Upcoming Talks, Conferences & Classes
(Calendar updated as talks are added or have already occurred!)
January 2024
Poetics of Practical Planetary Magic: A Seven-part Weekly Course
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Begins Saturday 20th January (and the six Saturday after) | Time: 2pm (ET)
Location: Online, via Morbid Anatomy
The seven classical planets—Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon have been staples of "Western" cosmologies and magic since at least ancient Mesopotamia. Charted not only in the sky-maths of astrological aspects and configuration, the planets or "Wandering Stars"—(asteres) planētai "wandering (stars) in Greek—are also found in the names of the days of the week in many European languages, offering us a sense of the shifting and dynamic magical "flavours" of the everyday passage of time as well as the zeniths of ritually significant moments.
In this course we will explore not only ceremonial planetary correspondences of colour, number, and symbolism as abstract qualities, but the living and vital heraldry of each of the planets - their foods, spirits, herbs and stones, activities, passions, and proclivities. This seven-session series will provide both a theoretical overview of planetary magic and practical tools that will enable students to apply it to magickal workings. We will consider how each of the Seven Planets can help us through our struggles - both in our days and in our hearts - as well as how these mighty stars can join us in celebration of our victories and accomplishments. The goal of this seven-part course is to give its students some keys to bringing the planets into our lives through breath, speech, spellcraft, talismans, rites and - above all - living well!
Cost: $165. Register here.
February 2024
History & Practice of Geomancy: The Sixteen Figures
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 7th February | Time: 3pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Last Tuesday Society
Systems of divination divide the universe and its events between various sets of icons of power and potentiality. The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac, the Sixty Four Hexagrams of the I Ching, even the Seventy Eight Cards of the Tarot. The Sixteen Figures of European Renaissance geomancy are no exception.
Geomancy as a system consists of only sixteen figures, each attributed an astrological identity in terms of a ruling planet and a corresponding zodiacal sign. These sixteen figures are combined in specific charts (known as shields) to render very particular answers, often employing the twelvefold Houses of the Heavens to answer specific questions, and locate deeper perspectives in the querent’s life.
But the Sixteen Figures themselves represent not only working lots of fate in geomancy’s engine of divination; the Figures are coherences of differing patterns of possibility and potential, each with their own unique expression and instantiations of events, influences, energies, and spirits.
In this class, contemporary cunning-man and professional geomancer Dr Alexander Cummins will take us an on in-depth exploration and celebration of the practical mysteries of the sixteen figures of European Renaissance geomancy: considering the messages they bring when they show up in readings, particularly considering the blessings and obstacles they can represent, as well as assessing the ways the occult virtues and spirits of these patterns of energy can be actively engaged with and worked in our spiritual and material lives.
Cost: £10.00. Register here.
A Watery Eye: The Moon in Traditional English Cunning-Craft
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Thursday 22nd February | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
Beyond the specific astrological connotations of the Moon as merely the closest and fastest of the seven classical Wandering Stars of the planets, our cratered chalky satellite has provided countless folk magicians, wise-women, and local spiritworkers throughout the history of English magic a light in the darkness and a turning key to unlock the mysteries of the night...
In this class, we will undertake our own journey by night, pilgrimaging to a place of better understanding of the silvery blessings and banes of our dear Luna. Led by contemporary cunning-man and historian of magic Dr Alexander Cummins, this class will celebrate the wealth of moon-lore in traditional English folk magic, concentrating on the early modern days and ways of the folk magic practitioners referred to as cunning-folk.
We will discuss the folk magical rules-of-thumb governing waxing lore and waning lore, as well as the intricacies of timing by moon phase and indeed the day of the Moon that begins the working week. We will make detailed study of the wealth of information contained in the incredibly popular almanacs, pamphlets, and moon calendars of pre-modern England; detailing not only fundamental agricultural knowledge and folk ways, but also a range of practical techniques concerning medicine, history, philosophy, and of course folk magic. We will also consider the frightful portents thought to be presaged by the darkening crises of eclipses, as well as the Moon’s affinity for enchantment, witchcraft, and sorcery.
This class will then proceed to consider the use of Lunar pentacles and number squares (kamea) in operations ranging from treasure-hunting candle spells to the infamous curse-plate unearthed under a Lincoln’s Inn pub. We will furthermore investigate the popularity of Lunar Mansions and various attendant talismanic rings and images framed in their influence as evidenced in the working-books of many English cunning-folk.
We will finally consider – in appropriate depth and with celebratory reverence – the folk magic of moonlight itself: from various English practices of ‘turning’ money and broader works of unbewitching, to various Lunary elements attested in operations for blessing water, seeing spirits, consorting with fairies and the dead, and much much more.
Cost: $35. Register here.
March 2024
History & Practice of Geomancy: Mastering Shield Charts
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 7th March | Time: 3pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Last Tuesday Society
The fundamental act and process of European Renaissance geomantic divination, of “casting geomancy”, is setting a shield chart. So called because of the shield-like shape of the chart, this charting of geomantic influences distills down assessment of any and all aspects of the querent’s situation into a careful and stable judgement concerning how likely things are to happen, as well as offering advice on what will help and hinder one’s success in such matters.
The geomantic shield chart generally consists of fifteen (or, as we shall see, sixteen) ‘places’, not unlike the places of, say, a classic cartomantic three-card spread. As a sister art to astrology, geomancy of this sort uses the Twelve Houses of the Heavens as the first twelve of a shield chart’s places to assess the various specific moving parts of any given set of circumstances, situations, and conditions. As such, this class will carefully consider what information, perspectives, and insights can be gleaned from assessing the placements of the Sixteen Figures across the Twelve Houses.
This class will also offer some training in the so-called “advanced” techniques of analyzing geomantic shield charts, presenting how to locate and interpret the Via Puncti for considering underlying influencing factors in a reading; as well as setting and understanding the place of the Index of the shield chart for beneficial spiritual foci and the Part of Fortune for grounding the reading’s advice in practical action. Finally, this class will offer some tips and tricks on best phrasing your questions to minimize confusion and maximize helpful clarity in one’s own geomantic divination.
Cost: £10.00. Register here.
The Three Purifying Herbs of the Grimorium Verum
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Friday 9th March | Time: 4pm (ET)
Location: Online, via the Botanica Obscura Conference
Within the pages of that infamous manual of black magic known as the Grimorium Verum are found not only the instructions for conjuring devilish spirits but the very means to consecrate, regulate, and empower one’s instruments and operations – that is, by asperging with three potent purifying herbs: marjoram, mint, and rosemary.
These three purifiers – neatly instantiating the three ancient Greek worlds of Sky, Underworld, and Sea – offer much for those who traffick with all manner of so-called ‘unclean’ spirits: from chthonic elementals to demonised daimones, and indeed (perhaps especially) those spirits deemed dangerous even by our pagan ancestors. Working with oroganum, menthe, and coronis presents means for the conjuror to make pacts, the exorcist to cleanse spaces, and the witch and sorcerer alike to return themselves to grounded and stable humoural equilibrium.
In this presentation Dr Alexander Cummins will share advice and techniques gleaned from years of practical and occasionally hard-won experience for working with these three powerful plant allies in cunning works of goetia and beyond.
Cost: Included in Full General Conference Admission. Register here.
That Old Black Magic Handbook: An Introduction to the Grimorium Verum
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Friday 22nd March | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via Salem Witchcraft & Folklore Festival’s Spring Agora
Hailed as one of the most infamous texts of demonic conjuration, the True Grimoire is both a late entry onto the European magical scene - cohering somewhere between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries - yet also finds its basis in the sixteenth-century Clavicula Salomonis de Secretis, as well as drawing on approaches to cosmology and spiritwork firmly rooted in ancient pagan syntheses.
In this class, contemporary cunning-man and historian of magic Dr Alexander Cummins will lead us in an overview of this devilish manual of conjuration: from its spirit catalogue to its protocols of pacting and even its 'Supernatural Secrets' and enspirited spellcrafts.
Along the way we will consider the protections and purifications of the GV's three asperging herbs, where and how the spirits of this True Grimoire appear in other works across the goetic corpus, and what particularly about the Grimorium Verum recommends it as a uniquely practical and workable handbook of nigromancy.
Cost: $30. Register here, or included in Full General Festival Admission
Clocking Cunning: On the Traditional British Folk Magics of Times & Timing
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 27th March | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
It is sometimes quipped that wisdom is, among other things, “knowing when to duck”. Taking seriously this importance of knowing when something can be most usefully done (or not done) can encourage us to look anew at traditional concepts of time, the turn of the seasons, and timing considerations for various folk magical operations and observances. Doing so allows us to engage with both illuminating and practical understandings of how we might attend to and work with our spirits, commune with nature, and live our best cunning lives.
In this class we will therefore investigate traditions of seasonal festivals marking the changing of the tides of the year; from astronomical events such as solstices to the economic realities of harvest celebrations.
We will examine the rich folklore of saint feasts, marking not only church calendars but social events and potent points of the year at which certain magics – including dream incubation, gathering herbs, and much more – could be most efficaciously observed.
We will of course consider the popularity, roles, and functions of the various folk astrologies of moon phase and planetary charms, as well as the planetary timings of hours and the days of the week.
Our examination of cunning timing will also investigate the ‘dog days’ and other ranges of times considered unlucky – to begin a venture, cut one’s hair, plant crops, go on a journey, and much more.
We will explore the folklore of powerful times of day and night, marking the occult virtues of dawn, the morning dew, the midday sun, the crossroads at midnight, and what is done at a waxing moon.
Finally we will analyse folk grimoiric techniques of timing considerations for calling and loosing spirits, as well as examining traditions of using secret seasonal names of the Sun, Moon, Earth, and the days and hours of the week in one’s cunning work.
Cost: $35. Register here.
Hallowed Hearth makes Hallowed Home: The House as Temple and Identity
Speaker: Jesse Hathaway Diaz
Date: Saturday 30th March | Time: 10am-11:30am EST
Location: Sacred Space Conference in Hunt Valley, Maryland
A source of safety and comfort, shelter from the elements and prowling predators of the night, our Homes as witches are often protected with magic, a place where magic occurs, but less commonly thought of as magical entities in their own right. As technology helps us keep the fire burning (in our stoves and ovens), to keep the water flowing (in our sinks and showers), it is easy to forget the soul of the house in our everyday chores and pursuits. Drawing from traditional witchcrafts and folkloric traditions of Europe and the Americas, we will look at the House as a divine entity, a cult of which you, its owner or occupant, are a priest. How does this viewpoint change our magic? How do we serve the house? How can we truly make it a home? There is a spirit to the each rafter, each hinge, each intersection of wall and floor. Fire brings the dead and the living together, the windows are liminal spaces where we might appease minor spirits; the walls have feelings, the doors are strong allies, and the House always has a name. Come join us as we dive into folklore and traditions to enliven our own relationship with where-we-live. Come join us as we look to honor the spirit of that great being that shares itself with us, a temple to the Land upon which it sits, and claim your rightful spot as its caretaker, emissary and priest.
Cost: Included in cost of Conference. Register here!
A Dance without End: The Allure of Herodias, Queen of Witches
Speaker: Jesse Hathaway Diaz
Date: Sunday 31st March | Time: 10am-11:30am EST
Location: Sacred Space Conference in Hunt Valley, Maryland
Queen of Judea, Mother of Salome, Wife of Herod Antipas, and instrumental in the death of John the Baptist, the Biblical Herodias is an infamous figure who by the Middle Ages was named as the principal figure of a witch cult pervasive across Europe: a teacher of diablerie and mistress of magic and leader of the Wild Hunt. At once the cursed but immortal ancient queen, Herodias was considered a gifted magician and teacher and revolutionary in Leland’s “Aradia”, perhaps a survival and weaponization of pagan magics in a Christian world. Inspiring many great works of art and music and theatre, Herodias proves to be an enigmatic figure whose lore and practice are sadly less talked about. Tracing her history and influence from the historical figure through Mediterranean and Iberian folk expressions as well as literary and artistic explorations, come learn about and pay homage to the “Daughter of Babylon”, the Witch Queen Herodias!
Cost: Included in cost of Conference. Register here!
April 2024
History & Practice of Geomancy: Geomantic Spellcraft
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 4th April | Time: 3pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Last Tuesday Society
Considered a “sister” to astrology, the system of divination known as geomancy was an incredibly popular and well-regarded form of divination in Renaissance Europe. It was not simply a divination system however. The talismanic use of geomantic figures - 'betwixt images and characters' - was considered by many Renaissance magicians to bridge a divide between divination and operative sorcery: offering a range of elemental, planetary and zodiacal magical techniques.
These and other examinations of how early modern geomancer magicians worked their Arts begins to demonstrate the ceremony, invocation, spell-craft, evocation, spirit-work, and theurgy underlying this once-popular art of divination. Much more than a party-trick of simple fortune-telling, geomancy apprehends, interrelates and articulates grounded lived realities fundamentally dependent upon occult cosmological meaning and the conscious sorcerous manipulations of ritual magic.
This class will guide those new to geomancy and astrological magic through the options geomantic magic presents - from the sorceries emergent from sortilege, the image magic of characters and letters, talismanic spell-craft, and simple but potent folk magics of candle, bath, prayer, and charm, as well as techniques for working a variety of tutelary elemental, planetary, and necromantic spirits of geomancy.
This illustrated lecture is taught by professional diviner and consultant sorcerer Dr Alexander Cummins, a geomancer with over a decade of personal and professional experience in geomantic divination and remediation, spirit conjuration, spell-work, and talisman-craft.
Cost: £10.00. Register here.
May 2024
Diviners on Divining: Exploring Divination Theory & Remediation
Speakers: Dr Alexander Cummins & Jesse Hathaway Diaz
Date: Wednesday 8th May | Time: 4pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
Why do we divine? To know our fate? To possibly alter it? Given so many philosophical models of destiny and determinism, divination can operate within many cosmovisions, often the diviner and the querent do not discuss or even need to agree upon the modes of personal belief. In instances where divination is representative of a specific cultural praxis or spiritual tradition, perhaps some of these ways of thinking are more agreed upon, or are meant to be exemplified through the divination process. When does the divination begin? What does it predict? Who is speaking? Is this mere ‘fortune-telling’ or is it something more comprehensive? Is there room for traditional models of diagnostic divination in the modern atheistic materialist paradigm?
Peering into the void is never without hope- and many traditional methods of divination include a way to secure the desired outcomes foreseen and to ameliorate the undesired, through proscription and prescription of action or diet, through ritual remediation and placation through offering or donation. While some of these models have extensively incorporated remediation, it is not a universal phenomenon. Similarly, even in systems where it was not heavily practiced, we can even see it adopted in more recent years as part of a growing trend towards divination as a holistic system including remediation and rectification.
Building off a familiarity with many modes of divination and different cosmologies that support such practices, ritual theorist and diviner Jesse Hathaway Diaz will explore and contrast theories of divination and remediation in this session in ongoing Diviners on Divining series. Both lecture and conversation, come explore the foundations of what we do as diviners and explore the theories behind our curiousities and queries!
Cost: $30. Register here.
Hands Off: Working Against Theft in British Cunning-Craft
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 22nd May | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
One of the stock-in-trades of the countless village wizards, wise women, local spirit-workers, service magicians and folk practitioners across the British Isles known as cunning-folk has always been working against theft and those who commit theft.
In this class, we will examine various folk magical methodologies for detecting lost and stolen items by a range of traditional computational, visionary, and object-led divinations: from astrology and geomancy, to scrying a crystal or even an oiled thumbnail, to sieve-and-shears, book-and-key, and bobbing balls of clay in water; indeed, even to the use of various rods and wands of detection.
We shall take stock of the wealth of cunning means employed across the pre-modern British Isles for identifying thieves and even working magically for the return of stolen goods and to coerce the thief to reveal themselves.
We will consider the use of charms, amulets, and other sorcerous assemblages to protect goods, livestock, and wellbeing, including talismans and protections for warding off thieves and even “freezing” home intruders in place.
We will examine not only the occult mechanics of popular anti-thief rituals such as the Eye of Abraham for naming and shaming thieves but also the underlying social and interpersonal conditions of public justice, community cohesion, and much more.
We will also analyse and compare various iterations of the operations of the Demon Bishops of the cardinal directions across cunning-folks’ working-books and grimoiric resources to send spirits after those who have robbed us or our clients.
Finally, we shall consider how such anti-theft workings also influenced and were influenced by other forms of magical protection, from operations against witches and their imps, fairies, and the restless dead.
Cost: $35. Register here.
June 2024
Most Rare Vision: Dreaming in Traditional English Cunning-Craft
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 12th June | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
Dreams may as frequently bring us phantasms of fearful night as the visionary light of clarity, and often may leave us grasping at their confusing subtleties of ideas, impressions, and recollections. Aside from their practical employment in many works of divination, sorcery, and witchcraft, dreams have always been considered somewhat magical in their own right. This is certainly the case with dreaming as considered and performed in the pre-modern folk magics of traditional English cunning-craft.
Leading us in exploration and celebration of these folk magical conceptions of dream, contemporary cunning-man and historian of magic Dr Alexander Cummins offers interested parties a place at the set table of this class as we consider both the occult philosophy and the folklore of dreaming, taking into account study of the various dream-books and dictionaries in popular use throughout the pre-modern British Isles; from older codices of Anglo-Saxon dream-lore to imported and thoroughly popular early modern Italian translations, and many others.
Considering the practicalities of best dreaming practices, we will assess various folk magical means of timing our dreams: by zodiacal sign, moon phase, and so on, as well as noting the wealth of traditions concerning “lucky” (and unlucky) days for dreaming true. Such considerations of timing will also explore the hagiographic emblematics of saint feasts especially associated with dream incubation – from the Eve of Saint Agnes for dreaming of one’s future spouse, to the wide range of meanings and mysteries to be explored through our Midsummer Night’s dreams...
Investigating operations involving meeting spirits in dream will analyse a host of such rites found across wider European folk practices, from appealing to devils of the Airs and Woods to answer questions and grant magical favours at our bedsides, to prophesising career advancement, consorting with fairies, demanding lottery numbers from the dead, and even appealing to the demonic King of the East for true answers delivered in dream.
We will assess various ways popular computational divinations such as geomancy and astrology were utilized to reconstruct forgotten dreams as well as consecrate aids for dreaming truer and more deeply.
Finally, we will explore one pre-modern planetary dreaming grimoire in particular, considering its methods of appealing to seven planetary archangels with Signs of the Living God, astrological sigils, and potent candle rites before bed.
Cost: $35. Register here.
July 2024
A Brief History of Dice Magic
Speaker: Dr Alexander Cummins
Date: Wednesday 17th July | Time: 7pm (ET)
Location: Online, via The Cauldron Black
In this class, contemporary cunning-man and historian of magic Dr Alexander Cummins will lead us in an exploration and celebration of the interrelations of gaming, gambling, and divination across the history of sorcery as particularly pertain to dice and their unique magics and meanings.
We will begin our investigation of these dice magics with close inspection of the archaeological records of Greco-Egyptian polyhedral dice, as well as the uses of the knucklebone astragals of antiquity. We will also consider the occult philosophy of Platonic solids and their elementalist understanding of polyhedral shapes and their mysteries.
Analyses of a range of dice-based Books of Fate will intersect with deepening our understanding of the practices of bibliomancy, as attested in various historical traditions employing dice to determine which chapter and verse of a sacred text one would consult for specific advice on a matter at hand; framing the Bible, as well as the Odessey and various other classic works of literature, as tomes of practical and specific wisdom to be applied to our lives and concerns.
We will pay close attention to one early modern manual of dice divination, The Dodecahedron of Fortune, printed in London in 1613, which is based (as its name suggests) upon using a twelve-sided die – which the reader could actually cut out of its pages to glue into a three-dimensional die! - to consult the oracle. We will also examine traditional systems of dice divination as laid out in various pamphlets and manuals of the Iberian folk magics associated with the infamous sorcerer saint Cyprian of Antioch.
We will furthermore explore and analyse the spellcrafts and ‘supernatural secrets’ associated with profitable dicing from a range of early modern spellbooks, occult treatises, and receipt-collections: from textual amulets to bind to one’s body while gambling, to spirits to summon and petition to ensure victory in our games of chance.
We will especially consider the popularity of magic rings constructed and consecrated by the timed influences of the Moon and her Lunar Mansions throughout the pre-modern books of magic employed both by village folk magicians and the aristocratic magi of the royal courts.
Particular attentions will also be paid to the numerous magical charms and operations for gaming and gambling that cite christological historiolae or ritual precedents concerning the Roman soldiers who ‘played lots’ for Christ’s possessions at his crucifixion; presenting us with insights and opportunities for reflection upon the wider, broader, and deeper influences of the mythologies of dice throughout Western culture.
This class is for anyone interested in the more magical sides of the history of dice: from seasoned magicians and witches who use dice in their spiritwork and sorcery, to RPG gamers looking for new inspirations for their tabletop campaigns, and especially all those looking to break a streak of bad luck or cleanse the misfortunes from their low-rolling little math-rocks.
Cost: $35. Register here.