From Cavan McLaughlin's introduction:

"Trans- States is an experimental, transdisciplinary conference held at the University of Northampton that seeks to bring about a valuable convocation of esoterically-inclined minds: a meeting of academics, independent scholars, magical practitioners and artists with shared interests in both the study and production of contemporary occulture.

A shameless pun, a ‘trans- state’ (playing on ‘trance state’) is, among other things, a coincidentia oppositorum: an alchemical wedding that defines the fixed place, where boundaries are actively transgressed – where the role of the magician, mystic and artist collide.

This volume features a collection of essays inspired by, and in some cases developed directly from, the inaugural Trans- States conference in 2016. Our contributors offer different perspectives on work produced by artists undergoing – or seeking – alterations in consciousness; on art created for the very purpose of bringing about transformations in the artist, the wider culture, and even: reality itself."