Ritual
“For 1,000 years, a cult worshipped the hero of the Odyssey”
Isabelle Gerretsen writes for the BBC: At the start of the Odyssey, the epic poem’s war-weary protagonist finds himself trapped on a remote island by the goddess Calypso. She promises Odysseus immortality and eternal youth if he chooses to stay with her. But after 10 years of waging war against the Trojans alongside other Greek heroes, Odysseus … Read more“For 1,000 years, a cult worshipped the hero of the Odyssey”
The Egypt Game
In Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Egypt Game (1967), a group of children transforms a hidden yard into an improvised sacred world inspired by ancient Egypt. They invent names, costumes, gods, ceremonies, initiations, sacrifices, funerary rites and an oracle, gradually developing a shared mythology that feels consequential without requiring literal belief. As an example of cultpunk … Read moreThe Egypt Game
“Xenotheology and Personal Myth with [M] Dudeck and Javi Acevedo”
Coincident with the recent Metamodern Meaning Lab at Sky Meadow, Brendan Graham Dempsey interviewed [M] Dudeck and Javi Acevedo on their upcoming book Xenotheology: The Transmedial Scriptures and on the practice of creating one’s own religion as a work of art.
“Why raves are such a reliable source of spiritual experience”
Alexander Dillabaugh writes on the spiritual neuroscience of the rave scene: For these adherents, underground dance culture functions as a kind of spiritual technology. That is, a set of environmental and social conditions that reliably produce the kinds of experiences that humans have long called sacred. Viewed through this lens, rave culture appears less like a … Read more“Why raves are such a reliable source of spiritual experience”
“How to Imagine the Future”
The inimitable M. Dudeck on This Podcast is a Ritual, discussing Xenotheology and the intimate relationships between imagination and spirituality.
“The Runaway Child”
I first came across this poetic essay by the controversial anarchist philosopher Peter Lamborn Wilson – more widely known as Hakim Bey, author of the TAZ theory among many other provocative ideas – sometime in the early ’90s. I lost track of it over the years and only recently rediscovered the text, which (faint bell) … Read more“The Runaway Child”
“13 Artworks by Deborah Kelly”
The Cordite Poetry Review offers 13 collage artworks by Australian artist Deborah Kelly, in connection with her queer insurrectionary science fiction climate change religion known as CREATION: “The religion proceeds from a text I commissioned from artist SJ Norman called the Liturgy of the Saprophyte, and some of these artworks were made as part of calling-into-being … Read more“13 Artworks by Deborah Kelly”
The Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (1923)
A short newsreel capturing extremely rare footage of the Kibbo Kift at work and play. A post-First World War utopian movement, the Kindred broke from the jingoism and militarism of the Scouts and established their own plan for the betterment of individual kinfolk and the future of their society. Among their many innovations were aesthetic … Read moreThe Kindred of the Kibbo Kift (1923)