Daemonic Doubles: The Twin, Shadow or Doppelgänger as Death and Inspiration, with Author J.M. Hamade, begins June 4
Two Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, June 4 & 11, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$77
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Day and night, hot and cold, me and you. Existence would seem to manifest in pairs; inextricably linked yet often at odds. Such is the being known by many names in many cultures, but most often referred to as the double, the shadow, the doppelgänger, and even as an evil twin. The tenuous nature of this figure is self-evident, as our own reflections are simultaneously other and completely familiar in their mirror-like and backwards existence.
This appropriately two-part class forms a Gemini season special meant to explore this elusive figure(s). Part One will discuss the ‘dark’ twin in its often stereotyped and maligned form as that great shadow and opposer of all that we hold to be good and whole. This is the twin as demon, underworld dweller, and bringer of death and misfortune. Part Two will venture into less known territories with the twin as bringer of artistic inspiration, a muse, and even a reconciler of wholeness and good fortune. Both classes will pull from extensive cultural cosmologies and lore, as well as examining magical and occult practices based around the conjuration of this same mysterious figure.
J.M. Hamade (starnightdwell) (they/them) is an author, researcher, artist, and educator based in New York City. Their work bridges contemporary creative modalities with archaic forms of knowing. Through practice as well as scholarly investigations their focus has been in the fields of lunar+stellar lore, non-European archeoastrologies, Islamic esotericism, Afro-diaspora traditions, and the dæmonic imagination.
Images: Folio from a Mu'nis al-ahrar fi daqa'iq al-ash'ar (The Free Man's Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Jajarmi Author Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din Jajarmi Iranian dated 741 AH-1340–41 CE (detail), Metropolitan Museum of Art; Seryddiaeth Gynnar (Texts on astronomy), circa 1001 and 1100
Two Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, June 4 & 11, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$77
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Day and night, hot and cold, me and you. Existence would seem to manifest in pairs; inextricably linked yet often at odds. Such is the being known by many names in many cultures, but most often referred to as the double, the shadow, the doppelgänger, and even as an evil twin. The tenuous nature of this figure is self-evident, as our own reflections are simultaneously other and completely familiar in their mirror-like and backwards existence.
This appropriately two-part class forms a Gemini season special meant to explore this elusive figure(s). Part One will discuss the ‘dark’ twin in its often stereotyped and maligned form as that great shadow and opposer of all that we hold to be good and whole. This is the twin as demon, underworld dweller, and bringer of death and misfortune. Part Two will venture into less known territories with the twin as bringer of artistic inspiration, a muse, and even a reconciler of wholeness and good fortune. Both classes will pull from extensive cultural cosmologies and lore, as well as examining magical and occult practices based around the conjuration of this same mysterious figure.
J.M. Hamade (starnightdwell) (they/them) is an author, researcher, artist, and educator based in New York City. Their work bridges contemporary creative modalities with archaic forms of knowing. Through practice as well as scholarly investigations their focus has been in the fields of lunar+stellar lore, non-European archeoastrologies, Islamic esotericism, Afro-diaspora traditions, and the dæmonic imagination.
Images: Folio from a Mu'nis al-ahrar fi daqa'iq al-ash'ar (The Free Man's Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Jajarmi Author Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din Jajarmi Iranian dated 741 AH-1340–41 CE (detail), Metropolitan Museum of Art; Seryddiaeth Gynnar (Texts on astronomy), circa 1001 and 1100
Two Week Class Taught Online Via Zoom
Tuesdays, June 4 & 11, 2025
7:00 - 8:30pm ET (NYC Time)
$77
PLEASE NOTE: Classes will be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time
Day and night, hot and cold, me and you. Existence would seem to manifest in pairs; inextricably linked yet often at odds. Such is the being known by many names in many cultures, but most often referred to as the double, the shadow, the doppelgänger, and even as an evil twin. The tenuous nature of this figure is self-evident, as our own reflections are simultaneously other and completely familiar in their mirror-like and backwards existence.
This appropriately two-part class forms a Gemini season special meant to explore this elusive figure(s). Part One will discuss the ‘dark’ twin in its often stereotyped and maligned form as that great shadow and opposer of all that we hold to be good and whole. This is the twin as demon, underworld dweller, and bringer of death and misfortune. Part Two will venture into less known territories with the twin as bringer of artistic inspiration, a muse, and even a reconciler of wholeness and good fortune. Both classes will pull from extensive cultural cosmologies and lore, as well as examining magical and occult practices based around the conjuration of this same mysterious figure.
J.M. Hamade (starnightdwell) (they/them) is an author, researcher, artist, and educator based in New York City. Their work bridges contemporary creative modalities with archaic forms of knowing. Through practice as well as scholarly investigations their focus has been in the fields of lunar+stellar lore, non-European archeoastrologies, Islamic esotericism, Afro-diaspora traditions, and the dæmonic imagination.
Images: Folio from a Mu'nis al-ahrar fi daqa'iq al-ash'ar (The Free Man's Companion to the Subtleties of Poems) of Jajarmi Author Muhammad ibn Badr al-Din Jajarmi Iranian dated 741 AH-1340–41 CE (detail), Metropolitan Museum of Art; Seryddiaeth Gynnar (Texts on astronomy), circa 1001 and 1100