Symposium lecture “How to Speak the Language of the Gods”
Invited lecture for a Symposium on the goddess Hekate. Description: The oldest known Hymn to Hecate was composed by the epic poet Hesiod, a close contemporary of Homer who claimed to have received the stories of the birth of gods from the Muses themselves. His...
2021 course: Introduction to the Academic Study of Western Esotericism
I am delighted with the experience and feedback from course participants, whose warm engagement made this second pandemic winter a pleasure to navigate. This course is now complete, and the recordings are being professionally edited before we make them available in...
New Year 2021 lectures
I’m delighted to be returning to Treadwell’s in the New Year (albeit virtually) for a series of live lectures that will span through to the Spring. First, two standalone lectures based on my recent books: Atalanta Unveiled, and my PhD dissertation on...
Lecture for ETH Zurich: Art and literature as vehicles for change
Esoteric art and literature as vehicles for change: Joséphin Péladan’s vision for a spiritual revolution, by Sasha Chaitow for ETH Zurich, 10th November 2020
2020 Péladan research update
Friends who follow me on other media will be aware that this page has been quiet for a while, following a couple of years of extreme life turbulence. In early 2018 I was making good headway with the manuscript for my (horrendously overdue) book on Péladan, when family...Lecture: Josephin Peladan – A Salon to Initiate the Masses”
Immensely prolific, yet discredited during his lifetime, the symbolist author and visionary occultist Joséphin Péladan (Sâr Merodack, 1858-1918) constructed a vast yet coherent body of teachings in response to the social decadence he perceived in late 19th century...
Saints of the Word exhibition – lecture tour in Sweden & Denmark 2015
Some months ago I received an invitation to Aarhus University to speak on Péladan’s literature and “esoteric modernism” at a closed symposium with scholars doing some incredibly exciting work in this area, breaking new ground on possible...
The Occult Power of Greek Icons – Treadwell’s lecture 2015
Friends who know me from other (academic or social) contexts may have been a bit surprised to see me opening a gallery mainly focused on Greek sacred art earlier this year, but there is a host of reasons why this particular artform captured my attention, as I explain...
Recent talk on Péladan at Treadwell’s
Joséphin Péladan: Eccentric buffoon, misunderstood genius, Platonic Symbolist, charlatan, madman, or visionary?
2014: London lecture on Péladan
I’m very much looking forward to September when I’ll be spending some time in the UK, and will be doing a talk at one of my favourite places, Treadwell’s bookshop, on Monday 15th September. Click here to book a seat (space is limited)....
For Beauty and the Spirit in Art: 1st Neo-Symbolist Salon, Madrid 2013
Underground “artists of the soul” gather in Madrid this winter to revive the visual language of the fin-de-siecle in a new counter-culture of Beauty.
New book: Atalanta Unveiled
