Peter Bebergal, author of “Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll,” will present a multi-media presentation on how the aesthetics and mythos of rock and roll have been deeply influenced by the occult imagination. Bebergal will narrate a secret occult history of bands and artists, including David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Hawkwind, Arthur Brown, Psychic TV and Sunn0))) that owe their mystique to people like Aubrey Beardsley, Austin Osman Spare, and Aleister Crowley, as well as the pomp and circumstance of magic fraternities, UFOs, conspiracy theories, and neo-pagans. Underlying it all is pop culture’s frenzied love of occultism, and Bebergal will showcase stills, concert footage and film clips.
Peter Bebergal writes widely on the speculative and slightly fringe. His essays and reviews have appeared in NewYorker.com, The Times Literary Supplement, Boing Boing, The Believer, and The Quietus. He is the author of Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural; Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll; Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood, and The Faith Between Us: A Jew and a Catholic Search for the Meaning of God (with Scott Korb). Bebergal studied religion and culture at Harvard Divinity School. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
