You are currently viewing Enchanting Technology: Making, Hacking, and the Occult Imagination (LA online)

Enchanting Technology: Making, Hacking, and the Occult Imagination (LA online)

Date/Time
Date(s) - Mon. Dec. 21, 2020
7:30 pm PST - 9:00 pm PST

Instructor
Peter Bebergal

Admission
$10 USD BUY HERE

This just-added special Solstice class is included in your LA Pass or your Global Pass! Note it takes place in Pacific time.

Since this class falls on the Winter Solstice, the class will be preceded by a brief talk about the Winter Solstice from Dr. Greg Salyer, President of the Philosophical Research Society, who are our usual Los Angeles venue and our partners in presenting this special class.

Magic and technology share a deeply intimate relationship to the human experience as they are both methods that use tools to gain control over nature and ourselves. The magician and the inventor both attempt to break open conventional ways of working with the forces that shape our lives. Magic is, indeed, a kind of spiritual hacking: They are opening the machine of the universe to understand how it works and bend it towards a new purpose. And when magicians and artists use technology to explore the occult imagination they reveal new ways of enchanting our lives.

Based on the research from Peter Bebergal’s Strange Frequencies, this multi-media presentation will take participants through the history of how human beings have attempted to interact with the otherworldly using technology. John Dee’s shew stones, spirit photography, and ghost radios, are all examples of our capacity to reengineer our spiritual lives. These, and other kind of occult practices require experimentation, breaking boundaries, and using devices in ways they might not be originally intended for. This desire to restore some inner agency to our own lives is also apparent recent popularity of DIY and maker culture. We are seeking enchantment and wonder in new ways and are coming to see it means pushing up against spiritual and material restrictions.

Peter will stage the fantastic with film clips, photographs, and sound recordings. Topics include: The legend of the golem; automata and the uncanny valley; magic lanterns and natural magic; spirit photography; electronic voice phenomena; and the dreamachine.

The course will propose that belief in the supernatural is not required to be enchanted. Technology provides means through which we can activate that part our imagination. Hacking is a state of mind.

Please note these classes are live events and cannot be downloaded for later viewing.

Image from: Peter Strickland’s radio adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape

ORIGINAL EVENT TRAILER (From 2019 class):