Lectures

Amodali speaking at the Esoteric Book Conference, Seattle, USA. Sept 2014. Image courtesy of Anima Nocturna

Upcoming Talks

KAKT Studium Generale: Wxtchcraft 2021 Autumn Lecture Series

Thursday November 25th 2021 (19.30-21.00)- Via Zoom

Manon Hedenborg White in conversation with Amodali: On Babalon, sacred fem(me)ininity, and occult embodiment

I am honoured and delighted to be participating in the current Studium Generale Lecture Series hosted by the Royal Academy of Art in Den Haag which explores wxtchcraft as a feminist, liberatory practice.

On the date above, I’ll be conversing online with the illustrious scholar/historian Manon Hedenborg White PhD on Babalon, sacred fem(me)ininity, and occult embodiment. More details below:

‘The biblical Book of Revelation (17) features the Whore of Babylon as an antagonist of the early Church — a feminized and eroticized symbol of debauchery and moral corruption. In the early 20th century, the British occultist Aleister Crowley revisioned the goddess Babalon as an emblem of ego annihilation through passionate union with all of existence and the sacredness of the sexual impulse.

Today, magical practitioners are (re)envisioning Babalon as a wellspring of feminine sexual force. This session will utilize the goddess Babalon as a starting point for an exploration of the stakes of fem(me)inine embodiment, essentialism and anti-essentialism, and the different ways in which sexual magic and art may be used to formulate new and radical visions of femininity and the erotic.’

More details on how to join the session here: https://www.kabk.nl/agenda/studium-generale-amodali-manon-hedenborg?fbclid=IwAR3zfWrAzJXkheyV18iVcr2Z0XxkHvRWxiHgd_sJbnp-YmRm54WILJDIRAA

PREVIOUS TALKS

MAGICKAL WOMEN CONFERENCE, LONDON

Saturday 1 June 2019

The Garment of Galvah: Exploring the Erotic Wisdom Body of Babalon in Practice

During the 16^th Century scrying sessions undertaken by John Dee and Edward Kelley that produced the so-called Enochian magical system, the female, angelic intelligence Galvah declared that “true wisdom is always painted with a woman’s garment”. From this quote and the wider Enochian corpus it can be inferred that correspondences may exist between the Wisdom Body of Galvah as representing an emanation of the divine feminine and the Gnostic Sophia (Wisdom), and the complex garb of the goddess epitomised by the mysterious Veils of Isis, symbolising the mysteries of creation. An erotic dimension inherent within the Enochian, feminine current is confirmed when Dee and Kelley encounter the ‘Daughter of Fortitude’ (identified with the Whore of Revelation and the Thelemic Babalon by many present day academics/practitioners), who forcefully affirms the initiatic imperative and primordial nature of her distinctively sexual wisdom. Centuries later, the descriptions of Babalon in Aleister Crowley’s Liber 418 and Jack Parson’s Liber 49 establish her provenance as an Enochian intelligence and role as an avatar of embodied sexual gnosis. Thus it can be construed that the Enochian universe represents an important source of feminine sex-magical wisdom. However, cohesive models of the occult anatomy of Babalon that would support the technical development of progressive sex-magical practices have been elusive.

In this talk/slideshow, Amodali will present a personal interpretation of the magical multi-layered architecture of the ‘Garment of Galvah’, and how it relates to the female body and subtle anatomy as developed over thirty years of practice as a Priestess of Babalon. Amodali uses an experiential, heuristic and reflexive methodology in her practice, based upon direct experiences of communion with Babalon through invocation and trance/possession techniques. The initiatic remit implicit within the Babalon current suggests that women may define and communicate its sex-magical knowledge system from an empowered independent position, within a movement that renegotiates ontological structures and magical formulas within its organisation. Also, as the complex phenomenology and magical cultivation of women’s sexual response and analogous altered states of consciousness within magical settings and practices is sparsely researched and recorded, it’s suggested that the articulation, unveiling or uncovering (apokálypsis) of radical, innovative configurations of magical sexuality by women is an essential aspect of the Babalon or ‘156 Current’. Amodali’s findings suggest that the magic of Babalon offers ingress into a promising but highly challenging sex-magical knowledge system which possesses a specific arrangement of subtle architecture and energetic/kinetic dynamics — powered by magical forms of Status Orgasmus and grounded in a complex alchemical process. By which the central mysteries of the 156 Current as defined by Crowley’s Liber CLVI can be reinterpreted and developed into a sacrament actively formulated and given in initiation by Women.

 ’The Harlot that Shaketh Death’: Aleister Crowley’s “Babalon” as a source of innovative, erotic, and phenomenological models in contemporary esoteric practice

24th-27th May – The Association for the Study of Esotericism Conference 2018

Rice University, Houston, Texas. U.S

“Babalon” is a key representation of eroticised, divine, feminine force in Aleister
Crowley’s cult of Thelema, but Babalon has evolved from her Thelemic roots into an entity that
has gained wider attention from esoteric practitioners and theoreticians interested in embodied
aspects of sexuality. The embodied manifestations of the mythological and symbolic potencies
of Babalon as a revolutionary force, as promoted by key figures associated with her current
during the 20th Century, hinge upon women developing an authoritative status as practitioners.
This requires an ontological shift, that gives women autonomous agency in theory and practice,
and supports the development of more inclusive magical paradigms that transcend binary,
heterosexual modalities of gender/sexual expression.
However, coherent practices that support this position are scarce due to a paucity of
sources and recorded accounts of sexual practices authored by women, and the many
androcentric biases found in esoteric traditions both East and West. As a consequence, many
models of esoteric phenomenology and subtle anatomy do not accurately reflect the lived
experiences of female practitioners. In response, this paper explores promising interdisciplinary
research strategies that use the foundational motifs and definitions of Babalon found in
Crowley’s ‘Liber 418’ as a template for creating embodied sex-magical practices. The
implications of recent studies on sexual arousal in women are also considered, as well as Luce
Irigaray’s theories on feminine subjectivity and divinity. The research supports Post–Thelemic
theorisation on the potential of Babalon as a source of innovative models of occult
phenomenology and erotic, esoteric knowledge systems.

The Full length version of the paper will be available shortly.

‘Liber Incarnadine and The Grail 156’

24th June. 2017 – The ‘Blood, Rust and Bone’ Exhibition. Walcot St Mortuary Chapel. Bath. U.K.

The talk introduced some of the key ideas and concepts that influenced the development of the online, multimedia project ‘Liber Incarnadine’, culminating with a short performance of a selection of anonymous text submissions that have been sent up to the L.I. Website since 2010.

‘The Marks of Teth’

6-7th September. 2014 – The 6th Esoteric Book Conference. University of Washington. Seattle. U.S.

(Details as Below)

‘The Marks of Teth’

26th November. 2013  – The Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness Lecture series. October Gallery. London. U.K.

This lecture introduces some of the themes from the forthcoming book, ‘The Marks of Teth’, which documents 30 years of research and practice within the sphere of sexual theurgy. As well as a being an exploration of female, initiatory, magical formulas and praxis, the book is also an individualistic, passionate examination of the challenges of attempting and defining the sex-magical/alchemical ‘Magnum Opus’ as experienced through the female body. The phenomenological and metaphysical structure of the female ‘magical body’ as a psycho/etheric/physical map delineating female occult anatomy is often obscured and fragmented within western esoteric culture. The dominant narratives within mainstream religious and esoteric spiritual traditions have resulted in highly distorted perceptions of feminine spirit and sexuality. However, as a result of the 19th-century occult revival, women are now exploring esoteric sexuality as a defiantly independent spiritual path and a body-centred spiritual epistemology is slowly gathering force. The Marks of Teth proposes a post-thelemic interpretation of the goddess Babalon that enfleshes a feminine magical signifying language which is wholly erotic and evolutionary in nature. The book reinforces the primacy of embodiment as a foundation of multidimensional esoteric disciplines and enquiry, interpreting the occult anatomy of the female body as an autopoietic construction with its own defining initiatic imperatives. Amodali will discuss the metaphysics and praxis behind her sexual trance techniques and experimental, magical-corporeal language dedicated to the goddess Babalon.