As we draw close to the deadline for Sound & Vision issue pitches, editor Elizabeth Kim and art director Kaitlynn Copithorne reflect on the similarly themed Spiritus Mundi and the links between the occult and art.
Kaitlynn Copithorne: How did the idea of Spiritus Mundi first come to you?
Elizabeth Kim: I spent a few years volunteering at Treadwells books in London and attending lectures and workshops and in most disciplines of the occult, magic so often seems to aid—or is synonymous with—creativity. I already knew about some of the writers and artists who drew inspiration from the occult, like Sylvia Plath, David Bowie, William Burroughs, and Hilma af Klimt; I learnt spirituality was important to many other writers and artists. Yeats was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an 19th-century secret society, and the theosophical society. One of his most famous poems, "The Second Coming” (also probably one of the most pillaged poems for titles: Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe—also the title of Jon Ronson’s podcast on the culture wars—and Slouching Toward Bethlehem by Joan Didion) features this concept of the Spiritus Mundi, world-spirit, that crops up again in other poems, such as in “Byzantium” where we have this image of the “That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea” that mirrored my whale-torn dreamscape. Yeats conceived the Spiritus Mundi as a sort of universal memory and the source of poetic inspiration, though the idea existed earlier, in the writings of Renaissance philosophers, including the German polymath Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and the Italian Platonist Marsilio Ficino. I thought this naturally lent itself to a collaborative kind of book about creativity as a spiritual practice and should include works made in the spirit of experimentation. We live in a time where you can ask writers—new and established—to observe the moon cycle, scry into obsidian and consult the tarot—what a time to be alive really. Is your artistic practice in any way occult inspired?
KC: It is definitely occult inspired. I've been interested in the visual language of the occult since I was too young to know what that phrase means, haha. I grew up fairly rural and isolated on a cattle ranch in Western Canada, so the vast majority of my young life was mercifully spent a bit feral, outside in fields and forests and rivers. For me, an interest in the occult came partly naturally from this upbringing, where it was normal to look for signs in wildlife and plants. When I was young, maybe 8 or 9, my dad bent two welding rods at 90 degrees, showed me how to hold them, and took me out in a field to see if I could find water under ground like his own dad could. No one would have referred to these activities as occult though, it was just farming.
EK: Your background is quite similar to mine but also totally the opposite. I think both our mums are folk musicians right? I also grew up in the countryside but not in Canada, rather in the West Country in England, and as a vegetarian—not in a cattle ranch! I relate to the feeling like my upbringing was feral though—more raised than cats by humans at times ha—and hyper aware of the trees, birds, seasonal herbs and flowers, tide times etc.
I think this is where the words occult and folk becomes categories that are useful for talking about a way of thinking that is different to the mainstream but can be quite limiting. A lot of people associate the word occult with dark and macabre things—and folk with folk horror — they can be that, and these are also parts of the word. But a lot of it is also paying attention to beliefs, practices and ways of life outside the mainstream.
KC: Yes, very very similar! There was an unspoken rule at our house that if we didn't go inside we didn't have to go to bed as kids, so sometimes my siblings and I stayed outside for what felt like days and nights on end. We spent much more time with horses and cats than we ever did people. And for sure, I think either term would have offended my parents…
EK: At the moon festival in London several years ago, Margaret Atwood talked about how in rural Canada she grew up seeing the moon and from there led to a discussion about Robert graves and the triptych goddess which I thought was interesting. I think that sort of upbringing makes you see reality somewhat differently.
KC: And makes it a bit harder to get on in mainstream society!
EK: Haha yes.
KC: My approach to art is really the same as "farming". Once I have the concept in mind there is a lot of being quiet and still (preferably outside) and just paying attention to what comes up in my mind or around me physically. Sometimes a whole image comes to mind, but it's usually more bits and pieces that trigger other seemingly unrelated bits and pieces until I have enough to build a whole. There's also a lot of physical sensation involved in the process that I don't really know how to explain well. There's an unease in my stomach that gets relieved when the right image or idea comes. Have you always used occult methods in your own writing?
EK: I think I have a similar process. It’s quite cat like and tallies with being raised by cats. I’ve been working on a couple of books in the past couple of years and some of them less actively writing so much as letting percolate. I’ve definitely thought of writing as a spiritual practice—actually I don’t really use the specific occult techniques mentioned in the book myself—they are easy to follow techniques and intended to help move the mind away from being too self conscious—but in the end specific rituals and ways of doing things are like coloured candles—you can take them or leave them but following guidelines can help move your mind away from its current patterns and conditioning. I do appeal to dreams, keep an eye on the moon, have tried querying things with the spirit world etc. A long time ago I wrote my thoughts on writing as a magical practice on the CF website—they probably still resonate.
KC: Yes, I also call this phase percolating. Which came first for you: writing or the occult?
EK: The occult, oddly. I grew up in a retreat centre with an occult library and was vaguely aware of lots of different schools of thought, and remember going to school and telling people we had two witches staying with us and they were like, witches aren’t real. But I suppose writing came early to in the way of make believe stories I played by myself while roaming the woods. And then I was obsessed with writing lists and kept a live journal I naively thought was private for a while unto people started commenting
KC: That must have been a surprise, haha. And that's such an interesting and unusual environment to grow up in.
EK: A lot of people in (I should say, in some pockets of) the West Country are into this kind of thing.
KC: This is so interesting to me. It must be that more people were interested in the occult and folklore here when I was growing up than I thought, but I really never heard of places like this.
EK: It feels like the sort of place where (in a romantic flight of fancy) you could believe the return to magical thinking is a survival of old beliefs rather than something new. Parts of rural Canada are interesting culturally though right? Lots of folk musicians and circus arts seem to come out of there.
KC: Certainly! Lots of musicians. I think eastern Canada must export more circus performers/acrobats per capita than anywhere else in the world! How did you choose authors to approach for SM?
EK: I wanted to work with people whose work I liked—some who obviously are interested in the occult (eg Rebecca Tamas and CAConrad) and some who aren’t—I think it gives permission to the rest of us to be a bit more out there.
KC: I would have loved to be a fly on the wall while the authors worked with their prompts.
EK: I think for these reasons this book has been a bit of a weird one to market and place. I’ve seen it in mind, body, and spirit sections, in gallery shops and in esoteric shops. I think it could sit well with anthologies and with books on writing
KC: I agree. I think a lot of people don't know what to do with the word occult.
EK: People have at least agreed it’s really beautiful. We work together for Cunning Folk but it was nice to do something a bit different. It’s quite unusual to have a book like this made by a company that primarily makes tarot decks but I think few publishers invest so much in illustrations so Liminal 11 was a natural choice?
KC: Yes, I love how beautiful their books are! In my biased illustrators opinion, more "grown-up" books should be heavily illustrated, haha. SM is an odd and intriguing book, and I think the cover treatment from Liminal 11 suits it. It was the first book I've illustrated and my first time working with a publisher outside of CF, so I was excited but also anxious about how different the process would be. L11's art direction was very open, and I think I asked your feedback on almost everything, so it ended up feeling like an extension of our work on CF to me.
EK: We also had Michelle Harrison sub-editing, who worked on the first 5 issues with us (now she’s a tattoo artist).
KC: Thinking about the forthcoming issue, who are your favourite creators of sounds and visions?
EK: I’m going to dump a load of names here and hope it works as a vibe board for people interested in contributing in future:
Shirley Jackson, Mikhail Bulgakov, Cormac McCarthy, Sally Rooney, George RR Martin, Susan Hill, R F Kuang, J R R Tolkien, Charles Baudelaire, Edna St Vincent Millay, Anne Rice, Annie Ernaux, Charlotte Brontë, H. D., Mary Oliver, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Koji Suzuki, Ted Chiang, Leo Tolstoy, H G Wells, Benjamín Labatut, Svetlana Alexievich, Daphne du Maurier, André Aciman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Marguerite Duras, James Baldwin, Gustave Flaubert, Bret Easton Ellis, Emma Donoghue, Richard Yates, Milan Kundera, Vladimiri Nabakov, Le Compte de Lautréamont, Tove Jansson, Carmen Maria Machado, Anton Chekhov, Haruki Murakami, Ryu Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Kate Elizabeth Russell, Madeline Gray, Alasdair Gray, Maud Ventura, Caroline Kepnes, Agustina Bazterrica, Samanta Schweblin, Jeff VanderMeer, Jonathan Safran Foer, Sayaka Murata, Damien Chazelle, Darren Aronofsky, David Fincher, Yorgos Lanthimos, Celine Song, Alan Ball, Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Robert Kirkman, Junji Ito, Hayao Miyazaki, Éric Rohmer, Jean-Jacques Annaud, Robert Eggers, Bong Joon-hoo, Leonard Cohen, The Smiths, Nico, Asha Bhosle, Serge Gainsbourg, David Bowie, Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Neutral Milk Hotel, Dengue Fever, Noir Désir, Amadou & Mariam, Bill Monroe, Billie Holiday, Fleetwood Mac, Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, The Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band, Mirel Wagner, Metric, Hilma af Klint, the Limbourg Brothers, Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cezanne, Toulouse Lautrec, Claudine Doury etc.
Yours?
KC: Okay, so this list is constantly changing, but some constants for me are: Joan Baez, Gillian Welch, Linda Ronstat, Ian Tyson, Nick Drake, Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Leonard Cohen, Fleetwood Mac, ABBA, Sarah Jarosz, Mountain Man, Ola Belle Reed, Dolly Parton, The Del McCoury Band, Rhiannon Giddens, Glen Gould, Pat Benetar, The Stampeders, Paul Simon, Loreena McKennit, Hildegard of Bingen, Haruki Murakami, Timothy Findley, Edgar Allen Poe, Federico Garcia Lorca, David Lynch, Anne Carson, Richard Adams, William Morris, Himla af Klint, Harry Clarke, Ivan Bilibin, Kay Nielsen, Eyvind Earle, Tin Can Forest, Francisco Goya, Aubrey Beardsley, Andrew Wyeth, and dozens more who’s existence I forget the moment I’m tasked with writing it all down…
EK: Of course! Lots of overlap there. I want to say one more thing about submissions: we always receive a disproportionate number of short stories. I keep submissions open as we have occasionally published things from the slush pile but most poetry and short fiction we publish is solicited, and we only publish 1-2 short stories per issue. I’m mainly after strong non-fiction ideas. Buying a copy of Cunning Folk from our online shop is the best way to see what sort of thing we publish.
Spiritus Mundi features writers including Alice Slater, Jen Campbell, Wanjiku Wa Ngugi, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, Naomi Ishiguro, and Sharlene Teo, among others, and is available to purchase direct from the publisher, Liminal 11, and from all good bookshops. Read more about our forthcoming issue and what we’re looking for here.