“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…
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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“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…
“With several sub-departments and a distinct division of work, the Venetian secret service was different to other, more rudimentary espionage networks created by rulers (and their rivals) in other parts of Italy and early modern Europe.” -Dr Ioanna Iordanou Giacomo Casanova–as is well known–was fiercely independent, possessing an untempered passion for high adventure, self-promotion, and…
“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…
“He lived with such intensity that people have stayed fascinated by him. They’ve told his story over and over again–for different reasons and in different ways.” -from Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory (2019) by Professor Brian Copenhaver It would not be an exaggeration to call…