Aradia’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Life of Roma Lister will be the first-ever monograph on Roma Lister, a British-Italian folklore collector, occultist, and friend of the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland.
Category: Religion
Alien Encounters: An Interview with Professor Diana Pasulka
“At some future day—I cannot say when and where—it will be proved that the human soul is…already in an uninterrupted communication with those living in another world; that the human soul can act upon those beings, and receive, in return, impressions of them…” – Immanuel Kant Humanity’s first attempts to contact otherworldly intelligences date back…
Bookish Maledictions: An Interview with Dr Eleanor Baker
“I had previously stumbled across book curses when leafing through manuscripts and, as an avid fan of folk horror literature, was interested in the intersection of the macabre and book history.” -Dr Eleanor Baker Modern libraries do not suffer fools gladly. To protect their collections from ambitious thieves, they frequently rely on a multipronged strategy,…
The Dark Arts Research Group
In January 2023, the University of Copenhagen launched the Dark Arts Research Group (DARG). Covering the period from 1750 to the present, the project will take an in-depth look at the global public’s “fascination with otherworldly entities and the macabre”. The DARG is specifically interested in exploring the varied ways horror, gothic, and other esoteric…
Shamans and Kabbalah: An Interview with Dr Yosef Rosen
“A better understanding of the history of some of the mystical techniques found in Kabbalah will show that some of them stem from magical sources. Likewise, neglected texts found in manuscripts related to [Jewish] ‘saintly’ mystical figures…will reveal a much greater role played by magic in their activities than previously suspected.” -Moshe Idel Wizards, said…
The Lost Treasures of Cottenghe
“In Trizac, in the wood of Marlhiou, where mounds of earth are found, rests Cottenghe, a Gaulish city of invisible treasures, left in the custody of serpents.” -Paul Sébillot Professional treasure-hunting has never been for the faint of heart. In Mamluk and Ottoman Egypt, those fortunate enough to own kutub al-mutālibīn (treasure-hunting manuals) needed to…
Psychic Investigators: An Interview with Dr Efram Sera-Shriar
“I was at first very incredulous and never sought the spirits….I am still very suspicious, and seek only for facts and avoid opinions. If I have good witnesses I escape hallucination, and I look sharp and avoid imposture; with those precautions I pursue this new science.” – Baron Seymour Kirkup The “Night-side of Nature”–the occult…
Los Angeles Noah: Reverend J. E. Lewis and the Liberian Arks
“In order to survive this [being Black in America], you have to really dig down into yourself and recreate yourself, really, according to no image which yet exists in America.” -James Baldwin In September 1919 The Wild West Weekly, a periodical specialising in adventure narratives of contemporary life in the American West, picked up on…
Rosicrucians, Drugs, and Angelic Transformations: An Interview with Dr Hereward Tilton
“Who but a Rosicrucian could explain the Rosicrucian mysteries!” -from Zanoni (1842) by Edward Bulwer-Lytton Edward Bulwer-Lytton has oft been described as a crypto-Rosicrucian writer, and in his master work, Zanoni, he sketched a very distinct picture of the ideal magus. Zanoni–the novel’s eponymous mage–is a self-sacrificial, self-effacing Stoic with a knack for Batman-style theatrics…
Sacred Worship in Ancient Nubia: An Interview with Professor Solange Ashby
“In writing the history of this Nubian tradition of worship in the Egyptian temples of Lower Nubia, I came to understand that Nubian pilgrimages to and activities at the sacred site of Philae were actually older than the extant temple of Isis that was built under Ptolemy II…” -Professor Solange Ashby Situated in modern-day Egypt…