Occult transmutations: a creative experiment in fictionalised scholarship

This paper investigates the relationship between a neglected strand of Western esotericism –Laeveticism – and practices of experimental creative adaptation. The paper first summarises the Laevetic tradition and its adaptive resonances, before discussing a series of historical adaptations. Many of these exist only as traces in other works, but they establish a tradition of Laevetic adaptation extending from Ancient Rome to Modernism. The second half of the paper focuses on twenty-first century manifestations of Laevetic adaptation, analysing case studies ranging from architectural installations to VR games. By tracing this thread through experimental adaptive practice, Laeveticism is proposed as a greater influence on creative practice than is often acknowledged. Similarly, it is argued that there exists an inherent correspondence between concepts and practices of Laevetic philosophy and those of avantgarde adaptation. Laevetic adaptation is therefore established as a contemporary practice of intertextual mysticism which draws on a broadly unacknowledged tradition.