I’ll show you mine if you show me yours; altars that is.

In this, what I hope will be the first of an irregular series of podcasts and articles about the altars that we find ourselves making, we look at the exciting stuff I’ve got lurking in my front room.

Hearth Altar

My hearth altar is the mantelpiece over the woodburning stove which my Dad and I installed in my living room. It’s a repository for all kinds of material traces of my magical life. Some objects are fixtures of this space (cobra candle sticks, jug, Shiva, Ganesh and some of my key ritual tools). Other objects come and go; stones, postcards, flowers or ritual texts.

In the first edition of Black Mirror Amy Hale (in her paper ‘Considering the Esoteric Aesthetic Practice, Context and Reception’) takes exception to Marco Pasi’s conception of esoteric art. In calling into question Pasi’s model of esoteric art as being primarily about ‘fetishization and resistance’, Hale points out that the ‘folk art or performance’ aspects of occulture is something that academia hasn’t really got to grips with yet.

Detail – left

A few researchers have begun exploring aspects of occult material and artistic culture that includes things like neopagan altars (notably Sabina Magliocco). So perhaps the time is right for practioners themselves to offer their voices into these investigations? (Although it must be said that many academics, including some of those mentioned here, are also practitioners themselves.)

Detail – right

If you’d like to share one of your altars with others please drop us a message here at the blog. We’d love to hear from you.

blogofbaphomet@gmail.com

Or, put a link to your uploaded images in the comments below 🙂

JV