Information and Schedule

Full Line-Up and Tickets Now Available

The International Thelemic Symposium consists of speaker blocs and in-depth workshops for you to delve into the theory and practice of Thelema.

You can read about our wonderful speakers and their events here, and pick up tickets for the whole day or individual sections as you Will.

Schedule

Lectures

  • 10.00am - Mogg Morgan & Sef Salem: Opening Address

    10.30am - Alan Chapman: The Crown of it All

    11.15am - Cavan McLaughlin: The Best of All Possible Wills

    12.00pm - Joint Q&A

  • 1.00pm - Caroline Wise: Ilyarun

    1.45pm - The Boleskine House Foundation: A Visible House There Standeth

    2.30pm -Joint Q&A

  • 3.30pm - Dr. Halo Quin: Encountering Babalon

    4.15pm - Dr. Angela Puca: From Thélème to Thelema

    5.00pm - Joint Q&A

    5.30pm - Mogg Morgan & Sef Salem: Summary & Thanks

Evening

  • 6.30pm - Societas Astris: A Mass of Babalon

  • 7.30pm - Festivities and revelry

  • 10.00pm - The evening event will close and we bid you goodbye… for this year!

Workshops

  • 10.30am - Jason Read: Daoism for Magicians

  • 1.00pm - Mogg & Diti Morgan: Egyptian Serpent Power

  • 3.30pm - Sef Salem: Adapting Group Ritual

Stalls

  • Plant based handmade products for spiritual practices and vibrational healing. Esoteric herbalism, occult botanica, ritual perfumery, poison path.

    Produces available here.

  • Aeon Books is an independent publisher of exciting and innovative books with a focus on alternative and complementary medicine, spirituality, and original fiction.

    Catalogue available here.

  • Occult services including spellwork and readings, available here.

    We have more vendors confirming - you could join them with a Stall Ticket

Keynote Speakers

Alan Chapman
Practitioner Keynote

The Crown of it all: A New Understanding of the Holy Guardian Angel

  • Alan will discuss his experience of working with his Angel for 20 years, including methods, visions, prophecies and mystical experiences, including a complete conception of the Angel required to account for all of the details.

  • Alan Chapman is the author of Magia, Advanced Magick for Beginners and The Baptist’s Head (with Duncan Barford); the founder of Ordo Magia, a branch of the A∴A∴; and the editor of the forthcoming Crowley Collected Magical Works from Aeon Publishing.

    Alan has been a full-time teacher for fifteen years, guiding hundreds of would-be initiates through the reality and myths of profound spiritual practice and experience - traditionally known as the Great Work. Hours of free retreat talks can be found at barbarouswords.com.

Dr. Angela Puca

Dr. Angela Puca
Academic Keynote

From Thélème to Thelema: Tracing the Arcane Path from Rabelais to Crowley

  • This presentation examines the philosophical and esoteric lineage from François Rabelais' 'L'Abbaye de Thélème' to Aleister Crowley's Thelemic doctrine. By exploring the foundational motto "Fay ce que vouldras" within 'Gargantua', we uncover its profound influence on Crowley's central tenet of "Do what thou wilt". The discussion contextualises Rabelais' vision of freedom and natural human inclination within the broader framework of Renaissance humanism and its reinterpretation and application in Crowley's occultism. Through this comparative analysis, we illuminate the transformation of a literary utopia into a spiritual ethos, highlighting the enduring impact of Rabelais' work on modern esoteric traditions.

  • Dr Angela Puca is a university lecturer at Leeds Trinity University and holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in philosophy. In 2021, The University of Leeds awarded her a PhD in Religious Studies, which will soon be published with Brill.

    Her research focuses on magic, witchcraft, Paganism, esotericism, shamanism, and related currents.

    Author of several peer-reviewed publications and co-editor of the forthcoming ‘Pagan Religions in five Minutes’ for Equinox, she hopes to bridge the gap between academia and the communities of magic practitioners by delivering related scholarly content on her YouTube Channel and TikTok ‘Angela’s Symposium.’

    You can support Dr. Puca’s work on Patreon or Paypal and follow Dr Puca on YouTube (Angela’s Symposium), TikTok (drangelapuca), Instagram (drangelapuca), or Twitter (@angelapuca11)

    All of Dr Puca’s links can be found here.

Mogg & Diti Morgan
The Boleskine House Foundation
Cavan McLaughlin
  • Lecture - A Visible House There Standeth: Boleskine House Past Present and Future

    Trustees Keith Readdy and Stewart Clelland will be speaking on Boleskine House’s history, present, and future.

    About

    Keith Readdy is an American born author and researcher on Aleister Crowley and Western esotericism, earning his bachelors in philosophy from the University of Central Florida and a masters at the University of Amsterdam's Center for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents. He owns and operates a property management and development business in London and has a passion for historic buildings. He is a co-founder of and currently serves as the trustee chairman for The Boleskine House Foundation.

    Stewart Clelland is a teacher of philosophy and religious studies in and around the North East of Scotland. He holds a Masters Degree in Western Esotericism (University of Exeter), was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland in 2021, and is a full member of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE). His research background is centred on esoteric spirituality and the practice of heterodox religious traditions with a particular interest in marginalised and persecuted religious communities, both historical and contemporary. Stewart’s work engages with religious studies specifically in the so-called Western esoteric tradition or Hermetic tradition in Masonic and Rosicrucian thought. He is the author of two books on eighteenth-century esoteric Freemasonry, as well as translating and publishing the lost poetry of Eliphas Levi. Stewart is a trustee of the Boleskine House Foundation and helps to forward the organisation's educational objectives.

    The Boleskine House Foundation is is a registered charity in Scotland established to facilitate the restoration of Boleskine House with the charitable objectives of the preservation of arts, culture and heritage, the education of the public, the facilitation of recreational events to improve the quality of life for the general public, and to establish a sustainable future for the estate as a whole to enhance biodiversity and wildlife within the surrounding natural heritage.

  • Lecture - The Best of All Possible Wills

    Cavan McLaughlin will be speaking to the nature of Will, further details to follow.

    About

    Cavan McLaughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at the University of the West of England (UWE), with research interests related to the role and function of occulture. Editor of the volume Trans- States: The Art of Crossing Over (2019), Cavan has also published on Crowley, esotericism and narrativity, open-source occultism, and contemporary occulture. Currently undertaking a PhD entitled ‘Occultural Production as Re-visionary Mythmaking’, they remain a practicing filmmaker, artist, and all-around creative media practitioner. As a media professional of over twenty years, Cavan has been involved in almost all aspects of audiovisual production, specialising in video art, music videos, and visual poetry. Cavan is the founder and Chair of Trans- States (trans-states.org); co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Monad: Journal of Transformative Practice (monadjournal.com); a trustee of the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (www.rensep.org); and, Vice-Chair of the South-West Association for the Study of Esotericism (SWASE). Cavan has a profound affection for cows, fungi, and rainbows.

  • Workshop - Egyptian Serpent Power

    Facilitated by the Morgan Witches Diti and Mogg. The former the founder of the first Thelemic symposium of the mid 1980s, the latter the creator of the innovative Aromamagick system. Aromagick is based on the Tantrik ideology of the Kalas, a concept first introduced to western occultism by the late departed Typhonian mage, Kenneth Grant. The workshop aims to place Thelemic magick firmly back within its ancient Egyptian roots. Workshop will be part lecture part experiential, and will offer a taster of some of the techniques from the Egyptian magick curriculum they have developed, including some of the techniques of ancient magick, the sacred crossroads, the magick of the sky and body, the serpent channels in the alchemical body, which contrary to received belief are the common basis of both Indian and Near Eastern praxis.

    About

    The pair are well known for their interest in contemporary folk survivals of pharaonic magick in things such as Egyptian Zar and this unusual technique will also be explained.

Dr. Halo Quin
Jason Read
  • Lecture - Encountering Babalon: A Phenomenological Enquiry

    What does it mean to commune with a Red Goddess? In this talk Halo explores what it means to meet Babalon as both a polytheist and a philosopher, in the context of embodied magic and theology through the lens of a pagan occultist.

    About

    Dr Halo Quin (they/them) is a philosopher, witch, and pagan author, teaching embodied magic and sensual witchcraft at The Enchanted Academy, and training magicians at Star Club. Their books include “Folktales, Faeries, & Spirits” and “Crimson Craft – sexual magic for the solo witch”. Explore their work at haloquin.net

  • Workshop - Daoism for Magicians

    Jason Read is a Maoshan Daoist Priest, and will be giving a workshop introducing these practices which Aleister Crowley drew on in the creation of Thelema. Full details to follow.

    You can read more about his work here, or follow him on Twitter.

  • Workshop - Adapting Group Ritual

    Much of Thelemic practice is performed alone, such as Liber Resh or the Star Ruby, but what of those who find magick is more fun with friends? Join Sef and Societas Astris to discuss the method of developing and adapting rituals for a group, using rituals from The Grimoire of Aleister Crowley by Rodney Orpheus as examples. This workshop will teach you key skills for making your own friendship group into a magick circle.

    About

    With fiifteen years' experience teaching magick, most recently in Star Club, and over a decade of involvement in organising magical workshops and conferences, Sef Salem's main passion is for group ritual and personal development in accordance with the Will of the participant. He co-leads Societas Astris with Dr. Halo Quin (star-club.org) and runs The Visible College (visible-college.org) to facilitate events such as this one! TVC also hosts other groups' events at a farmstead and glamping site in South Gloucestershire, and has plans for expansion in the future. Watch this space.

Societas Astris
  • Lecture - Ilyarun - The Life, Art and Magic of Steffi Grant

    Steffi Friedman met occultist Kenneth Grant by chance in 1941 when she was an art student in London when they were teenagers. Thus began a dynamic magickal and artistic partnership leading to marriage in 1946 that endured until Kenneth’s death in 2011. Steffi produced some potent evocative magickal art, and was a close friend of the artist Austin Spare. Her written occult contributions were succinct in expressing occult knowledge and a deep magical imagination and understanding. The Grants were essentially private people who felt the nature of the esoteric work they shared with the world through their books should not encourage a cult of personality. There has been increasing interest in Steffi’s work since her death in 2019.

    About

    Caroline Wise initiated the re-publishing of Kenneth Grant’s books in 1989. This led to the emergence of unpublished and new books from Grant which continued with Starfire Publishing which she is part of. Caroline has contributed to several books on goddesses and Mythic London, and on Florence Farr, Pamela Colman Smith, and Austin Osman Spare, She gives talks on these in the UK, USA & Europe.

    Through the ‘90s, she was an organiser of Goddess Conferences, and also the Wildwood Conferences, that looked at the connections between folklore and modern paganism. Caroline has attended the Oxford Thelemic Symposiums from their beginning in 1986.

  • Ritual - A Mass of Babalon

    Members of Societas Astris will be performing a Mass of Babalon to launch our evening social event. This ritual is sacramental (with inclusive options available), and involves Thelemic Holy texts used to invoke the Red Goddess. You will be invited to chant, recite, and participate with your fellow attendees as we dedicate the event to Babalon. Come and join us to commune with Her.

    About

    Societs Astris, or Star Club, is a collaborative creation between Sef Salem and Dr. Halo Quin, bringing group magical experience to all levels of practitioner in a syncretic Western Magical Tradition. Taught successfully for four Cycles in Bristol, with Practitioners and Initiates throughout the country, Star Club’s mission statement is Making Magicians in the UK. You can learn more and participate in person or online at star-club.org