I lived in Georgia half my life so of course I’d never heard of Lake Lanier’s legends until I read about them on an Australian paranormal news site. Evidently its got a giant catfish and ghosts, the latter the paranormal result of leaving entire towns (and cemeteries?) intact beneath its muddy waters.
The Ghost Rockets Investigational Portal is a searchable database of Swedish military UFO reports. It’s also the starting point for a crowdsourcing effort to tag and translate the documents into English.
The original Globe Theater is long gone, but The Curtain has been found. It seems the archaeologists are rushing to outpace impending new construction over this Shakespearean theater, but there will be a visitors’ center for the dig once excavation is complete.
More London: “A series of talks on alchemy and magic” are planned for June 4th and 5th to support the restoration of Brompton Cemetery. Featuring all the hits: Dee, Faust, Paracelsus, and even a theremin concert. Ah, to be in Merrie Olde…
A theremin – the instrument used to create creepy music associated with 1950s sci-fi films. Courtesy Wikipedia
I mean my biweekly link dumps of witches, occultists, strange/obscure history, and academic papers. Why do I post these (apart from their vague relevance to the work in progress)?
Well, I was a strange child. And I had help.
I grew up on an irregular diet of “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World” and the occasional surprise “In Search Of” when it aired at odd times on TBS. Also one side of my family nurtured an interest in UFOs, ghosts, cryptozoology, and other Forteana/paranormalia: I remember reading my grandmother’s back issues of Fate Magazine from around age 8, and books got passed around through the mail and at holiday get togethers.
I think the cryptozoology thing grew out of the usual childhood fascination with dinosaurs. My interest was intense enough that by elementary school I was making papier-mâché Loch Ness monsters and a faked plaster cast of a Bigfoot footprint for school projects.
I can’t remember my teachers’ reactions.
A “shelfie” of my weird collection. The old Fate mags have long since worn out and been thrown away.
Various family members expressed everything from skeptical interest to full on belief – dinner table conversation could go on for hours. As a child I was fairly uncritical about it all; as a teenager I became more skeptical but sought out anything that made my eyebrows jump – conspiracy theories, alien abduction, prank religions – for the sheer WTFery, if nothing else. I can’t remember how many times I checked High Weirdness by Mail out of the library (oh hey, now there’s an online version!).
And yes, in the 1990s I was a dedicated X-Phile. So many of the stories were already familiar, and the writers did a wonderful job with the source material!
As an adult I’m more detached but my interest remains, though I’ve grown so hard-headed it’s difficult to believe in anything I can’t hit with a hammer, so to speak. At the same time I recognize that subjective experience is relevant to the experiencer, objectively provable or not. In the end it’s not about aliens or ghosts or witches, but about people and how they integrate the unexplained into their lives.
Still, my inner curious child still aches to know: what really happened? What did they really see/experience/find? Through writing fiction I can speculate with the luxury of not having to prove anything, and I have the freedom to make up answers.
I could (maybe I will) do a whole separate post about growing up as a history buff. Suffice it to say I’m not terribly surprised that two lifelong interests collided to have me writing about Elizabethan magicians ~30 years later.
What about you? Do you have any childhood obsessions that still inform your creative pursuits today? Tell me in the comments!
Call for papers: Histories of Magic and Sexuality – another Twitter find, for academic sorts. 1000-1500 word essays on this subject “[relating] to any geographical area and must have a strong historical focus. Essays exploring the premodern and early modern periods and regions outside of Europe and the US are encouraged.” Closing 5/15.
The sci fi and fantasy genres jumped on serialized fiction awhile back, but with Julian Fellowes’s Belgravia and SerialBox’s Whitehall it seems historical fiction is finally getting in on the act. Looking forward to both and seeing if this presentation format proves popular.
Hadn’t heard of Carlo Gesualdo until news about a one-man play about his life popped up in my Google alerts. Pity it’s not local – Gesualdo’s messy story of musical genius, vicious murder, and alleged sorcery is fantastic storytelling fuel!
How Witchcraft Is Empowering Queer and Trans Young People – religions are always adapting to the times, and the practitioners described in this article discard the traditional (? I’m not a witch or pagan, so I can’t speak to accuracy) male-female binary to create beliefs and rituals meaningful to their queer identities.
Tudor controversialists and the Catholic faith – Propaganda and counter-propaganda between the Elizabethan government and English Catholics. Relevant to my WIP as I’m writing Edward Kelley as a recusant. The review suggests a “crunchy” academic book, but in the best possible way.
Nazi occult books found in Czech National Library depot – Himmler’s private collection of books on witchcraft have evidently been in storage since the 1950s. Initially reported in a tabloid, this story seems to be getting more reputable coverage as the days go on.
Getting Clean, the Tudor Way: not a lot of full-body washing but lots of exfoliation going on. I’ve watched Ruth Goodman’s BBC/PBS series on daily life in various time periods (Tudor Monastery Farm!) and she walks the walk to find her answers.
Today in History: Jewish mysticism in Prague: it’s impossible to study the history of esoteric thought in Prague without encountering the famous meeting between Rabbi Loew and Rudolf II. In a time of common anti-Semitism and inter-Christian conflict these two men met as equals, brought together by their common interest in the occult sciences.
“Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons” by George Pendle – recent review of a ten-year old book, and damn was Jack Parsons a strange bird! Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist by day and magician by night, Parsons “treated magic and rocketry as different sides of the same coin” – rather the same way the Renaissance natural philosophers saw no difference between science and magic. Putting on my to-read list.
In difficult times, many readers turn to historical fiction – a psychologist suggests “exploration of the sights, sounds, and events of past eras… help[s] us to imagine how to negotiate the strains of current real-life situations.” Includes reviews of some of her favorites (full disclosure: I’ve not read any of them).
John Dee: Scholar, Courtier, Magician [Video] – if you missed it on my Twitter or Facebook last week, this half hour sneak preview/interview with the curator is well worth seeing. Not only was Dee’s handwriting beautiful but he was a fair artist – check out his doodles.
XETB Plays the Music of John Dee – or music inspired by him, at any rate. Unavailable in my country due to licensing restrictions – can anyone get at it? What do you think?
The Death of an Occult Bromance: Mr. Kelley Goes to Walton Ledale – crosses my desk just as I’m editing my necromancy scene. Though Dee and Kelley didn’t split over the incident in Walton le Dale (it happened before they met, if it happened at all), EsoterX rightly points out that partnerships based on secrecy and spiritual risk tend to magnify personal and philosophical differences.
Crowley’s Children – Aleister Crowley’s influence on rock and roll and rock and rollers. Some genuinely embraced his beliefs; others just thought “do as thou wilt” sounded cool. Relevant this week as the author lists David Bowie (RIP) as a fan.
