
The Oxford Golden Dawn Occult Society and The Visible College present
The International Thelemic Symposium
September 28th, 2025 e.v.
at The Old Fire Station, Oxford
All tickets available now
You can buy a Full Ticket to access everything the Symposium has to offer, or build your own experience!
Entry to all lectures and workshops, plus access to our evening social event after the ritual reading.
Entry to either morning or afternoon lecture blocs, with speakers from across the occult community.
Entry to one workshop, consisting of an hour and a half of practical instruction and a ritual.
Entry to the Evening Social for The Shrine of the Golden Hawk and entertainment by Danny Buckler!
Speakers for 2025
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Peter Grey
Workshop Keynote
BABALON: The voice and body of prophecy
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Alkistis Dimech
Workshop Keynote
BABALON: The voice and body of prophecy

This year’s Keynote Workshop will be led by Peter Grey and Alkistis Dimech of Scarlet Imprint:
BABALON: The Voice and Body of Prophecy
Focusing on Liber 49, and how we can work with this text in the performance of ritual using voice, gesture and actions to incarnate the revelation of the Goddess.
Thelema is founded upon the received text, Liber AL vel Legis: The Book of the Law, a prophetic Aeonic event. Yet that time scheme has been disrupted by a series of fresh revelations.
None have achieved the notoriety or importance of Jack Parsons's Liber 49: The Book of Babalon. In this lecture and workshop we will consider the heretical children of Thelema, and ask what happens when a new prophecy is given.
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Jason Atomic
Lecture
Occult Pop: Influences on Jack Parsons and Vice Versa
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Matthew Levi-Stevens
Workshop
The Lesser Oracles of the Great Beast
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Dr. Robert Plimer
Lecture
Atavistic Resurgence in Theory and Praxis
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Charlotte Rodgers
Lecture
Animism, Art, Memory, and Magick
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Dr. Deja Whitehouse
Lecture
The Individuation of Soror Tzaba: Frieda Harris’s Thelemic Journey
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Caroline Wise
Ritual Performance
The Shrine of the Golden Hawk: A Ritual Reading of Florence Farr’s Egyptian Mystery Play
Schedule
Doors at The Old Fire Station open from 9am, when the team will be ready to greet you and you can pick up wristbands (and coffee!)
Click on each session to learn more.
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Sef Salem and Mogg Morgan will open the Symposium and introduce the day.
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Charlotte will give the first of three lectures in our morning bloc, which you can buy separately here.
Building on her earlier thoughts of spiritual DNA being represented by a constantly catalysing double helix of art dancing with spirituality, Charlotte explores the bridge that she considers to link these dynamic strands; animism manifested as memory. Her belief being that animism is not that everything holds a lifeforce, but rather an inherent memory; memory that strives to be acknowledged, articulated and expressed.
By peeling back over 40 years of layers of personal, magical and creative experiences with an onus on explorations in blood, bones and remnants of death, Charlotte will show how working with concepts of animism as encapsulated in memory has caused her to realise that what she initially considered to be an intuitive and somewhat eclectic practice was actually following a very strong and clear, atavistic current.
Charlotte Rodgers is an artist and author who is also an animist and nondenominational practising witch and magician. She conceived and co-edited A Contemporary Western Book of the Dead and wrote The Bloody Sacrifice and P is for Prostitution, all published by Mandrake of Oxford. Her work is published in magazines including The Cauldron, The Oracle and SilkMilk, FOLKWITCH, and The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies as well as in anthologies published by Avalonia, Scarlet Imprint and The Fenris Wolf. She had given talks at Edinburgh and York Universities, The Museum of Morbid Anatomy in New York and many conferences and events, most recently being the Artist in residence at The Magickal Women Conference in Birmingham.
In 2017 she was awarded an an arts Council grant to spend ten days investigating and blogging about the New York art world and a filmed exhibition of her work was made for CRASSH (Cambridge University Centre of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) Magic and Ecology Symposium 2021-2022. Charlotte’s art has been exhibited widely throughout the UK and also in Dublin and New York, and her sculptures are now on permanent display at the Museum of Naive and Marginal Art in Serbia.
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Frieda Harris was a true spiritual seeker who had explored various aspects of mysticism and spirituality from an early age.
When she undertook to illustrate Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth, she undertook a course of study, not only to support the Work, but to explore every aspect of Magick itself. Although her training ceased with Crowley’s death, she continued to apply Thelemic principles to all aspects of her life.
This lecture will explore Harris’s esoteric journey and the enduring influence of Thelema to the end of her days.
Dr. Deja Whitehouse is an independent scholar, writer and lecturer. She was awarded her PhD for her research into the life and works of Frieda, Lady Harris, artist executant of Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth.
Deja has published various book chapters and journal articles, and presented her research at venues as diverse as the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh, the Glastonbury Occult Conferences, Magickal Women Conferences, Trans-States Conferences, Treadwell’s Occult Bookshop, London, and the Warburg Institute.
Her monograph, The Lady and the Beast: the Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley, was published by Oxford University Press in December 2024.
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In this talk, Bob will present an historical perspective and personal observation on the Ophidian Current and its importance in the works of Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian tradition.
Dr. R. A. Plimer (Bob) was born in Edinburgh and then after a short stay in Egypt went to school in the city before moving to Kelso in the Scottish Borders. Bob’s degrees and postgraduate studies include Classics and Ancient History, Philosophy, Metaphysics and Philosophy of Mind. Bob taught for over 20 years in Classics, Ancient History, Archaeology, Ancient Languages, Philosophy and Religious Studies and which added to his already growing magical interests.
As a speaker, Bob, has lectured at most occult conferences both here and abroad, and still runs monthly lectures at the Phoenix Club on the Isle of Wight. Discussions focus on various Occult subjects including Egyptian skrying techniques, Classical Magick, Hermeticism, Neoplatonism, the Grimoire tradition, Esoteric symbolism and astrosophy, ancient and modern Alchemical theoria et praxis along with the individuals who inspire the promotion of the Magical Revival.
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Peter and Alkistis will deliver our keynote workshop, along with bringing books from Scarlet Imprint for you to peruse in the breaks! You can buy a limited number of tickets for only this workshop here.
Thelema is founded upon the received text, Liber AL vel Legis: The Book of the Law, a prophetic aeonic event. Yet that time scheme has been disrupted by a series of fresh revelations. None have achieved the notoriety or importance of Jack Parsons's Liber 49: The Book of Babalon. In this lecture and workshop we will consider the heretical children of Thelema, and ask what happens when a new prophecy is given.
The practical work will focus on Liber 49, and how we can work with this text in the performance of ritual using voice, gesture and actions to incarnate the revelation of the Goddess.
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Item description
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THE LESSER ORACLES OF THE GREAT BEAST: Aleister Crowley, the Ouija Board, & the Yi-King.
Matthew Levi Stevens is the author of 'The Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs' (Mandrake of Oxford, 2014) and various related texts. He has also published articles on Aleister Crowley, John Dee, and Kenneth Grant, as well as a range of print and online articles for Beatdom, FANEmag, The Fenris Wolf 12, Furfur, Reality Sandwich, Soft Need 23, and others.
In addition, he has spoken at The Last Tuesday Society, Occult Conference (Glastonbury), The Atlantis Bookshop, Treadwells, and The Horse Hospital.
Developed from earlier articles & talks, this workshop will explore The Great Beast's lesser-known engagement with the Ouija Board & the Yi-King.
You can buy a limited number of tickets for this workshop as a standalone, or entry is included with full day tickets.
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Following the occult current from the mysterious shadowy depths of ritual and hidden lore into the ‘bright lights’ and superficial sensations of pop culture, Jason Atomic examines the way the lives (and legends) of Aleister Crowley, Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard weave in and out of each other and the culture as a whole- from pulp fiction through magick to science-fact and back.
This presentation draws on Atomic’s research for a book of the same title, currently being developed for Aeon Books.
Jason Atomic is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, curator and performer.
He has contributed to publications like Alternative London, The Illustrated Ape Magazine and Ambit, and has spoken on comics, cults and the Occult at venues as diverse as Orbital Comics, Helgi’s Bar, Treadwell’s Books and the Glastonbury Occult Conference.
Since discovering that an anagram of his name spells ‘Satanic Mojo’ he began publishing the infamous underground anthology comic "Satanic Mojo Comix" which led to the creation of the unfeasably popular Satanic Flea Market, a quarterly dark art fayre in London.
Satanic Mojo Comix is an occult-themed anthology title that takes its inspiration from 60s underground comix, and features a global cast of Satanist Cartoonists including Savage Pencil, Mike Diana, Krent Able, Shaky Kane & more.
His Crowley/R. Crumb pastiche ‘Do What Thou Wilt…Then Split’ T-shirt is on display in The Museum of Witchcraft & Magic. Jason Atomic's artwork is also exhibited in The Museum Of The Final Judgement in Rome, The Satanic Temple’s Salem Gallery, and the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft & Magick in Cleveland USA.
Recent work includes a fully illustrated edition of the Alex Sanders Lectures for Rose Ankh Publishing.
Having left London during the pandemic, Atomic currently resides in an Oxfordshire market town with his muse Manko and a three-legged cat Picasso.
Jason’s lecture leads into the Q&A all-speaker panel, and you pick up a ticket for only this section separately here.
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Mics will be flying around the audience to provoke discourse and debate amongst our speakers, with plenty of time to unpack the events of the day.
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Caroline will introduce a ritual reading of Florence Farr’s Shrine of the Golden Hawk, an exquisite ritual from the Victorian age of the Golden Dawn.
She and Dr. Sue Terry host the annual Florence Farr conference in London, and will showcase the ritual with some special guests!
Caroline Wise presents Florence Farr’s Ancient Egyptian themed play, the Shrine of the Golden Hawk, written in 1901 as Farr was becoming disenchanted with the Hermetic order of the Golden Dawn. It was first performed in November that year.
We’ll be looking at Farr’s Thelemic notions as an introduction to the one-act play, a play which Yeats described as “less plays than fragments of a forgotten ritual, the ritual of a beautiful forgotten worship”, and some magical players will enact a ritual reading.
“I look unharmed upon the face of the god, because his eyes are my eyes, and his power is my power, his spirit is my spirit.”
From the Shrine of the Golden Hawk.
Caroline has attended the Oxford Thelemic Symposiums from their beginning in 1986. She has contributed to several books on goddesses, and on women magical pioneers, such as Florence Farr of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. She first produced Farr’s Egyptian themed plays in 1993, reviving them for the first time in nearly 90s years. Caroline initiated the re-publishing of Kenneth Grant’s books in 1989 and continues to be involved via Starfire Publishing.
Through the ‘90s, she was organiser of goddess conferences in London, and also the Wildwood Conferences, which looked at the connections between folklore and modern paganism.
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After a packed day of lectures and workshops, you can take time to dance and make merry with your fellow guests.
The inimitable stage-magician and magician-magician Danny Buckler will be entertaining us on stage, and the bar will cater to every taste.
We will be closing the event at 9.30pm, but until then:
Aye! Feast! Rejoice! there is no dread hereafter. There is the dissolution, and eternal ecstasy in the kisses of Nu.
Theory
Our packed schedule will include five lectures and a group Q&A session, giving you ample time to learn from our speakers on topics from the Typhonian Tradition to Occult Pop.
You can attend all with a Full Ticket, or pick from morning or afternoon sessions to suit your schedule.
Practice
Intensive workshops will give in-depth, hands-on experience of Thelemic magical techniques and how to improve your practice.
Learn how to embody Babalon with Scarlet Imprint, or use the Oracles such as the Yi King, as part of the full day or picking a single ticket below.
Performance
The Symposium will conclude with a ritual reading of The Shrine of the Golden Hawk written by Florence Farr, introduced by Caroline Wise with some special guest performances.
We’ll then be thrilled and entertained by the internationally acclaimed Danny Buckler, who has even more tricks up his sleeve than the rest of us..
Come and join us!
About OGDOS & TVC
The International Thelemic Symposium was first organised by the Oxford Golden Dawn Occult Society (OGDOS) in the 1980s and ran for several years, attracting speakers from across the world regardless of their area of practice or membership of any particular groups. With the renaissance in in-person events and conferences, the need arose for the Symposium to return to its home in Oxford.
The Visible College (TVC) is a not-for-profit organisation based in the South West of England, working to create a permanent home for alternative education and esoteric art and workshops in an 18th Century estate. Specialising in conferences and events, TVC was invited to collaborate on the reimagined Symposium you see before you in 2024.
This year’s International Thelemic Symposium has been sponsored by Star Club and Mandrake of Oxford, whose leaders will be appearing at the event. Contact us if you are interested in sponsoring future events!