#thecabalproject

The Doreen Valiente Foundation

  The Collections of the Doreen Valiente Foundation (DVF), are one of Britain’s prominent independent collection of Objects, Artefacts and Documents relating to the history and origins of Wicca and modern Paganism in Britain. This collection is the accumulation of Doreen Valiente (1922- 1999) over fifty years. These documents, objects and artefacts include items that Doreen created herself, had gifted to her by Gerald Gardner, or object that she had acquired over her life time as a practitioner of many craft traditions. The Collection houses some 700 objects and artefacts, as well as over 2000 books, documents and manuscripts; these including many rare first editions, as well as Doreen’s personal diaries and magickal documents. A key piece of the collection is one of Gerald Gardner’s original working Book of Shadows.

Doreen Valiente is credited as a Mother of Wicca, a title deserving to the woman who was a key figure in the emergence of Wicca and who unassisted took the sketchy and mis-credited material of Gerald Gardner’s Wica: Book of Ye Arte Magickal and redesigned the traditions base material, through her own writings and poetry. Doreen transformed the old material and produced the new text of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows which is still used by all Gardnerian covens across the world. During her life time Doreen was not only an initiate of Wicca, but of many Craft traditions of Britain. Doreen Valiente passed on the first of September 1999, and her collection of objects, artefacts and documents were passed onto John Bellham-Payne a Co-Founder of the Centre for Pagan Studies.

John Bellham-Payne made the greatest altruistic decision of removing this prominent collection from his private ownership and gave it to the nation and so the Doreen Valiente Foundation was formed on the 6th March 2011 as a charitable trust, taking all legal ownership of the collection. The DVF is now working towards a permanent location for the Centre for Pagan Studies which will incorporate a museum of for the Collection and act as an education and research facility for Paganism in Britain.

You can find out more @ :  centre-for-pagan-studies.com and doreenvaliente.org

The CABAL Project: Featured Artists of the Month

Leigh Luna

“How to be Reborn”

Here over at the CABAL Project we have this great enjoyment of the work of Leigh. Her illustrations and Zines are elegantly crafted and produced. Her work shows the lighter side of our aim for the project, that not all art produced around occultism and ritual has to be of a darker nature and that there is polarity and shades in ritual arts. We have with the collaboration of Leigh picked out her finest work, featuring in this post is the final installation and is an in-depth forage into her “How to be Reborn” Zine.

“Leigh Luna lives in Minneapolis but would much rather live in a tree house. She spends the vast majority of her time making comics and illustrations about woodland adventures. Her comics are highly influenced from growing up in New Mexico and Colorado. She greatly enjoys making perfect bound books, going to yoga and attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.”

The CABAL Project: Featured Artists of the Month

Leigh Luna

Here over at the CABAL Project we have this great enjoyment of the work of Leigh. Her illustrations and Zines are elegantly crafted and produced. Her work shows the lighter side of our aim for the project, that not all art produced around occultism and ritual has to be of a darker nature and that there is polarity and shades in ritual arts. We have with the collaboration of Leigh picked out her finest work, featuring in this post one image from each to show her range and skill, with a few larger more in depth posts coming in the following days.

“Leigh Luna lives in Minneapolis but would much rather live in a tree house. She spends the vast majority of her time making comics and illustrations about woodland adventures. Her comics are highly influenced from growing up in New Mexico and Colorado. She greatly enjoys making perfect bound books, going to yoga and attending the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.”

"How to be Reborn"

"Doppelganger"

"Patterns"

"Healing"

The CABAL Project: Featured Artists of the Month

Rodriel Tramell "is an artist of which nothing is known".

"It's Your Universe" Or "Gift of the Gods" 14x17 Rodriel Tramell,  Los Angeles California 2008

Dimensional Sigils: Material and Making - ManinMink

This short work by the ManinMink details some of his exploration and experimentation into the field of Dimensional Sigils in connection with his Design practices.  

The CABAL Project: Featured Artists of the Month

ManinMink. 

“My work is an experiment into the marriage of spiritual occultism and experimental psychological tools in the form of Kinaesthetic Mental Learning tools as Sacred Objects.

As a practicing Occultist my work is highly influenced by religious texts and practice from many of the world’s religions and cultures, I have used sources from Christian and Jewish Mysticism, Modern poetry and Occult practices as bases for the concept of each individual piece.

I am a keen observer in the purity of material and the working of the materials from the source to the final object.  During the period of work I had undertaken a complete submersion into the practices of ritual and an almost priesthood; abstaining, fasting and praying daily in the pursuit of a pure Form. Much of my work was undertaken in a complete ritualistic manner, each stage of the Forms production was laid out precisely from conception of design to the final finish of the wood”

Dimensional Sigil 141. Psalm of David.

Inner of Sigil 141

The Tree

Hebrew Magic Square.

  Rational (Working Statement):

“Ritual as an Art form”: Artist, Designers and Writers all have some rituals when working on their own pieces and projects and so this Project is the focus on that Ritual and the Foundations of our Working Practises.

  Details and Content:

Taking inspiration from artist work such as Heather Hansen’s “Empty Gestures” (2013),  Bohyun Yoon’s “Merge” (2004), AA Bronson's “Invocation of the Queer Spirit” (2008-2012), Ryan Brewer’s “Sacred Spheroid (Dissolution Yantra)” (2010-2011), Trisha Brown’s “Revolution” (2006) and Jody Jock’s “10 ov Swords” (2011-2012).

We are presenting to you the First of the CABAL Projects: Ritual. This Project is aimed to focus you back to the foundations of Ritual work and how we can create ritual work through a range of materials and methods. You can submit as much work as you want in any given material. This work can be a new creation or an earlier piece of work as long as that work fulfils the project criteria.

    We are opening this Project up to several criteria: 

·         Ritual Construction: Work undertaken during ritual.

Examples of this are a work of stream-of-consciousness style creative non-fiction such as “Conjurers”. An Object created using ritual methods such as Heather Hansen’s “Empty Gestures” (2013), or a Painting, Automatic Drawing, or Sculpture that has achieved construction during a working Ritual or Ritual practises

  ·         Ritual Action: Performance Art of Ritual.

An Example of these criteria is the performance Ritual and the Documentation of Ryan Brewer’s “Post-Paradise” (Black Lodge Sweat), (2013). Documentation of Meditation and Path working practices in conjunction with Ritual work.  The documentation of said Ritual Action can be submitted in the form of Video, Audio or Image.  

  ·         The Focus: Work targeted on a Result

This is work that embodies the pure focus and intent of the actions of Ritual. Examples can be taken from Austin Osman Spare, His work in Sigil construction. Another example is the work of Hollie Anderson and her “Totems for Scared Children”, and the Hokō style figure.  

  ·         Pure Ritual: The Essence of Ritual

This work is that which has the essence of Pure Ritualism and the practices of the Artist. Examples of these criteria are taken from AA Bronson's “Invocation of the Queer Spirit” (2008-2012), Ryan Brewer’s “Sacred Spheroid (Dissolution Yantra) (2010-2011).

  Our Mantra for this Project: Ritual is “Don’t just make Art be Art”, be the Ritual Action, Construction, Focus and Purity of your work and Ritual.

  Project Submission Guidelines and Copyright information can be found on the Blog. We regret that we won’t be accepting: recipes for rituals/ spell work. How-to manual of the occult are not Art or Culture and don’t fulfil the above Criteria. Please provide your contact details so that we may keep in contact in regards the hosting of your work.

  Enjoy, and we here at the CABAL Project hope to see your work in the coming months.

-David M. Johnson (Creative Director)

The CABAL Project: Featured Artists of the Month

Andrew Schmidt 

We owe a huge thank you to Andrew for his generous submission of work to the Project, We are in such awe of his work that we have spread the pieces over two post so that we were able to show you the full range of his work and practices.

“I believe that magic is art and that art, whether it be writing, music, sculpture, or any other form is literally magic. Art is, like magic, the science of manipulating symbols, words, or images, to achieve changes in consciousness.” -Alan Moore

I divine order from chaos, crossing the thresholds of science, art, and magic, configuring constellations of languages and the symbols that build them to create new universes. Complex, magical grid systems and ancient sigils are ever-present; archaic computers, lost technologies. On top of those ornate frameworks, I introduce unpredictable elements into my work, oozing drips and stains and map them into new signs for communicating and visualizations of alternate realities. I am pushing the boundaries of what drawing is and the space that can be defined within a page. I create new dimensions within unfamiliar planes and chart interstellar spaces.

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Theban Amulet II

Theban Amulet II (Detail)

Prophecy

Triangulation

Triangulation (Detail)

Theban Amulet III