“The idea that drives the subgenre is the survival of ancient cults, usually in remote rural areas, a mere step away from our ‘civilised’ surroundings…in folk horror the past always returns to haunt us.” -from “Archaeology and Folk Horror in Hellebore” (2020) by Maria J. Pérez Cuervo In 2019, Maria J. Pérez Cuervo launched Hellebore,…
“You have witnessed something of which everyone talks without knowledge; you have been initiated into secrets no less terrible than the grotto of Trophonius; you have been present at the Sabbath.” -from Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual (1896) by Eliphas Levi The witches’ sabbath has long been a source of fascination and debate. Sphinx-like,…
“They can assume all manner of shapes at their pleasure, appear in what likeness they will themselves…they are most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant…” -from The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton (1621) Almost four hundred years ago, a young Oxford graduate named Joseph Glanvill published The Vanity of Dogmatizing, a…
“To reveal and discover conspiracies, and to govern the greater things of life; as to blast or succeed the enterprises of princes and people; to tell and foretell the success of such and such undertakings; and even to influence the undertakers…” -from A Compleat System of Magick: or, The History of the Black Art by Daniel Defoe…
“They hang people for poisoning your body, but no law can touch them when they inject poison in your mind.” -from Witchcraft: its Power in the World Today by William Seabrook (1941). Sorcery, it’s been argued, is both a composite art and an acquired taste. In all ages, the prototypical sorcerer or witch has been…
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…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: DARRAGH MASON “O’er space immense of seas and lands to go Will be your fate, and realms unknown explore Far as the confines of Earth’s utmost shore.” -from Jersusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso, trans. by J.H. Hunt (1822). Darragh Mason is a photographer, writer, and occultist. His wanderlust has driven him to some…
“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…
ODD TRUTHS: JOHN EVANS, THE SINISTER ASTROLOGER OF FETTER-LANE “He was the most saturnine person my eyes ever beheld…” -from History of His Life and Times by William Lilly (1715) There is a guilty pleasure in picturing the early modern era as a time of taboo-defying dynamos and charismatics. Personalities like Giovanni Pico, Paracelsus, Giordano Bruno, and John Dee…