Most histories of spiritualism start inside the walls of a small cottage in Hydesville, a little town in upstate New York. According to the story, several tenants had abandoned the house due to some mysterious rapping noises.
The Origins and Lifestyle Definitions of the Gothic Subculture
By the late 1970s, precisely in 1979, the world witnessed a massive and instant change in British society and soon after was shifted to the globe. This change was clearly noticed by the music people played and the way they were dressing.
Devil Worship in the Middle Ages and the Trail of Death
The chaos and upheaval that characterised European society in the Middle Ages served as a breeding ground for many peculiar ideas and events. One of the most interesting is undoubtedly the explosion of witch hunts and related activity.
What is the Uncanny? The Eerie, Creepy, and Weird
We all experience the uncanny: that “horrible, eerie, shuddery feeling”, as a character in one of E. T. A. Hoffmann’s short stories describes it. This we feel in response to certain phenomena — such as strange coincidences, identical twins, and waxwork figures — which are characteristically eerie, creepy, and weird.
An Aesthetic Religion of Shadows and the Cult of the Dark
Dark culture does not love science. Its favourite way of knowledge is some form of magical thinking. The dark ideology is rooted in the aesthetic culture of dark romanticism, which was a backlash against the new world opened by the Age of Enlightenment.
Annihilation and the Meaningfulness of Life Beyond Death
There seems to be a narrow choice on offer: either agree with Epicurus et al. on the annihilation thesis and the impossibility of the posthumous harm, or circumvent the problem by posing ante-mortem harm (Feinberg–Pitcher).
Spiritualism, and the Supernatural in Mid-Victorian Britain
In December 1861, a few months after he published the first instalment of his supernatural masterpiece, ‘A Strange Story’, the distinguished novelist Edward Bulwer Lytton told his friend John Forster that he wished to make philosophers inquire into [spirit manifestations] as I think Bacon, Newton, and Davy would have inquired. There must be a natural cause for them — if they are not purely imposture. Even if that natural cause be the admission of a spirit world around us, which is the extreme point. But if so, it is a most impartial revelation in Nature.
The Uncertain History of Necromancy: Finding the Roots
As has already been discussed, the origins of the expression of necromancy can be traced back to the Hellenistic period of ancient Greece, and it is also here that we will start our research into its practice.
The Angel and the Prehistory of the Ancient Demon
‘‘Demon’’ is technically a neutral word that refers to any spirit, whether good or evil, that is neither divine nor mortal but inhabits the intermediate realm between gods and humans. Thus, even angels belong to the general class of beings known as demons. But in common usage, owing to habits established between roughly 200 B.C.E. and 200 C.E., ‘‘demon’’ has come to refer solely to the evil members of the category.
Theosophical Studies in Occultism versus the Occult Arts
Some imagine that a master in the art, to show the way, is all that is needed to become a Zanoni. Others, that one has but to cross the Canal of Suez and go to India to bloom forth as Roger Bacon or even a Count St. Germain.
