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 emergencies took priority. Sadly, by the end of the year I had lost my father and found my life taking unexpected directions, as I became guardian to a large authorial and educational legacy.
Despite the travails of the past year, I managed one presentation on Péladan at the as-always incredible Trans-States Conference II, at the University of Northampton. Friends of this page can enjoy that here, as part of the pre-arranged Dark Fulgurations panel with my good friends Dr Simon Magus and Dr Chris Guidice, moderated by the inimitable Prof. Wouter Hanegraaff:
I would also recommend watching this lecture by friend and colleague Dr Per Faxneld for more biographical background on Péladan, if you haven’t already familiarised yourself with it. Dr Faxneld does a great job of filling in a lot of the background, and this allowed me to tweak my paper to focus more directly on Péladan’s philosophy rather than covering the same ground. Watch this before watching mine if you are not familiar with Péladan (and because it’s a very interesting paper!)
That conference also saw the launch of the book that emerged from the immensely successful Trans-States I (2016), edited by Cavan McLaughlin and produced by Fulgur Press. I am proud to have a chapter in there based on my talk at that conference too, and am grateful to Cavan and Robert Shehu-Ansell of Fulgur for their support in producing it during a most trying year.
In other news, although there are many changes to all aspects of my academic and professional life, I am pleased to say that I have resumed progress with the book, the publisher is supportive and we have tentative dates. So watch this space; while most Péladan-related work will take place behind the scenes for a while, I hope to have more substantial progress news soon.