ODD TRUTHS: TWO MYSTICS OF AMERICAN JAZZ In its early stages, jazz was publicly scapegoated as The Devil’s music. Much like the moral watchdogs who would later comment on the Satanic nature of soul and rock and roll, anti-jazz writers were concerned about the perceived social degrading of Western culture and channelled their prejudices into hateful polemics. This…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: CHRISTY LEE ROGERS Millions of years ago, creatures rose from the depths of ancient seas and transformed into divergent populations over vast stretches of time. In a way, we still repeat this primeval origin story. After nine months submerged in a shadowy womb, we emerge from an embryonic ‘ocean’ and ascend into a new…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: JAKE BADDELEY Jake Baddeley’s art is visual alchemy, an exercise in the sublimation of wide-ranging cultural influences. Like an alchemist who synthesises base metals to create the philosopher’s stone, Jake draws on the primeval symbols of Greco-Roman mythology and his own subconscious to produce paintings that seem to shimmer with an ethereal…
ODD TRUTHS: THE LANGUAGE OF THE CROWS For some thinkers in the Middle Ages, fluency in the “language of the birds” was a mystical and rare skill reserved for magicians and saints. As such, it was on a par with the mysterious language of angels, a divine speech that, when spoken, described the natural world with an…
ODD TRUTHS: THE OCCULT SECRETS OF PERCY SHELLEY In 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published anonymously in London. Shelley began writing the novel as an experimental short ghost story during Europe’s “Year Without a Summer” in 1816. It went on to become one of the most famous works of Gothic romance…
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…