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Tag: spiritualism

Roma Lister

Ghosts of Florence: Roma Lister and the Haunted Villa

Posted on May 5, 2025May 5, 2025 by TheCustodian

“It was in one of these periods of strange happenings that I accepted my friend’s invitation, having little fear of ghosts.” – Roma Lister As I’ve written previously, late nineteenth-century Florence was a bona fide ghostland. Following the rise to international stardom of the Fox sisters (who are generally acknowledged as the “mothers” of spiritualism),…

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Roma Lister: A Haunting Vision in Florence

Posted on March 14, 2025March 14, 2025 by TheCustodian

Long ignored by scholarship, Lister was a writer, folklore collector, and occultist who served as an inspiration and adviser to the American man of letters Charles Godfrey Leland. Throughout her life, Lister, like her friend Lady Walburga Paget and others, often had strange, visionary experiences.

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The Dark Arts Research Group

Posted on May 5, 2023May 5, 2023 by TheCustodian

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…

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Lady Paget and the Enchanted Villa of Bellosguardo

Posted on December 29, 2022December 29, 2022 by TheCustodian

“Bellosguardo…it is a haunted, legendary spot; fate and witches sweep round its walls by night, while the cry of the civetta makes music for their aërial dance…” -Charles Godfrey Leland Nineteenth-century Florence was haunted, and its haunters–whether of blood or spirit–were the stuff of legend. In the 1850s and 60s, Baron Kirkup garnered a reputation…

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Psychic Investigators: An Interview with Dr Efram Sera-Shriar

Posted on March 17, 2022March 17, 2022 by TheCustodian

“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…

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Evelyn De Morgan and the Art of the Imponderable: An Interview with Emma Merkling

Posted on November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 by TheCustodian

“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…

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Occult Egypt in the Victorian Popular Imagination: An Interview with Dr Eleanor Dobson

Posted on October 31, 2020February 8, 2023 by TheCustodian

“Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century occultism was…heavily influenced by popular fiction, which often benefited from the generic fluidity that flourished at the chiasma of literary and Egyptological culture.” -Dr Eleanor Dobson For ages Egypt was regarded as a land of occult wisdom. In his Timaeus, Plato suggested that the Egyptians–the only people with knowledge of…

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Baron Kirkup: The Forgotten Mage of Florence

Posted on April 10, 2020January 17, 2025 by TheCustodian

“Happy were the hours I spent in the society of Baron Kirkup…the manifestations he has witnessed are absolutely astounding.” -from Around the World Around the World: Or, Travels in Polynesia, China, India, Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Other Heathen Countries (1875)  by James Martin Peebles Long before the the rise of Theosophy, which took the world…

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The Spirit-Writing of Gino Fanciullacci

Posted on March 12, 2020October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“For the Spiritualists [in Florence] are many, and we have a few but very good mediums, principal amongst them the psychograph, Signor Fanciullacci…” – from “A Letter from Florence: The Protestant Bishop of Mexico and Spiritualism” by Giovanni Damiani (1886) Much like Quattrocento and Cinquecento Florence, the Florence of the Victorian age was all aglow…

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The Enchanted House of Justinus Kerner

Posted on December 12, 2016October 8, 2020 by TheCustodian

“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…

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Categories

  • Art (60)
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  • History (87)
  • Occultism (48)
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Recent Posts

  • Ghosts of Florence: Roma Lister and the Haunted Villa
  • Roma Lister and the Mysterious Dream Powder
  • Roma Lister: A Haunting Vision in Florence
  • Contract signed: new book on Roma Lister
  • Alien Encounters: An Interview with Professor Diana Pasulka
  • Sleeping Well in the Early Modern World: An Interview with Dr Holly Fletcher
  • Bookish Maledictions: An Interview with Dr Eleanor Baker
  • Italian Witchcraft and Shamanism: An Interview with Dr Angela Puca
  • Dream Mysteries: An Interview with Sarah Janes
  • The Dark Arts Research Group
  • The Astra Project: An Interview with Dr Luís Ribeiro
  • Underground Mathematics: An Interview with Dr Thomas Morel
  • Skyscape Archaeology: An Interview with Dr Fabio Silva
  • Shamans and Kabbalah: An Interview with Dr Yosef Rosen
  • Modern Occultism: An Interview with Mitch Horowitz
  • Lady Paget and the Enchanted Villa of Bellosguardo
  • The Lost Treasures of Cottenghe
  • Psychic Investigators: An Interview with Dr Efram Sera-Shriar
  • Los Angeles Noah: Reverend J. E. Lewis and the Liberian Arks
  • Dark Destinations: An Interview with Peter Hohenhaus
  • Storytelling and London Dreamtime: An Interview with Vanessa Woolf
  • Rosicrucians, Drugs, and Angelic Transformations: An Interview with Dr Hereward Tilton
  • Sigils and Spirits: An Interview with Darragh Mason
  • Sacred Worship in Ancient Nubia: An Interview with Professor Solange Ashby
  • Death Studies at Padua: An Interview with Ivan Cenzi
  • Espionage in Early Modern Venice: An Interview with Dr Ioanna Iordanou
  • Evelyn De Morgan and the Art of the Imponderable: An Interview with Emma Merkling
  • The Many Faces of Pico della Mirandola: An Interview with Professor Brian Copenhaver
  • A 17th-Century Conspiracy Tale: Johann Cambilhon and the “Magick” College
  • Occult Egypt in the Victorian Popular Imagination: An Interview with Dr Eleanor Dobson

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