Dr Jeff Howard

From the Upside Down to the Black Lodge, the concept of a Universe B and its denizens—a mirror world comprised of anti-matter and doppelgangers—haunts popular culture. Similarly, an eerie phrase echoes throughout the work of occultist Kenneth Grant and syncretic sorcerer Andrew Chumbley: the “negatively existent ones.” For both Grant and Chumbley, the negatively existent ones dwell in Universe B: an anti-universe influenced by the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics and mapped, in part, by Michael Bertiaux. Building on the work of Grant, Bertiaux, and Chumbley (as well as the “phenomenology of transmission” of Ian C. Edwards in his four-volume Being and Non-Being in Occult Experience), Howard will explore Universe B both theoretically and practically. Howard will argue that the dream magic of Universe B is a close analogue to (and perhaps identical with) the magic associated with play. By seeking the moments of slippage in which one universe seeps into another, occultists can access universe B without being pulled into a black hole of ritual gravitas. Play, dream magic, and palindromic mirror-writing give access to Universe B and help to darkly illuminate its place on the other side of contemporary occulture.

Dr. Jeff Howard is Associate Professor of Games and Occulture at Falmouth University in Cornwall. He is the author of two monographs: Quests: Design, Theory, and History in Games and Narratives (now in its second edition) and Game Magic: A Designer’s Guide to Magic Systems in Theory and Practice. Howard has presented on occulture at a variety of international conferences, including Berlin Occulture, Trans-States, and ESSWE9. Howard studies Sabbatic Craft at the intersection of the Left Hand Path and the Typhonian current. Through his scholarship and creative work, Howard is an ambassador for the power of play as a transformative and transcendent practice.

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