WEATHER-MAGIC IN THE WEST INDIES “The soul of some people is such that they can stop the rain and command the winds and the storms.” –from De magia by Giordano Bruno (written circa 1588). “But the men marvelled, saying, ‘What manner of man is this that even the winds and sea obey him!’” -Matthew 8:27. From the earliest…
“They say that there is a shrine also of the heroine Iphigenia…Hesiod, in his Catalogue of Women, says that Iphigenia did not die, but by the will of Artemis became Hecate.” -from Pausanias’s Description of Greece, vol. 1, trans. with a commentary by James George Frazer (1898). To the Ancient Greeks, heroes and heroines were exalted beings—a…
“This valorous woman, with sword in hand…commanded troops of soldiers like a captain…” -from Gynevera de le clare donne by Giovanni Sabadino degli Arienti, eds. C. Ricci and A. Bacchi della Lega (1888). “From her earliest years she hunted wild beasts, and almost like another Diana, she led many companions with her, running through the countryside and…
“Remember the true story of the licentiate Torralva, whom the devils carried through the air, riding on a cane…” -from The life and exploits of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, vol. II, by Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Charles Jarvis (1749). According to tradition, the first person on the Iberian Peninsula to make…
“It is well known that until the nineteenth century, treasure seeking was steeped in magic.” -Professor Johannes Dillinger “A very deep meaning lies in that notion, that a man in search of buried treasure must work in utter silence ; must speak not a word, whatever appearance, either terrific or delightful, may present itself.” –from…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: GORDON WHITE “One of the roles of the Trickster is to introduce uncertainty and novelty into your existence.” -Gordon White Also known as “the dark prince of modern Chaos magic”, Gordon White is a writer and podcaster. His website Rune Soup is a juggernaut in the occult blogosphere, a collection of prodigious musings that…
“You will remember that Albertus Magnus…adds emphatically, that the process will instruct and avail only to the few— that a man must be born a magician!” -from The Haunters and the Haunted by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1859). In 1870, Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton hosted a quirky American man of letters named Charles Godfrey Leland at his manor house in Knebworth, Hertfordshire. The two thinkers were…
“A single man sometimes frightened a whole population.” – Brigand Life in Italy, vol. 1 (1865) by Count Alberto Maffei di Boglio. The origins of Ciro Annicchiarico (“Don Ciro”) are obscure, but most authors agree that his criminal career started with a blood feud, possibly in the Mezzogiorno village of Francavilla. Don Ciro, then a priest…
Images of mermaids first appeared in European bestiaries in the early Middle Ages. At the time, firsthand encounters with the legendary creatures were rare. Nevertheless, mythographers and chroniclers, no doubt inspired by Greco-Roman art, described merfolk as capricious water spirits that were usually up to no good. Like aerial demons, they were capable of copulation,…