ODD TRUTHS: SILK FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA The ocean, as William Shakespeare describes it in Henry V, is full of “sunken wrack and sumless treasuries”. Some of these riches have yet to be discovered, while others have been harvested and cherished for generations. In this regard, sea-silk is truly a gift of the…
ODD TRUTHS: CAN THE STARS AFFECT HUMAN BEHAVIOUR? One of mankind’s oldest and most enduring ideas is the belief that planets and stars determine the destinies of individuals and societies. Ascertaining these secret causes was “the goal of the wise”, which is why the world’s earliest star-gazers were often mathematicians and philosophers. They mapped the courses…
ODD TRUTHS: THE ALCHEMICAL LIFE OF GLASSMAKER ANTONIO NERI Conciatore: The Life and Times of 17th-century glassmaker Antonio Neri chronicles Antonio Neri’s life as an apparent jack-of-all-trades in Baroque Florence. Neri worked as an alchemist, priest, and physician, but he struck gold with his seminal work, L’Arte Vetraria (The Art of Glass). In this treatise, he…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: DR YVONNE CHIREAU Professor Yvonne Chireau teaches religion at Swarthmore College. A scholar of African-American folk traditions and religions, Professor Chireau is also the author of Black Magic: African American Religion and Conjuring Tradition and Black Zion: African American Religious Encounters with Judaism. Her research focuses on some of the most interesting but lesser-known narratives…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: DR HANNAH PRIEST Dr Hannah Priest is a historian and writer. A graduate of The University of Manchester, she specialises in everyone’s favourite monster: the werewolf. Like other characters in folk tales and Gothic fiction (such as vampires and witches), werewolves have a direct link to historical figures and events. Fascinatingly, Dr Priest’s book She…
ODD TRUTHS: ALEXANDER M. JACOB In 1891, Alexander M. Jacob made history when he sold the largest diamond the world had ever seen to the richest man on the Indian subcontinent, Osman Ali Khan, the Nizam of Hyderabad. After the sale, Jacob was accused of fraud and taken to court in Calcutta. The subsequent trials irreparably damaged his…
ODD TRUTHS: THE CRYSTAL-HUNTERS OF CHAMONIX Would you scale a mountain and battle ice-storms for a geode the size of a baseball? It’s a daredevil’s dream. Not everyone can pull it off. Crystal-hunters are an unique breed of adventurer; part rock-climber, mineralogist, and collector. In Chamonix, where the rest of the world takes to the ski…
ODD TRUTHS: NOBLE DREW ALI, A JAZZ AGE PROPHET Timothy Drew (also known as Noble Drew Ali) rose to prominence in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, the era of bootleggers, speakeasies, and flappers. Although he was part of this milieu, Drew was destined to be the spokesman for what he saw as a spiritual answer…
Marsilio Ficino’s ascendancy was the result of an unlikely meeting of minds. In 1439, Florentine banking magnate Cosimo de’ Medici started attending philosophical lectures by Gemistos Plethon, a Byzantine Platonist. Although Plethon was part of an official envoy of Greek officials who had been meeting to discuss the future of the Christian church, he might have also been one…
ODD TRUTHS: ROBBING THE SPIRITS OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY Not every magician was fortunate enough to get on the royal payroll in Stuart England. The unlucky ones often had to resort to subtle hustling to make a living; drifting from job to job, trading their magic for power and influence. A few of these spellcasters used the “Solomonic arts”…