Peter Rollins

In this reflection I look at the structure of the Möbius strip, and what it can teach us about the structure of the Real, the Unconscious and the Holy.

This is part of an interview I did with the writer, performer and cult leader Maggie Rowe originally done for my Patreon page. Maggie is an actress, writer and performer. Maggie has written screenplays for films including Bright Day! and Out West, for TV shows such as Flaked and Arrested Development, and created the stage productions for Hollywood Hell House, Hollywood Purity Ball, Lawyer Cop Doctors, and Pretty Good Show). She has also edited a book of personal essays called Dirty Laundry, and even founded a satirical religion called Pyrasphere. In addition to all this she has produced and regularly performed in the spoken word show sitnspin (created by Jill Soloway) at the Comedy Central stage. Her latest book is called Sin Bravely: A Memoir of Spiritual Disobedience.

This is a recording from my Pints and Parables event in Santa Barbara, May 2017

One of C.S. Lewis’ most interesting and intriguing works is a short story entitled ‘Light’. A huge amount of controversy and mythology surrounds the text itself, and it was never published in his lifetime. Indeed, its final form wasn’t published until two decades after his death. This is a dark story that reads like something penned by Jean-Paul Sartre or Camus. In this seminar I offer a close reading of the story and use it to unpack the nature of desire, the madness that comes from certainty and the nature of the Sublime. I’ll employ the story as a means of shedding light on Lacan’s enigmatic statement, “do not give way on your desire” and draw out the difference between fundamentalist fanaticism and a healthy celebration of the Sublime.

Power and Resistance are often thought of as antagonistic opposites that confront each other. However Power often covers the entire field of Power and Resistance. Here I explore how.

Often we attempt to minimize our discontent rather than mobilize it. In this short reflection, I outline the difference and talk about some events that I run which aim at the latter.

What is ideology? Here I look at five features that can help us understand this term

In this reflection I explore the how we might come to glimpse what we believe through our symptoms rather than our conscious beliefs and actions.

In this reflection I look at Jordan Peterson's genealogy of marxism and explore his view of post-structuralism as advocating a multiplicity that undermines authoritative readings of a text.

In 2017 Peter was a guest on Moshe Kasher's Hound Tall, along with Nick Thune, Sara Schafer and Kurt Metzger. It's a pretty crazy interview with some magical moments sprinkled through the comedy chaos.

One of the greatest comedic characters to come out of the UK in recent years is undoubtably David Brent. Created and performed by Ricky Gervas, Brent is a pitiful character; constantly hiding from his self-loathing by unsuccessfully trying to play the part of a successful, funny, attractive and popular Renaissance Man. In the figure of Brent, Gervas has been able to create a character who manifestly wrestles with repression, neurotic symptoms, and eruptions of the unconscious. However, while the character is largely comic, there is a tragic element to him that is fleshed out at the end of The Office and at the conclusion of the movie David Brent: Life on the Road. In this Pyro-seminar, I’ll be using Brent as an example of the universal struggle that is human existence. Not only that, but I’ll be showing how Brent can show us how to bear the weight of that struggle and find a depth of meaning. With the help of Brent, I'll attempt to delineate the type of freedom that a pyrotheological community offers.

In this short reflection I look at the pleasure we can get from self-sabotage, and how we might sabotage our self-sabotage.

In this seminar from 2014, Peter explores how the categories of Idiot, Imbecile and Moron can give us insight into different ways of engaging with the social order, and touches on the theological significance of this in relation to the theme of conversion

This is an interview from December 2014 that Peter did with Pete Holmes. The cover ghosts, suffering, loss and love.

This is a talk I gave at my Wake festival in Belfast. Here I look at idolatry and its relationship to both fantasy and self-sabotage. For more information about Wake 2019, visit my website.

This is the introductory talk from Wake 2018. In it I talk about how Pyrotheology relates to the notion of Lack. It deals with some of the material I wanted to cover, but I never got to the theme of Idolatry that was my original aim, so I'll cover that at a later date. I also thought I'd give you a little taste of Adam at the beginning (the friend who I run Wake with).

What if the problem with meditation as it's mostly practiced in contemporary society, isn't that it doesn't work, but that it does. That it helps us to integrate more seamlessly into our world, minimizing our discontent, rather than helping us mobilize and enjoy our discontent.

This is an early Pyro-seminar that explores the relation between pyrotheology and atheism. For lots more seminars, sign up at pyrotheology.com

This was the first ever pyroseminar, from 2016. In it Peter explores the idea of the absurd and religionless Christianity. For over 30 hours of pyroseminars (video and audio), become a Flame at pyrotheology.com.

This facebook live reflections on Rudolf Otto's notion of the Holy and connects it with the Freudian unconscious