Certificate of Completion
At the end of this course you will be able to download a personalised certificate of completion from the classroom. A great way to keep track of your learning and celebrate your Egyptological journey.
Spooky Egyptology: British Occultism & Ancient Egypt
2 Sunday afternoons: 14th & 21st December 2025
2-5pm (UK Time) to join live, or you can watch via the recordings.
We love to see you for the live lectures, but if you have to miss one, don't worry, you can of course catch up (or watch again) at your leisure via the recordings. You will have access to the recorded lectures for a whole month after the last live lecture. Recordings will be available until 21st January 2026
The 19th century saw the emergence of archaeology as a scientific discipline, and the acquisition of Egyptian antiquities by European and North American collectors stimulated a strong fascination with ancient Egypt among the general public. Scientific Egyptology, anchored in museums and university departments, grew alongside a more spiritual kind of Egyptomania. The ‘occult’ approach to ancient Egypt was centred on notions such as spirits, mediums, curses and reincarnation. This phenomenon formed part of a wider Western spiritual movement that saw a decline in the traditional authority and influence of the Church, and is particularly significant as an arena in which women could claim spiritual autonomy and authority.
Over the course of these Sunday specials, we will look at the lives and legacies of prominent British individuals who claimed to have lived past lives as ancient Egyptian priests and received profound spiritual revelations from the Egyptian gods themselves. For these occultists and spiritualists, the distant land of the Pharaohs served as an exotic site for the exploration of the self, and facilitated their rebellion against the cultural norms of Victorian-Edwardian Britain. In doing so, they drew their inspiration both from scientific Egyptology and from Egyptosophy, the study of an imaginary ‘ancient Egypt’ seen as the ultimate source of all esoteric wisdom and knowledge.
The course will be structured as follows:
Sunday 14th December
Lecture 1: William Wynn Westcott & Samuel Liddell Mathers: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Lecture 2: Florence Farr’s Egyptian Magic
Sunday 21st December
Lecture 3: Aleister Crowley and the Stela of Revealing
Lecture 4: Omm Sety’s Egyptian Love Affair
Dr Maiken Mosleth King
Maiken Mosleth King is a Honorary research Fellow at the University of Bristol, where she also completed her PhD thesis on funerary stelae and identity in Roman Egypt. She gained a BA and MA in Egyptology at the University of Liverpool. She has published academic articles in Gottinger Miszellen and the Journal of History and Cultures, as well as contributing to the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Emotions in Antiquity and Ancient Egypt’ at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo, Norway. Her linguistic skills are broad and include Coptic, Classical Greek, Latin, Biblical Hebrew, Phoenician, classical Arabic and hieroglyphs, which she has taught for a number of years.
Booking instructions
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Session links will be available in the course Classroom. Room opens 30 minutes before the lecture begins. If you do not have the course link or have any other queries please get in touch.