All right everybody, time to read (or reread) The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. Ground rules: we are not reading for the history of 1848-1852 France, but we're also not looking for direct parallels to the contemporary US. We are looking for broad lessons on politics and just generally good lines.

Good morning! My colleague, Dr Alexander Cummins, and I are in the early stages of preparing an edition of an interesting little book of Elizabethan magic 🔮, and I thought it would be fun to share some discoveries along the way. 🧵1/x

This is it. We can all stop making Youtube videos now because there is not beating this. "Steamed Hams but it's a Critically Acclaimed Feature Film" www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk-O...

Card from the autumn "suit" of the Astronomia playing card deck, 1829. Featuring 3 other seasonal suits the pack was used to play two games — Conjunction and Combination — which were trumps-based, similar to Whist. More images of the cards here: publicdomainreview.org/collection/a... #autumn

Is there a technical name for this kind of string of dots?

This is what I appreciate about comics fandom: ask a question like this, and get a whole thread of answers supported by specific citations from the archive.

Our medieval curator Alison Ray introduces Rawlinson Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. D. 252...a 15th Century necromancer's journal. This manuscript contains spells written in Latin and Middle English, and would have served as a reference for a professional sorcerer. #MedievalMonday

Hunting for the doctrinal sources behind some weird theological assertions in a 16th-century grimoire.

Personally, I would like to return to the world of yesterday morning, when I could not have told you who Charlie Kirk was.

In the 1790s a London woman named Eliza Denyer developed a modest reputation as a restorer of medieval manuscripts. She was forgotten by scholars and, in one case, her restorations were deliberately replaced by a man’s. I recovered her story & tracked all her known work here: tinyurl.com/2ktztx2e

Been thinking about early-modern grimoires through network theory. Or vice versa.

More than half a century of building the biggest, best, and most publicly accessible higher education systems in the history of the world, and here were are. Governed by some the stupidest, most ignorant people imaginable.

the I Roved Out print edition campaign is live!! Publishing Tome 3 for the first time, reprinting Tome 1 & 2 with new covers! Tell your friends, check it out!! 🍃🍑🔪🔥🌙❄️☠️🧝‍♀️💦 zoop.gg/c/irovedoutinsearchoftruthandlove

just to confirm, this is fully accurate. what the actual fuck, mozilla?

Free TTRPG character idea: Norse skald and riddle-contest hostess Jen Kennings.

I review A Similitude of Nature: medium.com/@danharms_29...

Oh.

"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.

Imagine the complicated and precious genius of the girl who made this embroidery sampler in 1811 The Solar System, sampler, unknown maker, 1811, England. Museum no. T.92-1939. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Wild Kingdom, back yard edition.

The 1398 condemnation of 28 articles relating to the practice of magic by the theological faculty of the University of Paris. Dark academia meets a slightly less murder-y (or not! who knows) Name of the Rose.

Here's a free adventure frame from our upcoming book, 101 Adventure Frames in Enchanted England. The player characters (all wizards, if you're using this adventure for Magonomia) are asked to rid a castle of a phantom cat. Hijinks may ensue. shewstone.com/blog/2025/8/...

Just received my copy of Gal Sofer's _Solomonic Magic_ on Friday, and the methodological discussion in the first thirty pages alone has already proven inspirational for my own research. If you're still on the fence, Brill's 40%-off sale continues till August 31.

I just did this—followed the steps below to stopAcademia's AI-fication of my work. Thanks but no thanks. I've gone on enough real podcasts, done real interviews and written my own public facing essays that I really don't need an auto-generated version that likely distorts what I actually wrote.

This is the best product listing copy I’ve ever read

The authoritarian shit is bad on its own, but let's not lose sight of the fact that this Texas law enforcement officer couldn't keep up with a 61-year-old out for her morning walk. Like the Nazis, these people are evil and pathetic at the same time. Don't miss any chance to mock them as losers.

Send this to someone in their 30s or 40s and watch them stare off into the middle distance about how fleeting life is

It's really astounding to see the proportion of attempted answers on here that completely fail to address what the questioner is asking. And I don't mean "reply guys"; these are apparently well-meant responses that simply evince a worrying lack of reading comprehension.

2,178 Occult Books Now Digitized & Put Online, Thanks to the Ritman Library and Da Vinci Code Author Dan Brown

with alt text CIA approved tactics for populations under hostile occupation

Wonderful overview of the transformation of (European) math from being mostly geometry to include algebra and calculus.

Apropos of nothing, I'd just like to recommend that if, like me, you were a V5 skeptic and slept on #LAbyNight when it originally aired, maybe check it out if you're looking for something to watch. I've binged the first two seasons (so, roughly 50 hours) in the last week and a half, so...

Is that really what we want to do? When the people in power in the US—the people who've "won" for the moment—are able to implement reactionary policies in every sector from health to trade, and which surveys show the popular majority disagree with, why should we worry about what "most people" think?

Now would be a great time to start masking again. No particular reason.

Delighted to be part of this hot new zine journal, and had a blast chatting about folk necromancy, geomancy, and more in this interview.

Dan Harms has very kindly taken the time to review my most recent book, _A Similitude of Nature: Giorgio Anselmi on the Images of the Eighth Celestial Sphere_ medium.com/@danharms_29...

I see this article is making the rounds with a lot of informed critique by real historians. I'm not a real™️historian, but I did write this piece a few years ago which tries to nuance the topic: cultureandhistory.revistas.csic.es/index.php/cu...

It's true — one of the all-time greatest works of fantasy pastiche appeared serially on a TTRPG message board for roughly a decade, beginning over twenty years ago. www.enworld.org/threads/tale...

Oh my god, there's a gingerbread recipe (Cambridge, Magdalene College, Pepys MS 878, p. 124)

As students of the history of alchemy, astrology, magic, and the occult might guess, this = jackpot.

1. History is not a science, it's poems about ghosts.

WCK can use your donations. They are on the ground in Gaza, doing what they can in the face of a staggering and ongoing crime against humanity.

🚨ACADEMIC BOOK SALE KLAXON🚨 Everything is 40% off at Brill until August 31 with the code DGBSUMMER25

It's always a pleasure to chat with Mat Hadfield and Dr. Al Cummins, and I recently joined both of them on the Hadean Press podcast to talk about Al's and my new book, The Black Raven!

i spent much of my 20s working in emergency mental health with unhoused folks in san francisco and those of us doing that work were intimately aware of how much the government wanted our clients dead. my heart is shattered to see this prophecy fulfilled.

So I've been reading through all of Ficino's _De vita libri tres_ for the first time, and the main thing I've come away with is that the dude really liked myrobalan fruits.

Before and after. You can tell they taste good, because I've had to put up a defensive net to keep the chipmunks from eating them all.

WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for. Stop using WeTransfer.