Witchcraft: Myths and Legends
National Geographic, USA, 2009, 2 x 47 min
Culture Documentary hosted by David McCullum, published by National Geographic, broadcasted as part of NG Taboo series in 2009.
In the modern world, witchcraft and witches are dismissed as fantasies, but in many cultures, magic is alive and its practitioners admired and feared. Join National Geographic on a quest to find the stories behind the myths and legends of witchcraft. Along the way, we’ll meet an anthropologist who became a believer in Mexico and a « witch cleanser » in Zimbabwe.
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) presents
CAMERON: SONGS FOR THE WITCH WOMAN
from October 11, 2014 to January 11, 2015 at MOCA Pacific Design Center. Organized by guest curator Yael Lipschutz, the exhibition will be the largest survey of CAMERON’s work since 1989 and will include approximately 91 artworks and ephemeral artifacts. Alma Ruiz, Senior Curator at MOCA is the coordinating curator.
The exhibition will include pieces formerly thought to be lost, ranging from early paintings, to drawings, sketchbooks, and poetry from her late years, as well as ephemera and correspondence with individuals such as her husband, JACK PARSONS (1914-1952).
CAMERON (Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel, 1922-1995) emerged in the mid-1940s as an artist, performer, poet, and occult practitioner in Los Angeles. Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, MARJORIE CAMERON (who would reject her first name as an adult) arrived in Hollywood after serving in the navy during World War II. Settling first in Pasadena and working as a fashion illustrator, in 1946 she met her first husband, JACK PARSONS, a rocket scientist and cofounder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory who followed the esoteric mysticism of ALEISTER CROWLEY. The two soon married, their mystical bond transforming CAMERON’s life and art.
A visionary painter and unparalleled draftsman whose work evokes Latin American and European surrealism, CAMERON rendered mythological figures with a singular attention to line and the idea of spiritual metamorphosis. Her philosophical explorations soon brought her into contact with Los Angeles’s beatnik and avant-garde film circles, and the unorthodoxy and breadth of her interests made her a unique link between the city’s flourishing spiritual and art worlds.
Over the following decades she dedicated herself to her art and mysticism while mentoring younger artists and poets such as Aya (Tarlow), Wallace Berman, George Herms, and David Meltzer. The first survey of CAMERON’s work since her passing in 1995, this exhibition reveals the seminal role she played within the development of Los Angeles’s midcentury counterculture.
CAMERON: SONGS FOR THE WITCH WOMAN
October 11, 2014 to January 11, 2015
MOCA
Pacific Design Center
The Cameron-Parsons Foundation, Inc.
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ROSALEEN NORTON (September 10, 2014)
Inauguration Of The Pleasure Dome (1954) by KENNETH ANGER (November 6, 2010)
The second blood moon of 2014 is approaching. The first appeared April 14-15, and this week’s is the second in a ‘tetrad,’ or series of four.
Skywatchers across much of the world will have the chance to see the moon glowing with an eerie red pallor during a pre-Halloween total lunar eclipse (tomorrow).
The « blood moon » total lunar eclipse will rise during the full moon of Oct. 8 just before sunrise in North America, but red might not be the only color people see during the total eclipse. Weather permitting, it’s possible that some sharp-eyed observers might be able to see some blue in the moon’s glow. The event will be the second of four consecutive total lunar eclipses in 2014 and 2015, according to NASA officials.
On the East Coast of the United States, totality starts at 6:25 a.m. EDT, but stargazers on the West Coast of the United States will have an even better chance of seeing the rusty glow of the moon during totality. The eclipse will occur between 3:25 a.m. PDT and 4:24 a.m. PDT Wednesday. Observers in Australia and countries along the Pacific Ocean will also have the chance to see the eclipse.
« It promises to be a stunning sight, even from the most light-polluted cities, » NASA eclipse expert Fred Espenak said in a statement. « I encourage everyone, especially families with curious children, to go out and enjoy the event. »
A total lunar eclipse tetrad
(Tomorrow)’s eclipse is the second in a so-called total lunar eclipse tetrad, a series of four consecutive eclipses that began earlier this year. The first total eclipse tetrad occurred in April. The next total eclipse in the series will occur on April 4, 2015, and the fourth eclipse will rise on Sept. 28, 2015.
During total lunar eclipses, the moon passes into Earth’s shadow, causing the planet to darken the face of the moon, according to NASA. Instead of making the moon go completely dark, the moon shines with a rosy hue during a total eclipse because it reflects light from the sun coming through Earth’s atmosphere.
The color of the moon during a lunar eclipse actually depends on Earth’s atmosphere. For example, a lot of volcanic activity on the planet can pollute the atmosphere and make the moon seem very dark in color during an eclipse, according to NASA.
« Despite some recent eruptions that look spectacular from the ground, there have been no large injections of volcanic gases into the stratosphere, » atmospheric scientist Richard Keen of the University of Colorado said in the same statement. « In the absence of volcanic effects, I expect a rather normal reddish-orange lunar eclipse similar in appearance to last April’s eclipse ». READ.
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Welcome back Jesus? Christians say ‘Blood Moon’ signals End Times (April 15, 2014)
A Very British Witchcraft
Channel 4, UK, 2012, 46 min
The extraordinary story of Britain’s fastest-growing religious group – the modern pagan witchcraft of Wicca – and of its creator, an eccentric Englishman called GERALD GARDNER.
Historian and leading expert in Pagan studies Professor RONALD HUTTON explores Gardner’s story and experiences first-hand Wicca’s growing influence throughout Britain today.
Born of a nudist colony in 1930s Dorset, Wicca rapidly grew from a small New Forest coven to a worldwide religion in the space of just 70 years.
It’s a journey that takes in tales of naked witches casting spells to ward off Hitler, tabloid hysteria about human sacrifices and GERALD GARDNER himself appearing on Panorama.
