Magick and the Occult Symposium

Come along for an All Hallows' Evening exploring ideas of magick, witchcraft and the occult. Linking to Gregor Wright’s exhibition Dinosaur Expert I’m Feeling Lucky, this event aims to explore ideas of the occult in relation to art, practice, science/logic, religion and philosophy of mind. A panel of three experts will about their field of study or practice within this much misunderstood subject - with the opportunity for questions and discussion form the audience.

Speakers:

Samantha Cooper has been the co-owner of 23 Enigma, one of Scotland's oldest Occult shops, for the last 20 years. Cooper’s life has been spent in the pursuit of Occult knowledge, exploring many different paths. Cooper’s second shop, Ladywell, has been host to many shamanic, occult and pagan events for the past five years in the ancient pagan heart of Glasgow. Cooper’s talk will take you into the world of witchcraft on this most magical night of the year; the Great Sabbat of Samhain or Halloween.

Christine Ferguson is a Senior Lecturer in Victorian Literature at the University of Glasgow, where her research focuses on the literary and cultural dimensions of the Victorian occult revival. Her presentation, Seeing the Spirits: Victorian Spiritualism and Contemporary British Art takes Olivia Plender’s A Stellar Key to the Summerland (2007) as central case study, examining how contemporary British artists have appropriated the visual emblems and performance techniques of Victorian spiritualism to comment on the movement’s controversial political and aesthetic legacies.

Dr Steven Sutcliffe is Senior Lecturer in the Study of Religion at the University of Edinburgh with a particular interest in the history of alternative religion and in theories of ‘religion’. He is author of Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices (2003) and co-editor of New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion (2013). His talk: Keep on Burning: what The Wicker Man tells us about religion post-1960s will examine key scenes in the ‘cult classic’ The Wicker Man (1973) in light of recent social and cultural history of ‘religion’ in Scotland and the UK, and look at the legacy of the film in contemporary Pagan and ‘Burning Effigy’ cultures.