EPISODE 11 : The Ouija Board, from the seance to the toy store

And we’re back with the fascinating Mitch Horowitz (See Occult NYC Parts 1 and 2) and the incredible history of The Ouija Board. Learn about its early roots as a sort of ‘telegraph’ to the other side – to its evolution into the board game to outsell Monopoly. Get a haunting glimpse into some of the celbrities who used the board and learn about its ominous warning to poet Syliva Plath. Its more than just a toy and a Morrissey song (On le met en relation avec le Museum of Talking Boards: An Online Museum of Ouija Boards).

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‘The Midnight Archive is a new web series which aims to document the exotic, the strange, the eccentric and the truly unique. Often dark and always on the fringe, the series puts an honest look into some of the most fascinating people, places and artifacts that many people are wildly unfamiliar with. From a woman who mummifies pets to the largest collection of automata, the idea is for the subject matter to tell its own story and give the viewer just a taste of something ‘unusual’. No dramatic stings, no editorial drama – just the facts.

The series’ creator was inspired by an institution in his hometown called The Brooklyn Observatory. In 2010 he was asked to lecture there on his collection of mid-19th century 3D Demonic Stereo-Tissues and was amazed at both the variety and the number of people that came to the event. Talking to Joanna Ebenstein – one of the proprietors of the space and creator of the Morbid Anatomy Library, it seemed that there was a growing interest in the esoteric. So after much back and forth – they decide to undertake filming short pieces using the Observatory as their home-base …

themidnightarchive.com

In modern times, you can find a stray cabaret or goth club in most modern metropolitan areas. But back in the late 19th century, your options were limited, albeit merrily deranged.

Paris of the 1890s had several supernatural nightlife options, each of them with marvelously outlandish gimmicks. In the 1899 book Bohemian Paris of To-Day by William Chambers Morrow and Édouard Cucuel, the authors visit several of the City of Lights darker drinking destinations, such as the Cabaret du Néant (“The Cabaret of Nothingness”) in the neighborhood of Montmartre.

At this gothic nightspot, visitors pondered their own mortality as they drank on coffins and were served libations (named after diseases) by monks and funeral attendees …

… But Cabaret du Néant wasn’t the only creepy nightspot in Paris. Later in Bohemian Paris of To-day, Morrow described his evening at the Cabaret de l’Enfer (“The Cabaret of the Inferno”), a Satanically themed nightclub in Montmartre that abutted another cabaret. And according to the author’s account, it was perhaps the trippiest hangout of La Belle Époque …

Read the full story by Cyriaque Lamar on io9.com

Jaune comme tes dents était au DECIBEL MAGAZINE TOUR (Behemoth, Watain, Devil’s Blood & In Solitude) le 9 mai MMXII au Club Soda, Montréal p.Q. et c’est en ligne sur le blog du BangBang ‘Chanceux comme un quêteux‘.

Matthijs Munnik Citadels
A performance about brainwave interference, using flickering light, inspired by Brion Gysin’s dream machine.

“We must storm the citadels of enlightenment. The means are at hand,” William S. Burroughs wrote to his best friend Brion Gysin. The means, he was referring to, was the invention of the dream machine.

A rotating cyllinder lamp-like device, which produced a stroboscopic light. You would see beautiful patterns, shapes and colours, while looking at this device with your eyes closed. Even full hallucinations have been reported.

The trippy experience provided by the dreammachine fascinated the two beat-generation artists immensly, as well as a wide range of other artists and performers, mainly in psychedelic circles.

The effect produced by the dreammachine, however was not something new. In fact it has fascinated people since the begin of time. Flickering lights and repeated sounds have always been important for spiritual rituals, to induce a trance like state. Shamans, prophets and ordinary people used the effect as an aid for meditation and expanding their conciousness…

The first time this happened, according to one theory, was when a shaman stood under a tree, when a flickering shadow fell on him, created by the leaves slowly moving the wind. When he looked up and closed his eyes the flickering of the shadows gave him a visionary and spiritual experience. This could be the reason why trees take a really important place in all religions worldwide.

There are also stories about prophets, Nostradamus for example, waving their hands in front of their closed eyes, while looking at the sun. This would give them the ability to vision the future.

The first scientist to report it was the great Jan Purkinje, 200 years ago, when he was still a child. He found out that, by looking at the sun with his eyes closed, and waving his hands in front of his eyes, ‘beautiful figures’ would appear, which gradually became more intricate.

It doesn’t really matter what method you use, be it a device, your hands or a natural source, in the end the effect stays the same. The only difference is that modern day devices give us more control over the flicker and intensity. That’s why the dreammachine was such a revolutionary device, as it made it a lot easier to experience the effect.

Brion Gysin and scientist Ian Sommerville created the dreamachine after reading William Grey Walter’s book, “The Living Brain”. Walter, a neurophysiologist, was a pioneer in research of brainwave activity. In this book he describes his experiments with stroboscopic light. He found that flicker-induced hallucinatory experiences of his test subjects seemed to be as broad and dynamic as anything experienced in the medical case histories. As suggested by himself, this effect is caused not by properties of the light itself, or by the eye, but are a product of the brain.

One theory is that the flickering is interfering with the brain’s visual cortex, attempting to deal with intermittent signal. It’s hard not to wonder if the patterns you see perhaps offer a glimpse of our own brain activity, something beyond our own senses.

In my performance I also make use of the flicker effect, but I have more control over it. The audience wears white plastic masks, this way they look into a ganzfeld, a totally white field during the performance. In my set up, I use beamers, projecting light on the audience’s masks, completely immersing them in the light and colors of the projection.

I play an 8 minute live composition, based on the varying effects of different frequencies of flicker, colour, binaural beats and sound. During the performance every spectator will see something different, varying patterns and colours, created within their own brains. I hope my performance is another little step, in the long history of flicker, but above all, I hope to give the audience the opportunity to experience this amazing effect for themselves.

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Eastern Bloc présente:

Le festival SIGHT & SOUND
Art + Technologie
23 – 27 mai 2012
sightandsoundfestival.ca

Citadels (2010) de MATTHHIJS MUNNIK présenté jeudi le 24 mai à 20:00 au Eastern Bloc (et en installation jusqu’au 27 mai) :

23 – 27 / 05 | 12:00 – 17:00
Matthijs Munnik [Citadels : Lightscape]
Pavitra Wickramasinghe [51L3NC3 4ND L1GH7]
Robyn Moody [Wave Interference]
Zach Gage [A Performance for Visitors in 2012, Hit Counter, Self-Portrait Bot]

Eastern Bloc
Parc-Extension, Montréal p.Q.
easternbloc.ca

Simon King of Witches
Bruce Kessler, USA, 1971, 91 min

‘Simon Sinestrari (Andrew Prine), a cynical Ceremonial magician, is on a quest to become a god. Simon lives in a sewer, selling his charms and potions for money, when he is befriended by a young male prostitute named Turk (George Paulsin). Turk introduces Simon to his world of drugs, wild parties, and hysterical Wiccan rituals featuring a goat and Andy Warhol star Ultra Violet. Death and mayhem ensue, along with romance for Simon with the district attorney’s daughter (Brenda Scott)’ – WIKI

‘Les religions ont toujours utilisé des manipulations étonnantes’

Mystifications (Lazarus-mirages) à démystifier ici.

Merci Hugues Sweeney

The Stone Tape
Written by Nigel Kneale & directed by Peter Sasdy, UK, Original airing on BBC Two 25 December 1972, 90 min

‘A research team from an electronics company move into an old Victorian house to start work on finding a new recording medium. When team member Jill Greeley witnesses a ghost, team director Peter Brock decides not only to analyse the apparition, which he believes is a psychic impression trapped in a stone wall (dubbed a “stone tape”), but to exorcise it too – with terrifying results’ – IMDb

Jaune comme tes dents est allé voir Converge et Burning Love le 5 avril MMXII à La Tulipe, Montréal p.Q. C’est sur le blog du BangBang ‘Chanceux comme un quêteux‘.

‘Christians commemorated the resurrection of Jesus Christ on Sunday, a holiday that marks the end of Holy Week and the end of Lent. Observances around the world bring a diversity of traditions as varied as the countries celebrating’ …

‘Gathered here are images of Christians during Holy Week and Easter, including reenactments of the Crucifixion, pilgrimages, baptisms, sunrise services, and more’ …

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Semaine Sainte, MMX (ici)
Holy Week MMIX (ici)

Veillée pascale portant sur la cellule familiale, St-Henri, Montréal p.Q.

J’irai comme un cheval fou
Fernando Arrabal , France, 1973, 100 min

‘Poursuivi par la police pour le meurtre de sa mère, Aden se réfugie dans le désert où il rencontre Marvel, un homme étrange, aux mœurs érémitiques, qui communique mystérieusement avec la Terre et ses créatures. Aden l’invite à découvrir « la civilisation ». La grande cité où ils arrivent vit de leurres, de futilités et de perversions, c’est un lieu sans âme où l’Homme est seul, le contraire du désert de Marvel’ – WIKI

… ‘tout le monde a peur, depuis toujours.’

Croire
Lina B. Moreco, Canada, 1998, 52 min

Utilisant la métaphore du pèlerinage initiatique de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle, en Espagne, ce long métrage documentaire nous fait rencontrer des individus aux parcours variés et alimente la réflexion sur la quête de spiritualité, les raisons de croire ou de ne pas croire et les choix qui se posent à la conscience.

6-6-06: The Satanic High Mass

‘On June 6, 2006 C.E. we celebrated the 40th Anniversary of the Church of Satan at the Center for Inquiry West’s Steve Allen Theatre in Los Angeles. The first Satanic High Mass was performed, inspired by the rituals of our founder, Anton Szandor LaVey. The rite included workings for compassion, the prime celebrant and bestower of campassion being Reverend Bryan Moore, lust evoked by Priestess Heather Saenz – assisted by the Reverends Entity, and destruction summoned by Magister Diabolus Rex – with a special condemnation of fanatical theism proclaimed by Magister Robert Lang. Each celebrant accepted formal requests by three congregants, nine in total. The ritual was capped by a benediction upon the congregation by Magus Peter H. Gilmore, High Priest. Heightening the emotions was the live score by Lustmord, available as an album titled Lustmord Rising (06.06.06).

Over 100 members of the Church of Satan coming from around the globe filled the theatre to capacity. These passionate people were part of the proceedings which were inspired by the 1934 film The Black Cat (on en parlait ici) starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff who played a brilliant modern architect and High Priest of Satan. The film depicted the Satanists as being wealthy and powerful and they arrived to celebrate the Rites of Lucifer dressed in formal evening attire. Their chamber was expressionistic, wrought with angled crystals. And so we conjured a similar decor, though the lighting was inspired by the works of Mario Bava. To complete this total environment, attendees were enjoined to dress formally, just as was done in the film, and our members rose to the occasion by donning colorful personalized attire, their sartorial splendor proper for the aristocracy of the outstanding that comprises our membership. An inside joke from the film was that the Latin words sonorously intoned by Karloff were in fact taken from an ancient botany text. Reverend Moore, in superb mimicry, speaks this text as a further nod to that most effective movie’ - Church of Satan

Trouvé sur le blog de Well Fed (j’aimais bien leur t-shirt pour le band Xibalba ‘Hasta la Muerte’). La plupart des photos sont tirées de sa série ‘Gate of hope’ :

Jindřich Štreit

‘Jindřich Štreit (born 5 September 1946, Vsetín) is a Czech photographer and pedagogue known for his documentary photography. He focuses on documenting the rural life and people of Czech villages. He is considered one of the most important exponents of the Czech documentary photography’ …

Réminiscence Apocryphe, qu’on a fait avec le département des productions interactives de l’ONF en MMX, sera traduit vers l’anglais (et en HTML5) à partir d’une copie du ‘Abridgement of the Quebec catechism’ datant de 1834 …

… “Revised and authorized by His Lordship the Right Rev. Joseph Signay, Bishop of Quebec”

”Filmed from a copy of the original publication held by the Bibliothèque de la Ville de Montréal.”