Category: links

The Aztec Gold, Diamond Dogs, and Political Witchcraft Surrounding Watergate: are conspiracy theories symptoms or causes of fractious times? Arguably both, but forty-five years on this tale connecting Watergate, David Bowie, hidden treasure and (of course) JFK seems more a snapshot of the various mental gymnastics people employed to make sense of the year immediately before Nixon’s impeachment than anything that has (much) basis in fact. Plus cheezy 1970s print ads, including an early incarnation of The Gap.

Play about Elizabeth Bathory at Minnesota Fringe Fest: my Google alerts find me the oddest goodies. Also of relevance to readers of this blog, the article also summarizes shows built around “NaNoWriMo naughty bits” and “spells cast through dance and storytelling.”

More theater: Back to the Tudors as six wives and Queen Liz rock Edinburgh: this time from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Tudor period is well-trod territory for drama but these are contemporary musical designed “to challenge the US smash hit Hamilton.” Think they can take on Lin-Manuel Miranda?

Detectorist thought Elizabethan gold ring ‘was ring-pull’: my grandfather used to take his metal detector every year to the beach, but he never found anything like this! The signet ring is expected to sell for £7,500 to £10,000.

weathered brass ring with engraved eagle on the oval face
Brass, not gold, this is Elizabethan poet/playwright William Strachey’s ring, found at Historic Jamestowne. Via, and more source/credit information at the link.

biweekly links 8-1-2018

Satan’s Honor Roll: can Satanism be ethical? Oh yes! I’m finding very little here to argue with, and surprisingly (or not) very little of it has to do with actually worshipping a devil. Thoughts?

“Head Over Heels,” Reviewed: A Trans-Positive Spin on a Sixteenth-Century Romance, with Help From the Go-Gos: it’s Philip Sidney’s “The Arcadia” with early 80s pop! I’ve actually been hearing about this for a long time but this is one of the first reviews I’ve found with photos. Personally I’m tickled by all the Elizabethan clothing in day-glo lamé, but then, I love a good mashup.

Mary, Queen of Scots film ‘problematic’ says historian: how much fiction do you want in your historical fiction? The author’s argument is accurate (Mary Queen of Scots likely had a French accent, and Mary and Elizabeth I never met) but I also understand the director when he claims that letters back and forth don’t translate to a visual medium. Not sure where I stand on this. I love Cate Blanchett’s “Elizabeth” and “Elizabeth the Golden Age” but both are veer so far from true that they’re historical fantasy at best. But the acting is so good! I may see this because Saoirse Ronan has been fantastic in everything I’ve ever seen her in.

Nineteenth century engraving of Mary Queen of Scots, complete with hourglass figure and rosy cheeks
But is this picture any more accurate? In their enthusiasm for medieval revivalism, the Victorians got a lot wrong and their erroneous scholarship colors our impressions of the Middle Ages today. Is this worth a post of its own? Via.

Project Blue Book trailer goes all-in on UFOs for History: sure to piss off anyone who laments that the History Channel hasn’t had much to do with history for a long time! This new series about the 1950s Air Force UFO research project dramatizes J. Allen Hynek‘s investigations for Project Blue Book. While I expect they’re going to get a lot wrong I’m still eagerly anticipating “X-files 1950” (no, this isn’t a spinoff or continuation of the X-files franchise but the overall mood is similar).

biweekly links 7-18-2018

Sixteenth-century Tudor shipwreck given protected status after being found beneath beach in Kent: evidently merchant ships don’t survive very often so it’s good the authorities protected this ca. 1531 wreck so quickly. More photos at Historic England.

Diagonal cross section of an old wooden ship resting upright on a yellow metal frame
The grandaddy of all Tudor shipwrecks, the Mary Rose is preserved whole in Portsmouth UK. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Books That Kill: 3 Poisonous Renaissance Manuscripts Discovered in School Library: so the macguffin in “Name of the Rose” is totally plausible, though in this case it was probably nineteenth century restorers who applied the poison as a pesticide in an attempt to protect the books [insert tearing of hair/gnashing of teeth re: destructive restoration efforts].

Archaeologists Have Uncovered a Place Where The Ancient Egyptians Mummifed Their Dead: and they went into the lab to see what was on the slab. Clearly marked measuring cups and labeled oil containers, as it turns out. A treasure trove of historical chemistry!

Loch Ness monster hunter concludes: it’s a big catfish: aaaand the spoiler’s in the title. Seriously, this seems like a plausible explanation to me, though not nearly as exciting as a plesiosaur.

biweekly links 6-13-2018

How did it get to be June already?

How Tudor slander courts left us with some fabulous insults: nobody throws shade like an angry Tudor (see also here and here) but the offended gave as good as they got.

A story of survival: New York’s last remaining independent bookshops: having recently spent a pleasant hour in a new-to-me local(ish) used book store I’m reminded again why I love independent bookstores. Sanctuary and support of community are all well and good but there’s also the factor of serendipity – finding something you never knew existed, or never thought you’d find. Please feel free to share your own favorite indie bookstores in the comments!

H.R. Giger’s Tarot Cards: The Swiss Artist, Famous for His Design Work on Alien, Takes a Journey into the Occult: OMG Geiger made a Tarot deck!! Having recently found my old decks (Tarot of the Witches, the old trusty Rider Waite [fun facts about Pamela Colman Smith, who did the art for the RT deck]) and received another (Tarot of Atlantis) as a gift, I’m reminded that while I can’t read them (no weird chip, remember?) I do love the art. What are your favorites?

woman in beehive hairdo holding tarot card with a fool on it
Yes, that’s Jane Seymour in the Bond film “Live and Let Die” but no, that’s not one of Geiger’s designs (it’s from tarot of the Witches). More’s the pity as a Giger-designed Bond film could be hilarious. Courtesy the 007 Wikia

biweekly links 5-30-2018

The 1618 Defenestration of Prague explained: May 23rd was the 400th anniversary of this famous incident in which Protestants threw Catholic nobles out a window of Prague Castle, and this article from BBC’s History Extra blog explains the precipitating factors, mechanics (how did they survive the fall) and fallout. Comes about just as I’m editing a scene in which the papal representative to Bohemia expressed a desire to do the same thing to Edward Kelley* – evidently defenestration was a thing in Prague as recently as 1948.

woodcut of men in seventeenth century dress being thrown out a window into a waiting crowd
Contemporary woodcut of the 1618 defenestration, from here. {{PD-US}}

The ‘lawe of nations’: how diplomatic immunity protected an Elizabethan assassin: especially timely after the recent attempted murder of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal.

Rot, drills and inequity: the tangled tale of teeth: just the images from this current Wellcome Collection exhibition are enough to feed any nascent dentistry phobias for all time. An example of while I love history, I wouldn’t have chosen to live in any time period prior to the invention of modern medicine.

What Magic Got Trump Elected?: less about magic and more about New Thought/modern self-help mentalities and how they inform modern business goals. Introduced me to my new vocabulary word: egregore, a kind of occult product of the group mind (see also: tulpa).

* Though the nuncio wanted to he didn’t, settling for kicking Dee and Kelley out of Bohemian lands. Much tidier, but didn’t last.

biweekly links 5-2-2018

I’ve been on a bit of a Southern history jag since coming back from a trip to my home state of Georgia. Turns out I know very little about where I grew up. Some of my stranger findings:

old fashioned map of the northwest three-fourths of the state of Georgia
Lionel Pincus and Princess Firyal Map Division, The New York Public Library. (1859). Map of the State of Georgia Retrieved from.

Mary Shotwell Little Vanishes at Lenox Square-Well, We Think!: how had I never heard about this 1965 unsolved disappearance? A woman disappears from the biggest shopping mall in Atlanta. Her car is found with 40 unaccounted for miles on it… but the last sightings of her were six hours away in Charlottesville NC. Was she kidnapped or did she fake her own death–and in either case, why? See (or listen) also here and here.

Disappearance of Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook: I’d not heard of this one and no surprise – back in 1991 the authorities wrote off the Augusta, GA teenagers as runaways on no evidence whatsoever. Though re-opened in 2013 the Millbrook sisters’ case still didn’t get much attention until The Fall Line podcast focused on it for an entire season. A sad, frustrating cold case hopefully soon to come to a resolution.

The Georgia Guidestones: not hours away from my hometown yet I’ve never been (never been to Rock City or Ruby Falls either – yes, I am a slacker). A still anonymous “Small Group of Americans Who Seek The Age Of Reason” commissioned these in 1979 and they’ve inspired speculation and conspiracy theory ever since. Project Archivist covered these in one of their early episodes; their guest Raymond Wiley co-hosted Out There Radio back in 2005 based out of the University of Georgia radio station WUOG (where back in the early 1990s I hosted the dance music show during my student days).

And finally a whole blog of Georgia Mysteries for my future rabbit hole needs.

Art Bell’s heirs

I was a latecomer to Coast to Coast AM, only listening once the show became available online in the 1990s. His subject matter revived my childhood obsession with all things weird and I enjoyed Art Bell’s rare ability to ask informed questions without appearing to pass judgment on any guest, no matter how off the wall. I was surprised and saddened to learn of his passing this past April 13th (a Friday. Of course).

headphones with soundwaves coming out
Khadijah Roussi, via.

So in memory of one of the first* and arguably greatest paranormal broadcasters I’m posting my personal list of his spiritual children: the podcasters of the strange and mysterious.

Some caveats: This list is just what I listen to regularly and is no way complete–please feel free to include your favorites in the comments! I put them in alphabetical order and while I’ve highlighted occasional favorite episodes or series you can generally jump in anywhere.

*See Mae Brussel; Long John Nebel.

biweekly links 4-11-2018

LGTBQIA historical fiction: ‘White Houses’ explores Eleanor Roosevelt’s romantic life; Alan Hollinghurst sketches the evolution of gay rights in latest historical novel, ‘The Sparsholt Affair’: I’ve not read either but I’m especially looking forward to “White Houses”.

‘Nosferatu’ and 96 Years of Expressionistic Nightmares: I didn’t know that Albin Grau, one of the producers of this classic vampire movie, was a dedicated occultist. Grau intended “Nosferatu” to be the first of a string of supernatural/occult themed movies by Prana Film but the lawsuits from the Stoker family following “Nosferatu”‘s release bankrupted them. I also didn’t know that Robert Eggers is directing a remake. I loved “The VVitch” so I’m cautiously optimistic.

Review: Shakespeare’s hidden astrology revealed: that Shakespeare’s play’s show occult influences isn’t news; he based the wizard Prospero from “The Tempest” on John Dee, a man Shakespeare might have known in person. Astrologer Priscilla Costello has written several books arguing that Shakespeare poured far more Elizabethan arcane symbolism into his plays.

Helen Mirren in robe of shining blue shards, wielding a staff
I thought of digging up an old Nosferatu pic for y’all, but I’ll use any excuse to include a picture of Helen Mirren in something fabulous. Here she is as Prospera in “The Tempest”. Via

The murder that instigated the UK’s most dangerous autopsy: in light of the more recent Russian poisoning attempts I thought it worthwhile to look back on a terrifyingly successful one. It took multiple doctors and an atomic weapons specialist to diagnose Alexander Litvinenko’s poisoning by polonium-210, and the doctors performing the autopsy had to wear what sounds like level 4 biohazard suits. More chilling information in the article’s references.

biweekly links 3-28-2018

Powerful Market for Magic Enchants Publishers: on the occult spirituality and historical shelves, at least. Most exciting for me is a new John Dee book, which I need like a fat hole in my head because I’m done researching, really and for true…

Bulgaria was the catalyst for Elizabeth Kostova’s “The Shadow Land”: I loved Kostova’s “The Historian” and this new book sounds unusual enough that I’ll probably give it a whirl but I’m a tad disappointed that she “[shies] away from [‘historical fiction’ as a category] because it’s gotten kind of a bad name” (??)

Speaking Martian: Dee and Kelley weren’t the only medium/interpreter duo to invent/discover/come up with a strange language. Hélène Smith produced “Martian” language over several years with the assistance of psychologist Théodore Flournoy. Being of a less wanting-to-believe ilk than Dee, Flournoy suspected glossolalia from the outset, though he never seemed to have discouraged or tried to cure Smith during their séances. His publication of his suspicions in the book “From India to the Planet Mars” was a shock to Smith and they parted company soon after. In the 1930s the Surrealists promoted her as a “muse of automatic writing” and she became a painter in her own right. An intriguing story I wish I had time to delve into further!

strange hieroglyphic-type figures handwritten with typed caption: Fig. 31. Text No 38 (March 30, 1899), written by Mlle. Smith copying a text of Ramié, who appeared to her in a visual hallucination (Collection of M. Lemaitre)
Example of Hélène Smith’s “Martian” script. Via.

biweekly links 3-14-2018

Happy spring (or, at least, happy daylight savings time. Yeah, it’s dark in the morning but it’s light enough for me to take a walk after work)! After an inadvertent week off due to flaky laptop I present a passel of links:

Found in South Philadelphia, an Underground Railroad station: even without the association with Harriet Tubman this is a significant historic site. I agree with the historian who advocates elevating symbols of emancipation even as we tear down memorials to the Confederacy.

Alchemy, flushing toilets and blood-letting: The secrets of medieval Oxford revealed: the pot of mercury is all well and good but I’m more excited about the array of writing implements found. A solid lead pencil! “Parchment prickers”, whatever those are! And for the life of me I can’t find a photo of the elusive “vellum scissors”.

17 Rare Pics Reveal A Fake Rooftop Town Built To Hide Boeing’s Factory From Japanese Air Strikes: I think myself a history buff yet I’d never heard of this! An entire fake city built to protect American fighter plane production during WWII.

Support the Terence McKenna archives! If you’re so inclined. I’ve not followed McKenna’s career closely but I’m all about efforts to preserve and transcript data for easy searchability.