekend movie tip, and again something that might be hated by some, loved by others, but most probably confusing the most: Sator, 2019, directed by Jordan Graham.

The extremely slow burnig supernatural cabin folk horror with beautiful environments tells the story of a family whose thoughts are slowly taken over by a supernatural entity named Sator.

The movie took almost 6 years to produce, since writing, directing and post-production was mostly a solo work by the director. For the research of esotericism in modern cinema is also of major importance the background of the story itself - the character of Nani (the grandmother who is communicating with the entity) is played by June Peterson, the directors real life grandmother, who believed that the supernatural being Sator watches over her and communicates through her by automatic writing, producing thousands of pages of cryptic messages. The movie contains audio and video footage of June Peterson's narrative regarding her contacts with Sator, becoming thus an amalgam of fiction and documentary, delving deep into Graham's family history of occultism and mental issues.

Weekend movie tip: The Pond (2021), directed by Petar Pasic.

If a slow burning, surreal, occult horror movie, where you'll be confused many times is your thing, do not miss out on this one.

The ratings are all over the place, but we had an enjoyable time watching it.

` Anthropology professor was kicked out from his university for claiming to be on the threshold of an apocalyptic discovery. Someone or something is still interested in his work. ` (iMDb)