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"Parapsychology Miscellanea."
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Magical House Protection
Belief in magic and particularly the power of witchcraft
was once a deep and enduring presence in popular
culture.
\"Diving into Brian Hoggard's Magical House Protection is a
remarkable experience… [It] provides an immersive and fascinating
read.\"- Fortean Times
People created and concealed many objects to protect themselves
from harmful magic. Detailed are the principal forms of magical
house protection in Britain and beyond from the fourteenth century
to the present day. Witch-bottles, dried cats, horse skulls,
written charms, protection marks and concealed shoes were all used
widely as methods of repelling, diverting or trapping negative
energies. Many of these practices and symbols can be found around
the globe, demonstrating the universal nature of efforts by people
to protect themselves from witchcraft.
From the introduction: The most popular locations to conceal
objects within buildings are usually at portals such as the hearth,
the threshold and also voids or dead spaces. This suggests that
people believed it was possible for dark forces to travel through
the landscape and attack them in their homes. Whether these forces
were emanations from a witch in the form of a spell, a witch's
familiar pestering their property, an actual witch flying in spirit
or a combination of all of those is difficult to tell. Additional
sources of danger could be ghosts, fairies and demons. People went
to great lengths to ensure their homes and property were protected,
highlighting the fact that these beliefs and fears were visceral
and, as far as they were concerned, literally terrifying.
eBook
That's creepy!
In a world where werewolves rule and vampires are just the boy or girl next door, kids love anything that will scare the pants off them. But how do you separate fact from fiction? Do haunted houses, spooky ghosts, and UFOs have a place in history, or is it all just a bunch of hooey? Crawling with spine-tingly facts, eerie anecdotes, and fun information, this book is all about everything creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky.
Book
Solomon's Secret Arts
The late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are known as the Age of Enlightenment, a time of science and reason. But in this illuminating book, Paul Monod reveals the surprising extent to which Newton, Boyle, Locke, and other giants of rational thought and empiricism also embraced the spiritual, the magical, and the occult.
Although public acceptance of occult and magical practices waxed and waned during this period they survived underground, experiencing a considerable revival in the mid-eighteenth century with the rise of new antiestablishment religious denominations. The occult spilled over into politics with the radicalism of the French Revolution and into literature in early Romanticism. Even when official disapproval was at its strongest, the evidence points to a growing audience for occult publications as well as to subversive popular enthusiasm. Ultimately, finds Monod, the occult was not discarded in favor of \"reason\" but was incorporated into new forms of learning. In that sense, the occult is part of the modern world, not simply a relic of an unenlightened past, and is still with us today.
eBook
Modern Occult Rhetoric
A broadly interdisciplinary study of the pervasive secrecy in America cultural, political, and religious discourse. The occult has traditionally been understood as the study of secrets of the practice of mysticism or magic. This book broadens our understanding of the occult by treating it as a rhetorical phenomenon tied to language and symbols and more central to American culture than is commonly assumed. Joshua Gunn approaches the occult as an idiom, examining the ways in which acts of textual criticism and interpretation are occultic in nature, as evident in practices as diverse as academic scholarship, Freemasonry, and television production. Gunn probes, for instance, the ways in which jargon employed by various social and professional groups creates barriers and fosters secrecy. From the theory wars of cultural studies to the Satanic Panic that swept the national mass media in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Gunn shows how the paradox of a hidden, buried, or secret meaning that cannot be expressed in language appears time and time again in Western culture. These recurrent patterns, Gunn argues, arise from a generalized, popular anxiety about language and its limitations. Ultimately, Modern Occult Rhetoric demonstrates the indissoluble relationship between language, secrecy, and publicity, and the centrality of suspicion in our daily lives.
eBook
Thee Psychick Bible
The costly special edition of this book quickly sold out; the paperback is intended to fulfill customer demand.
eBook
The Borderlands of Science
As author of the bestselling Why People Believe Weird Things and How We Believe, and Editor-in-Chief of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer has emerged as the nation's number one scourge of superstition and bad science. Now, in The Borderlands of Science, he takes us to the place where real science (such as the big bang theory), borderland science (superstring theory), and just plain nonsense (Big Foot) collide with one another. Shermer argues that science is the best lens through which to view the world, but he recognizes that it's often difficult for most of us to tell where valid science leaves off and borderland science begins. To help us, Shermer looks at a range of topics that put the boundary line in high relief. For instance, he discusses the many theories of everything that try to reduce the complexity of the world to a single principle, and shows how most fall into the category of pseudoscience. He examines the work of Darwin and Freud, explaining why one is among the great scientists in history, while the other has become nothing more than a historical curiosity. He also shows how Carl Sagan's life exemplified the struggle we all face to find a balance between being open-minded enough to recognize radical new ideas but not so open-minded that our brains fall out. And finally, he reveals how scientists themselves can be led astray, as seen in the infamous Piltdown Hoax. Michael Shermer's enlightening volume will be a valuable aid to anyone bewildered by the many scientific theories swirling about. It will help us stay grounded in common sense as we try to evaluate everything from SETI and acupuncture to hypnosis and cloning.
eBook
Hidden Intercourse
From rumors about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction-only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.
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