SassyCon 2026

Many traditions make use of rituals and the methods of the sacred sciences to gain guidance, to extrapolate the future, and to understand the deeper forces at work in creating what will be. Of course, differences of belief and culture will express as differences in how divination, prophecy, and oracular vision are used and viewed, but there are connecting threads that relate to the nature of these practices. Divination, prophecy, and oracular vision have qualitative and quantitative similarities and differences. This class will explore the spectrum of what we call divination, prophecy, and oracular vision.

According to Abrahamic spiritual traditions, the relationship between words and magic goes back to the very creation of the world. In this class, Tamar will focus on Judaism, the earliest of these traditions, and the deep and ancient magic it and its language hold. These include spoken and written practices, communal and solitary practices, in Hebrew, and English (and some Aramaic!). We will also touch on modern magical practices that derive from this ancient magic. She will explain the magic of the Hebrew letters (the Aleph Beit) themselves, the messages and meaning they contain, the words and sentences they make, and the ancient Hebrew writings that have survived into modern times.

The realm of the Greenwood is intimately tied to the cycles of life, death, and resurrection. In this class we will explore ways we may partner with botanical allies in necromantic magic and ancestral veneration. We will also unearth a treasury of folklore as we meet a diverse array of plants who might aid us in conjuring, fortifying, and the exorcism of spirits of the dead.

Most magickal traditions use some form of divine embodiment in their rituals in which a priestess or a priest becomes for a time the vehicle for the presence of one of the Great Ones. When it works, it is awe-inspiring, and can act as a great catalyst for change. When it fails, and is no more than role playing or ritual theater, it can encourage cynicism, disillusionment, and diminished expectations of what is possible in ritual. The strengths and the weaknesses of assumption of god forms, drawing down, aspecting, and divine possession will be compared to each other.