The Magical Writings of Ithell Colquhoun

She was too surreal… even for the Surrealists. Ithell Colquhoun stepped into a movement built on dreams, rebellion, and the subconscious—and still managed to make them uncomfortable. While others flirted with mysticism, she went all in, studying the occult and refusing to separate her art from her inner life. That’s where the tension began. The Surrealists, led by André Breton, wanted control over the movement, and Colquhoun refused to choose between their rules and her beliefs. So they made the choice for her—and expelled her.

But she didn’t disappear. She kept creating, developing her own techniques, building a visual language that was entirely her own, and pushing deeper into the subconscious without permission or approval. For years, she was overlooked while others became icons. Now, her work feels more modern, more fearless, and more honest than ever—because she wasn’t trying to fit into a movement, she was building something beyond it. Some artists wait to be accepted. Others redefine what acceptance even means.

Ithell Colquhoun’s reputation as a provocative and accomplished visual artist and writer is becoming well established. However, less is known about her work as an occult and esoteric essayist, primarily because many of her essays were published in occult ephemera, and limited run local and specialist magazines. This illustrated talk will be an introduction to the wide range of topics that Colquhoun masterfully tackled, ranging from primers on the Kabbalah to Celtic spirituality, meditation, mysticism, and magical color theory.

Jessica Hundley Series Editor for TASCHEN Publications multivolume collection, The Library of Esoterica, a book series exploring the visual history of Tarot, Astrology and other esoteric traditions introduces the event.

Dr. Amy Hale is an Atlanta based writer, curator and critic. She has a PhD in Folklore and Mythology from UCLA and has published academic and popular articles on a wide range of topics such as Paganism and the New Right, women’s esoteric art, Cornish cultural nationalism, Arthuriana, color theory, and occult performance art. She has written widely on artist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun, notably the biography Ithell Colquhoun: Genius of the Fern Loved Gully (Strange Attractor 2020) and is currently editing a selection of Colquhoun’s esoteric essays. She is also the editor of Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave 2022). She has contributed gallery texts and essays for a number of institutions including Tate, Camden Arts Centre, Art UK, Arusha Galleries, Heavenly Records and Spike Island, Bristol.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003)

"Escape the limitations of your origins" - Alan Moore
The Mindscape of Alan Moore is a psychedelic journey into one of the world’s most powerful minds; chronicling the life and work of Alan Moore, author of several acclaimed graphic novels, including “From Hell,” “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta.” It is the only feature film production on which Alan Moore has collaborated, with permission to use his work. Alan Moore presents the story of his development as an artist, starting with his childhood and working through to his comics career and impact on that medium, anarchism, and his emerging interest in magic.

Ouanga AKA The Love Wanga (1936)

In Haiti, a black female plantation owner enacts a voodoo curse, and revives zombies for revenge on a white male neighbour, who has chosen a white woman over her for marriage.

Ouanga, also advertised as The Love Wanga, is a voodoo-themed 1936 American film starring Fredi Washington. George Terwilliger wrote and directed the film. The film's themes include miscegenation and it features various racial stereotypes and portrays the people who practice voodoo as primitive. The movie is considered to be perhaps the second zombie film ever made after White Zombie.

Santa Sangre (in Spanish)

A former circus artist escapes from a mental hospital to rejoin his armless mother--the leader of a strange religious cult--and is forced to enact brutal murders in her name as he becomes "her arms".

Decoder (1984)

A burger shop employee (FM Einheit from German industrial band 'Einstürzende Neubauten'!) discovers hidden hypnotic frequencies in pleasant restaurant background music, alters them (after William S Burroughs tells him how to do it in a dream) and incites a revolution against a dark, dystopian regime. His girlfriend (played by 80s icon Christiane F) helps him with her frog collection. Oh yeah... and Genesis P-Orridge from Throbbing Gristle helps him on his mission too with some magick. *Decoder Handbuch*, is a compilation of text and image brought together and edited by Klaus Maeck and Walter Hartmann as a tie-in for the film *Decoder* (in which Burroughs plays a role). Contributing editors are Volker Schäfer, Muscha, and Genesis [Breyer] P-Orridge. Typesetting by Petra Petzold. A scarce item. German-language only (except for Brion Gysin's "Cut-Ups Self-Explained"). The film *Decoder* which this book supports was produced by Fett Film (Düsseldorf, Germany), directed by Muscha, and written by Klaus Maeck, Trini Trimpop, and Volker Schaefer. Camerawork by Johanna Heer, Peter "Sleazy" Christofferson, et al. Music by David Ball of Soft Cell, as well as F. M. Einheit and Genesis [Breyer] P-Orridge, et al. The cast included F. M. Einheit, Bill Rice, Christiane Felscherinow ["Christiane F."], Matthias Fuchs, Bertold Bell, Ralf Richter, William S. Burroughs, Genesis [Breyer] P-Orridge, et al. The film was also released in 1984. This book contains a number of Burroughs and Gysin related contents. At page 9 is a quote from William S. Burroughs taken from "Die unsichtbare Generation" ["The Invisible Generation"], along with two images: a still (uncredited) from Antony Balch's *Towers Open Fire* of Burroughs with a reel-to-reel tape machine, at rue Gît-le-Cœur, 1962, and a still of Burroughs from the film Decoder, in London, 1982, picking at a tape player (this was likely shot by Peter "Sleazy" Christophersen [of Throbbing Gristle and Coil]). At pages 10-11 is "We Are Here to Go", a brief interview of William S. Burroughs by Klaus Maeck. Photos of Burroughs by Kate Simon accompany this interview. At pages 15-16 is "Der erste Watergate–Skandal passierte im Garden Eden" [this is an excerpt from "Playback from Eden to Watergate"] by William S. Burroughs. At pages 16-17 is "Infraschall" ["Infrasound", an excerpt from *The Job* – ref. pp.54-56 of the Cape edition] by William S. Burroughs. At pages 22-23 is an excerpt from "Die Städte den roten Nacht" ["Cities of the Red Night"] by William S. Burroughs, An image of Burroughs and some text about him and Brion Gysin is at page 55, in "Decoder Drehbuch" by Klaus Maeck, Muscha, Volker Schaefer, and Trini Trimpop. At page 59 is a short bibliography of William S. Burroughs. A still from the movie showing Burroughs is on the back cover of this book, as well. In addition, there are two Brion Gysin contributions: "Cut-Up Self-Explained" – which is accompanied by a photo by Ian Sommerville of Gysin with William S. Burroughs – and "Dreamachine" – which includes Dreamachine plans. This copy was acquired from Antiquariat Kyra Maralt (Warthe, Germany). I brought it with me to the EBSN "Cut-Ups Conference" in Paris, 2023, where Klaus Maeck kindly inscribed the copy, at his foreword, following a screening of *Decoder*. https://www.miningforburroughs.com/2025/05/decoder-handbuch-by-klaus-maeck-and.html

The P-Orridge family (and guests) at Beck Road London 1985

The P-Orridge family (and guests) at Beck Road London 1985 from Thee MediaShaman on Vimeo.

"It teaches that mind is the sovereign power of the universe, and that when its forces are properly concentrated upon any particular object, the true nature of that object will be revealed. Instead of using" How To Be A Yogi by Swâmi Abhedânanda

[1902] p. 66

Genesis P-Orridge at home speaking about culture, art, magick and revolution. Say what you want about Genesis, (self-absorbed, demanding, greedy, attention seeker, martyr syndrome, opportunist and performance junkie?), they were not stupid. The ideas and actions were forerunners and templates for millions of people who woke up and saw through the consumption and lies of post-Industrial culture.

This was filmed at 50 Beck Road, in the poorest East-London district Hackney, winter 1984/85. An italian film-crew makes a spontaneous visit to the family and home of UK-avantgarde musician and industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge. Throbbing Gristle had split up and Genesis and Sleazy aka Peter Christopherson were committed to their new band-project Psychic TV and launching the Temple Ov Psychick Youth as a worldwide network system.

This unedited open talk interview-documentary includes Gen's beautiful wife Paula - highly pregnant with her second daughter Genesse - and friends discussing society and (po-)culture, religion, art, fear, media- manipulation, the heroin-boom and Dr. Margaret Patterson who treated drug addiction using electric stimulation aka "neuro-electric therapy", as well as war and existentialism during England's Thatcher aera ... and how it feels as a young family.

Participants and guests were Monte Cazazza, co-founder of the Industrial Records music label from the US who phrased the slogan "Industrial Music for Industrial People", as well as Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, Jym Daly and Dorothy Max Prior, who released her song 'I Confess' (1980) on industrial records. youtube.com/watch?v=35ONE_dc2pQ

The original of this privat recording got confiscated when Scotland Yard raided the family's home in Brighton (1991) due to absurd accusations made in UK-tabloid newspapers and a 100 % fabricated one hour TV documentary (Channel 4, Dispatches). The Orridge's and their kid were touring through Nepal at that time and went into exile to the United States (California), where the father of Wyona Rider, US-publisher Michael Horowitz, helped them to settle down.

The VHS-tape was copied and archived by Boris Hiesserer aka. Eden 123, founder of the Pyromania Arts Foundation, a former german access point to the TOPY.

La Frequenza Fantasma / The Ghost Frequency

"La Frequenza Fantasma (The Ghost Frequency)" EXCERPT from Chiara Ambrosio on Vimeo.

“La Frequenza Fantasma (The Ghost Frequency)” is a feature film that paints a non-hierarchical portrait of a crumbling village nestled on the mountains of Calabria, in the south of Italy, balanced precariously between life and death.

Engaging with time as physical matter through a careful and protracted period of observation framed through the lens of an animator’s eye (keen on allowing for minute transformations to occur and unlock all kind of quiet epiphanies), this film attempts to uncover at once the layers of historical sediment that have accumulated in a particular space through time, and to reap new myths through a personal interpretation and direct encounter with place and narrative.

 

It is the story of a village, suspended in time and space, a place of sounds, smells and numberless thresholds where the memory of a mythical past and the present are inextricably intertwined. It is an investigation into the nature of collective and personal history, into the origin and preservation of memory- how it is etched and perpetrated, both in the minds of the people who still live there, and in that of the soil, the ruins, matter itself. It is the story of the relationship between animate and inanimate matter and of how this relationship turns into the motor and purpose of existence, the search for the sacred patterns of the quotidian within the rhythms of nature.

 

The physical presence of the body and the overwhelming power of a wild and untamed nature are the two forces which dominate all belief in this secluded and anachronistic stretch of land, where faith and superstition are the binding elements that help the continuation of identity and collective history. The survival of community relies on it. The few testimonies gathered in the film are the voices of the village’s guardians and have the power of an incantation, that grants survival and continuation to what would otherwise crumble into oblivion and loss.

 

The title of the film refers to the role that the telegraph, the radio, and the transmission of sound signals played in the studies of different dimensions and the otherworld, allowing to tune into frequencies that, although invisible to the eye, are nevertheless a fundamental aspect of our collective subconscious, following the understanding that sound, once released, will never disperse but will continue to haunt the ether, invisible and inaudible but an unquestionable trace of lapsed presence.

 

For more information about the film and the author please visit acuriousroom.com

For an interesting discussion about the ideas behind the film see Federico Campagna in Conversation with and Chiara Ambrosio Part I

“You may think that you do not know Verbicaro. Never set foot or imagined it. But you are wrong and The Ghost Frequency will prove it. This haunting epic poem of shadows and echoes will dream you every time it flickers inside a screen or whispers the ages under your approach. Don't be shocked by your knowing, unsettled by the familiarity, because it is tuned to your recognition and the phantom of your returning.”

- Brian Catling, artist, author and professor of Fine Art at Ruskin School of Art, Oxford

"A compelling, lyrical and beautifully realized portrait of people and place, of the universal need for home and roots and at the same time a precisely calibrated site-specific exploration, La Frequenza Fantasma marks the emergence of a bold new film essayist in Chiara Ambrosio."

- Gareth Evans, Film Curator, Whitechapel Gallery

"A seance, an eavesdropping, a mysterious bolero: LA FREQUENZA FANTASMA is a striking essay film that enshrines and expands the poetics of place, people and memory."” –Sukhdev Sandu, NYU

"The Ghost Frequency- You have to make the journey. You can't bring it home. Look back and it dissolves into light.

- Tony Grisoni, screenwriter and filmmaker

Change Itself: An Art Apart – Genesis Breyer P-Orridge

To sum up the life and work of British artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge is close to impossible. Not only because of the wide range of artistic disciplines, but also because of the timespan, since the mid 1960s to the present day, that has been saturated by musical projects like Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV, hundreds of records, thousands of concerts, exhibitions, interviews, videos, spoken word performances, collages, sculptures, philosophy, cultural engineering, occultism and radical transgender concepts. A couple of descriptions are still valid after these 50 years of active creativity and provocation. P-Orridge is a romantic existentialist and a cultural engineer. Everything is both work as such and seed for cultural and behavioural change.

 A film by Carl Abrahamsson, Sweden, 2016. www.trapartfilm.com

‘The Daemonic Mucosal’ - Patricia MacCormack

MacCormack’s illustrated lecture ‘The Daemonic Mucosal’ explores, via Irigaray and Deleuze and Guattari, the role of the vulvic fold, the mucosal and daemonic unions in chaos magick.

Patricia MacCormack is Professor of Continental Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University. She is the author of Cinesexuality (2008) and Posthuman Ethics (2012), the editor of The Animal Catalyst: Toward Ahuman Theory (2014) and the co-editor of Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Cinema (2008) and Deleuze and the Animal (2017). MacCormack is also the co-founder of the occult-inspired club night Occulture in London.

CUNTemporary
CUNTemporary is a non-profit organisation that works with individuals and groups that explore feminist and queer art practices and theories. CUNTemporary provides a newsletter and daily listings of events related to feminist and queer art practices in the UK. The events team curates talks, screenings, exhibitions, performances, events and club nights with the participation of a multidisciplinary and international group of artists, performers and theorists, mainly in London, but also around the UK and abroad. We welcome networking and collaborative opportunities from curators, academics, artists, activists, institutions and alternative venues.


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Genesis P-Orridge Lecture - Sound and Life

Seminal alternative artist and musician Genesis Breyer P-Orridge was born Neil Andrew Megson in 1950 in the United Kingdom and reborn as a gender-erasing pandrogyne with her partner, Lady Jaye, in 1993.

S/he rose to notability as founder of the confrontational COUM Transmissions artistic collective, which operated in Britain from 1969 to 1975, and gained widespread notoriety for their Prostitution Show at London’s ICA in 1976, after which they were vilified as “wreckers of civilization” in the tabloid press.

P-Orridge went on to front Throbbing Gristle from 1975 to 1981, the legendary band that created the industrial music genre, before forming the equally influential band Psychic TV (1981–99).

P-Orridge is also a published poet and author with a long-standing interest in the occult. S/he was a founding member of Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, an informal occult order established in 1981, which had a critical influence on 1980s culture, popularizing tattooing, body piercing, acid-house raves, and other cultic flirtations and investigations.

About CCA's 2014-15 Graduate Lecture Series
Entitled Sound & Vision, the 2014–15 Graduate Studies Lecture Series, examines the rich landscape of contemporary music and sound art. In performances, audio lectures, and conversations an international roster of some of today’s most compelling and innovative practitioners and thinkers will present projects and discuss ideas and histories of interest in the aural field.

Generous support for CCA public programs in San Francisco has been provided by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

Gen is currently unwell. You can help by donating here.

The Mindscape of Alan Moore (2003)

The Mindscape of Alan Moore is a 2005 documentary film which chronicles the life and work of Alan Moore. In it, he details his startling and profound worldview.

Alan Moore presents the story of his development as an artist, starting with his childhood and working through to his comics career and impact on that medium, and his emerging interest in magic.

The film features the first film adaptations of scenes from Moore's acclaimed series V for Vendetta and Watchmen, shot in early 2002. Another key scene features a direct reference to the character of John Constantine from the comic book Hellblazer. The film also contains a brief look into Lost Girls, which would not be officially released until years later.

Vali: Death in Port Jackson Hotel - 1971

A film by Ed van der Elsken. Features Vali in her "savage paradise", Il Porto, the canyon near Positano where she created her artwork. (Duration: 36 minutes).

Vali Myers (2 August 1930 – 12 February 2003) was an Australian visionary artist, dancer, bohemian and muse whose coverage by the media was mostly in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s in Europe and the United States.

The Bones Go Last - The Life of Austin Osman Spare

The Bones Go Last Part 1 from The Bones Go Last on Vimeo.

Austin Osman Spare (1886—1956) was an English artist—and practicing occultist.

The Amazing Daniel Higgs

"You are not alone in the midst of song. You are not even close" - Daniel Higgs

Daniel A.I.U Higgs, Interdimensional Song-Seamstress and Corpse-Dancer of the Mystic Crags was born in the Harbor City of Baltimore, USA in the early-mid sixties of the previous millenium. Having begun singing 25 years ago, he is perhaps best known as the singer and lyricist of the band Lungfish, which is now, as it often has been, quasi if not entirely defunct. Presently, the music Daniel manifests proceeds without the blessing/curse and help/hinderance of collaborative influence.

The Power Of The Witch - British Witchcraft documentary, 1971

An extremely rare documentary about Witchcraft aired once in the UK in 1971. Featuring contributions from Eleanor Bone, Cecil Williamson, Alex & Maxine Sanders, Doreen Valiente et al. Very much of its time and with some very rare footage, also includes reference to the famously unsolved murder of Charles Walton on Meon Hill.