ANCESTRAL PATHWAYS CONFERENCE PROGRAM 2026

Speakers and Presentations 2026

GIULIA TUROLLA 

WALKING THE WILD – A LIFE ON THE PATH OF DIANA NEMORENSIS Listening to the call of an ancient goddess feels like following will-o'-the-wisps into a thick forest. The magic and the wonder lead you forward, but you are also deeply aware (and if you are not, you should be!) that you are dancing on the edge of the unknown and that every step can change your life in ways you are probably not expecting at all. Sugar-coated and self-centred rhetoric on this subject is as abundant as it is cheesy: "I am the Chosen One!", "I had no choice but to follow Her", "She speaks to me all the time, and I rejoice in her presence". The reality is a little bit more sobering and a lot less glamorous, yet its intensity and depth have no need for flowery turns of phrase, and its nature is immensely more rewarding: we are not shiny trophies put on the altar of a deity for the rest of the world to admire; we are flawed heroes and heroines, seeking the adventure of a lifetime. In this talk, I will share my perspective on walking the path of the ancient gods through the lens of my long journey with Diana Nemorensis: What does it mean, in this day and age, to serve a deity? How can we negotiate the boundaries in modern societies that have no cultural frame of reference for this kind of role? Can we really move into the future without betraying the past? Let's find out together.

MORGAN DAIMLER 

Finding Fairies Outside Celtic Countries: Are fairies rooted to particular places? Can they be found outside traditionally 'Celtic' areas? Here we will take a deep look at the folk beliefs around these fascinating spirits and trace their expansion across the Atlantic with diasporic communities. We will also explore how and why this happens and what the limitations of it might be.

EMILIANO RUSSO

FEASTING AT THE CROSSROADS: HEKATE'S SACRIFICE BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT. Among the many ritual practices performed at the crossroads in honour of the goddess Hekate, the paper wants to discuss the one related to the offering of food, the so-called deîpna, which were brought and consecrated to this deity by depositing them where three roads met, uneaten and unconsumed. The practice of the deîpnon itself underwent an evolution in the ancient world, seeing the intertwining with 'suppers' and feasts in honour to the goddess, the practice of the 'sacrifice' of dogs and puppies as a rite of expiation and purification. It is also intended to discuss the evolution and resemantization of the practice of deîpna today as interpreted and performed by contemporary witches and devotees of the goddess Hekate, thanks to an ethnography conducted with a sample of Hekatean Witches investigating the type of offerings, ritual practice and magical prescriptions, the purpose of the offertory and the presence/absence of 'sacrifice' today.

ELYSE WELLES

For Our Lineage: Reviving the Lost Earth Temple Arts of Greece.

Greece is the spiritual ancestor of many paths and traditions. And yet that ancestry is suppressed and societally inaccessible for modern Greeks. But our 10,000-year history of goddess and land-based traditions is not lost. Elyse Welles, a native Greek priestess, shares how she is reviving the lost earth temple arts of pre-patriarchal Greece and why that matters for those with Greek or Mediterranean ancestry.

Gülçin ÖNEL

Carrying the Ancestral Fire: Vasilisa, Baba Yaga and the Survival of the Sacred. What survives when the old gods disappear, and the sacred no longer has a name? Perhaps it survives in stories. The Russian folktale of Vasilisa the Beautiful preserves a journey into an ancestral landscape where the boundaries between the living and the dead, the human and the otherworldly, remain permeable. Guided by the small doll given to her by her dying mother, Vasilisa enters the forest and reaches Baba Yaga's hut — a threshold between wilderness and civilisation, life and death, past and future. Drawing on folklore and Jungian perspectives, this presentation explores Vasilisa's journey as a story of ancestral transmission and the survival of the sacred.

GERALDINE  BYRNE

Echoes of the Ancestors Ireland has long preserved our ancient magical traditions in rich strains of folklore and folk magic, encoding echoes of Old Irish society, the poet-magicians and Druids, to save them from centuries of colonial oppression that threatened to destroy our culture. Now the fight is on to continue these magical traditions in the face of modern life, including the struggle to preserve their cultural context and authenticity while also making them accessible, especially to members of the wider diaspora. How can we balance the claims of tradition against?  the need to evolve?

Anna Urošević Applegate

"Ancestral Reclamation and Resilience: Exploring Slavic Native Faith and Dual-Faith Traditions"Among the millions of peoples of Slavic heritage scattered across the global diaspora, an increasing number are heeding the ancestral call to turn to the Reconstructionist Polytheism of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnoverje) or to openly embrace the syncretic, folk magic-saturated Dual-Faith (Dvoverovanje) traditions of their forebears. What are these religious traditions of the Slavic peoples, past and present? How are they meeting the spiritual and emotional needs of people of Slavic heritage today? How do these folkways compare and contrast with the types of Paganism and witchcraft that are more prevalent in Anglophone countries?

DANIELA SIMINA AND KELLENE REES 

The Journey Home: Respect, Reconnection, and the Sacred Landscape. Through the lens of modern animism, this presentation briefly explores how people of settler descent can decolonize their practice, heal, and reconnect with the sacred landscape. Our ancestors once lived in relationship with the land, developing a deep understanding of its seasons and nurturing connections with the human and non-human people who inhabited it. These relationships shaped the cycles of their spiritual practices. Today, however, many of us live far from our ancestral lands, disconnected not only from our lineages but also from the relationships and knowledge our ancestors cultivated over centuries. We may observe the wheel of the year and mark celebrations we do not fully understand or feel connected to, because that ancestral knowledge has been disrupted. How, then, can we return to a place of understanding and practice meaningfully where we are, while respectfully building relationships with the land and with the human and non-human people who share it with us?

NESS BOSCH - Understanding Divine Diffusion: The metamorphosis and adaptation of the deity across territories and through time.

JACK GRAYLE - 'A World Without Light and yet Radiant': Theriomorphic Gods of Hellenic Egypt and Beyond"

SIAN SIBLEY - From the Classic Era to Present Day: Medusa Guardian, Serpent, Survivor - A history of Medusa and her role in working magically with victims of Sexual assault.

DANIELA SIMINA - Honouring Ancestors, Human and Other-Than-Human. 

AVI LAGO - The origins of Theosophy in the Eastern Philosophies. 

REV. RON PADRON - A Lavender Path.

CORAH APLONIA AVALON - Nehalennia, Goddess of the Sailors and Sea Travellers. 

ROBIN CORAK - Underworld Dreaming: Using Dream Magick to Connect with Ancestors and the Beloved Dead. 

ERYN SHRADER - The Survival of Germanic Folkways in the North American Diaspora. 

DISCUSSION PANEL - With Ben Stimpson, Haydee Hernando and other of our wonderful speakers.