biweekly links 1-24-2018: commerce witchcraft

All of these potential additions to the extended weird section conveniently popped up in my Google Alerts this week. Never shopped with any of these so I make no claims re: quality or customer service. I just share the joy:

Hexcellent News: Occult Bookstore Catland Is Launching a Magazine: Catland BooksVenefica will be a “celebration of Brooklyn arts and occulture”. First issue coming in the spring; as of 1/18 they were still accepting submissions.

Get your senses going at the Magickal Pathways in Newton: New Jersey shop offering witchcraft supplies and classes.

The Thorn And Moon Magickal Market Offers Magic for the Daring: First Fridays of the month in Houston; if you can’t make it they have an Etsy store.

Mail-order magic: the rise of subscription witchcraft: wow, everyone’s getting in on this subscription box thing! UK article but most of the featured boxes ship internationally.

Black and white newsprint ad of a woman in 1970s Charlie's Angel hair hair holding a cat: The Academy of Mystic Arts Invites You to: Become A Witch!
Mind, weird-by-mailorder is nothing new-hell, the ads sprinkled through the old “Fate” magazine were half the fun! This one’s from the July 1973 issue; find more of the same at Archive.org’s Pulp Magazine Archive.

biweekly links 8-20-2017

I spent the eclipse with Asheville’s witches: I know Asheville mostly as the home of Biltmore House and former home of Moogfest, and while it seems an artsy, crunchy granola college town I didn’t know much about their pagan community. They seem fairly large but their interpretations of the eclipse are as varied as the pagan community itself. (Additional weird resource: Asheville Raven & Crone. No online shopping but a decent overview of their stock, plus event calendar).

Keeping secrets in sixteenth-century Istanbul: Holy Roman vs Ottoman Empires with ciphers and invisible ink! Of interest to me because Rudolf II managed his war with the Ottoman Empire so poorly that the rest of his family switched their support to his brother Matthias, thus beginning the end of Rudolfine Prague’s moment as art/occult capital of Europe.

Make America Ghostly Again: The Demon Cat of Washington D.C.: one of my favorite ghost stories ever! Said to have predicted both Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s assassinations, the cat also evidently enjoys scaring people to death (which, let’s face it, all cats would do if they could).

Orange cat sitting in cardboard box
Spice, the demon cat of my household, is bigger and scarier than her DC counterpart. She is very certain of this. Author’s own.

Witches Allegedly Stole Penises and Kept Them as Pets in the Middle Ages: but did they get along with the witches’ cats? Seriously though, this myth says more about the witch-hunters than the witches. Link includes possibly NSFW medieval penis-tree imagery, so don’t say you haven’t been warned.

biweekly links 6-7-2017

Witchcraft with a dash of art, and some things which may or may not be:

The hocus pocus of witchcraft: this post from the UK National Archives blog covers the basics but links over to their publication Accused: British Witches Throughout History, a nonfiction book about exactly what it says. Do check out their “We think you may also like” section if you’re into this sort of thing.

A radical new look at the greatest of Elizabethan artists: Two paintings have been newly confirmed as Elizabethan miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard‘s, based on the wood on which they were painted. They’re part of the Power and Portraiture: painting at the court of Elizabeth I exhibit that just opened at Waddesdon Manor. Looks like a good one to check out should you be in Buckinghamshire between now and October 29.

Portrait of Elizabethan man with beard and mustache, wearing a cap and ruff
Hilliard’s portrait of Elizabeth I’s alleged squeeze Robert Dudley, 1576. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
The spy who hoodwinked the Nazis with sorcery: file under “interesting if true”. As opposed to “Operation” Cone of Power in which British witches actually tried to repel the Nazis, Operation Mistletoe was just propaganda. Allegedly orchestrated by spy and occultist Cecil Williams, this article suggests it’s uncertain whether this fake ritual happened at all. (Tangentially, a whip ’round Google for “Napoleonic magical ritual” nets nothing about the alleged witchcraft used to repel Napoleon mentioned in the article. Still, possible inspiration for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?)

Woodville witches in “The White Princess”

Like a lot of histfic fans I’ve been enjoying Starz’ “The White Princess”. I’m not sure how historically accurate it is. I’m not sure it matters.

The story plays with one of the gaps in our knowledge that is so ripe for fictionalization: how did Henry VII and his queen Elizabeth of York develop a happy marriage? Sources tell us Henry mourned Elizabeth deeply when she died, but not how a woman could be happy with a man who killed her uncle and deposed her family.  Two episodes in I think the miniseries (based on Philippa Gregory’s novel of the same name) plays with this question admirably.

It also plays with the usual wild rumors: that Richard III intended to marry his niece Elizabeth of York and that one of the Princes in the Tower survived as Perkin Warbeck. But of course the most appealing historical mystery to me is whether Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s widow, practiced witchcraft.

animated gif of a woman in medieval gown spinning a pendulum
Essie Davis witching it up as Elizabeth Woodville in “The White Princess.” Image found by Gramunion via Tumblr.

I don’t have the time to do the subject the research it deserves, so alas, I’m not including any footnotes. It does seem Elizabeth Woodville’s mother Jacquetta was accused of witchcraft twice, both times by political enemies who conveniently had her imprisoned before they charged her. Jacquetta denied her guilt and the accusations dried up when the Woodvilles came back into power anyway.

Even if the Woodvilles did try to lure Edward IV into marrying Elizabeth through supernatural means they may not have had to: she was reputed to be a great beauty and charming to boot.

Essie Davis in costume as Elizabeth Woodville from The White Princess
If the real Elizabeth Woodville looked like Essie Davis it certainly didn’t hurt. Via Tumblr.

Still, if those lead figures were Jaquetta’s she was using them for something, but that may not mean much. People at all levels of society dabbled in witchcraft during the early modern period. For that I do have a footnote: Keith Thomas’ Religion and the Decline of Magic.

biweekly links 2-22-2017

Photo of gunmetal gray statue of an empty hooded cloak
Anna Chromý’s “Il Commendatore” sculpture, Prague. Legend has it that if you toss a coin in the empty hood your enemies can never find you. Author’s own.

Icelandic Magic, Witchcraft, and Sorcery and the Tragic Case of Jón Rögnvaldsson: For some reason the Icelandic Museum of Sorcery and Witchcraft is all over my Google alerts this week. This article addresses the unusually masculine world of Icelandic sorcery, with references at the end.

Want to Unlock the Secrets of the Occult? Art History Holds Answer regards the newly published The Occult, Witchcraft and Magic: An Illustrated History, though the book’s Amazon UK entry has more illustrations than the article.

The duties of an Elizabethan Lady-in-Waiting: useful to me as Jane Dee served Elizabeth I’s lady-in-waiting Lady Howard of Effingham (yes, servants had servants, and so on down the line) before she married John Dee.

Will This App Turn More Readers On to Serialized Fiction?: yes, there’s an app for this too! Radish‘s most popular author writes historical romance. Will be very curious to see how this develops.

biweekly links 1-25-2016

This Altar Cloth Might Have Been Elizabeth I’s Skirt: this has been all over my news feeds for the past couple of weeks, but this link has the most images.

A Same-Sex Marriage Ceremony In… Renaissance Rome?: same-sex marriage isn’t a new phenomenon, though the context was different and the risks substantially greater. Traditional marriage has always been challenged and what constitutes “traditional” is constantly in flux.

Witchcraft Before Wicca: Three Important Magickal Books: a lengthy and detailed article about the origin and content of  Scot’s “Discoverie Of Witches”, “The Key of Solomon” and Leyland’s “Aradia, Or the Gospel of the Witches”. Contains footnotes for those inclined to inquire further.

Round, dirty gray wax plate with faint pentacle shape inscribed on the surface
One of Dee and Kelley’s surviving wax seals. The Sigillum Dei Aemeth carved into it strongly resembles the seal from The Key of Solomon’s. Coincidence? Likely not. From Wikipedia.

biweekly links 1-11-2016

Why the Technology in ‘Rogue One’ Is So Old-Fashioned: can science fiction be historical? Arguably yes, if it’s based on 40-year-old source material. The author notes that most tech in Rogue One is based on that of the original 1977 Star Wars – which was heavily based on a combination of medieval and WWII imagery. A lovely example on how science fiction can be nostalgic even while looking to the future (or a galaxy far, far away).

World War II infantry man runs towards Star Wars Stormtrooper in black and white aged image
One of a thrillingly geeky set of WWII-Star Wars mash-ups at GeekTyrant.com. Yes, I’m a life-long Warsie. Come at me!

Germany: chemical odors lead police to failed alchemist:  leaching gold out of old cell phones might be lucrative but don’t try this at home!

A provocative play over race relations in Elizabethan England will be performed at various theatres in Somerset next year: “Nzingabeth!” claims to be a “fictitious musical meeting between Elizabeth I of England and the proud African Queen Ana Nzinga.” Given that it claims to address heavy topics like race, gender, and politics this could be an intriguing take or a complete disaster. Kinda wish it were opening nearer me.

WATCH: Fight nearly breaks out after soccer player uses witchcraft to score goal: laugh if you will, but evidently spells are still taken seriously in Rwanda. The player did score his goal. Maybe the ritual gave him an extra boost of confidence?

 

biweekly links 11-30-2016

Busy week, so here’s a selection from the past two weeks of my Google Alerts:

Second Salem: The Real-Life Prosecution & Paranoia That Inspired J. K. Rowling’s ‘Fantastic Beasts’: the latest edition to the Harry Potter ‘verse is built around an alternate history in which the 17th century Salem witch trials left a long shadow tainting American muggle/”no maj” and wizard relations well into the 1920s. Opinions?

The Magick of Dion Fortune – With Paul Clark (re-broadcast): Fortune is another new-to-me name from the early years of the Golden Dawn, and writer of occult fiction. This seems to be fairly standard fare from the also new-to-me Hermetic Hour podcast.

Arrival – reviewed by a UFO expert: the expert in question is Nick Pope, former head of the UFO desk (yes, there was [is?] such a thing) in the UK’s Ministry of Defence. Some interesting observations about how the plot of the movie intersects with government (lack of) contingency plans for alien contact and the portrayal of the military. I saw this a few weeks ago and it’s a slow mover but riveting. The aliens are truly alien and the story stays with you long after the credits roll.

biweekly links 11-2-2016

Happy (belated) Halloween/Samhain/All Hallows/etc! I can’t top the biggest early modern European news of the last 2 weeks (Christopher Marlowe Officially Credited As Co-Author Of 3 Shakespeare Plays) but I’ll try:

Woodcut of
A sea-bishop from Johann Zahn’s 1696 work Specula physico-mathematico-historica notabilium ac mirabilium sciendorum (that’s a mouthful). By Sean Linehan, NOS, NGS National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) (http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/library/libr0081.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

biweekly links 10-19-2016

Vampires and alchemy and murder-investigating witches, oh my!