The Drakon Isle Awakens
Nine occult speakers walk into a Castle…
On the weekend of the Spring Equinox, the esteemed Dr. Robert A. Plimer invited practitioners, academics, and researchers to speak and enjoy the Isle of Wight for the inaugural Occult Conference, this year’s theme: Magick, Art & Medicine.
Gathering on the Friday night and scaring the living hell out of the bar staff, it was a great opportunity to reconnect with old friends and make new ones over a whisky at the Ryde Castle Hotel.
Bringing the Neuro-Gnostic Model to light
I presented The Mystical Mind: Introducing the Neuro-Gnostic Model which underpins the Star Club system, while the current Star Club Cycle were engaged in their Natural Magic module and enjoyed a lecture by Cristina Pandolfo on Plant Spirits and performed the Spring Equinox Open Ritual.
Here’s the abstract:
Over the last five years, Sef Salem has created and led a magical group named Star Club including over thirty Practitioners and Initiates in Bristol. The Star Club Framework is based on the Neuro-Gnostic Model, a process for integrating the neurological and the mystical. In this lecture, Sef Salem will discuss its theoretical basis and magical application, then share illustrative rituals and life-changing results from Star Club Cycles past and present.
This Model was developed by Sef Salem over years of working with adepts and experts in occult fields including Hermetic Qabalah, Enochian Magic, Thelema, and Chaos Magic, combined with his own research in neuro-linguistic programming and theoretical physics over twenty years of practice. The Neuro-Gnostic Model creates an operational paradigm for interacting with the Universe, drawing on Morphic Field Theory and Animism along with neurological conceptions of the way our minds interact with reality.
The Mystical Mind will elaborate on Sef’s Model of esoteric practice and demonstrate theurgic and thaumaturgic principles in action to create results in a modern magical order.
I’m very pleased to say the lecture went down well, and Bob indulged me for a couple of questions from other speakers about dream manifestation and the tricky business of avoiding subconscious pitfalls on the way out to the Universe. I enjoyed speaking at the conference and will happily present this lecture again at further events; meanwhile I’m working on other presentations for the Welsh Occult Conference in Cardiff and a Pagan Camp in the Summer (TBC).
A well-varied line-up
Throughout the day we enjoyed presentations from across the magical spectrum, starting with Caroline Wise’s deep dive into the oldest magical statues of Goddesses (and the chance to make our own!), and encompassing the folklore of rats with Paul Cowdell, shamanic healing with Dr. Vav Simon, the art of Austin Osman Spare with Michael Staley, and entering the Vodou Kingdom with Sean Woodward. While every lecture was engaging and interesting, stand-outs for me were Sarah Janes, Sian Sibley, and Bob Plimer.
Sarah is the author of Initiation into Dream Mysteries who spoke of the incredible Greek healing compound of Asklepius at Epidavros where she has run dream incubation retreats, as well as organising the Dream Palace Symposium in Athens. We had a brief but enjoyable discussion about the chain of manifestation and the role of dreams as both precognition and prophecy, and I hope to discuss this with her further in the future.
Sian organises the Welsh Occult Conferences - with a few tickets left for Welshpool in May - and spoke on the magical and medicinal crossovers of herbs and the ways in which pharmacology has failed natural practitioners by removing so much of the holistic approach employed by herbalists through the ages. Over breakfast we chatted about the importance of consciousness and an animist approach to the Universe, which featured heavily in my presentation, and it was great as ever to catch up with the DragonOak team.
Closing the day was Dr. Plimer, giving a thorough primer and introduction to the magick of the Duat as practised by ancient Egyptian initiates - Swnw(t) - which was well received by the wide array of attendees. Star Club was lucky enough to have Bob deliver a more technical lecture on this subject last Autumn Equinox, which you can read about here. We finished the day with a raffle where all speakers offered a prize, and one lucky attendee has won a ticket to the International Thelemic Symposium! Bob was of course the beau of the ball so we didn’t have a lot of time to speak, but the success of the conference was hard-earned and I was pleased to see it pay off in spades for him and his team.
Soothing the Dragon
That night, once the revelry was concluded, I took the opportunity to walk to the sea at midnight under the moon and stars, and release some heaviness in my heart back to the water. This is a practice I learned from Swedish brethren in Ordo Templi Orientis and the act of being still in the presence of the great water which encompasses our world is both reassuring and awe-inspiring.
The next day, a few of the speakers and attendees made our way down to the beach, looking to still the Dragon at the heart of the Isle as tectonic activity has caused erosion and land loss. Led by Vav, we called quarters and sang our offerings - while outside of my usual wheelhouse, I very much enjoyed the chance to participate and contribute to a healing ritual for the land which had so graciously hosted me.
The shore of the Drakon Isle
I made my way back to Bristol, to hear of the adventures at Star Club over the weekend - which you can read all about on our sister blog here. Thanks again to Bob, Elaine, John, Bethan, and the rest of the team, and to the staff at Ryde Castle for putting up with us all! Here’s to many more Isle of Wight Occult Conferences to come.
In the meantime, you can see Caroline Wise and our other fantastic speakers at the International Thelemic Symposium on the Autumn Equinox and join attendees from across the world for a whole day of lectures and workshops. Tickets are available, and we look forward to seeing you there.