Jun 29 2023 70 mins
(from her online bio)
"Dr Georgia van Raalte is an academic researcher whose work focuses on mystical and esoteric literature, as well as an esoteric theologian and an author of emic esoteric texts. She is also a poet and an artist as well as a practising occultist and a pagan Priestess. Her academic research, artistic practice, and magical work are all concerned with initiation: with mystical, literary, and artistic provocations of transcendence, and the personal, social, and cultural transformations that are catalysed thereby."
Pretty awesome, huh...?
Georgia has an amazing ability to integrate all these different strands of her life and work : her scholarly pursuits, her poetry and art, her magical practice, and her ministry as priestess and guide. She is at the forefront of the move towards more open practioner-scholars embracing this dual identity in the academy and in pagan and occult communities, and indeed has a rather unique academic background, with a degree in Philosophy and Theology, which she furthered with an MA in Religious Studies at the University of Amsterdam, one of the few places in the world to offer such a qualification in Western Esotericism! She followed this with a PhD in Literature, which focused on the Initiatory Fiction of Dion Fortune. As well as her PhD, she has written several books, variously devotional, poetic, and ritual-focused, centred around the Goddess Babalon, and is active as Guide and Priestess in the Templum Abyssi - Temple of Our Lady of the Abyss.
Truly, she has combined Art, Scholarship, and Magic!
Just after we recorded this episode a couple of weeks ago, she also got the news that she had been (most deservedly) accepted at Harvard Divinity School's Center for the Study of World Religion as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Arts and Spirituality for this coming academic year, to undertake a research project titled "Imaginal Transformations: Avalonian Fantasy and the Transmission of Initiation in the Western Esoteric Milieu."
I must add that Georgia is also an extremely fun person to talk to: she is wise and witty, earthy and airy, and I have rarely met someone who so often has me saying: "oh yes, well of course you're right, when you put it like that ...."
This was an excellent conversation, and I can also reveal that therein she admits her Profound Wickedness and approval of Dark Sorcery and Generally Being a Villain. It will surprise no-one, who actually knows her ...
Her excellent work, updates on her activities, and her contact information can all be found on her website here : https://www.georgiavanraalte.com/
Her devotional and ministry work here : https://www.templumabyssi.com/
And a very weird and troubling work of oneiric vision here :
https://www.surrealhagiography.com/
In general, highly recommend diving into her work!
THE HOLLOW PATH IS A MEETING OF MINDS AND HEARTS, TO FOSTER EXHANGES AROUND MAGIC, ART, ENCHANTMENT, CULTURE, POLITICS, AND POETICS ...
RE-ENCHANTMENT. RE-WILDING. RE-MEMBERING.
RESISTANCE.