Smoke & Mirrors

A Moxibustion of Dreams

Theory • Discourse • Discussion

Smoke and Mirrors is a seminar series that employs moxibustion as a leitmotif, or theoretical device, for exploring the constitution of human desire and destiny. The seminar is structured in six movements that weave an associative field of subjects, including medicine, anthropology, astrology, esotericism, and psychoanalysis. Smoke and Mirrors is thus an experimental discourse, a scattering of seeds for the discovery of fruition.

What is a Seminar?

A seminar is a speech-act that functions as an oral transmission. A seminar is not a class or a lecture, but an unfolding movement in relation to an audience. A seminar is thus an atmosphere of free associations—an invitation to witness the making of a thought.

If discourse functions as a link across fields, then what happens when moxibustion discourses with the unconscious? And what becomes of psychoanalysis when it brings warmth to its listening?

Moxibustion evokes the unconscious body, with vital flames of desire and a fragile smoke of dreams. A moxibustion of dreams is a new interpretation of a remembered truth, still heard in the ashes of time. Smoke is never found in the absence of fire, just as soma is never found in the absence of psyche.

Oral Transmission: Theory, Discourse, Discussion

A seminar is a motive of oral transmission given with didactic intentions. The pedagogy of my seminar is thus structured as a transmission of theory via discourse for the sake of discussion. 

Smoke and Mirrors delivers theoretical paradigms in six discursive movements. Each movements functions as an elaboration (and provocation) of intentional themes with an improvisational cadence. The essential movements of the seminar are sketched below, but they are neither written nor etched. 

6 Saturday Sessions | Sep 26 - Oct 31 | 10am - 12:30pm MST | Live Online

Register

Six Movements

Each session will span ~2.5hrs, with time for questions/discussion.

Sessions are live online and accessible with a link. 

    • Origins: A History of Moxibustion

    • Metsa & Marma: Tibetan and Ayurvedic Traditions

    • Moxa & Mogusa: Chinese and Japanese Traditions

    • Watery Palindromes, or the Unconscious Body

    • (Se)mantic Mirrors: Structures of Subjectivity

    • Sleights of Hand, or Scrying the Real

    • The Symptom of Structure: Etiology, Pathology, and Nosology

    • Elements and Complexes: Family Complexes as Elemental Cycles

    • Vital Essences as Treasure Troves: On Wish-Fulfillment

    • Divination and Astrology

    • The Eclipsed Subject and the Lunar Soul

    • Oracular Vernacular, or Treatment as Divination

    • The Soma of Moxibustion: Sacraments of Universal Sacrifice

    • Laws of Cure: Purification, Rebalancing, Rejuvenation

    • Smoking Signifiers: Oral Drives and Surplus Jouissance

    • Oneiric Residues as Humoral Remainders

    • Hungry Ghosts & The Navel of the Dream: A Diagnosis of Discourse

    • Transference as Transmission, or the Desire of the Moxibustionist

Registration

Location — Live Online

Sessions will be hosted on the Riverside platform and accessible with a link (no account needed)

Schedule — Six Saturdays, Sep 26 - Oct 31, 10:00 AM – 12:30 PM MST

Six consecutive Saturdays for a concentrated transmission.

Tuition — $450* (standard rate) / $375** (students & current clients)

*I want this seminar and its transmissions to be available to anyone who has a desire to attend. If you feel called to join but face financial limitations, please contact me to discuss options.

**If you are enrolled as a student at any institution, in training with me and/or a current client, email me to request a coupon code to register at this rate.

Register