Hello everyone!

[Angela accidentally knocks the microphone]

I always do this, but welcome to the live stream Symposium. And welcome here to all of you Symposiasts. I’m Dr Angela Puca, and as you may know, if you’re not new here, but if you’re new here, welcome and nice to meet you. I’m Dr Angela Puca, and I’m a Religious Studies, PhD, and a scholar specialising in Esotericism, Witchcraft, Paganism, Shamanism, and all things occult. And my channel is about delivering free academic scholarship on these kinds of topics, topics in the study of Esotericism or Paganism and related currents.

So I’m so pleased to see you in the chat. First of all, thank you for moderating, Andrew, João, and Edward. And it’s lovely to see other patrons of mine as well, such as Sean, and hi Hank, it’s really nice to see you here.

Before we dive into the conversation, I just wanted to let all of you guys know that I have a crowdfunding campaign open to get a new laptop. Because unfortunately, it turns out that video editing in 4K and in better quality, as you may have realised that my videos have improved in terms of quality and production, but it really requires a high-demanding machine. So, the one that I’ve been using so far is not working so well anymore, which means it crashes all the time and requires several rendering attempts, and I’m very limited with what I can do with the editing because otherwise it just won’t render. So I just decided that I need a new laptop. So, yeah, in case you are, you can contribute, and you want to contribute, there’s the there is a link in the chat, Andrew just posted it, and there’s going to be one in the info box, and then afterwards in a pinned comment, because I’m only allowed to to write comments and pin a comment after the live stream has ended. But thank you so much for considering that, and all the ways to support my work are also in the info box and in a pinned comment.

So now, let’s get on with our conversation, you guys. I had a very interesting weekend last weekend because I had the pleasure of meeting two of my patrons, and one in particular that I had met for the first time. We met in Ireland, and we went to the Bealtaine fires, in the Bealtaine Fire Festival, at Uisneach. I’m hoping to pronounce it right. I’ve heard it pronounced “Uisneak” and “Uisnock,” but the Irish people I heard pronounce it “Uisneach,” so that’s what I’m going for. And it was really an amazing time. And I can see that you are in the chat, Hank, so it was amazing meeting you, and it was a really great experience to have the experience together.

So it was such an intense weekend that I really struggled to fall back into my routine. I’m generally very productive and can easily fall back into my usual work routine, but after this trip to Ireland, I found it particularly difficult to go back to normal life. It was quite intense.

And every time that I meet a Patron of mine, I always feel so incredibly blessed and grateful because I think that the community that we have created is probably the most if not one of the most important things that this project has brought into my life. So I’m very, very grateful, and I do adore my community. I adore my community here on YouTube, and I have obviously a special relationship with my patrons and my Patreon community. So, yeah, I just wanted to share this with you guys.

And if you guys have questions, you know, you can just write them in the chat as usual. But it’s better if you start with “QUESTION” in caps-lock so that it’s easier for me to spot your question as opposed to a conversation with other people in the chat. Although I have to say that every time I look back at my livestreams and the chat box, it’s like, “How come have I missed that comment and that question?” I don’t know why for some reason my brain sometimes overlooks certain things. So definitely the best way to make sure that there is no chance that i miss your comment is the super chat, but otherwise, I will try and pay attention to your questions with the “QUESTION” coming in all caps as the first word.

So, let me see what’s going on in the chat now.

I saw this message from Valentina before we went live, and you said, “Love to Angela. I heard that you’re a good resource for real Italian witchcraft. That you’re a first generation, but all the relatives have passed.” Yeah, I’m really sorry about that. But I hope that my work is useful to you in that respect. And my PhD work, my research will be published hopefully soon. It’s under peer review at the moment, and it’s going to be a bit more exhaustive hopefully, even though I think that more research is needed, to be honest, to have a better understanding and a more exhaustive understanding, especially of the regional variation in Italian witchcraft.

But I can understand how, for people who are from the other side of the world, it might be difficult to gather information on Italian witchcraft, especially in English because there are a few things in Italian, but it’s difficult to find something that is translated in English. And the things that I have found, and often people tend to ask me, “What do you think about this book? What do you think about that book?” I think there are some that really put an effort into trying to understand Italian witchcraft, but it’s often people that have been born and bred in North America. And you can really tell that when they go to Italy, you know, when you approach a different culture, it’s very, very difficult to understand it from within. So there is, quite naturally actually a lens that comes from your own culture that will be applied, and especially when there are missing points or things that are not quite clear, it’s much easier to fill those gaps with what makes sense to you. So that’s what I tend to find with those kind of books.

So I’m hoping that in the future there will be more research. There’s also another PhD that was done on the Segnature, although it was focused on the region Emilia-Romagna in Italy, but that’s in Italian and in French part of it because the University was a French University, but the whole dissertation, the bulk of the dissertation was in Italian with some parts in French. So it is really a problem to find things in Italian, but hopefully, my book will alleviate that problem.

So, nice to see you guys in the chat. Let me see if there are questions.

Hi Marian Fermani,

I hope I’m pronouncing your name right. Can you talk about the difference between Astral travel and shamanic journeying?

Oh, that’s a good question. As you guys know I have a video on Astral Travel. And there’s also a short that I made. I still have conflicting feelings about shorts. I’m posting them because YouTube really wants us to post shorts and also to experiment, I like to experiment with new things. But I’m not sure it really worked with the content and you know, the Angela Symposium here on YouTube. But anyway I have a short and video on Astral Travel and one of the things that I said that I said, that people don’t particularly like, is the fact that Astral travel is quite recent because it’s a concept that was first talked about by Leadbeater who was a Theosophist. So it’s a 19th century concept – that of Astral travel and has become extremely influential and has resonated to the point where everybody now talks about Astral travel.

Now people say, well but there are people from all over the world and across traditions that have Astral travelled. Well that perhaps is not Astral Travelling but it’s more out-of-body experience. So if you look at the literature, at the academic literature, you will find that there are many studies on out-of-body experience, which is the term that tends to be preferred in science to define what people within the practitioners’ community would call Astral Travelling but the concept, the theosophical concept of Astral Travelling has been so influential that has become synonymous with out-of-body experience and it is not. And you know that I’m going to be the pedantic academic that reminds you that different terms will have different connotations and different cultural connotations, historical elements to them. So Astral Travelling is something quite specific – it is a form of out-of-body experience but it is Travelling to something that is called the Astral Plane and that is what is new about it, because the concept of the Astral Plane, the way we understand it now even though you find a lot of variations about the understanding of the Astral Plane but it was Theosophy that put it forward.

And in Shamanism you also have the idea of Travelling. It’s not necessarily an out-of-body experience, so the out-of-body experience which is often seen as synonymous to Astral Travelling by many practitioners is the idea that there is part of yourself that leaves your physical body with your consciousness and you are able to travel – you know, if you have the concepts of the Astral Plane it travels in the Astral plane, otherwise if you conceptualise it in a different way it is an out-of-body experience that allows you to travel for different realms or to perceive and approach reality in a non-ordinary way.

In Shamanism you have two forms of out-of-body experience. One is what you would define as a technical out-of-body experience which is the there’s part of you that leaves your body and travels in a place that is either different from the physical world that you used to in your mundane existence or it is something completely different. It is an experience and a realm of reality and the aspect of reality is completely different and there are some practitioners and some shamans that believe there are several realms of reality that you can travel to with this out-of-body experience.

Then there is another thing which has been popularised by transcultural forms of Shamanism, such as Core Shamanism, and that is the idea of Shamanic Journeying which doesn’t really, not necessarily imply the fact that you go outside of your body, it doesn’t imply or necessitate an out-of-body experience but it’s rather you journeying through a non-ordered reality that you can approach even with your visualisation and your imagination. so something that happens with, for instance, with Shamanic Journeys in transcultural Shamanism and Core Shamanism is that you will listen to something that alters your state of consciousness such as the monotonous sound of drums and rattles and then you visualise yourself entering certain spaces depending on whether you want to journey, because in transcultural Shamanism they talk about the lower world, the middle world and the upper world. And each world has its own reasons as to why and its own population that you may encounter. But for instance, when you go to the lower world you will visualize yourself entering either a hole in the ground in a place in nature that you’re familiar with or a hole in the trunk of a tree. So the idea is to go downwards, entering through a cavity a natural cavity that you’re familiar with. And I don’t want to, you know, explain this in too much detail because otherwise, I will talk for hours.

But I’d say that the difference between Astral Travel and Shamanic Journey is that well Astral Travel is a form of out-of-body experience that implies the existence of the Astral Plane that’s a relatively modern concept that comes from Theosophy. So it is an out-of-body experience that makes you travel in the Astral Plane. In this plane that has been this realm of reality that has been defined and conceptualised by Theosophy and clearly resonates with many practitioners because many have endorsed that kind that perception.

Whereas Shamanic Journey can be a form of out-of-body experience I wouldn’t say necessarily that you go to the Astral Plane, the way It Is conceptualised by Theosophists and later magic practitioners. And it can also be a way of travelling and experiencing a non-ordinary state of reality, a non-ordinary reality. But through the use of visualisation and imagination, not necessarily leaving your body, even though for some it could still count as an out-of-body experience. Because for some shamanic practitioners when you visualise yourself going somewhere you are going to that place because imagination is very much real. So again it kind of depends on how you conceptualise these things. But the technical term that is normally used for out-of-body experience is different from this type of Shamanic Journey that you find in transcultural Shamanism and Cor Shamanism.

So I hope that that answers your question. My moderators tend to say that I take too long to answer questions. That’s what happens when you are an academic, you talk for hours.

So, what locations in Italy do you recommend visiting for its history of magic? Do you believe that theMontevirgineare still relevant? Grazie!So fun to chat.

I’m glad that you find it fun.So, places to recommend in Italy: there are many, but I think that probably the most known ones in relation to Witchcraft, I’d say that you will find elements of Witchcraft all over Italy, but the ones that come to mind the most are Benevento, which is sort of the Salem or Salem of Italy because it is the city of the witches. Even if you look at the football team, the logo is a witch. So that, and they have their own liquor that is produced in Benevento, which is called Strega, which means “witch” in Italian. So it is kind of a everything-in-that-city’s-Witch-themed, and that comes from the Witch Trials and the medieval/early modern history of Witchcraft thatislocated in Benevento.

And a famous Noce in Italian would be a “walnut” in English, and allegedly witches would fly to this walnut to celebrate the Sabbath. So, Benevento became quite famously linked to Witchcraft, and it still is. So, you will find that it is quite witch-themed.

Another city that has a lot of magic related to it, is Turin, but I’d say that you really have many, many places in Italy that have history related to Witchcraft.

Even Rome – well, I’m from Naples, so I’m kind of biased, and I will say there are many magicians and philosophers of magic that come from Naples, from the Italian Renaissance, like Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella,Giambattista della Porta. So you have quite a few that come from Naples, just saying. Then there’s a famous Chapel in Naples that has a lot of alchemical symbolisms and it’s really loved by Freemasons, which is called Cappella Sansevero. I’m not sure if there is an English translation, if there is, I will have to write it in a comment somewhere.

So, Dave is asking, “Which books would best introduce me to magic?”

That’s a good question and a question that I get asked a lot. I think that I should put together a list of recommended books for beginners. The problem with this question is that I don’t know exactly what you’re drawn to, and magic is extremely varied. So, what aspect of magic are you interested in? What are you drawn to? Is it Kabbalah, is it Paganism, is it Shamanism, or is it some form of Ceremonial Magic? Because you really don’t have one book that addresses everything, I really like.

So, I’d say that if somebody just wants to get a general introduction to different forms of magic with a book that is academic, there is the book that is edited by Hanegraaff, which is called, I’m hoping to remember the title now because every time that I have to remember something off the top of my head, I blank out. I think that it’s called “Dictionary of Gnosis in Western Esotericism.” I think, and it is edited by Hanegraaff. So, Andrew, please link it, find it and link in the chat. Otherwise, I will link it in the info box afterwards so you can check the info box tomorrow, and you will definitely find it. But yeah, that’s a good one because it’s kind of a dictionary, so you will find all the different entries like alchemy, astrology, Freemasonry, Paganism, different types of different alchemists, different Freemasons. You know, you have a massive book, and it gives you a good introduction in that sense. In the sense that you will have a theoretical historical overview and introduction over many, many things, and then you can find what you’re drawn to, and then you go into details on that one.

If there is anything that you’re particularly interested in that I’ve covered in one of my videos, all of my videos have references and recommended books. Recently, I’ve added recommended books to the info box because I realised that some of the academic books are inaccessible. And that’s one of the reasons why I have this channel, to make them accessible to you and to everybody. And I really thank my patrons, channel members, and donors of any sort because they not only allow me to do this work, but they are gifting the world, you know, this knowledge, because I can take the time to produce this material for free for everybody to have access to. So, that’s amazing.

And yeah, so I started adding recommended books as well, which are not necessarily academic books just because sometimes academic books are stupidly expensive and very inaccessible, which bothers me a lot because the content is very valuable. But, you know, there’s that kind of gatekeeping element of the price and the accessibility that really bothers me because I’m really for the idea that education should be accessible to anybody, both education and healthcare. I think, I strongly believe should be public and accessible to all.

Let me see if there are other questions.

So, what are my thoughts on sleep paralysis? Sleep paralysis, demon, or entity? Love the channel, great stuff. And thank you for your appreciation of my channel. So, what do you think about sleep paralysis? That is very interesting. That’s an interesting topic. I’ve never researched into it academically, and you’re making me want to make a video on that now because it is quite interesting, and I’ve never studied it as an academic. I have heard about it, you know, being in, attending communities of magic practitioners and Pagans. This is a topic that occurs a lot, and anecdotally, it seems that a lot of people report having experienced sleep paralysis. So, I can’t give you an answer based on academic research. I hope that I will be able to do that soon. I want to do the research and make the video now because I think it’s a very interesting topic that I need to cover. I hope that there is some academic research on that because one of the things that happen when I want to make a video is that since all of my videos are based on scientific papers and academic scholarship, even if I have knowledge of something but I cannot find any peer-reviewed study, I cannot cover it based on my methodology. But hopefully there is something on that.

So, since at the moment, I cannot give you an answer based on research, I can tell you that anecdotally, based on what informants have said or practitioners have said, I’ve had once Shaman saying that sleep paralysis is a state where it is sort of an intermediate state, and at that point, either you stay in that state and go back into your body, so it’s kind of the beginning of another out-of-body experience, and either you sort of stay in that state and go back out of fear or because you don’t know what to do, or you move forward and then you start your out-of-body experience journey. And there are people that report fearful things like you mentioned “demon,” and I’m guessing that by demon you mean some evil entity.

It is something that is reported by people, and what I’ve heard from practitioners and this Shaman that I’m thinking about is that usually, you have to, it is recommended when you are a practitioner, at least by this Shaman that I’m referring to, to sort of dispel the fear and move on into your journey. So, this is potentially the beginning of a journey out of your body, but I will be able to tell you more once I do more research.

Hi Davlani – Davlavi, sorry. I always see your comments on my videos, so thank you so much for that. I always read all comments. I’m not able to reply to them all, but I read everything. So, I especially remember the names of those who comment over and over under my videos.

So, in your research, if you come across hypnosis or hypnotic phenomenon… No, I haven’t. I haven’t in my research, but that sounds like another interesting topic for a video. Hypnosis, hypnosis in relation to magic, could be a great topic. But no, I haven’t encountered it. But that reminds me of a book that is not an academic book. It’s more of a practitioner’s book, even though it’s written by a psychologist. I think, is it a psychologist or a psychoanalyst? I’m getting confused. But it’s from Brian Weiss, and it’s called “Many Lives, Many Masters.” And he’s a therapist that used hypnosis to cure his patients. And what happened during this hypnotic stage that he reports in this book that you can read if you like, I thought it was a very interesting book. I really liked it. And there were people that, when he asked them to go back to the source, to when this psychological problem that the person had started, they start explaining what they see and what they have around, and it is from a different life. So, the point that comes across from that book is that some of the problems we may have or the psychological issues that we may face may not come from this life. Some could very well come from this life, and others could be rooted in a previous life. So, I thought it was an interesting way. I think that it’s an interesting way of using hypnosis in a magic-esoteric context, but that’s another topic that I want to research. So, thank you for asking that question.

Hank says, the city-state still exists in Italy, all Italians are biased to their hometown. I think that that’s probably because Italy is such a young country, that there is still there’s still a lot of regional variation and people tend to be attached to the place they come from. I think that I’m also attached to my identity as an Italian but definitely, you know, when I talk with other Italians I think that it’s very clear that I come from Naples – in terms of the way I speak, the way I gesticulate, the way I curse. So there’s that.

So, Frater Zigmund asks, “Any underrated historical figures in this field that you think should gain more attention?” Oh, I like this question. So, underrated… I think the first that comes to mind is Giambattista della Porta. This could be, again, my provincialism because this is another Neapolitan figure, but Giambattista… I think there are some magicians from the Italian Renaissance that have got a lot of notoriety even outside of Italy and internationally, such as Giordano Bruno and Marsilio Ficino. Marsilio Ficino is not from Naples but, we still like him. So with Giambattista della Porta, I think that he’s not as known as others, even though I found, because I did my master’s thesis on Giambattista della Porta and his book in Latin, which is called “Magia Naturalis sive de Miraculis Rerum Naturalum” and it means “natural magic” or “the how miraculous natural things can be” to translate it not super literally. And I thought it was very interesting because it was a way of distinguishing between natural magic and witchcraft, which at the time kind of saved him from the Inquisition.

And it seemed to be, you have across history, these conversations about what is the legitimate type of magic and what isn’t the legitimate type of magic. And sometimes you really have that the sheer concept of witchcraft is a concept of othering, and it’s just the magic practices that are not allowed by your own religion or other practices of the others. But Giambattista della Porta tries to draw a line between communing with spirits, entities, and demons and that’s witchcraft, and that’s not allowed. Whereas natural magic, which means trying to understand the hidden book of nature and also understanding the plants and the herbs and the gemstones and everything nature offers, and affecting changes through that, even with herbalistic formulas. You know, he also talked about things that now would be considered not magic but creating concoctions with a certain purpose in mind and to a certain aim. But I think that Giambattista della Porta is probably underrated because he should be studied more and talked about more.

You guys are giving me lots of ideas for videos, not that I ever lack ideas for videos. I only lack time to do the research and write the script and do all that is required for a video to be put out on YouTube. But yeah, I like Giambattista della Porta. Maybe he’s a bit of a reductionist in a way because he kind of has that reductionist flavour to his natural magic, but I still think that he’s worth studying.

So, let me see if there are other questions.

Dwellinfaith asks, “Can you elaborate on ecstatic dance in witchcraft? I have been reading on Tarantismo. What magical significance does the Taranta have? Thank you for recommending Cappella San Salvero (it’s spelled S-e-v-e-r-o).”

So, in terms of the ecstatic dancing in witchcraft, I think that you mean Italian witchcraft since you’re talking about tarantismo. I’m not an expert on tarantismo specifically. There’s Joanna Parmigiani, who is now teaching at Harvard University, who’s a colleague and a friend. She has done some studies on that. At the moment, tarantismo is not really a form of witchcraft, even though there are some magic practitioners that are trying to reappropriate that and use it in their practice. But in recent years, it’s been more of a folk tradition that has been practised to keep the tradition going.

But generally speaking, in terms of the ecstatic dance, you find ecstatic dances in many types of witchcraft. I think that there is always, or in most cases, you find it when there is a magic operation, a magic working. There is the putting together of the symbols and the creating of the spell. When practitioners try to affect change through magic, they design a spell or a ritual or a magic working in a certain way.

The magic working is usually designed to leverage the correspondences that are in the world. So, everything corresponds to something else. You may have certain gemstones that correspond to love, a certain herb that corresponds to courage. So, you put together the things that align with the type of correspondence that you want to bring into your spell. And then there are also other phases in the magic working, and it depends on the tradition, and the kind of phases. But then there is one aspect or one step in the magic working where there is the raising of the energy.

The raising of the energy is when what you are creating in that magic work, in that ritual, sort of rises and is directed towards the universe, the divine realm, the fabric of reality, to affect it. It depends on the worldview and the belief system of the practitioner. But there is quite often this stage where you have created, you have tied those knots using the correspondences. The idea is that things are all connected by invisible ties, and so you try to connect those ties. And then you need the energy to activate that in a way.

In magic practices, different practitioners raise the energy in different ways. So in Wiccan rituals, for instance, you have the cone of power. That’s what I’ve seen very often in Italy among pagans. And that is that after the ritualistic spell crafting side has been done, practitioners would dance, either in circles or do a sort of spiral dance around the altar and around where the symbolic objects that represent the spell are. They charge it in that way. Then that could be classified as an ecstatic dance.

But there are many forms of ecstatic dance, and even sex magic could be considered as a way of raising energy. There tends to be something physical that is believed to activate the spell, to activate the ritual. Sometimes it doesn’t necessarily have to be dance; it can be singing, music, or different things. But there’s this point where there’s the activation of the ritual, the raising of the energy so that it can be directed to where it needs to go and affect the change. That’s the idea that you have.

Ecstatic dances can be used in witchcraft either for these purposes, to raise energy and seal the spell, or to enter an altered state of consciousness and perhaps travel or perform divination. So, there are many different magical purposes that ecstatic dances are used for.

Now let me see if there are questions.

Hank is asking, “Does sleep paralysis always happen when I sleep? What is it called when awake?”

That’s a good question. I don’t think I’ve come across something similar that happens when you’re awake. I think that I’ve always heard of people having that specific experience when they were either asleep or lying down. I’ve also heard of people having the experience when they were lying down and, you know, sort of an in-between state. But I’ve never heard of people just having that kind of paralysis when they were walking around and going about their day. So, I’m not sure if that’s a thing, but if people know anything about it, please let me know in the chat or in the comments.

Arthur says I like the scholarly nature of the channel that’s why I’m here.

Thank you so much, I appreciate that.

So let me see if there are other questions

.

Naeopolis – those Greeks, yeah. I don’t know if you guys are familiar with this but Naples comes from ancient Greek which is from the ancient Greek neo polis which means new polis, new city. Basically because at the time you would have certain city-states in ancient Greece and Naples was the new one. It reminds me of when the British people went to America and they called everything new, you know, New York, New Jersey.

Oh, Andrew says underrated are all women alchemists. Yeah, definitely. I’m planning on doing a collaboration with Justin Sledge, Dr Sledge from the channel Esoterica, on Isabella Cortese, who’s an Italian alchemist. But yeah, I’d say the women in history, are underrated across the board, not just the alchemists, but yeah, that seems to be a pattern for some reason. But definitely, we need to cover more of those. Like, for instance, have you guys watched my video on the artist? Now, it’s giving my brain… the Australian artist that I made a video on recently. Why can I not remember her name? Wait a second, Rosalie Norton. Have you watched that video? Because I think that she is also an underrated character, and I wonder whether the fact that she’s a woman plays a role in that, to be honest. Because she, as I said in that video, I find her so fascinating because she’s a proto-left-hand path practitioner, meaning she was kind of a left-hand path practitioner before the left-hand path was a thing. And she is also a proto-pagan before Wicca was a thing. So, you know, she’s just such a groundbreaking esoteric character, and I’ve only recently found out about her. So I was so shocked that I thought, ‘I have to make a video on her,’ because it is shocking that I’m only learning about these amazing artists and occultists now.

So merry meet to you to Lilith or Lilith Lilith’s Honey Bun

Oh, Jorge says Flamenco is an ecstatic dance. The static dance is called Dande. It means Spirit.

Oh, that’s really interesting.

I detect a Yorkshire accent. What?

[Laughter]

I don’t think so. Well what could I say in Yorkshire

[Laughter]

and also they tend to drop the consonants like Universe instead of universities. But no, I’m not really able to put on a Yorkshire accent.

“Lillian asks, ‘Does Hecate or Hekate have connections with Hermes?’ I’ve recently made a video on the connection or lack thereof between Hekate and Heka, the Egyptian Heka, and I’ve had many questions in the comments about whether there is a connection between Hekate and some other deity. So, mostly, when you try and understand the potential connections between Hekate or any other deity, for that matter, and another deity, I would say it is more likely than not that there isn’t a connection. If two deities have different names, different realms, different connotations, and they even have a different historical background and history. Quite likely that they are… well, you know, they are not the same deity, to begin with.

In terms of connections, that’s a different matter because, as you may have seen in my video on Heka and Hekate, you find that there is a weird connection between Heka, the Egyptian Heka, and mageia, which is the ancient Greek word from which the English ‘magic’ comes from through Old French, which is strange. But it is a sort of a late Coptic in connotation that he acquired, then he got linked to the concept of mageia. So, you can find there are some connections where you could say, ‘How did that happen?’ But some historical evolutions can create certain connections.

Now, a connection doesn’t mean that two things are the same thing, of course. This is something that I tend to emphasise a lot on this channel. So, I think that probably most of you are familiar with that. So, I haven’t done any proper research on potential connections between Hermes or Hermes, as English people tend to say, and Hekate. But based on what I know, I wouldn’t particularly see a connection. But I would have to do further research to give you a proper answer.

I’m thinking now that maybe a connection could be the fact that they are both sort of… what’s the term? Psychopomps. It’s not just psychopomps, but the idea. There are, in many pantheons, in many traditions around the world, you tend to have those deities. And for some reason, I’m thinking now about the Voudou Loa Papa Legba. There are these deities that are sort of the road-openers, deities that are also somewhat guides when somebody, a practitioner, is travelling or trying to interact with another deity from that pantheon. And probably, and by practitioners, both Hermes and Hekate have been seen in that regard. But I’m not sure how historical that is because, as I said, I should do dedicated research to give you a proper answer. But that’s one thing that came to mind now, so I just wanted to share it.

So let me look whether there are other questions.

Really I didn’t know that, I have to look it up.

So yes, Dr Justin Sledge is really cool. I’m really glad that I’m gonna meet him again in Sweden next month because we’re both going to the ESSWE conference which is the Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism. We tend to always say ESSWE Conference.

Dr. Angela, what music artists of any genre do you personally feel genuinely incorporate an occult practice into their music, as opposed to those who only try to use it for showmanship?

Well, that’s an interesting question. I’m not sure that I will have an exhaustive answer to that. I think the band that comes to mind – that, to me, feels very occult is Therion. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it. And I think that Thomas Karlsson, the founder of Dragon Rouge (and I’ve recently made a video on Dragon Rouge, the left-hand path tradition), he, I think, writes the songs for them if I remember correctly. But I think so. So yeah, I would advise, especially if you are into Hermetic Kabbalah and Hermetic traditions and the occult Western esoteric tradition, I think that you will like Therion.

And I was actually only for a short time in a band that had toured with Therion, and they were about to probably have a similar experience to tour with them. I was really excited about it at the time, but then academia took over my life. But yeah, I really like Therion. And there are many, many, I would say there are actually many bands that incorporate occult elements. And I think that even in some cases, even if there may be an element of art, you know, wanting to portray yourself in a certain way, but I would say that’s probably still an appreciation of that.

And one thing that it seems that practitioners seem to report is that when you work with certain entities, especially the ones that start with D and end with N, they tend to really like to be publicly celebrated. So, you can never know, maybe one of those songs is an invocation of some sort, a way of thanking an entity for something that they have achieved. But yeah, Therion was the first one that came to mind. And it’s also difficult to make sure of these things because I can think of many others that have occult elements, but I’m not totally sure whether they are into the occult themselves. I’m thinking about Fields of Nephilim. I think they are also occult practitioners. But if any of you guys in the chat know of any other music band that generally incorporates occult elements on purpose, let us know.

Are you familiar with the Fire Kasina and meditation technique that involves candle gazing? It can bring about very intense visualization. Daniel Ingram is a practitioner of interest.

Yes, I am familiar with this practice. It’s one of those practices that are meant to foster something that, in Sanskrit, is called Ekāgratā, which is the fixation on one point. So, you have many techniques of that sort. You have also the Mantra and you have breath techniques and visualisation techniques and even gazing techniques. The idea is that it is trying to retrieve the power of your mind because the underlying idea here is that the mind is powerful and transformative. The problem, the practitioners would say, is that we tend to dilute our mental power in the myriad of different thoughts and micro thoughts that we have in every single moment.

And so, when you are able to fixate on a single point, having a single-pointed attention allows you to exude more of that power. So, it’s similar to having scattered light from the sun or having a focused light from the sun through a magnifying glass. The latter will be able to burn a piece of paper, whereas the scattered light of the sun will not be able to do that. It is the same exact light, but when you condense it into a single point, sort of focus, then it becomes much more powerful. So, that is the concept. And so, the gazing of the flame of a candle acts in a similar way. And the same goes for Mantra or for gazing techniques. Another gazing technique that is quite common is the idea of the opposite, focusing on one point. It is not having any focus at all. And that is reported by practitioners to help you see entities more, as opposed to developing your mental power and having a focus that allows you to be more effective in your magic. In this case, it would be more directed towards enhancing your vision and your capabilities in that respect.

So yeah, there are many techniques of these sorts that practitioners who… there are practitioners that practice every day and do those techniques to sharpen their skills and their abilities.

Valentina says… interesting because one of my close friends is called Valentina… but I would love to talk with Angela about the diagnosis and then the healing ceremonies of the Navajo reservation. I spent 10 years on the reservation and attended many rituals.

That’s very interesting. Yeah, that would be interesting to talk about. I do have the chance of having one-to-one conversations with me on my Patron at the Archmage or higher tier, in case you’re interested in that. Otherwise, feel free to share here in the comments or in the DM. But I tend to have more interaction with my Patrons, I have to say.

Do you have any strong interest in pre-Roman traditions of the Italian Peninsula?

Yeah, I think that is interesting. It’s not something that I have researched as an academic, only tangentially because there were some… you know that I’ve studied Italian witchcraft and that I’ve studied Segnature, which are the gestures and words that are used by Italian vernacular witches to affect change, especially when it comes to healing. And there are some Italian shamans that claim that their Segnature are not Christian because most of the Segnature are syncretised with Catholicism and they have a strong Christian connotation. Except that now, the new generation of practitioners are syncretising it more with paganism. However, there are also Italian shamans that claim that their Segnature come from the Etruscan tradition so that they have never been syncretised with Catholicism. So, I had to start to look a bit into that because of this element that my informants have reported during my research.

But it would be interesting to investigate a bit further, maybe even for a video. I tend to focus more on the contemporary world, and there is already so much to do when it comes to the contemporary world. But I want to include more historical research as well, so that would be an interesting topic for a video.

Yeah, that’s true. Led Zeppelin has a lot of interesting cool things I think that they were also practitioners, at least some of them but I’m not completely sure.

Yeah, Dead Can Dance is another amazing band.

What other objects besides mirrors can be used to trap malicious spirits

And, well, that’s not, particularly an academic question, but since I, you know, for my fieldwork, I have attended many different rituals and different communities, esoteric communities. One thing that people that I’ve heard, in relation to this topic, is that some people, some practitioners, think that you can use rocks to trap malicious spirits. I think it really depends on the tradition because you find some of these in shamanic traditions as well. But I think the rocks are probably something that I’ve heard more than mirrors. Mirrors are used more to enter in contact with spirits, to have them appear, to scry, to do scrying and enhance divination. So, mirrors are the way I’ve heard practitioners talk about mirrors. They tend to focus more on creating a connection. It’s sort of a portal that allows you to enter into conversation with entities or bring them into appearance while you are doing scrying or doing other forms of divination.

Oh, we have a few other recommendations, music recommendations.

And thank you for being a channel member and also thank you Jeff for becoming a channel member.

Oh, nice from South Korea. That’s amazing, hello. I’m gonna butcher your name now Zanelvy… and you’re gonna hate me but thank you so much. It’s nice to hear the you’re here from South Korea.

So let me see if there are other comments, I mean, and also questions.

Oh, this one is interesting. Can Christian Mass be seen as a magical ritual? Of course, Christian self-understanding would strongly deny, but that put aside, what would your view be?

I’m not sure if you have watched my interview with a scholar from the University of Oxford, it’s Francis Young. We did an interview, I think, a month ago on the occult politics in British history, and by the end, the conversation became, well, it was interesting throughout, but at the end, we touched on a point that I thought was particularly interesting. And that is that witchcraft tends to be, and magic, what is defined as magic, tends to be a way of othering a practice, which is something that I have also published about. The idea that what constitutes magic, what is called magic, or what is called witchcraft is usually what is forbidden. So sometimes, it’s not really informative of what the practice is. It’s more informing you about what you’re not supposed to do.

And at the end of my interview with Francis Young, we were talking about how the people in power, in a way, control the narrative around what is magic and what is not magic. And on that occasion, we were talking about kings and queens and royals, as opposed to the commoners, you know, the rest of the people. And you have that sense because we’re talking about the fact that you often have the sense that people who have no power in society are the ones that resort to magic because they have no other way of exerting power in their life or gaining back control in their life. But actually, if you look closely, you will find that even people in power do things that could be very well classified as magic. It’s just that, since they are in power, they control the narrative over what constitutes witchcraft and magic. And since these terms have been used for the longest time in terms of othering, then the person in power, the religion empowered, and the politician in power is going to say that what is forbidden is witchcraft and what is accepted is not witchcraft. It’s something else. It’s a miracle. It’s tradition. It’s religion.

But, you know, very often, the things that they do are very similar. I mean, have you seen the coronation of King Charles? So I would say that they could be very easily seen as magic rituals of some sort if, provided, we remove the element of othering from witchcraft and magic. Because if we’re trying to define what magic is or what witchcraft is and we boil it down to the practices and what you want to do with the practice, and you remove the element of othering, then I would say that many religious practices and even so-called secular practices could count as such. It is just that othering elements might not fit that definition when it is in place.

Let me see if there are other comments or questions.

So I’m gonna answer one last question. I lost it.

Why are modern and ancient capabilities of magic depicted differently? Druids are said to be able to shape-shift and Buddhist monks are said to levitate. But Modern Magic doesn’t boast such feats.

What do you mean? Do you mean that? I’m not sure what you mean, to be honest, by this question. Do you mean depicted differently in terms of how they are defined or what people claim to be able to do? I’m not sure what you mean. Please let me know in the chat. So, so I think that I have answered all the questions that start with ‘QUESTION.’

Is it strange for witches to not feel human on the inside?

I’m not sure what you mean, but is there any human who feels human on the inside? Yeah, I’m not sure what you mean, but if the answer is whether witches and magic practitioners are humans, I would say yes. But I probably know what you mean, and I think that it’s probably a sentiment that a lot of people share at times.

I guess modern magic would claim that it is impossible to shape-shift or levitate, but in ancient times, such depictions are common. Yeah, I see what you mean now. Well, I think that this would require a long answer. I think that when we think about history and how things were depicted in the past or even the narratives around how things work in the world, there were times in the past when the accuracy of the information was not as important as it is for us now.

So, I find that often, you know, when you hear people saying, ‘Oh, in Roman times, they didn’t know any better, they didn’t have our scientific knowledge, so they thought that Apollo was bringing the sun and the sunrise,’ so it is connected to a lack of understanding and the lack of scientific knowledge when I would argue that that’s not really the point. It wasn’t really the point of the myth to begin with. It was not supposed to be a historically accurate understanding of how things happen but a mythical understanding of how things happen.

So, my impression is that in the past, even when there is mention of certain magic abilities, they didn’t necessarily mean to be literal. But perhaps that’s my hypothesis, perhaps they meant something that was not literal but was still conveying a certain meaning. So, being able to levitate could mean different things. It could even mean an out-of-body experience, or it could mean really levitation as some practitioners claim is still possible now with certain yogic practices.

And for shape-shifting, it could mean, again, many things depending on the tradition, depending on the person. Could it be a form of glamour magic as it would be called today? A way of appearing in a different way as opposed to physically shape-shifting, or do they actually mean shape-shifting? I think that all these things are highly contextual. So, you have to look at the exact claim at the exact time from the person and the tradition that the claim comes from. Otherwise, it becomes so generic that it means nothing.

But that said, I think it’s also important to bear in mind that not all claims throughout history were meant to be factually accurate and literal. There have been cultures and times in history where that wasn’t the case when even history was not necessarily a strict dictation of the facts that had occurred. It had something else that was embedded into it because the view that we now have of history and of science and of understanding things and talking about things is our own way, and we shouldn’t superimpose it on the past. So, that’s why I say, one, we should bear in mind that in the past, people might have seen conceptualized things differently, and two, it’s really contextual. So, it really depends. Maybe they were literal in a certain context, in a certain time, in a certain tradition, but not in another. So we need to be very contextual and also sensitive to the changes that have occurred throughout history in terms of how things are perceived, things narrated and how important was to be accurate as opposed to being transformative. Sometimes that was the purpose.

So, I think that on this note, we can end this livestream. I’m really, really glad to have talked with you guys. And again, if you are fond of my project, I would encourage you to support my work so that I can keep making scholarly content, do the research, and make this academic scholarship available to the public. So yeah, if you have the means, I would really appreciate if you consider supporting my work. You can do it on Patreon, or PayPal, by joining memberships. Now there’s the crowdfunding campaign so that I can actually have a laptop that doesn’t crash on me every half an hour or more often when I’m doing video editing.

And otherwise, I also really appreciate it when you share my videos around, like them, and, well, smash the like button. And I hope you do too on this video as well if you like this conversation. And also, subscribe to the channel if you haven’t already and encourage your friends, family, and everybody you know to do the same. And I just really, really appreciate you being here, guys. I really adore this community and you mean, you all mean so much to me. So, any way you can contribute to the Symposium and be a proper Symposiast and share the Symposium around is always deeply, deeply appreciated. And I always remember all of the names of those who comment over and over on my videos. So, thank you all for that as well, and I hope that you all stay tuned for all the academic fun.

Bye for now.