24.04.2021

“The Terror That Comes in the Night: An Experience-Centered Study of Supernatural Assault Traditions” by David J. Hufford

Magick Matters

"David Hufford's work exploring the experiential basis for belief in the supernatural, focusing here on the so-called Old Hag experience, a psychologically disturbing event in which a victim claims to have encountered some form of malign entity while dreaming (or awake). Sufferers report feeling suffocated, held down by some "force," paralyzed, and extremely afraid. The experience is surprisingly common: the author estimates that approximately 15 percent of people undergo this event at some point in their lives. Various cultures have their own name for the phenomenon and have constructed their own mythology around it; the supernatural tenor of many Old Hag stories is unavoidable. Hufford, as a folklorist, is well-placed to investigate this puzzling occurrence."...>>

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24.04.2021

“AWE: The Automatic Writing Experience” by Michael Sandler (scribd rip)

Magick Matters

"The Automatic Writing Experience, AWE, is like having the world’s greatest coach right in your back pocket. Ever grabbed the steering wheel, and yanked it to the side, just in the nick of time? Or ever picked up the phone to call someone, only to find they’re already there! Inside of each one of us, is an inner wisdom just waiting to come out. It’s the voice that had you turn the wheel or pick up the phone. And this inner knowing has the answers to your most pressing questions. Where do I go? What do I do? Why am I even here? Or even how do I get out of this mess? The answers are closer...>>

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24.04.2021

“Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints” by Teffi

Magick Matters

"Stories about the occult, folk religions, superstition, and spiritual customs in Russia by one of the most essential twentieth-century writers of short fiction and essays. Though best known for her comic and satirical sketches of pre-Revolutionary Russia, Teffi was a writer of great range and human sympathy. The stories on otherworldly themes in this collection are some of her finest and most profound, displaying the acute psychological sensitivity beneath her characteristic wit and surface brilliance. Other Worlds presents stories from across the whole of Teffi’s long career, from her early days as a literary celebrity in Moscow to her post-Revolutionary years as an émigré in Paris. In the early story “A Quiet Backwater,” a laundress gives...>>

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24.04.2021

“Executing Magic in the Modern Era: Criminal Bodies and the Gallows in Popular Medicine” by Owen Davies and Francesca Matteoni

Magick Matters

"This book explores the magical and medical history of executions from the eighteenth to the early twentieth century by looking at the afterlife potency of criminal corpses, the healing activities of the executioner, and the magic of the gallows site. The use of corpses in medicine and magic has been recorded back into antiquity. The lacerated bodies of Roman gladiators were used as a source of curative blood, for instance. In early modern Europe, a great trade opened up in ancient Egyptian mummies and the fat of executed criminals, plundered as medicinal cure-alls. However, this is the first book to consider the demand for the blood of the executed, the desire for human fat,...>>

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24.04.2021

“A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith during the First World War” by Owen Davies

Magick Matters

"It was a commonly expressed view during the First World War that the conflict had seen a major revival of "superstitious" beliefs and practices. Churches expressed concerns about the wearing of talismans and amulets, the international press paid considerable interest to the pronouncements of astrologers and prophets, and the authorities in several countries periodically clamped down on fortune tellers and mediums due to concerns over their effect on public morale. Out on the battlefields, soldiers of all nations sought to protect themselves through magical and religious rituals, and, on the home front, people sought out psychics and occult practitioners for news of the fate of their distant loved ones or communication with their spirits. Even...>>

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