Fantast in Focus: Al Cummins

FANTAST IN FOCUS: AL CUMMINS

Eloquent, funny, and deeply wizard-like, Al Cummins is a historian of early modern magic and culture. Al’s research focuses on seventeenth-century English cultural approaches to the passions—thus his work falls within a relatively new academic field known as “emotion history”. When he’s not poring over dusty manuscripts, this University of Bristol doctor-elect moonlights as a poet and lecturer and has appeared at venues such as Treadwell’s Bookshop, LeftBank, and The Lexington.

The Custodian: How did you get into Renaissance history—and specifically the history of the emotions?

Al Cummins: I got into Early Modern stuff in undergrad at the University of Leeds. The stuff that really interested me was the social history of Early Modern England. From there I went straight on to the Ranters—the so-called “punk/hippy” lot that no one liked. People would talk about the “rant” as a kind of mood. It raised this fascinating question: “how do these apparent anarchists have any sense of cohesion and order?” They spoke of being “in singleness of heart”. That sort of kicked off a sense of looking at the English Revolution from a perspective of how it made people feel—the mood, the “ranting” milieu. They [the Ranters] were also associated with magic; some of them were just mystics. From there I took a kind of detour. My MA is in magic and astrology—

C: Was that how you made the switch?

A: My MA was focused on three main applications of early modern English astrology: the environmental, the political and the social. So, firstly, ecology, agriculture, cosmology, and also things like chronology. By social or societal astrology I mean looking at the big movements and also various points of psychological counselling. I guess I also like that emotion history is so new.

C: That’s so fascinating. I think astrology has been and even now is intertwined to some extent with social behaviour—the way people construct their lives. You mentioned before that you were working with Heinrich Agrippa. In his Three Books on Occult Philosophy you can really see how he involves the passions on that level, that these “magical operations” are fully emotional. This herb, or this symbol, or this article of clothing, is solar, lunar, martial—these [emotions] are the most powerful things in our lives. You can’t see them, but they’re there.

A: In order to do magic, you need to use passions in a particular way, you need to get, for instance, angry or happy—it suddenly brings you into anthropological debates about Shamanism, but it’s also about trance. If you talk to any ritualists, they’re like “of course you need emotions”, it’s a form of spiritual theatre; you know, literally evocative.

C: It’s also interesting to talk about emotions as if they were anthropomorphic entities.

A: This is an existing feature of occult philosophy in terms of reflection. The heart trembles when we’re afraid as the man trembles. Also, we like putting faces on things. We are in the passion more than the passion is in us.

C: If I remember correctly—you have a few things published by Scarlet Imprint.

A: I have an essay in their poetry collection Mandragora about the magical history and philosophy of the cut-up technique: tracing its forms from Dada to Burroughs to Jeff Noon. I also wrote a review of Jake Stratton-Kent’s work on necromancy and spiritwork in the Western magical traditions which is on the Scarlet Imprint site.

C: What’s your opinion of Western Esotericism and pagan practice among humanities scholars?

A: I know a lot of pagans out in the West Coast who are relatively safe there but it’s really interesting finding out how much of the conferencing happens in the Midwest. I sometimes remark that the worst thing that is likely to happen here [the United Kingdom] if you say you’re pagan, is that somebody might make a crack about cavorting about naked in the woods. That’s not to say there aren’t still issues of discrimination in the UK, but some American pagan friends have assured me there are parts of the States where you might actually get a brick through your window. There, we see a lot more polarisation and a lot more safety in numbers and seeking to be recognised as official religions.

C: With traditional paganism here, it’s almost like a cultural thing. In the States sometimes people would look at you like you have three heads, whereas here, you have Druids, Norse pagans…

A: [laughs] Yeah, my friends and I – including, I should preface, some who practice Northern European pagan and polytheist traditions – affably broadly refer to it as Team Norse.

C: Do you come from a specific tradition?

A: Well, in terms of family ancestry, I’m a third-generation leftie. As for magical traditions, I very much enjoy making friends with practitioners and learning about their traditions and practices. I have friends who are Druids in Bristol and I’ve been invited to the big seasonal festivals and stuff. They’re very welcoming. As are various friends and colleagues in the UK and the US involved in ceremonial magic, Wicca, Thelema, hoodoo, “Team Norse”, various kinds of Voodoo, 21 Divisiones, Santaria, Quimbanda, and various other kinds of shamanism and spiritwork. I try to be ecumenical. I can also tell you my favourite grimoire is the Grimorium Verum.

To answer the question more directly, I sometimes consider the role of the historian as a form of necromancy – of gaining knowledge from the dead for the living. I find the links between text and spirits in Medieval and Early Modern necromantic manuscripts especially fascinating. When I’m particularly sentimental I think of writing history as in itself a somewhat spiritual act: of remembering and, through responsible scholarship, letting the dead speak for themselves.

 

If you want to learn more about Al, check out these links to his works. You can also follow him on Twitter.

1. http://www.shop.hadeanpress.com/the-starry-rubric/

2.http://www.shop.hadeanpress.com/conjure-codex-issue-2/

3.http://scarletimprint.com/books/mandragora/

4. http://www.darton-longman-todd.co.uk/titles/1744-9780232530216-time-and-relative-dimensions-in-faith

5. http://www.amazon.com/The-Enduring-Problems-Prophecy-early-Modern/dp/1905524382