Chicago-based artist/architect Antwane Lee and his collaborators describe the Solar Shrine project: The Solar Shrine is an Afrofuturistic, interactive art installation which is inspired by the magical realism of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. These two ancient cultures believed in Ra, the Sun God. Ra had metaphysical powers as the giver of life on Earth and … Read moreThe Solar Shrine
The Satanic Temple is a science-positive, socially progressive religion in Halloween regalia. Penny Lane’s 2019 documentary Hail Satan? is an illuminating – “Lucifer” being the Light Bringer, after all – and well-produced documentary on a fast-growing but still widely misunderstood religious movement. Far from being the embodiment of all evil, the Satanic Temple is revealed … Read more“Hail Satan?” (documentary trailer, 2019)
The following poem was composed by Tolkien in response to his friend C.S. Lewis’s remark that myths were valueless. It’s worth noting that, as a devout Christian, Tolkien could not conceive of a mortal creation that might equal that of an omnipotent deity, and so refers to myths as “sub-creations”. Somewhat ironically, the immense popularity … Read more“Mythopoeia” (J.R.R. Tolkien, 1931)
Often described as “the slowest-growing religion in the world”, Dudeism was inspired by the philosophy espoused and exemplified by Jeff Bridges’ character in the Coen Brothers movie The Big Lebowski. According to Dudeism.com: While Dudeism in its official form has been organized as a religion only recently, it has existed down through the ages in … Read more“Dudeism: the Path to Lebowski Enlightenment”
Molly Birnbaum writes for Topic on the Trump-era revival of W.I.T.C.H. as a tactic of political protest and occult resistance: “Anonymity is dramatic,” says a W.I.T.C.H. (Anonymity also prevents doxxing—a real threat in this day and age.) “The witch is a powerful figure when so many people feel like they’re losing control,” another W.I.T.C.H. explains. … Read more“W.I.T.C.H.es Brew” (2017)
Artist/scholar/witchdoctor M. Dudeck offers a concise precis of his massive RELIGIONVIR.US project, a queer science fiction religion. In this video montage, Dudeck and his collaborators enact aspects of PSALMS: a 45-minute music-centered performance featuring 13 invented psalms accompanied by a complex digital soundscore and projected video.
A trailer for the 2017 documentary American Jedi, which is available to stream via various platforms. Here’s an in-depth interview with Jedi Knight and Deacon Alex Bird, explaining his devotion to the philosophy/quasi-religion of Jediism: But your myth doesn’t reach back to any time that’s actually real. That’s true. I mean that it has to speak … Read more“American Jedi”
A ’90s-vintage documentary on the Radical Faeries, a queer spiritual counterculture dating back to 1978-9.
WITCH is an all-women Everything. It’s theater, revolution, magic, terror, joy, garlic flowers, spells, It’s an awareness that witches and gypsies were the original guerrillas and resistance fighters against oppression—particularly the oppression of women—down through the ages. Witches have always been women who dared to be: groovy, courageous, aggressive, intelligent, nonconformist, explorative, curious, independent, sexually … Read moreThe W.I.T.C.H. Manifesto (1968)
We are Cultpunks. We affirm that belief systems, rituals, symbols, pilgrimages, tenets, holy days, shrines, festivals, taboos, mythologies and pantheons can and should be created as works of art. If so, then surely any sufficiently advanced magic is likewise indistinguishable from technology, and religions may usefully be considered as psychological technologies. Just like any other tech, … Read moreRead this first: “A Cultpunk Manifesto”