JULY 9, 2026 | PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE EXTENSION | CERTIFICATE IN APPLIED MYTHOLOGY | SUMMER 2026 | MODULE

Across cultures, myths remember encounters with beneficent beings of light. These angelophanies suggest a recurring mythic motif: a luminous presence that inhabits a realm between the material and the immaterial, appearing at moments when the visible world opens up to reveal another, invisible order. Among the luminous daemons of this intermediate realm is the personal angel, one who responds to our longing, invocation, or command--and grants our dearest wishes.

MAY 7, 2026 | PARVIZ SAYYAD FOUNDATION | FINE ARTS THEATRE | PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Set aboard a bus stalled at the U.S.-Canada border at the outset of the Iran Hostage Crisis, Checkpoint (1987) unfolds at a pivotal moment in Iranian diasporic history—a tense portrait of exile, anxiety, and ideological division. Written and directed by Parviz Sayyad, the 4lm reveals the striking plurality of perspectives within the Iranian diaspora and the challenge of sustaining dialogue across ideological and generational divides-conflicts that continue to echo within the Iranian community today.

Panel discussion and Q & A in Farsi following the screening, focusing on the mental and emotional weight of displacement and unresolved historical wounds within the Iranian-American community guests: PARVIZ SAYYAD, MARY APICK, HOUSHANG TOUZIE, DR. AZITA SAYAN, MFT.

https://parvizsayyadfoundation.org/checkpoint-screening-may-7/

APRIL 26, 2026 | PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE | MYTHOLOGICAL STUDIES WITH EMPHASIS IN DEPTH PSYCHOLOGY | MYTH AND THE OTHERWORLD | PROF: DR. EVANS LANSING-SMITH | SPRING 2026/SUMMER 2025 | LECTURE

The subject of this lecture is the jinn in “Aladdin and His Enchanted Lamp." My aim is to develop the symbolic literacy needed to understand this figure and the narrative paraphernalia with which it constellates. This necessarily involves considering other varieties of jinn that appear in many stories within the Thousand and One Nights, as well as the broader mythical vocabulary of the cultures in which the jinn was forged.

https://www.pacifica.edu/degree-program/mythological-studies/courses/

MARCH 12, 2026 | 7 PM | PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY | 7TH HOUSE SERIES | INTRODUCTION

7th House is very proud to present the restoration of a landmark of Iranian New Cinema and a work of enduring formal and historical significance: Marva Nabili’s THE SEALED SOIL (Khake Sar Beh Mohr, 1977), the earliest surviving feature directed by an Iranian woman.

FEBRUARY 26, 2026 | 7 PM | PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY | 7TH HOUSE SERIES | PANEL DISCUSSION AND Q AND A

7th House is proud to welcome film writer Quatoyiah Murry for the launch of her new curatorial project ENLIGHTED ARTISTS, featuring a special screening of a woefully underseen and eerily disquieting modern gem of occult cinema — Liam Gavin’s A DARK SONG (2016).

DECEMBER 11, 2025 | 7 PM | PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY | 7TH HOUSE SERIES | INTRODUCTION

7th House is proud to present the restoration of a breathtaking Iranian gothic masterpiece — Mohammad Reza Aslani’s CHESS OF THE WIND (1976)! Screened publicly just once before it was banned and then lost for decades, this rediscovered jewel of Iranian cinema reemerges to take its place as one of the most singular and astonishing works of the country’s pre-revolution New Wave.

AUGUST 31, 2025 | GODDESS-MAKERS IN THE AGE OF AUTOCRATS | CONFERENCE | PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE | SANTA BARBARA, CA | PRESENTATION

Making what may be her most subversive—if not apocalyptic—gesture, the Mother Goddess of the Kogi of Colombia was to decide whether to flood the world. The Kogi were to pronounce her decision on the Summer Solstice of 2024.
The solstice came; the Kogi remained silent.

MAY 31, 2025 | PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY | 12:00 PM – 6:00 PM | CURATOR, PRODUCER, HOST, PRESENTER

This conference brings together academic and independent scholars, storytellers and artists to illuminate the mythic figure of Mehr—one of the most exalted forces in the Iranian tradition. Known as “Mithra” in Avestan and “Mehr” in Pahlavi and Persian, this ancient divinity was once revered as the god of love and light, guardian of oaths, protector of truth, and champion of the righteous.

THIS TALK WAS GIVEN ON SEPTEMBER 7, 2024 AT THE MEMENTO MORI FESTIVAL.

In the Classical world, a profound relationship between death and love was recognized and mythologized through stories featuring Persephone and Aphrodite. This talk delves into the nature of Persephone's beauty, exploring it as a metaphor for the beauty conferred by death.

A goddess evoked at Irish Midsummer is Danu, patroness of rivers, wisdom and mother of the Tuatha de Danaan, the supernaturally gifted people of legend who escaped into the Irish hills to avoid conquest. They became known as the Fairy people who remain invisible behind a veil which parts at certain times of the year— including now, the days surrounding the Summer Solstice.

JUNE 2024 | OUR IMMIGRANT STORIES: A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS FROM THE IRANIAN DIASPORA | PUBLISHED BY CROSS-CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS | SHORT STORY

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, the family spread across the globe connected by nothing more than a thin telephone wire and an ache in the heart. Someone was always missing, their place empty as Persians like to say when someone misses the party: we tell them later, “your place was empty.” It’s a way of acknowledging absence…

Join Maryam Sayyad as she unpacks the myth of the apocalypse, and the agony and ecstasy of transformative revelations.

Twilight of the Empress is a multimedia musical convergence of 3 artists and a mythologist – Banafsheh Sayyad, Fared Shafinury, Shila Ommi and Maryam Sayyad.

For more info visit:

https://danceofoneness.org/empress/.

A two-part course on The Golden Ass by Apuleius (translated by E.J. Kenney).
March 14th and April 11th, 2023

A conference at the Philosophical Research Society in Los Feliz, California.
May 21, 2023

A musical—philosophical journey featuring piano, cello, and spoken word.

In narrative history, the djinn doesn’t always live in a small container; nor does he always fulfill people’s wishes. But when he does, we can be sure that the storyteller is telling us about desire—and about magic.

We are too inclined to think of Aphrodite as a trinket as if she were a decorative accessory. She appears seductive, vain, unserious; and yet, we know that the ancient Greeks took beauty very seriously.

Iranian revolutionaries are—fist in the air, boots on the ground, hope in the heart—screaming out for the end of one dark chapter and the start of a new bright one.

Iran is undergoing a fundamental and multi-layered transformation. One layer is political, and the other is mythological. One is a physical event, and the other is an event in the Iranian soul.