Shambhala, Avalon, the Blessed Isles and the like have inspired humans for millennia, and yet–mystical insights aside–no physical traces of any of these locations have ever been found. Writers on dark tourism, however, like Peter Hohenhaus, have meticulously tracked down and descended into all kinds of hellscapes–places much more familiar and accessible to mere mortals….
Storytelling is one of our oldest and most enduring arts. It pervades all cultures and experiences, and it unites and marshals our deepest emotions. Storytellers, somewhat like the weather-making Tempestarii of legend, modulate the soul’s atmosphere; their words electrify and vivify, frighten and amaze. “Legend-makers” are, as J.R.R. Tolkien maintained, “blessed.” Their tales cast audiences…
“Throughout my childhood and adolescence I was an avid reader of folklore and mythology…it’s very apparent that this interest had a huge and long lasting impact on my life and the path it’s taken.” -Darragh Mason International travel these days seems like a thing of the past, a dream known only by faint remembrances or…
“A sudden shift in our relationship with the dead, or in the geography of the afterlife, can have unthinkable consequences…” -Ivan Cenzi The University of Padua has long been associated with daring research. In the early modern era especially, the school was a bastion of learning that attracted experimental thinkers who passionately investigated and dissected…
“De Morgan was a spiritualist, meaning she believed that after the death of an individual’s body, their soul or spirit continued to live and operate in the world, and that individuals beyond the grave could thus be contacted. Such…ideas dominate her mature oeuvre.” -Emma Merkling In an article published in the New York Tribune about…
“Ultimately, the effects of Chernobyl will continue to be felt for countless generations to come–the scars of this disaster will persist for longer now than the sum of all our recorded history up until this point. The disaster itself will become a matter of myth, even before its effects stop being felt…” -Darmon Richter The…
“I had heard versions of merpeople stories—primarily those about mermaids—in many highland villages while doing research in the Andes…I didn’t yet understand how these stories tied into the larger sociopolitical context of Spanish rule.” -from “The Revolutionary Power of Andean Folk Tales” by Dr Di Hu Mermaids and sirens have long played a prominent role…
“A thousand fathoms down our home; Daughters we of the pathless deep, sprung from the ever dancing foam.” –from The Mermaids by Edith M. David (1873). Mermaids, it would seem, have been shoaling around the sunless depths of the human psyche since the time of the ancient Mesopotamians. From the very beginning, marine humanoids were associated…
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…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: GYRUS Gyrus is the editor and psychonaut behind Dreamflesh, a dynamic webzine that explores the overlapping and often hard to articulate layers of the human psyche. First conceived in the 2000s, Dreamflesh has been a boon to readers interested in consciousness, ecology, and politics for over a decade. The project has many offshoots,…