Lectures at Treadwell′s

Treadwell’s bring esoteric subjects to thinking, well-read enquirers. Our invited speakers are scholars, biographers, and, occasionally, particularly renowned practitioners. Each talk is of about fifty minutes’ duration, and is followed by a thirty minute seminar discussion, in which people attending contribute reflections, questions, and comments.

Many of our talks sell out well in advance, so booking ahead is strongly recommended. Reserve seats by email, Skype or by phone, 020 7240 8906. Payment is required at the time of booking.

We have an archive of past lectures, and you can also subscribe to our mailing list. You can also get events updates via an RSS Feed.

Treadwell’s is becoming the place to get an intelligent person’s guide to the cultural history of the esoteric in a way that ought to be covered by the BBC. A great deal of the value comes in the discussion immediately after the lecture where an unusual mix of academics, those practicing in the esoteric traditions and open-minded interested lay people raise questions in an environment where I have not yet heard a word spoken in anger or condemnation – even pedantry is worn lightly.
– Tim Pendry, Livejournal

13 May 2008 (Tuesday)
Athanors in the Garage
The Practices of Practical Alchemy Today
Paul Wood (Wood-Moss Herbals)
£5 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

Paul Wood keeps alembics and athanors in his garage, and last summer he made a copper still in his garden, to make spirits of wine. His home has shelves lined up with glass jars of liquids with 'things' in them, steeping and waiting for the turn of the moon. Yes, really. Tonight Treadwell's introduces the world of the practising alchemist, with a talk by someone who actually lives this life. Today's alchemists, it should be noted, are not trying to turn lead into gold – rather they create herbal elixirs, salts, distillates, and traditional perfumes – 'lesser circulations'. With overheads, pictures and handouts, the speaker reveals how people actually do perform and practice this art. No prior knowledged is assumed, so the talk will be suitable for people who aren't already steeped in chemistry or alchemical terminology. This is one for the curious – learn and have fun.

Paul Wood has been working in alchemy for the past few years, and co-taught the Treadwell's Advanced Herbal Magic course in 2007. He has a love of traditional incenses and perfumes, is one half of Wood-Moss Herbals, and tonight promises to include few stories of his strangest alchemical adventures.

15 May 2008 (Thursday)
The Solitary Witch in Modern Britain
Reflections on a Pagan Path
Christina Oakley Harrington
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 pm start

The hedgewitch in her cottage is found in fairy tales like Hansel & Gretel or, more kindly, in Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tiggywinkle. Herbalist, nature mystic, crafter of homely spells and earthy wisdom. The pagan path is followed by many more than initiatory Wicca, yet there is much less historical or reflective awareness about it. Christina Oakley, a scholar-practitioner, looks at a range of issues concerned with what it’s like to build up a spiritual and practical life of this type of witch. She covers the background and work of seminal pioneers Marian Green and Rae Beth in Britain and Scott Cunningham and Raymond Buckland in the USA, reminding us that that solitary witches were originally thought both bad, wrong and ineffective – if not actually an impossibility. After a historical and theological survey, the talk turns to experience and practice: self-training and motivation; external models; the seduction of false history; skills and crafts; mystical activity; the pros and cons of working without mentors. The evening concludes with questions and discussion.

Christina Oakley Harrington holds a doctorate in History and is a former university lecturer in religious and medieval history. Currently she runs Treadwell’s. She loves the Thames, dances under the moon, and tries to mix herbs at least once a month.

20 May 2008 (Tuesday)
Seven Planets, Seven Magics
Introductory Level Illustrated Lecture
Lily Moss
£5 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

Grimoires, cunning men, Wiccans, Christian Kabbalists, hedgewitches and even Renaissance neoplatonists all have this underlying principle in common -- as above, so below. In Western Europe and Britain, this has, since the middle ages, been the guiding principle has been expressed largely through the seven sacred planets. Whether it be in a kamea, a sprig of St Johns Wort, angelic principalities, ritual metals, the idea that the planets embody forces on earth that the magician works with. The astrologer analyses these, the nature mystic contemplates them, but they are everywhere. Tonight's speaker is passionate about planetary magic of all varieties, from wax seals to floral tinctures to solomonic rituals. Lily Moss tonight introduces the seven planets in this illustrated talk which promises to be lively, engaging, and full of slides of gorgeous old woodcuts, paintings and illustrations. She talks through their attributes, some of the poetry and myths written about them, and tells some stories of her own experiences with them.

When not brewing or inscribing things planetary, Lily is a student of English Literature at Queen Mary, University of London, and a keen photographer. She is also one half of the much-loved Wood-Moss Herbals and regularly runs workshops at Treadwells.

27 May 2008 (Tuesday)
The Shaman, the Vision and the Brain
The Human Anatomy of the Gods
Dr David Luke
£5 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

Tonight Dr David Luke looks at the way current neuroscience understands people’s experiences of visionary encounters with discarnate beings. In all times and places people have had profoundly real experiences of deities, demons, angels, elves, aliens, and ghosts. Often these occur when a person is in altered state – dreaming, on drugs, is near death. The connection between the altered state and the ‘visitation’ is explored in a vivid illustrated talk, which takes a tour through folklore, myth, neurochemistry, magic, shamanism, the Luciferian witch cult, brain anatomy, the pineal gland, the Reg Veda, psychoactive toads and a cauldron full of other odd ingredients. A lively slide lecture format followed by discussion.

Dr David Luke is a popular returning speaker at Treadwell’s. He recently completed his PhD at the Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes at the University of Northampton, where he is also an occasional visiting lecturer. Northampton is the nation’s most important centre for scholars of parapsychology.

29 May 2008 (Thursday)
Western Occult Kabbalah meets Jewish Kabbalah
Two Traditions in Dialogue
Daniel Jonas meets Christina Oakley Harrington
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 pm start

Tonight Christina Oakley Harrington meets Daniel Jonas for a discussion/interview evening: Western Occult Kabbalah meets Jewish Kabbalah. The two traditions compare notes on a range of topics – working with the spheres on the tree of life; some issues concerning gematria; correspondences; the two pillars; and what does a kabbalist in each tradition actually do, in terms of activities and meditations. It’s an almost unique chance for non-Jewish Pagans and occultists to learn, from the source, about this path as followed by Orthodox and other traditional Jews, in a language more or less familiar to them. Christina and Daniel promise friendly banter, lots of time for audience questions, a few amusing anecdotes from their respective kabbalistic communities, and lots of thought-provoking information.

Daniel Jonas is not only a practising student of traditional kabbalah, but he is also a Jewish interfaith facilitator, who has (almost uniquely) been involved in Jewish-Pagan interfaith work. Bring an open mind and lots of questions.

04 June 2008 (Wednesday)
'The Call of Cthulhu'
Tales from Lovecraft
Mike David
£5.00 payable in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

The Cthulhu Mythos is the parent to much of the focus in chaos magick. HP Lovecraft's tales are weird, uncanny, disturbing and -- for some -- awesomely inspiring. This evening brings the best and most vivid of these tales to life, in the suitably magical Treadwell's underworld. Here's the premise of the performance...

"In the corpse-filled basement of an ancient, eldritch house where unspeakable horrors have been witnessed, one rashly determined literary sleuth is hot on the trail of the fabled H.P. Lovecraft. Our literary detective finds an apparent chaos of manuscript fragments which cumulatively present a blood-freezing picture of a universe more uncanny, aggressive and terrifying than the sickest imaginings of the most corrupt and diseased mind. What daemonic forces will their foolhardy investigation unleash upon an unsuspecting world?
Dare you be there to find out? Dare you?"

Mike David is an actor, writer, creator and perfomer of over thirty years experience. His presence is electrifying, and his ability to bring stories to life is at times breathtaking. Mike David's credits are many, and presently he is working on several performance projects around London.

10 June 2008 (Tuesday)
Interview with a Witch
Mo Batchelor talks to Christina Oakley Harrington
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 pm start

Mo Batchelor is a witch and gay man, now nearing 50, first drawn to Paganism and witchcraft in the early to mid-seventies. His pagan spirituality was launched as a child by Alan Garner’s books, then shaped by the 1970s counterculture, including the Maxine and Alex Sanders phenomenon. Explorations of other spiritual traditions followed, including Sufism. His own current (evolving) pagan path emerges from all these influences. In the course of 35 years he has seen attitudes towards LGBT issues change considerably, both within society and within the world of modern Paganism. Tonight he will chat about his magical and spiritual life (ups, downs and crises); about his observations of pagans and sexuality; impressions of the witchcraft scene in the mid 1970s; and about his pagan life today, which he pursues with his husband. A witch’s inner life is shared: his values, sexuality, mysticism, ritual, magic, meditation and personal philosophy. Tonight’s is part of Treadwell’s ‘Interview with a Witch’ series.

12 June 2008 (Thursday)
The Elf, the Witch, and the Devil
Northern Traditions
Dr Cyril Edwards (St Peters, Oxford)
£5 in advance
7.15 for a 7.30 pm start

Oxford's Cyril Edwards tonight looks at Germanic sources for elves, witches and the Devil, asking 'What, in Germanic history, was meant when one said elf? Witch? Devil?' He will lead us through descriptions of these three creatures, moving backwards in time. He will start with the eighteenth-century German literary sources (Goethe, Tieck), go back through the witch-trials (Germany, Scotland), then back further into medieval German, and then further back still to Old Norse (Snorri Sturlusson, of course). Finally he will show us actual elf and witch charms of Anglo-Saxon England. There will be lots of handouts and readings - Cyril Edwards' presentations are always interactive. Questions and open discussion will follow. This talk will be invaluable to people studying any number of subjects: German culture, the modern Northern Tradition, and the development of folk magic in the British Isles.

18 June 2008 (Wednesday)
Finding the Latter-Day Goddesses
Pangaea, Britannia, Lady Liberty and their Sisters
Fleur Shearman
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

Goddesses of antiquity are well known modern pagans, but there are also powerful and wise female images from the last five hundred years – and these are not well known. This lavishly illustrated slide lecture will bring them to life, and we will meet goddess-like figures from recent centuries Christian Europe. Fleur Shearman will show allegorical paintings, symbolic works, monumental sculptures – a veritable feast for the eyes. We meet Nature and land as ‘Woman’ as shown in maps, engravings and book frontispieces, with female personifications of the earth’s continents and Pangaea. The talk then turns to Britannia, derived from the Roman goddesses of state power, most notably Minerva and Roma herself. Looking at art and writings on Britannia, we are able to see how she was (and is) perceived by British people over the the recent centuries. Lady Liberty is the final ‘goddess’ of the evening. Her origins are found in the reverse types of Roman coinage, where Libertas holds the cap of the freed slave, and she lives in the modern world in New York’s colossal statue of Liberty Enlightening the World. Liberty’s revolutionary headgear, the bonnet rouge, enjoyed a renaissance in the late 18th-century Revolutionary era, as a symbol of that terrifying but exhilarating tide of freedom. The evening promises to open up new perspectives on goddess archetypes in the modern world.

Fleur Shearman is has been giving art-historical talks on goddess-related subjects for over twenty years, with essays and articles published in numerous journals and books over the years. She lectures from an inspirational and interdisciplinary perspective at the meeting point between art, history, poetry and myth. She is co-founder of Order of Minerva in the West (the OMO) with artist Stuart Littlejohn and poet and playwright Phillip Clayton-Gore, and this talk was first given at a retreat of the OMO this Spring. More on the OMO and its activities: http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/DomusMinervae/

19 June 2008 (Thursday)
Pop Culture Magic
A Practitioner’s Perspective
Elizabeth Maddison
£5.00
7.15 for 7.30 start

Magick drawing on the archetypes, images and powers of fiction, media, television and film -- this is not a new phenomenon, as adherents of Cthulhu rituals can attest. But the television era and the related teenage witch phenomenon has given rise to a generation of young people whose primary magical instructors are fictional characters. In this illustrated lecture, Elizabeth Maddison speaks of her magical and pagan practices, grounded in popular culture. Along the way we meet Buffy, Willow, Xena the Warrior Princess, Stargate and even the CareBears.

Elizabeth Maddison grew up in West London in the eighties and nineties amidst the heyday of the teen witch phenomenon, and is steeped not only in pop culture but also in Wagner, opera and literature.

30 June 2008 (Monday)
The Woman Magus
A Woman's Adventures in the World of Modern Magick
Jaq Hawkins
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

Jaq D Hawkins talks informally in an intimate environment about her experiences in the magical communities of chaos magic and the wider magical community. Looking at the almost silent subculture of women magicians in a world where most of the well-known practitioners are male, she considers the differences of what draws a woman to the practice of ritual magic rather than the more popular path of the witch.

Western European magic of the ceremonial variety evolved in the Middle Ages in a largely patriarchal society, which was reflected in the books written by known practitioners. We have heard of the figures from Agrippa to Eliphas Levi to Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare. Yet several women contributed significantly to the study of magic, often in conjunction with husbands or male partners. The 20th century saw women more openly come into this tradition, though they appear to be relatively few in number.

Jaq D Hawkins is a female magician who grew up with a quest to understand the nature of magic, which has taken her through many paths since her first studies of such authors as AE Waite and Eliphas Levi at the age of 12. She eventually settled within the identity of chaos magician, although she maintains a general Pagan attitude due to her connection with nature spirits. After nearly four decades of magical study and practice, she looks back to the subtle differences in approach and natural advantages that she has observed not only in herself, but in other female magicians that she has met along the way. She is the author of numerous articles and books on magic.

04 July 2008 (Friday)
Book Launch Party - Naughty Wodehouse
For 'Portrait of a Disciplinarian'
Aishling Morgan and Virgin Books
Free, but advance booking required to be added to the guest list
From 7.00 pm

Tonight calls all fans of the era of PG Wodehouse, dandies and chaps, to this party to celebrate the release of the last erotic novel in Aishling Morgan's historical erotica series. The author, a friend of Treadwell's, has made a bit of a name for himself in writing lighthearted erotica that pays hommage to great literary novels. His last work, Beastly Behaviour, paid tribute to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles, while Charles Dickens and Jane Austen have also had their turns.

This time it's distant shades of Wodehouse - all the fun and humour but rather more sex and naughtiness. The author writes: " I have always found the Master’s work subtly erotic - his description of Bobby Wickham in a negligee, for example, or the way he implies that both she and Stephanie Byng would benefit from a spanking – although never overt. His style, both in narrative and dialogue, is too comic to work as full blown erotica, so I have therefore drawn only lightly on his technique, but borrowed extensively from his marvellous collection of motifs."

Come on out for a drink, Aunt Agatha! Jeeves will be serving.

07 July 2008 (Monday)
The Shrine of the Golden Hawk
Ritualised Playreading of a Golden Dawn Egyptian Play
Caroline Wise and Friends
£10 payable in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

The Shrine of the Golden Hawk is playlet set in ancient Egypt, and was written by two members of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Florence Farr and Olivia Shakespear. The theme is mystical and magical, and represents some of the themes for which the Order’s teachings are most famed. Tonight the play is read by a cast that includes some of the performers from the legendary London 1993 production, and is coordinated by the same producer. A short ceremony will precede the reading, and a soiree will complete the night. There will be a donation from the proceeds to a breast cancer charity – in honour of the illness that claimed Farr who, unbeknownst to many, was the effective leader of the Order in its heyday in the 1890s. There will also be a memorial programme produced specially for the occasion. Seats very limited due to the small size of the venue, so early booking is advised. *This is a reprise of the sold-out Nov 2007 performance at Treadwell's.*

17 July 2008 (Thursday)
Yeats' Golden Dawn
Magic, Women, Passion, Celts, Mystics
Mike David
£5.00 at time of booking
7.15 for 7.30 start

Women and magic are two of the most vital themes underpinnig the work of WBYeats, who was arguably the greatest poet of the twentieth century. And the two themes were interlinked: Florence Farr, Olivia Shakespeare, Annie Horniman, Maud Gonne and George Yeats - each of these were also associated with magic, in particular the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

Tonight's performance by Mike David is made up of readings from letters, some poems and bits of plays. There will also be illustrated handouts and informational chat. It will bring to life WB Yeats' literature, his magic, the Golden Dawn and the contributions of the extraordinary woman in Yeats' circle. You will hear about automatic writing, ghosts, fairies, Celtic heroes, astrological cycles, revolutionary passions, Irish mysticism, and ceremonial magic.

Mike David is an actor, writer, and lover of things mystical, with over 30 years in the theatre. His performances bring together a variety of threads: the passionate monologue, the inspired lecture, the intense playreading and the one-man drama. His evenings are riveting.

31 July 2008 (Thursday)
Flapdoodle!
Madame Blavatsky Introduced and Celebrated
Christina Oakley Harrington & Treadwell's Friends
£5.00 in advance
7.15 for 7.30 start

An evening of short talks, readings, slides in honour of the world's most famous female occultist in history. She was a huge woman, with a huge personality -- her favourite insult was 'Flapdoodle', and her exuberance was equally passionate. All are invited to come and learn more about this extraordinary woman, who pioneered much of the key features of occultism. 31 July was Madame B's Birthday - she lived 1831-1891.

Christina Oakley Harrington has a doctorate in history and a passion for the history of Western esoteric movements, and has a special fondness for the tradition's many remarkable women.

10 September 2008 (Wednesday)
Gerald Gardner before the Witches
Philip Heselton
£5.00
7.15 for 7.30 pm start

Advance notice. Bookings not being taken yet.

11 November 2008 (Tuesday)
Robert Graves' White Goddess
The Book and the Goddess
Grevel Lindop
£5
7.15 for 7.30 pm start

Reprise of the sold-out talk in April. Not open for bookings yet.