Today and for the next few days I will be releasing a series of blog posts inspired by my adventures at the Welsh Occult Conference, held on Saturday 17th May 2025 at Gregynog Hall, in Powys, Wales – just over the border from Shropshire.
In brief: I enjoyed it immensely, so much so that I would want to return in future, even if I am not one of the speakers as I was this year.
All credit must go to the organisers, Gary St Michael Nottingham and Leslie Jackson, whom both my fiancée and I would like to thank not just for inviting me to take part, but for their generosity and hospitality generally.
There were over a hundred people there, some from as far away as Canada and Malta. One lady even came up to me and told me she had come to the conference purely to hear me speak!
Gary himself talked about Israel Regardie and Alchemy, illustrating the kind of thing up to which Regardie would have got with examples from his own Alchemical practice.
Meanwhile, I spoke about Abramelin: whilst after lunch, Carrie Kirkpatrick spoke about her forthcoming film “World War Witches”; Elaine Bailey talked about Anna Bonus Kingsford; Anne Turner talked about her parents Robert and Patricia Turner, leading members of the Order of the Cubic Stone; and Geraldine Beskin talked about Annie Horniman.
Stephen Skinner in the end did not attend in person, but recorded a talk which was played to the conference. This really annoyed me, as I had brought all my Stephen Skinner books with me in the hope he would autograph them – only to get the message that he had taken ill after we had set out for Wales!
As well as friends whom I already knew well, I was fortunate to meet a number of Facebook Friends for the first time! As well as many others whom I rarely get to see in the flesh.
Finally I would like to thank my fiancée as well – especially as she did all the driving this weekend. I did offer, but for some reason she thought it would be safer if she was behind the wheel instead of me.
“Thin bald wizard with brown goatee beard casts fearsome enchantments at a spooky house in Wales, magical painting, intricately detailed, perfect composition.”
Following my most recent post, I can now let you know that tickets for The Welsh Occult Conference 2025 – at which I will be one of the speakers – are now on sale via EventBrite.
The event is £60 at Gregynog Hall in Montgomeryshire Wales. There is accommodation available there but you would have to book this separately. The speakers are:
Dr Stephen Skinner ~ the Grimoires, and how to use them.
Sue Ward ~ William Lilly and his 17th Century Astrology
Alex Sumner ~ Lockdown and the Abramelin rite (this will be the fifth anniversary of me performing the Operation, so I shall probably include that perspective in my talk as well).
Elaine Bailey ~ Anna Kingsford; Mother of the Golden Dawn.
Anne Pyatt ~ The History and Legacy of the Order of the Cubic Stone
Geraldine Beskin ~ Annie Horniman and the Golden Dawn.
Plus a load of book stalls and herb / plant stalls as well.
Happy Equinox to you all. I’ve had some exciting new developments in my career recently, so I thought I’d better update you all.
First of all, save this date: SATURDAY 27TH MAY 2025. I shall be appearing at the Welsh Occult Conference 2025, alongside other illustrious speakers such as Stephen Skinner, Sue Ward, Geraldine Beskin, and more. Hell, when I saw the list of speakers, I thought I would have paid to go myself even if I hadn’t been invited!
Third on the bill! Not too shabby. 😉
This will take place at Gregynog Hall, near Newtown, in Montgomeryshire, Wales (nearest airport: Birmingham International). More details will be available from the organisers’ Facebook page, although obviously I will be posting all relevant updates on this website as well.
Secondly, I have been busy writing new material. Over the summer I had enough time off from other work to be able to write a whole screenplay, which will be a futuristic paranormal thriller set in a world where astral projection is regarded as cutting-edge science. Literary agents, commissioning editors etc please message me via the Contact Alex page on this website!
So first of all there was this guy called Doctor John Dee (1527 – 1609) who was obsessed with acquiring knowledge. After he had received the best education that was available in Tudor England, and had built up the largest library in the country at the time – he still wanted more. So he resorted to the Occult to get it.
Round about 1582 he met Edward Kelley (1555 – 1597) who helped him “skry” i.e. Dee would make the conjurations and ask the questions, whilst Kelley reported what he saw in Dee’s crystal ball. Over the next few years they reported that Angels gave them or described to them:
A magical seal, containing the names of Angels and planetary spirits (the “Sigillum Dei Aemeth”)
A Holy Table, inscribed with letters from a magical language derived from the names of –
49 Good Angels
Another table, the Table of Nalvage;
More tables of letters (Liber Logaeth), from which were derived –
A giant table of Angel names, divided into four Watchtowers; plus a “black cross” (referred to by later interpreters of Dee’s work as the Tablet of Union);
A method of dividing the known world into 91 parts, grouped in thirty “aethyrs”;
Forty Eight Angelic calls, i.e. eighteen calls plus thirty to invoke the thirty aethyrs (the last thirty are practically identical except the name of the aethyr is changed each time.
These represent the totality of original “Enochian Magic.” The Enochian language is the supposed language of the Forty Eight Angelic calls – and which has correspondances with the earlier 49 Good Angels as well: whilst the Enochian alphabet comprises the letter first used on the Holy Table.
A good all-round introduction to the subject is Enochian Vision Magick by Lon Milo Duquette, which is essentially how one would go from being a complete beginner to a practising magician in all aspects of Dee’s system. Once you have that out of the way, you are ready for Dee’s original materials. I recommend John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery, edited by Joseph H Peterson, and Meric Casaubon’s “A True and Faithful Relation…” now published as Dr. John Dee’s Spiritual Diaries: 1583-1608, edited by Stephen Skinner.
Some years ago themagickalreview.org even had high quality scans of Dee’s diaries online, but unfortunately their site seems to be down.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
The Welsh Occult Conference 2025
Today and for the next few days I will be releasing a series of blog posts inspired by my adventures at the Welsh Occult Conference, held on Saturday 17th May 2025 at Gregynog Hall, in Powys, Wales – just over the border from Shropshire.
In brief: I enjoyed it immensely, so much so that I would want to return in future, even if I am not one of the speakers as I was this year.
All credit must go to the organisers, Gary St Michael Nottingham and Leslie Jackson, whom both my fiancée and I would like to thank not just for inviting me to take part, but for their generosity and hospitality generally.
There were over a hundred people there, some from as far away as Canada and Malta. One lady even came up to me and told me she had come to the conference purely to hear me speak!
Gary himself talked about Israel Regardie and Alchemy, illustrating the kind of thing up to which Regardie would have got with examples from his own Alchemical practice.
Meanwhile, I spoke about Abramelin: whilst after lunch, Carrie Kirkpatrick spoke about her forthcoming film “World War Witches”; Elaine Bailey talked about Anna Bonus Kingsford; Anne Turner talked about her parents Robert and Patricia Turner, leading members of the Order of the Cubic Stone; and Geraldine Beskin talked about Annie Horniman.
Stephen Skinner in the end did not attend in person, but recorded a talk which was played to the conference. This really annoyed me, as I had brought all my Stephen Skinner books with me in the hope he would autograph them – only to get the message that he had taken ill after we had set out for Wales!
As well as friends whom I already knew well, I was fortunate to meet a number of Facebook Friends for the first time! As well as many others whom I rarely get to see in the flesh.
Finally I would like to thank my fiancée as well – especially as she did all the driving this weekend. I did offer, but for some reason she thought it would be safer if she was behind the wheel instead of me.
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Tagged as Abramelin, Alchemy, Anna Kingsford, israel regardie, Order of the Cubic Stone, Stephen Skinner, wales