ODD TRUTHS: THOMAS TRYON, THE PYTHAGORAS OF LONDON “Cast thy Eyes round about thee, and enter into the inside of Things, and with a silent distinguishing Thought, and earnest sedate Meditation, and Contemplation, behold the wonderful Operations of the serene silent magick Powers of the Coelestials, and also of the Terrestials…” -from The Knowledge of a…
ODD TRUTHS: JANE LEAD, PROPHETESS OF A NEW AGE “She, I believe, carried to its practical extreme the Paracelsian doctrine concerning the magical power of faith…” -from Hours with the Mystics, vol. II, by Robert Vaughan (1856). In April of 1670, Jane Lead (or Leade) had a vision that would change her life forever. While walking in the…
ODD TRUTHS: A FIFTEENTH-CENTURY GHOSTHUNTER “This man [Alexander ab Alexandro] is familiar with everyone, and yet no one knows him.” -from Letter to Viglius Zuichemus by Desiderius Erasmus (1533). Born in Naples in 1461, Alexander ab Alexandro (also known as Alessandro Alessandri) spent the first part of his life as a practising lawyer. At some point however,…
“There were visions in the air, and dreams sitting on the staircases…” -from Memoirs (1893) by Charles Godfrey Leland “Kerner’s house is, perhaps, the most remarkable and peculiar in all Swabia…if we wish to receive or impart a right idea of Kerner, we must see him and describe him in his own house.” -from Justinus…
FANTAST IN FOCUS: GORDON WHITE “One of the roles of the Trickster is to introduce uncertainty and novelty into your existence.” -Gordon White Also known as “the dark prince of modern Chaos magic”, Gordon White is a writer and podcaster. His website Rune Soup is a juggernaut in the occult blogosphere, a collection of prodigious musings that…
“You will remember that Albertus Magnus…adds emphatically, that the process will instruct and avail only to the few— that a man must be born a magician!” -from The Haunters and the Haunted by Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1859). In 1870, Lord Edward Bulwer-Lytton hosted a quirky American man of letters named Charles Godfrey Leland at his manor house in Knebworth, Hertfordshire. The two thinkers were…
ODD TRUTHS: ISLAMIC MAGIC IN MALTA Maltese folk magic has been studied in detail by scholars such as Francis Ciappara and Carmel Cassar. However, in 2014, a research team at the University of Exeter led by Professor Dionisius Agius, Dr Catherine Rider, and Dr Alex Mallett, recovered seventeenth-century court documents about an Egyptian slave who was accused of giving…
“A single man sometimes frightened a whole population.” – Brigand Life in Italy, vol. 1 (1865) by Count Alberto Maffei di Boglio. The origins of Ciro Annicchiarico (“Don Ciro”) are obscure, but most authors agree that his criminal career started with a blood feud, possibly in the Mezzogiorno village of Francavilla. Don Ciro, then a priest…
THEATRE REVIEW: AWAKE AND ASLEEP The Magic, Language, and Society initiative is a new collaboration between The University of Surrey and Treadwell’s Bookshop. In a bid to make certain esoteric aspects of the humanities more accessible to wider audiences, the programme will run events at Treadwell’s, a nucleus of London’s contemporary magical scene. The inaugural…
Images of mermaids first appeared in European bestiaries in the early Middle Ages. At the time, firsthand encounters with the legendary creatures were rare. Nevertheless, mythographers and chroniclers, no doubt inspired by Greco-Roman art, described merfolk as capricious water spirits that were usually up to no good. Like aerial demons, they were capable of copulation,…