Publications & Lectures

by Sasha Chaitow, PhD

UPDATED February 2021. This list of publications and conference papers is complete, and will be updated whenever I have news, so please check back regularly. Please note that I have included, or linked to full-text articles wherever available, so if a full version is not here, I am not at liberty to share it (it may be in press or under copyright). Any of these items may be cited, but they all remain © Sasha Chaitow 2010-2021. Scroll down the page to see the full list, rearranged for better navigation.

NEW: Sasha’s Péladan lectures

All public lecture recordings are now available on Sasha’s Youtube channel, through a dedicated playlist.

Podcasts:

NEW: Book update

Sasha’s long-awaited book deriving from her doctoral research on Péladan is with the publisher and is due in Spring 2022. Any further updates will be made available through this website. The original thesis abstract is below:

The thesis re-evaluates the work of Joséphin Péladan (1858–1918), a neglected French Symbolist author and occultist. It takes an interdisciplinary perspective that prioritises the content of his work and its esoteric and historical context, with the objective of discovering whether it merits further scholarly attention.
Responding to multiple cultural shifts experienced by fin-de-siècle French society, Péladan authored over a hundred novels and monographs in an attempt to bring about the spiritual regeneration of society through mythopoetic art underpinned by esoteric thought. During the 1890s he organised the Salons de la Rose et Croix, short-lived, though influential, artistic undertakings that provided a focal point for Symbolist art and sought to unite the arts into a revival of initiatory drama.
Vilified by his contemporaries, Péladan’s work slipped into oblivion. Extant accounts of his life and work highlight his eccentricity or isolated elements of his oeuvre. Scholarly studies have neither explored the content of his work, nor its cultural context and intellectual precedents.

The thesis focuses on the cultural context informing Péladan’s work and on the use of esoteric thought in his theoretical and fictional work.

Chapter 1 introduces the topic, reviews earlier studies, and establishes the interdisciplinary approach adopted by this thesis, a combination of perspectives drawn from literary and esoteric studies.

Chapter 2 provides a brief biographical overview followed by an extensive presentation of Péladan’s historical, intellectual, and esoteric context.

Chapter 3 presents his Platonically influenced “legendarium,” a synthesis of world mythology and esoteric thought upon which his work rests.

Chapter 4 explores the transmission of his ideas through fiction, theatre, and art, and the nature of his literature within the context of the late 19th – early 20th century and its impact on Modernism.

Forming the Conclusion, Chapter 5 evaluates the methodology and, finding that Péladan’s oeuvre demonstrates a remarkable cohesiveness, proposes directions for further study.

The thesis is currently under revision for publication, therefore it cannot be shared in its entirety. However, I have adapted parts of it for use on this website:

The Peladan Project – The original PhD proposal submitted in October 2010.
Mages and Fairies: Peladan’s Initiation for the Masses – Largely extracted from Chapter 3 of my thesis

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Books & Catalogues

2018: Salon de la Rose+Croix: the mystical artworks of Sasha Chaitow (Hellfire Club Books)
2016: Exhibition Catalogue for Sasha’s “Saving the Lives of Angels” art collection exhibited in London and Northampton. Features lengthy article on Peladan and annotated, illustrated quotes from his work. Now out of print, please see the pdf here.
2013: Seeking Josephin Peladan: A Babylonian Mage in 19th Century Paris (Daidaleos: Salonica, 2013; Alloste: Athens, 2016). Introductory book on Peladan for a general readership (in Greek). Foreword by Prof. Joscelyn Godwin in English available here.

Book Chapters

2019: Saving the Lives of Angels: Redemption through the Arts in: Trans-States: The Art of Crossing Over (ed by Cavan McLaughlin, Fulgur, 2019).
2018: Return from Oblivion: Josephin Peladan’s Literary Esotericism, in: The Occult in Modernist Art, Literature, and Cinema (ed. by Tessel Bauduin & Henrik Johnsson, Palgrave Macmillan).
2018: Re-enchanting the Fin-de-siècle (in Spanish) in PARIS 1900 (MISTERICA PRESS)
2013: Making the Invisible Visible: Peladan’s Vision of Ensouled Art. Exhibition Catalogue: 1st NeoSymbolist Salon. Centro Cultural La Corrala, Madrid (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid), Oct-Nov 2013.

Articles

2018: The Theodicy of Art: Peladan’s Promethean Lucifer in La Rosa di Paracelso (Mimesis Edizione, Italy). full text available
2014: Hidden in Plain Sight: Josephin Peladan’s Religion of Art
Abraxas International Art Journal for Esoteric Studies #5 (London: Fulgur, 2014) full text available
2014: Peladan’s Artistic Revolution Meets the 21st Century. The Fenris Wolf 7 (Stockholm, Edda, 2014). full text available
2013: Legends of the Fall Retold: Peladan’s Luciferian Cosmology. The Fenris Wolf 6 (Stockholm: Edda, 2013). full text available
2012: How to become a Mage (or Fairy): Josephin Peladan’s Initiation for the Masses. The Pomegranate International Journal of Pagan Studies, 14:2. full text available

Lectures and Conference Papers

2021: “Saving the Lives of Angels: Joséphin Péladan’s Vision for Redemption through the Arts,” Treadwell’s.
2021: “Joséphin Péladan and his vision for a spiritual revolution through art,” Sapere Aude Lecture series.
2020 “Esoteric art and literature as vehicles for change: Joséphin Péladan’s plot for a spiritual revolution,” Invited guest lecture for doctoral workshop, ETH University of Zurich
2019 “Image and Logos: Symbolic Vocabularies and Inspired Revelations,” Trans-States Conference #2, University of Northampton.
2017 “Ideasthesia and how art changes us,” Art vs. Praxis Symposium, Glastonbury Experience, UK
2016 “Saving the Lives of Angels: Redemption through the Arts,” Trans-States Conference 1, University of Northampton
2016 “Mages and Fairies: Péladan’s Initiatory System,” Watkins Bookshop, London.
2016 “Sâr Péladan, Lucifer, Art and Angels,” Treadwell’s Bookshop, London.
2015 “Joséphin Péladan’s Place in the History of Ideas,” Invited Guest Lecture, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
2015 “Joséphin Péladan’s Literary Esotericism: Crossing the Threshold of Modernism,” Conference on Esoteric Modernism, Aarhus University, Denmark.
2014 “The Many Faces of Joséphin Péladan,” Treadwell’s Bookshop, London.
2013 “Joséphin Péladan’s Vision of Ensouled Art,” 1st Neo-Symbolist Salon, Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.
2013: “A Babylonian Mage in fin-de-siècle Paris,” Public lecture (in Greek), Bella Venezia, Corfu, Greece.
2012 “Ideal, Hierarchy, Tradition: Re-enchanting the fin-de-siècle,” EASR Annual Conference, Södertörn University, Sweden.
2011 “A Babylonian Mage in fin-de-siècle Paris,” 3rd ESSWE Conference: Lux in Tenebris, The Visual and Symbolic in Western Esotericism, University of Szeged, Hungary.