The 4th CEENASWE conference, 27–29 September, Vila Lanna, V Sadech 1, Praha 6

Join us

The conference will be streamed via MS Teams – join us here. Do you wish to attend the conference in person? Please, register here.

Monday 27 September

19:30 Meeting in an ‘old-fashioned’ Prague Pub: Na Slamníku, Wolkerova 12, 160 00 Praha 6

Tuesday 28 September

09:30 A Welcome word, Pavel Horák and Karolina Maria Hess 

09:40 Keynote Lecture: Marco Pasi (University of Amsterdam)

10:40–11:00 Coffee Break

11:00–11:30 György E. Szönyi (Prof. emeritus, University of Szeged / CEU Budapest), The Vicissitudes of 20th-century Hungarian Adepts from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, through World Wars, Revolutions, Communism to Intellectual Liberation

11:30–12:00 Rafał T. Prinke (Prof. emeritus, Eugeniusz Piasecki University, Poznań), Political astrology and nationalisms in 1930s Poland (ONLINE)

12:30–13:00 Yotam Yzraely (Tel Aviv University), Questioning the Legitimacy of the State: The Prophetic Politics of Gustav Landauer and Martin Buber (ONLINE)

12:30 – 14:30 Lunch break

14:30–15:00 Pavel Horák (Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences), How to Magically Edify Nation: The Rise and Fall of Universalia, The Society of Czech Hermetics

15:00–15:30 Helena Čapková (Ritsumeikan University, College of Global Liberal Arts), Miloš Maixner, Czechoslovak Nationalism and few comments regarding challenges in research of Czech Hermeticism

15:30–16:00 Petr Kalač (Documentation Centre of the Czech Hermeticism), Documentation Centre of the Czech hermeticism: To Preserve a Legacy of the Czech Esoteric Scene

16:00–16:30 Coffee Break

16:30–17:00 Vilém Skopal (University of Pardubice), On reaching atman or, the inner Divinity. The adoption of Indian material by selected Czech occultists of the 20th century

17:00–17:30 Alessandro Testa (Charles University, Prague), The Marriage of High Culture and Lower Culture: Praga Magica from Literary Trope to Cultural Heritage through Popular Myth

Wednesday 29 September

09:00 Intro: The Second Conference Day

09:00–09:30 Ivan Souček (Matej Bel University), Psychotronics and Biotherapy in East-Central Europe: At the Edge of Legitimacy

09:30–10:00 Julia Gyimesi (Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Hungary), Between Pavlovism and Esotericism. Ferenc Völgyesi and Hypnosis Research in Hungary

10:00–10:30 Veneta Ivanova (Panteion University of Social & Political Sciences), Socialism with an Occult Face: Aesthetics, Spirituality, and Utopia in Late Socialist Bulgaria

10:30–11:00 Coffee Break

11:00–11:30 Nemanja Radulović (University of Belgrade), Esoteric Background of Yugoslavian Messianism (ONLINE)

11:30–12:00 Jan Ševčík (Masaryk University), Occultism and Politics in Czech Lands, 1880 - 1951

12:00–12:15 Karolina Maria Hess (Jagellonian University), Remarks on the Notion of Nation in Theosophy and Anthrosophy. Polish Examples

12:15–12:30 Karolina Maria Hess, Z. Łagosz (Jagellonian University), The Apparatus of Oppression against Esotericists in Poland 1944–1989. An Outline of the Research Project 

12:30–14:00 Lunch Break

14:00–14:30 Victoria Vitanova-Kerber (Leipzig University), The People’s Republic of Bulgaria’s Foreign Cultural Policy of the 1970s – Occult Dimensions of a Socialist Agenda or vice versa?

14:30–15:00 Miklas-Frankowski (University of Gdańsk), The Concept of Heresy and an Alternative Model of the Polish Community in Olga Tokarczuk’s  ‘The Books of Jacob’

15:00–15:30 Nadežda Elezović (University of Zadar), Spiritual Art in the Context of Transdisciplinarity and Transnationality (ONLINE)

15:30-16:00 Coffee Break

16:00–16:40 Vladimír Kiseljov (Janáček Academy of Arts, Prague), Esoteric symbolism in paintings of V. Kiseljov

Download full programme here.