“If they find any to be timorous and fearful, they admit not such a man to the secrets of magick…But such as appear to be of bold and undaunted spirits, they take especial notice of them, and reserve them for serious employments.” -from the English translation of Johann Cambilhon’s De studiis Jesuitarum abstrusioribus (1608) Sometime…
Tag: Jesuits
William Prynne and the Long Acre Conspiracy
“I do not profess myself to be any great Statesman, or exactly to know what ever is secretly transacted among us: But this I can say…I have for many years last past been as curious an observer of all the great transactions of Affairs in Church or State, and of the instruments and means by…
Mercury-Women and Britain’s Early News Wars
“I have heard him [Napoleon] say, oftener than once…that four hostile newspapers were more to be feared than a hundred thousand troopers in battle array.” -from Evenings with Prince Evenings with Prince Cambacérès, Second Consul, Archchancellor of the Empire, Vol. 2, by Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon (1837) The very distant ancestors of today’s press, though constantly in…
Political Magic in England
“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…