DIY Magic: Increase Your Creativity (August 2017)
DIY Magic: Increase Your Creativity (August 2017)
This class is about how you can reach deeper levels of creativity with techniques from magic and esoteric traditions. It's a modern and playful take on magic, designed for artists and anyone else who wants to be more creatively engaged with the world around them. Innovative thinkers have long used unusual and magical ways of thinking to approach inspiration—from Leonardo Da Vinci to David Bowie.
Wednesdays, August 9, 16, 23, 30 || 7:00 - 8:30 pm
SE Uplift || 3534 SE Main St. Portland
Four weeks || $120
Together, we will explore...
The roots of magical thinking, from Shamanism to Surrealism.
Techniques for finding inspiration and deepening creative thought
How our own ideas create reality, and how we can use this principle to achieve goals, as well as desired states of mind and being.
Finding inspiration in surprising places: dreams, card games, and even death
Week one: Personal Presence
Magic is about creating change from within. How does the inner self shapes the outer self and visa-versa? How can we use techniques such as breathing, visualization, and body language to affect personal presence, charisma, and self-confidence?
Week two: Awareness
We will explore some of the many states of awareness that are available to us, including daydreaming, journaling, trance, self-hypnosis, meditation, and journaling. How do we recognize trance states, and how have they been used in different cultures, eras and regions?
Week three: Divination
A look at archaic techniques of insight and idea generation: Tarot cards, the I-Ching, Bibliomancy, and Dadaist parlor games. Trace the history of the cut-up technique from the Surrealists and Dadaists to William Burroughs and modern chaos magick.
Week four: Death & Dream
In the final class, we look at Memento Mori; the idea that awareness of one’s own mortality can be inspiring. We'll also examine ideas about the meaning of dreams and techniques for lucid dreaming.
"I could have gotten this information from Anthony's book, but the experience of being in this group was exhilarating. Anthony's presentation of the ideas sparked all kinds of changes in my perception of the people and world around me."
"I paint. I am always seeking more & new ways to get inspiration. Anthony''s class & book have blown me away!"
"I wanted to be inspired. And while I could have just read the book I'm glad I had the class. For me creativity is best learned in person and having a teacher and other students to learn with enhanced the process."
