RR Patreon Tier 3 Roundtable Dr. Sarah Perez & Dr. Cavan McLaughlin: Tulpas/Other-than-Human Beings & Reality Shifting

This is the 'Free Content' version of this interview, the full episode can be found at my Patreon: www.patreon.com/RejectedReligion

My guests this month are Dr. Sarah Perez and Dr. Cavan McLaughlin.

Sarah is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bern. While her previous research focused on early modern pamphlet about deathbed visions, she is currently working on contemporary spirituality with a focus on eco- and online-spirituality as well as youth culture.

Cavan McLaughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Media Production at the University of the West of England (UWE), with research interests related to the role and function of occulture. Editor of the volume Trans- States: The Art of Crossing Over (2019), Cavan has also published on Crowley, esotericism and narrativity, open-source occultism, and contemporary occulture. Having recently defended a practice-based PhD entitled ‘Occultural Production as Re-Vision and Weird Worlding, they remain a practicing filmmaker, artist, and all-around creative media practitioner. As a media professional of over twenty years, Cavan has been involved in almost all aspects of audiovisual production, specializing in video art, music videos, and visual poetry. Cavan is the founder and Chair of Trans- States (trans-states.org); co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of Monad: Journal of Occultural Studies (monadjournal.com); and, a trustee of the Research Network for the Study of Esoteric Practices (www.rensep.org). Cavan has a profound affection for cows, fungi, and rainbows.

This is a discussion that I have wanted to have since the last ESSWE 9 Conference in 2023. In the session “Creativity and Occultural Production” I attended, Cavan and Sarah presented some very interesting papers. I also presented on another day about my research regarding tulpas and Otherkin, and as Cavan and Sarah’s topics were in this general area as well, I thought to myself, how wonderful it would be if we could get together and talk about all of this in more detail.

We each take turns talking a bit about our own projects, and from there, the discussion leads into sharing our insights and the interconnectivity of our individual research, and how underrepresented this is within academia. Some key concepts that came forward were: imagination, mind/consciousness, Cavan’s term ‘alienated agency’, power dynamics, new materialisms (inspired by Donna Haraway and Karen Barad), and serious play. We also discuss how other-than-human cultures overlap with neurodivergence and gender, as well as the importance of being ethically responsible (as researchers) and being cognizant of this very normal diversity in expression.


Theme Music and Editing: Daniel P. Shea
End Production: Stephanie Shea

https://www.relwi.unibe.ch/about_us/personen/dr_des_perez_sarah/index_eng.html#pane1299843

https://westengland.academia.edu/CavanMcLaughlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sfb_AmzPZw4 [Cavan McLaughlin - ‘Another Girl, Another Planet’ (Occulture Conference 2023)]

https://uva.academia.edu/StephanieShea