This class will ask what we can learn for magical practice from the myth, history, and legend of Circe. Frequently identified as a witch, Circe is most famous for turning Odysseus’ shipmates into animals and helping Odysseus to travel to the underworld and eventually back to his home. Circe, however, has a rich story all her own to tell including the creation of the monster Scylla. The aunt of Medea and daughter of Helios and sometimes of Hecate, it remains a subject of debate whether her isolation on the island of Aeaea was self-chosen or exile. We shall attempt to dig beneath her stories to enquiry into the origin of her power and how we might approach her in our own work.
 
About the Presenter:
Kadmus is a practicing ceremonial magician. He has written extensively for the website "Gods and Radicals" and recently published the book "True to the Earth: Pagan Political Theology" through Gods and Radicals Press, presented his paper "True to the Earth and a Pagan Conception of the Self" at the conference Rewriting the Future: 100 Years of Esoteric Modernism and Psychoanalysis, and taught two classes at the 2019 Salem Summer Symposium on "Pagan Conceptions of the Self" and "The Role of Magic in a Pagan Cosmos". Most recently he presented the paper "Every Nekuomanteia is a Katabasis: On Navigating Underworld Guardians: Ancient Insights for Contemporary Necromancy" at the International Necromancy Consortium in New Orleans.