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)
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”
God is Change.Shape God.The Destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. Click here to visit the Earthseed website, home of one of several new religions inspired by speculative fiction author Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998): Most religions are ultimately cargo cults. Adherents perform required … Read moreEarthseed: a new religion inspired by Octavia Butler’s “Parable” series
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)
Pioneering American neo-Druid Isaac Bonewits first published the ADCDEF in the second edition of his book Real Magic, in the midst of a widespread and sometimes justified moral panic about new/minority religions. As Bonewits commented, many years after its original publication: Minority groups, especially religious ones, are often accused of crimes by members of the … Read more“The Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame” (1979)
Moderator Aaron Grizzell (MA, executive director, Northern California Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Foundation) leads a discussion on the relationships between Afrofuturism and Black religion with panelists John Jennings (MFA: professor of Media and Cultural Studies, UC Riverside 2-time Eisner Award winner (2016, 2018), Kinitra D. Brooks (PhD: Leslie Endowed Chair of Literary Studies, … Read more“Afro-Futurism and Black Religion: Connecting Imaginations” (Comic-Con 2020)
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”
Veteran Burning Man philosopher Caveat Magister wrote this memoir/manifesto/manual for would-be psychomagicians, most especially those inspired (more or less directly) by the often clandestine workings of San Francisco’s underground experiential arts scene between the late ’70s and circa 2015. If you’re intrigued by Gary Warne’s Suicide Club, the Cacophony Society, the origins of Burning Man, … Read more“Turn Your Life into Art: Lessons in Psychomagic from the San Francisco Underground”
Tom Robbins is the author of numerous counterculture classics including Another Roadside Attraction (1971), Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) and Jitterbug Perfume (1984). The search for meaning is not a whole lot different than the yearning for certainty, which is to say, an unsuitable pursuit for any who might aspire to nimbleness of mind, … Read moreThe Meaning of Life According to Tom Robbins