Response-able collaborative survival with the other-than-human
trans- prefix meaning: across, beyond, through, on the other side of, to go beyond
state: a condition or way of being that exists at a particular time
initiation: a rite of passage involving entering into a new mode of perception or a body of hidden practice or knowledge; also, the act of beginning, setting in motion, or causing something to start
A ‘trans‑ state’ names a threshold: a moment of crossing, suspension, and transformation. A place where boundaries blend, certainties falter, and new configurations can begin to take shape.
For over a decade, Trans- States has convened around such moments, using the Major Arcana of the Tarot as a divinatory orientation rather than a thematic constraint. The fourth card drawn for this journey, The Fool, now feels uncannily precise. Numbered zero, or not numbered at all, The Fool speaks of beginnings without guarantees: of stepping forward without knowing exactly where one will land.
In this spirit, we invite you to join us for a Trans‑ States Roundtable. On this occasion, not a conference, nor an exhibition, nor even a call for proposals, but an initiatory gathering.
This event marks a threshold moment for Trans‑ States itself. We are creating space to pause together, undergo a shared initiation, and collectively sense what wants to emerge next: for the network, for our practices, and for what has tentatively been called “occultural studies.”
Across different institutional, cultural, and geographic contexts, many artists, scholars, and practitioners have been circling similar constellations of questions: the persistence and transformation of occult imaginaries in contemporary cultures; the mediation of extraordinary experience; and the apparent agency of symbols, stories, and entities that resist confinement within the inherited borders of cultural theory. Increasingly, these questions arise not only from abstraction or speculation, but from lived, personal, and often visceral encounters with spiritual, esoteric, paranormal, and occultural phenomena.
Rather than attempting to stabilise these concerns into a predefined field, network or discipline, this roundtable approaches them as a shared threshold problem: something that must be encountered together, experimentally, and with care.
The gathering will be anchored by:
A keynote address by Jack Bratich, recognising his coining of the term “occultural studies” (2007) and drawing on his long‑standing work around occulture, mediation, and power.
A keynote and collective initiation ritual, designed by Kimatica to be available online and in-person, and undertaken together.
A small number of framing provocations offered by the Trans- States organisers and our hosts, the Dark Economies Scholarly Association at Falmouth University, intended to open discussion rather than close it down.
Instead of rehearsing conclusions, this roundtable invites shared divination: an opportunity to listen for what wants to emerge, to test what can endure, and to collectively imagine what a future Trans‑ States—and whatever might be understood and practiced as occultural studies—could yet become.
This event will be hybrid, with the in-person component held at Falmouth University’s Penryn Campus. There will be a limited number of ticketed in‑person places, alongside a fully supported online option, enabling members of our global network, across geographies and time zones, to take part without any barriers to access. There is no cost to attend online, and no expectation beyond a willingness to engage, listen, and participate in good faith.
References:
Bratich, Jack. 2007. ‘Popular Secrecy and Occultural Studies’. Cultural Studies 21 (1): 42–58.
