The Teratogenic Mystique (With Layman Pascal and Scout Rainer Wiley)
Online Course
4 Pre-Recorded Modules
4 Interactive Zoom Calls 4 Campfires
Starts Sun., October 8th
5 p.m. CET/ 11 a.m. EST
Subscribers do get free access to the previous courses of the Parallax Academy
Becoming New Monsters with the Principles of Occultism, Hermeticism & Magick
“Teratogenic” names the substances that cultivate mutations & monstrosities. This strange new course from PARALLAX ACADEMY offers an in-depth exploration of the edges of transrational magic where uncanny transformations begin. The infamous post-postmodern shapeshifters Layman Pascal & Scout Rainer Wiley will guide you deep into the dark forest on a practical and theoretical journey into the uncanny, inhuman and unintelligible. Today, many new communities and we-spaces are forming around metamodernity, 4E cognitive science, Systems theory, Integralism, Game B, et al. but these movements are often hesitant to explore the unsavory and primal theater of occultism.
While naivete and manipulation permeate these spaces, they also have much to offer us when it comes to the intergenerational promulgation of transrational psychotechnologies, leveraging the development of the subconscious, enfolding tantric elements of desire, aggression and confusion, activating the human will, thinking pragmatically about “eros,” opening & closing energetic spaces and dealing directly with the elusive forces that operate outside the tidy intersection of Buddhism, Greek Philosophy, Neo-Christianity and Cognitive Science.
At what point does a trans-rational exploration of the irrational start to put you at risk? And should you take that risk?
Join Scout and Layman for guided practice and new thinking on ancient problems (and powers). And join community building sessions allowing for both one-on-one deepening of relationships and open space for the collective intelligence, questions and group inputs. Be warned: there will be homework.
Module Outline
Course content:
1 special pre-recorded conversation “What is Magic?” (available September 8)
4 pre-recorded lectures
4 live interactive practice calls
4 Campfire/Community-Building Sessions
Curated Reading list, Homework
(Sunday class begins promptly at 5 p.m. CET/ 11am EST on Zoom
October 8 • Lesson I - Imaginal Beasts & Where to Find Them. Plausible taxonomies of invisible creatures. Communicating with the Unintelligible. Possession and exorcism. The problem of parasitic entities for transformational cultures. Angels, Devils, Elves, Elementals, Aliens, Kamis & AI.
October 15 • Lesson II - Pilgrimage & Ritual. Journeys of transformation. Passage through “realms.” Conformity to top-down ritual VS the skills necessary for bottom-up emergence of improvisational ritual. How is the sacred status of objects modified by movement and context? How do horror and dark fantasy fiction reveal the key narrative steps in the psychotechnology of ritual enactment?
October 22 • Lesson III - Esoteric Lineages. How shamanic skills survived anti-shamanic civilization as concealed “occultism.” What problems face the Religion-That-Isn’t-A-Religion that have already been solved by esoteric and alchemical lineages? Who are the so-called “secret chiefs”? What kinds of governance mistakes and ethical problems do these groups typically encounter? How do they spread? Should you join one? Should you start one?
October 29 • Lesson IV - Principles of Influence. Glamor. Will. Resonance. The metacognitive implications of intentionality. Hacking yourself. Hacking reality. And making yourself & your loved ones safer in an AI-enhanced, omni-hacking world of simulation and persuasion.
WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
Learn how to think rationally but risk the irrational.
Intensify the force of intentionality in your life.
Become a better participant & creator of ritual.
Experimentally put your subconscious and organismic intelligences in charge.
Understand principles for integrating occult practice with other fields of emerging wisdom-science.
Increase your imaginal virtuosity.
Deepen your understanding of what most leading-edge developmental systems are still leaving out...
Enfold dark affects for luminous purposes.
Get better at playing with sigils and “charging” objects.
Collaborate with chthonic & elemental energies.
Transform into nonhumans (sort of).
Help your community explore entities in a post-postmodern sense.
Make strange new friends who are also becoming friends with Strangeness.
About your facilitatorS
Layman Pascal is a meditation teacher, author, artist & philosopher specializing in metashamanism, advanced integral theory, wisdom dynamics and the formation of new cultural spaces. He hosts the popular podcast THE INTEGRAL STAGE and his writings are featured in Dispatches From a Time Between Worlds, Abyssal Arrows, ReVision Magazine, the Integral Leadership Review, Perspectiva’s Whatisemerging.com & Substack. He is currently co-chair of the Foundation for Integral Religion and Spirituality, leader of the Metamodern Spirituality Retreats, a founding member of the ReSPoND wisdom-council, member the Archdisiplinary Research Center (ARC) and number of other hush-hush things that he’s not supposed to publicly mention...
Scout Rainer Wiley is a writer, podcaster, and ritual performance artist from Brooklyn, New York. Considering the circumstances of their birth (at the hands of two Afrocentric hippies), they were always going to turn out weird–but the moment when everything really changed was when they were bitten by a radioactive Hawthorn bush at the 2022 Metamodern Spirituality Retreat. Now, they use their transdisciplinary curiosity to help solve the metacrisis, by studying and teaching about the relationship between ritual practice, metacognition, and cultural evolution.