Featuring authentic candle magic that anyone can do, this joyous book encourages you to dance in the moonlight and rekindle your spark of magic with a little wick, wax, and flame. Renowned practitioner Madame Pamita guides you every step of the way as you perform spells and gain the confidence to create your own. The…
Discover the Dappled Grove of Druidry Renowned author Kristoffer Hughes paints a comprehensive picture of Druidry―where it came from, how it developed into its current form, and why it is relevant today. Hughes shares not only the nuts and bolts of practice, but also its ethics, environmental considerations, and deep roots in history. Druids are…
What have we not done to live forever? Adam Leith Gollner, the critically acclaimed author of The Fruit Hunters, weaves together religion, science, and mythology in a gripping exploration of the most universal of human obsessions: immortality. Raised without religion, Adam Leith Gollner was struck by mankind’s tireless efforts to cheat aging and death. In…
Time travel, UFOs, mysterious planets, stigmata, rock-throwing poltergeists, huge footprints, bizarre rains of fish and frogs-nearly a century after Charles Fort s Book of the Damned was originally published, the strange phenomenon presented in this book remains largely unexplained by modern science. Through painstaking research and a witty, sarcastic style, Fort captures the imagination while…
Corvids play an outsize role in the human imagination. We keep ravens in towers, emblazon rooks on banners, find crows in the constellations and make sure to salute solitary magpies. We also see our own behaviour mirrored in this diverse family of birds, who are tricksters and thieves as well as problem-solvers and gift-givers. This…
In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. She conjures up early operating theaters―no place for the squeamish―and surgeons, who, working before anesthesia, were lauded for their speed and brute…
The Pentagram, Star of David, Crucifix, rabbit s foot, or four-leaf clover…they all provide feelings of comfort and protection, intended to attract good while dispelling evil. Found throughout history and in nearly every culture and religion, amulets and talismans can be made and used by anyone. Spanning the world through the diverse cultures of Sumeria,…
The key to an essential source text on seventeenth century witchcraft and the Scottish witch trials. Written baby King James I and published in 1597, the original edition of Demonology is widely regarded as on of the most interesting and controversial religious writings in history, yet because it is written in the language of its…
Packed with strange stories and spectacular illustrations, The Devil s Atlas leads you on an adventure through the afterlife, exploring the supernatural worlds of global cultures to form a fascinating traveler s guide quite unlike any other.From the author of the critically acclaimed bestsellers The Phantom Atlas, The Sky Atlas, and The Madman s Library…
With more than 200 additional entries, this is the revised and expanded second edition of one the world s most important books on demonology. Ever since the publication of the original book more than ten years ago, author M. Belanger has been collecting material for this expanded edition. Filled with additional new articles, spirits, demons,…
A revealing and unique portrait of Victorian life as told through the discovery of one woman s textile scrapbook. In 1838, a young woman was given a diary on her wedding day. Collecting snippets of fabric from a range of garments – some her own, others donated by family and friends – she carefully annotated…
Sake began with a grain of rice. Scotch emerged from barley, tequila from agave, rum from sugarcane, bourbon from corn. Thirsty yet? In The Drunken Botanist, Amy Stewart explores the dizzying array of herbs, flowers, trees, fruits, and fungi that humans have, through ingenuity, inspiration, and sheer desperation, contrived to transform into alcohol over the centuries….
For millennia, the culture and philosophy of the ancient Egyptians have fascinated artists, historians, and spiritual seekers throughout the world. Now, with this deluxe edition, the legendary 3,500-year-old Papyrus of Ani—the most beautiful of the ornately illustrated Egyptian funerary scrolls ever discovered—has been restored in its original sequences of text and artwork, using the latest…
From bone fetishism in the ancient world to painted skulls in Austria and Bavaria: an unusual and compelling work of cultural history. It is sometimes said that death is the last taboo, but it was not always so. For centuries, religious establishments constructed decorated ossuaries and charnel houses that stand as masterpieces of art created…
Have you ever rubbed a frog on your freckles? Trivia fans and fun fact fanatics will adore this fascinating, flickable encyclopedia of superstitions! Richard Webster presents over five hundred of the most obscure, curious, and just-plain-freaky superstitions of the Western world. Discover batty beliefs about baldness, beans, and the Bermuda Triangle, and peculiar practices regarding…