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This fine little work is a compilation of tales of the Stigmata as reported over the course of centuries by the Catholic church. The phenomenon itself is the appearance of marks on the body commensurate with the wounds imparted on Jesus during crucifixion. Regardless of whether you believe in such a phenomenon, it's a very valuable bit of history pertinent to the Catholic...

And now comes the first release in quite a while- a compilation of essays and speeches given by the author on medical subjects, mostly of an occult character- it's a fascinating book, with highly variable subtopics.

Perhaps the most interesting material here is on the history of the concept of the evil eye and counter-measures, but the history of the Knights Hospitaller and the...

This fairly short work is a nice example of early 19th century Christian rationalism. Penned by a Lutheran, it accepts the basic concept of Biblical spirituality while expressing deep skepticism of magic generally (of the superstitions of its era)- notably the work derives a lot of its content from the concept of the Biblical Witch of Endor. It speaks in some degree of detail of...

This work is quite nice, and was written from a dedicated Catholic perspective- indeed, the slow march of time has seen some of these feasibly canonical ideas cast aside by the Vatican even as they are retained by lay Catholics in large part- such as a belief that seances and ouija boards can actually cause demonic influence. These days the church itself tends to render those to...

This particular work is written from the perspective of sometimes quite severe skepticism towards folklore of various kinds, from the disorganized and tribal (and often antiquated) to the then-modern, medical, and "scientific." Amusingly, some of its then-accepted scientific conjectures are now themselves classed as pseudoscience and hokum.

The span of subjects covered here is...

This is one of my favorite editing works so far; a massive collection of folklore, dealing with every sign and omen under the sun from a dozen cultures, multiple epochs, etc. From bad luck to good, from relationships to employment, Cielo's work has a little bit of everything. It is interesting to me that some of the content is familiar to me such as the common habit here in my own...

This is a great book of folklore; great instead of merely good, because it is actually entertaining, because much like my prior edited release on flower lore, it adds poetry and prose of various kinds (especially Keats, Shakespeare, and the biblical Psalms) in its various meanderings. About half the work deals with birds, which are highly present symbols within spirituality.

It...

Some time ago (a couple of years!) I decided that if synchronicity could be said to exist, and the occult in part hinged on this as a central principle, evidence of it should be seen in even fairly mundane endeavors. A tome could be written on superstition as it relates to football fans especially (not washing ones' socks during a winning streak comes to mind?) but I wanted to go...

It's the last day of July and that means a quick update.

I have completed "Football Occultism" and intend to release it soon. This will be one of two works I am currently actually working on after shelving a half dozen editing projects due to Createspace' new apparent set of rules. The other work? The Lesser Keys, which require the editing and illustrating of the Theurgia Goetia.

It will be two...

This is one of the greater compilations of folklore I have encountered; written by Robert Means Lawrence, it compiles an extremely long and detailed bit of information related to the symbolism and use of horse shoes in the context of good luck and superstition, along with elaborate side topics like the similar superstitious use of salt, or of animals.

Not content to study one...

It should be said in the interest of full disclosure that this is definitely a Catholic-made and pro-Catholic treatment of the churches' old style tendency to forbid (and later merely reprove) literary works on a theological, ethical, and political basis. However, that does not render it uninteresting; the index here alone for its era of manufacture (of a large number of works the...