Tag: audio book

Seeing the Invisible, Hearing Lost Knowledge

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My talk at the Center for Contemporary Culture Barcelona (CCCB) last week on the influence of the occult on art - part of their fantastic Black Light Exhibition - went over well. The audience - more than a hundred people - seemed to enjoy it, and although there were some slight technical problems - rooted in my clumsiness with the universal translator - I count it as a success. The curator, Enrique Juncosa, is a charming, intelligent character and it was a delight to speak with him about the ways in which the mystical, the magical, and the esoteric have informed much of the art of modern times, and what they are getting up to in it today.

I’ve contributed an essay to the exhibition catalog, La Luz Negra (“Black Light”). Two friends have also contributed pieces: Erik Davis, of Techgnosis fame and the curator Cristina Recupero, with whom I worked on the Geheim Gesellschaften (“Secret Societies”) exhibition held in Frankfurt and Bordeaux in 2011. The catalog is tri-lingual, with Spanish-English and Catalan-English editions. If you are interested in occulture and can make it to Barcelona, the exhibition is well worth the trip. If you can’t go that far, the catalog can give you an idea of what you are missing.

As for my talk, here’s the link to the video. There is a brief introduction by Enrique, then the talk. In the Q & A that followed, I speak a bit about Dark Star Rising, which will be released on 29 May. Among other things I raise an interesting point: Is a tulpa sitting in the White House? What’s a tulpa? That’s a good question and I give some ideas of an answer in the book.

In other news, the audio book of Lost Knowledge of the Imagination is available. Here’s the link. It’s also available at amazon.com There’s a free trial offer or you can purchase it separately. I haven’t heard it yet and look forward to hearing my words in - well, not exactly print but you get the idea. There’s also an interview with Mark Jeftovic, who produced the audio book.

It looks like it’s going to be a busy summer.

Lost Knowledge at Steiner House, Audible Imagination, and Swedenborg’s Correspondence.

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I’ve posted a short video of the Question and Answer session following my recent talk at Rudolf Steiner House on YouTube . Here’s the link. I’m aiming to post more of the talk sometime soon, and to record future talks and make those available too. It’s a slow process and while I am not a technophobe, I know why I studied the Humanities.

I’ve also recently agreed a deal with Thirteen Ventures Limited, of Toronto, Canada, for them to produce an audio book version of Lost Knowledge of the Imagination. Mark Jeftovic, the man in charge, has had success with his earlier audio ventures, but Lost Knowledge is, I think, a new departure. I look forward to hearing the finished product, and with any luck others will too.

And last week I submitted my 10,000 word essay on ‘Swedenborg’s Correspondences’, to the Swedenborg Society, who commissioned me to write it for a new series of short books they are launching, dealing with different aspects of Swedenborg’s huge body of work. The idea of correspondences is at the heart of Swedenborg’s vision, and it is an idea that has had an enormous influence on western culture over the last two centuries. I take a look at Swedenborg’s influence on Baudelaire and the Symbolist movement, his own correspondences with the western Hermetic tradition, and ask how his ideas may be of help to us today, in the early years of the post-truth world.