Survival Research Institute of Canada

There is a Survival Research Institute of Canada (SRIC) in Winnipeg that is giving a free talk on table levitation phenomena. Who wouldn’t go to this? For F-R-E-E?!  The SRIC’s mission is “to investigate whether some part of human consciousness or personality survives physical death and whether that surviving “spirit” is able to communicate with the living.”

They seem to be a good resource of all things spiritualist if you’re in Canada.  Plus they have a library and books that you can buy that you prolly can’t find anywhere else. I have totally forgone the use of the word “probably” for prolly and I’m ok with it.
I like that they use terms like “bodily death”.

They also just did a lecture about ectoplasm that is the same lecture that’s been done since 1922 which is weird. The ectoplasm presentation accompanies Irish artist Susan MacWilliam‘s exhibit of her “Flammarion” installation based upon the 10 June 1931 ectoplasm photographed by Dr. T.G. Hamilton. She researched at the T. G. Hamilton archives at the University of Manitoba, which has digitized over 700 images and 1300 notes from seances. Want to watch hours of video about T. G. Hamilton and the work he did around voice mediumship, wax fingerprints, and ectoplasmic phenomena? Here are seven videos.

Here MacWilliam is talking about her work at the Venice Biennale.

Also, did you happen to see Helen Duncan in that article? She was the last person to be imprisoned under the British Witchcraft Act in 1944. She was a Scottish spiritualist.

The whole thing is just so thrilling. Susan MacWilliam wins artist of the century! Even if just for effort and intrigue.

The Collective Tarot

I LOOOVE this. It’s the tarot, updated for queers of today! Two dozen artists created a deck of 78 cards, updating the imagery for contemporary wants. They changed the Major arcana to found objects: bones, feathers, bottles and keys. Here’s what one of the creators, Annie Murphy says about the project:

We set out on this project because we wanted to access the ancient tradition of the Tarot, but were unable to relate to what we saw as archaic Christian, Euro- and hetero-centricities of modern decks available on the market. With the Collective Tarot, people can expect to see beings and bodies of size and of color represented, as well as differently-abled, multi-gendered and multi-generational characters. Tarot itself is Euro-Centric, originating (arguably) in 15th-century Italy. It is folk-art-magic that has amazingly survived through centuries of repression. We wanted to be able to use the Tarot as a tool while making the images relevant to ourselves and our communities.

You can order one today!

 

Felicity Powell

 

Oh yes, I love Felicity Powell. She makes her wax pieces look almost as magical as photography (darkroom processes only). Felicity is an artist from London, whose show, Charmed Life: The solace of objects, is on display at the Wellcome Collection through the end of February.

She was one of the only people to have access to a collection of 1400 amulets assembled by the Edwardian amateur folklorist Edward Lovett. These amulets were once carried in the pockets of Londoners for luck or protection.

Parapsychology and Consciousness Conference

Yet another conference I would love to go to.  I’m missing the Parasota Conference in Minnesota due to an amazing vacation, so this would be a great alternative. Here are some of the workshops at the Parapsychology and Consciousness Conference in Virginia Beach, VA, at Atlantic University, the college founded by Edgar Cayce :

• Designing a Curriculum for a Masters in Parapsychology
• History of Parapsychology
• Psychology of Psychic Experiences
• Researching Out-of-Body Experiences
• The Field Investigators’ Best Tech: Psychics and Mediums as Paranormal Sensing “Technology
• Invited Address: Modern Mediumship Research: Experiments, Experiences, and Explanations

Sounds heavenly! I would love to get a Masters in Parapsychology! Sign me up.

Vintage Spirit Photography

Check out this Vintage Spirit Photography gallery on Flickr!

Brion Gysin: Dream Machine at the New Museum

You’ve got until the end of the month to see Brion Gysin’s Dream Machine at the New Museum. This is the first US retrospective of his work. Gysin was a friend and collaborator of William S. Burroughs. He created the Cut-Up method, where he cut up words and phrases and reassembled them to be either nonsense or oracles. Burroughs and Gysin used the Cut-Up Method to write The Third Mind, which is very hard to read. The beats talked about the third mind being what happens when two people are together, talk, share ideas.

The Dream Machine is a kinetic light sculpture that creates visions when the viewer’s eyes are closed. Read more about the show here.

The museum’s audio tour (on an ipod mini) has a soundtrack to the show by Genesis P-Orridge, a fellow weirdo who took magic lessons from Gysin. Anyone want to teach me some magic lesssons?

UFOs and strange sightings in MN

(Bigfoot in MN)

Science-Great Mysteries: Lake Monster, the Sasquatch & UFO’s

Class Description:

Dr. Charles Huver is a biologist from the University of Minnesota who has traveled to Loch Ness, Scotland and Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, in search of lake monsters. He has also participated in ane xpedition to study the Sasquatch. The 3rd session will be a discussion of the nature of UFO’s including recent Midwestern sightings.

This class is being offered at Minneapolis Community Education. So, there’s an improper apostrophe use–I’m not letting it stop me. I wonder who else will take this class and what the discussions will be.
Interested? It’s in October for three nights. We can talk about our strange sightings and the impossible. We’ll file it under improbablia–the term the Los Angeles Public Library used to group “futuristic technology, wars in outer space, ghost stories and Gothic romances”, …so anything looking toward the past (magic, werewolves, sorcery, wizards) (which are still in the present!) as Fantasy, with a subcategory of horror. Anything forward-thinking, Science Fiction. I read about it in The Monster Show.

Also, in other strange news, did you know that St. Paul had a UFO?

Jump ahead to 55 seconds to see the good stuff. The narrative is an added bonus.

Maya Deren’s Legacy at MOMA

Ohhh..There’s a Maya Deren retrospective at MOMA through the middle of October as part of their Modern Women: Women Artists at The Museum of Modern Art show.

This is a film still from Meshes of the Afternoon, 1943, a short experimental film she is best known for. She also did Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti, which was released after her death. This exhibition has video installation showing her works. She was a weirdo. Maybe a Scorpio she was so strange. Who else likes the occult? Oh yeah, Aquarians!

Haunted America Conference

Who doesn’t have some information to exchange about hauntings and ghosts in their lives? The 2011 Haunted America West Coast Conference is the perfect place to learn more about hauntings.

It’s being held at the the Scottish Rite Event Center, and you can take a haunted bus tour with a Victorian seance with a costumed guide (my favorite!), hunt ghosts with ghost investigators on a FERRY, and hang out with other ghost lovers. A few of the sessions include: History & Hauntings of America’s Last Outlaws, Q & A’s of Psychic Development, Native America & Hispanic Ghosts, and one I would be very interested in taking, EVP & Investigation Techniques. EVP is Electronic Voice Phenomena, investigated by Dr. Konstantin Raudive, a Latvian parapyschologist, who wrote a book on EVP in the 70s called Breakthrough. I recommend it. I have some EVP on tape, did you know? My car got stuck in a snowbank in northern MN at night in the woods, and a voice said “Car Works” while I was tape recording.

Anyway, I really wish I could go to this conference. Or that one would come to the Midwest. We have ghosts too! Perhaps they need me to revive the art of spirit photography, on tintype!

Cryptozoology Museum

Great news. The International Cryptozoology Museum opened downtown Portland, Maine in November. This collector created a museum in his house, which then moved into a space to display exhibits on “living fossils”, skulls and the result of 50 years of collecting.

I’m especially interested in cryptozoology because when I was little I saw thunderbirds at my cabin. They were bigger than pictured above. They were 3 or 4 big birds that made a huge flapping noise when they flew over my head in northern Minnesota, their native habitat. I asked my dad what they were and he said he didn’t see anything, and that the biggest birds were ostriches and they can’t fly. He showed me a picture of an ostrich and it was tiny compared to what I saw. This began my obsession with ostriches, as a stand-in for an animal I didn’t understand until I heard about cryptozoology.

How did I miss this book and exhibition until now? Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale is the exhibition catalog of the show of the same name at the Bates College Museum of Art, curated by Mark Bessire. It featured one of my favorite artists, Rosamond Purcell. She lives in Somerville, Mass. and makes the most intriguing work. She is the keeper of an incredible wunderkammer. It also included Joan Fontecuberta, whose work of this sort is very interesting.

A Mark Dion piece from the show.

While you’re at it, it’s probably a good idea to keep up on cryptozoology news on Cryptomundo. Enjoy! Look out for strange creatures!