Carl Abrahamsson's Blog, page 50
September 7, 2018
A nice conversation with Higherside Chats!
I was recently in conversation with Greg Carlwood from Higherside Chats. It turned into a great podcast that you can find HERE!
This is from their website:
”Folks, it’s probably no surprise to hear that magical activities are going on within our world pretty much constantly, and this is a tale as old as time…from mans first cave painting to the Super Bowl Halftime show, pulling ideas down from the imaginative realm and firmly planting them in the physical, through conscious attention and art creation just seems to be one of those quirky things man does.
We’ve heard about the concept of the Muse, and countless artists have been quite clear about not exactly knowing where their art comes from- sometimes saying it finds them moreso than the other way around. So there’s definitely some interesting interplay between consciousness and ideas that I don’t think we’ve fully unpacked. Yet it’s something that the Occult world has been exploring and experimenting with behind the scenes for years- and while these activities are usually relegated to the shadows- few people really understand the scope of magical thinking, art, and it’s influence on the wider culture. Which brings us to today’s guest. His name is Carl Abrahamsson, a writer, publisher, magico-anthropologist, film maker and more.
His latest book is titled Occulture: The Unseen Forces That Drive Culture Forward – and in it, he explores that curious crossroads between art and magic, discusses his insights from over 30 years in occult movements, and takes a deep look into the phenomena and people who have been the most crucial in modern esoteric developments including Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Crowley, Rudolf Steiner and more.
An insightful sage of the esoteric ways, Carl Abrahamsson.”
August 21, 2018
Great new titles from Trapart!
It’s going to be a wonderful autumn- and winter season here at Trapart HQ. We have been very productive together with some truly amazing people, and now things are slowly but surely coming to fruition. How about this for starters?
– Vanessa Sinclair’s anthology Rendering Unconscious, which weaves together contemporary writings on psychoanalysis with cutting edge poetry in an inspiring and stimulating mix.
– Lars Sundestrand’s To Become Who You Are – Funtime with Throbbing Gristle, Monte Cazazza and Psychic TV, an incredible volume filled with Sundestrand’s stunning photos and interviews with Genesis P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Monte Cazazza. Plus an amazing amount of TG and PTV “propaganda” and information. Positively mind-blowing stuff!
– And then there’s Ruby Ray’s Kalifornia Kool – Photographs 1976-1982. Ruby Ray was the main photographer in/on the San Francisco punk/post-punk/industrial scenes, and she snapped all the relevant, influential and cool bands and artists. And they all meet again in this exquisite book… Time travel alert!
There will very likely be even more books coming out during this period but for now, let’s just go through these ones a bit deeper…
Rendering Unconscious – Psychoanalysis & Poetry In Troubled Times (Edited by Dr Vanessa Sinclair, cover art by Alison Blickle)
In psychoanalysis and psychology, it is understood that symptoms speak to us. They are not just nuisances to be minimised and managed but clues to deeper structural issues to be recognised and understood. Whether it’s our own unconscious or the underbelly of the collective culture in which we live, we have to listen, and we have to listen now.
Rendering Unconscious comes at a particularly crucial moment of social-political upheaval. In our current global crisis, the systemic issues underlying our current problems are so deeply rooted and pervasive that it is difficult to fully wrap our heads around. This volume brings together an eclectic mix of contemporary psychoanalysts, psychologists, scholars, philosophers, intellectuals, artists and poets to address current events of the cultural climate in which we find ourselves today.
This collection includes material by Simon Critchley, Brad Evans, Jamieson Webster, David Lichtenstein, Patricia Gherovici, Manya Steinkoler, Steven Reisner, Gavriel Reisner, Chiara Bottici, Sergio Benvenuto, Elisabeth Punzi, Per Magnus Johansson, Jill Gentile, Adel Souto and Marie Brown, among others, on topics as diverse as the crisis in mental healthcare, systemic racism, fake news, hate speech, the alt-right, cyber-stalking, the aesthetic experience of the neoliberal subject, jouissance as a political category, Lacan, Freud, Jung, Spielrein, Husserl, Kepler, rethinking Oedipus, Duchamp, Dada, das Unbehagen, the mass psychology of Trumpism, Black Lives Matter, and more.
Rendering Unconscious is complemented by the podcast of the same name, in which Dr. Sinclair interviews psychologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, creative arts therapists, poets, artists and other intellectuals and scholars about current events, the state of mental health care, culture and the arts.
Lars Sundestrand: To become who you are – Funtime with Throbbing Gristle, Monte Cazazza and Psychic TV
Lars Sundestrand ran a celebrated fanzine called Funtime in the late 70s/early 80s in Sweden. His thing was to get really close to the artists and cultivate long term friendships. This book focuses on GENESIS BREYER P-ORRIDGE and the projects THROBBING GRISTLE and PSYCHIC TV. It contains absolutely amazing individual portraits, live images and lots of documentation from the P-Orridge/TG/PTV HQ approx 1977-1985. Plus interviews with P-ORRIDGE, COSEY FANNI TUTTI and American artist MONTE CAZAZZA. This is like pornography for anyone interested in Punk, “Industrial” Music, and Performance art (Cazazza, plus P-Orridge and Tutti were in legendary performance outfit COUM Transmissions together before Throbbing Gristle). It’s a unique insight into an era that was highly creative, experimental and magical, and a lavish addition to the P-ORRIDGE lore and legacy.
Ruby Ray: Kalifornia Kool – Photographs 1976-1981
From the introduction: “Late 70s, early 80s… Ruby Ray and her camera, capturing the movers and shakers of the San Francisco punk and industrial scenes… And then some… Performance art, music, literature, photos, videos made with a “fuck you” and “do it yourself” attitude. Ruby sees and Ruby captures… Knowns and unknowns, winners and losers, sane and insane, constructive and destructive… William Burroughs with his gun, Bruce Conner being fueled by punk energy, Sex Pistols’ last ever gig in San Fran, Throbbing Gristle, The Cramps live at Napa Mental Hospital, Search and Destroy Magazine, and band and gigs galore… Devo, Mutants, Slits, Bags, Dead Kennedys, Cabaret Voltaire, Slits, Roky Erickson, Nico, DOA, Chrome, Factrix, Boyd Rice, Z’EV, Chrome, Flipper… You name’em and there was Ruby Ray: the spectacularly talented lens of Kalifornia Kool. We should be grateful for her work. It’s invaluable, evocative, loud, sexy and more inspiring now than ever before… Ruby’s images open up a portal to a mythic and frenzied scene and shows that it’s true: all mythologies are real… Turn up the volume and dive into this one.”
If you want future information from Trapart, please sign up at www.trapart.net You will then be immediately notified when these titles are available to order. Thank you! Your support makes it all possible!
August 15, 2018
A great review of ”Occulture”
A great review of my book Occulture: the unseen forces that drive culture forward recently appeared in Spiral Nature. You can read the review right HERE. Many thanks to Jo Bennett and Spiral Nature!
July 31, 2018
A neo-Gnostic lecture on Vimeo!
The recording of my latest lecture is now online at Vimeo. It’s called ”Reconnecting to the Anima Mundi”, and here’s the little blurb:
”Is there such a thing as a ”world soul”? The concept of an ”anima mundi” has followed us through history in various cultural and regional guises and seems unwilling to disappear. Whereas physiological, mental, cultural and other developments constantly morph based on adaption to our biospheric demands, the concept of a world soul has taken on new descriptive forms but seems to remain essentially the same. Who or what can teach us about these things today? We can of course read and study and wallow through tons of learned regurgitations of other regurgitations, with further footnotes to drastically add to weight of the planet. But it seems obvious that all sources point in the same direction: the absolutely necessary connection between the individual inner and the general, ”cosmic” outer. Join me as I talk about the background of the concept, its future and that of our own existence. Everything and everyone is linked!”
Take a look yourself:
Reconnecting to the Anima Mundi from Carl Abrahamsson on Vimeo.
July 29, 2018
Carl on Stirring the Cauldron radio
I was recently live on the web-radio program called Stirring the Cauldron, in conversation with host Marla Brooks about all things Occulture… Although it was at 3 am my time I still managed to give some kind of semblance of lucidity!
You can listen to a recording of the show right HERE!
Photography by Vanessa Sinclair
You can get a copy of my book Occulture – the Unseen Forces that Drive Culture Forward right HERE!
July 22, 2018
A new online lecture/webinar up ahead
Join me for an online lecture/webinar about the importance of individuation, coming to terms with your own relationship to nature, and why we so often seem to lose the essential big picture perspective. What can be done? Art and Mythology are important ingredients in this survival strategy, but are they enough? After the lecture there will be a Q & A/Discussion. You are very welcome!
July 29, 8pm CEST (Europe Summer Time, GMT+02:00)
Sign up by paying $9 via PayPal: carl@carlabrahamsson.com
Thank you! See you there & then!
July 21, 2018
Sinclair & Abrahamsson live in Cali, Colombia
From the Patreon page of Vanessa Sinclair and myself:
”On our recent journey to Cali, Colombia, we were invited to make an impromptu appearance at an evening of performances at the school where we were teaching. We never say no! Carl got some tracks together and mixed them live while Vanessa was reading from her collection of cut-ups. It was very interesting to see how the students reacted. Most of them were quite accustomed to this kind of experimentation (as other acts that evening showed) so we felt right at home. And that wasn’t the first or last time during our magical visit. We want to go back!
You can enjoy a recording of our performance right here in this post.”
And please check out our Patreon page (which is where all the action is!): www.patreon.com/vanessa23carl
July 19, 2018
The Legalise Freedom podcast is out there
I was recently in conversation with Greg Moffitt of the Legalise Freedom Podcast, and it was a really good talk. Starting out from my book Occulture: the Unseen Forces that Drive Culture Forward, we then delved into existentialism, environmentalism, the apocalypse and many other great things. Listen in!
You can listen to the podcast right HERE!
July 18, 2018
I’m back on the Occulture podcast
I recently returned to the great podcast Occulture and a conversation with its editor Ryan Peverly. It was a great talk, and definitely one of my favourites so far. You can listen to it right here:
Photo by Vanessa Sinclair
July 16, 2018
The Splendor Solis lecture is now online at Vimeo
The Occulture lecture series keeps on rolling… Recently I recorded the Splendor Solis: Lebensreform and Sexual Vitalism in Germany lecture on video (in very sunny Colombia!). And that recording is now online at Vimeo On Demand. Enjoy!
”Join me for this lecture about the German Lebensreform-movement, and what it brought later generations of American hippies. From nudism, vegetarianism and romantic solar nature worship to the uninhibited free love of the 1960s… Via the brutally draconian countermeasures of the Third Reich. It’s a fascinating story to say the least – and one which still impacts us today – so don’t miss it!
If you appreciate this video lecture and would like to support our present and future work, please consider signing up at patreon.com/vanessa23carl Thank you.”
Occulture: Splendor Solis – Lebensreform and Sexual Vitalism in Germany from Carl Abrahamsson on Vimeo.
