Learning by teaching (and vice versa)

  I’ve recently experienced a rising curve in my “life chart” when it comes to teaching. I’ve been used to being offered lectures at art schools, universities and other environments but these have usually been one-off occurrences: a talk about something or someone specific, etc. Recently I’ve been brought in to teach more properly, and that’s an entirely different matter. At both the Stockholm Academy of Dramatic Arts and Prosjektskolen in Oslo, for instance, I’ve been invited to spend more time with both faculty and students, and it has been very rewarding for me and, I hope, for them as well. Under the banner of “Occulture” I have looked at not only how previously “occult” phenomena and protagonists have become integrated in mainstream culture but also at how many of the thoughts, techniques or ideas presented have a potentially great value for creative people in general. The only thing that is usually needed is an exchange between one set of terms and another. It has mainly...

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In Conversation with James Jesso

  I was recently talking to James Jesso on his excellent podcast Adventures Through the Mind. You can listen to it right here:   “BY DEFINITION, OCCULT SIMPLY MEANS KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIDDEN. In popular culture, however, the word occult often triggers thoughts of the supernatural and paranormal; thoughts of wizardry, alchemy, or maybe even satanism; maybe images of goat heads and pentagrams or sacred geometry and complex glyphs. You probably don’t think of Carl Jung, gene splicing, and Elon Musk putting his car in space, but according to the guest for this episode, you could. You might be surprised to discover occult magic is much more accessible than you have been led to believe. Magico-anthropologist, filmmaker, photographer, publisher and author Carl Abrahamsson is on the show to both expand and deconstruct occult magic and make it accessible to the modern world. Since the mid-1980s Abrahamsson has been active in the magical community, integrating “occulture” as a way...

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In conversation with Whitley Strieber

  I was recently talking to Whitley Strieber on his Dreamland-podcast about Occulture (both my book and the phenomenon), afterlife encounters, William Burroughs’s experiments with recording “dead” space/time and a multitude of other interesting things. You can listen to it right HERE! “Normally, magic and the occult are presented in the media either as something to be snickered at or as a supernatural wonder and, often, danger. But there’s more to it than that, much more, and in this searching interview with Carl Abrahamsson, the author of Occulture, Whitley explores the deeper resonances of the age old practices that fall under the rubric of “magic.” Their conversation about how art and magic intersect is powerfully mind-opening, and the way that Carl explains how magic actually works in the modern world, transforming our lives on a daily basis, is brain-bending. Whitley talks with Carl about his powerful recent contact experiences and what they mean, and...

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Get a signed copy of my book “Occulture”!

  You can get your signed copy of my most recent book Occulture HERE! Trapart stocks the book and it will be promptly dispatched straight from HQ in Stockholm. “Art, magic, and the occult have been intimately linked since the time of our ancestors. Blending magical history and esoteric philosophy, Carl Abrahamsson reveals the integral role played by magic and occultism in the development of culture throughout history, including deep looks at major figures such as Carl Jung and Aleister Crowley. Explores the role of magic and the occult in art and culture from ancient times to today  • Examines key figures behind esoteric cultural developments, such as Carl Jung, Anton LaVey, Paul Bowles, Aleister Crowley, and Rudolf Steiner  • Explores the history of magic as a source of genuine counter culture and compares it with our contemporary soulless, digital monoculture  • Reveals how the magic of art can be restored if art is employed as a means rather than an end and offers...

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