RU336: BLANCHE BARTON ON DANCING IN THE GRAVEYARD: DEATH IMAGERY IN SATANISM & CARL ABRAHAMSSON PRESENTS MEMENTO MORI FOREVER: https://renderingunconscious.substack.com/p/ru336-psychoanalysis-art-and-the
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Rendering Unconscious episode 336.
For this episode, we have two lectures from the Psychoanalysis, Art and the Occult series of events at Morbid Anatomy Museum: Dancing in the Graveyard: Death Imagery in Satanism by Blanche Barton and Memento Mori Forever by Carl Abrahamsson.
Dancing in the Graveyard: Death Imagery in Satanism by Blanche Barton
“Life is the great indulgence—death, the great abstinence. Therefore, make the most of life—HERE AND NOW!”
So reads a phrase from the opening chapter of The Satanic Bible. But if Satanism, true Satanism as defined by Anton LaVey in 1966, is a profoundly life-loving religion, why all the black candles, skulls, and funerary trappings? The use of a coffin in the ceremony known as “L’air Epais—the Ceremony of the Stifling Air”, for example, goes well beyond a simple memento mori to remind ourselves how fleeting is our time here on Earth. The coffin becomes, like the Hanged Man in the tarot, a symbol of both death and transformation.
Memento Mori Forever by Carl Abrahamsson
For the human individual, there is no greater arbiter than death itself. Anxiety and fear are the very shadow-side fundaments of human religiosity, and nowhere is magical thinking as present as in thoughts and emotions touching upon (the fear of) death. One reason why human neurosis reaches ever new heights in contemporary culture is our distancing from death itself, and our painting ourselves into a corner of abstracted and compensatory imagination. How to cope? How to improve this highly detrimental neurosis and its dangerous side effects, such as monotheism?
Carl Abrahamsson is a Swedish author, photographer, and filmmaker. He is also the editor and publisher of the highly renowned anthologies in The Fenris Wolf series. https://amzn.to/4bFDWnP
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Blanche Barton is the present Magistra Templi Rex of the Church of Satan, having been a member for 45 years. She is the author of The Secret Life of a Satanist: The Authorized Biography of Anton Szandor LaVey (2014), as well as her most recent book, We Are Satanists: The History and Future of the Church of Satan (2021). https://amzn.to/4ikE4f2
News & updates:
Beginning this Sunday, Carl and I are hosting monthly workshops!
Introducing: The Sentient Solar Cycle, with author Carl Abrahamsson and psychoanalyst Vanessa Sinclair. Join us for a year long empowering psychic refinement process, with monthly meetings via Zoom. Each 23rd of the month, we will shine the light on what’s ahead in the coming month, using astrological concepts, oracular pointers, (twenty)third mind dialogs, guided meditations, and more. After each session there will also be time for Q & A and discussions.
Read more here: https://thefenriswolf.substack.com/p/the-sentient-solar-cycle
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Photo of Blanche Barton, Carl Abrahamsson, Ruth Waytz.