McMaster University: Rare texts on magic and the occult unearthed for Archives Alive event

McMaster University: Rare texts on magic and the occult unearthed for Archives Alive event. “Leather-bound books with ancient alphabets, pentagrams outlined in red paint on a floor, and hooded figures chanting incantations by candlelight; these are among the depictions commonly conjured in popular culture around magic and the occult. But where do these concepts come from? This month’s must-see Archives Alive event will take audiences back in time to explore rare texts at McMaster University rooted in the very real tradition of magic and philosophy in western Europe.”

Bury Us Beneath Occult Books: The Ritman Library Digitized (Haute Macabre)

Haute Macabre (what a great name): Bury Us Beneath Occult Books: The Ritman Library Digitized. “Located in Amsterdam, The Ritman Library, aka the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, is a private library housing the world’s largest collection of occult books and manuscripts. This still-growing collection is comprised of 25,000 texts, including 4,500 pre-1800 books and manuscripts, on the subjects of Hermetics, Rosicrucians, Theosophy, alchemy, mysticism, Gnosis and Western Esotericism, Sufism, Kabbalah, Anthroposophy, Catharism, Freemasonry, Manichaeism, Judaica, the Grail, Esotericism, and comparative religion…. Now, thanks to the Hermetically Open Project, the core collection of these texts has been scanned and made available to pore over at your leisure.”

New-to-me: the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals

New-to-me, but apparently around for a while: the archive of the International Association for the Preservation of Spiritualist and Occult Periodicals, at http://www.iapsop.com/. From the home page (and I must say this home page design is very 1997-1998, which is not a bad thing. It loads almost instantly): “The IAPSOP is a US-based private organization focused on the digital preservation of Spiritualist and occult periodicals published between the Congress of Vienna and the start of the Second World War. Our all-volunteer staff digitizes, indexes and makes available free-of-charge these periodicals, in our archive, for use by students and researchers.”

A Big Archive of Occult Recordings: Historic Audio Lets You Hear Trances, Paranormal Music, Glossolalia & Other Strange Sounds (1905-2007) (Open Culture)

New-to-Me, from Open Culture: A Big Archive of Occult Recordings: Historic Audio Lets You Hear Trances, Paranormal Music, Glossolalia & Other Strange Sounds (1905-2007). “We’ve all had our wits scared out of us by films, images, and the written word, but somehow few forms work their haunting magic quite so effectively as sound alone. Think of the snap of the twig in the woods or the creak of the staircase in the empty house — or, to take it farther, the sound of possessed children speaking in tongues. You can hear recordings of that and other unusual phenomena at Ubuweb, which hosts the collection Occult Voices – Paranormal Music, Recordings of Unseen Intelligences 1905-2007.”