Lectures on Witchcraft: Now Available!

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This excellent volume is a mid 19th century look at the Salem Witch Trials which was initially several lectures which were transcribed. Upham lays out some of the trial transcripts and remarks on the causation of the witch panic, and the brutal methods by which persecution was enacted. At times, he waxes a bit (overly) optimistic about the advancement of civics, evidence, reason, and religious tolerance regarding this and similar issues of superstition and criminality.

147 pages.

The New Burning Times: Now Available!

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As we say farewell (or good riddance) to the 2010s and prepare to enter the twenties- which I hope will be filled with flappers and art deco- it is time to release the final work of the decade. I literally got the idea a couple days ago when the news broke about the usual miscreants of the furthest "left" whining about extremist hand signals among army navy cadets- a tale told over and over by the modern day zealot authoritarians which peskily bother everyone else because of their own opportunism, fear, and boredom. The 2010s are significantly similar to the witch trials- the ignorance, false appeals to authority, self evidence of the claims, and culpability of the public that stands by and does nothing as their fellow humans are intellectually abused- it's not with joy but with sardonic observation that I crafted this little booklet.

These days more and more material is rendered proprietary and temporal by convoluted and obviously ill-omened contracts and hardware in computer systems. A computer ten years ago was mainly designed for local storage, able to connect to a broader network. Now, a computer is designed for exterior storage with a few internalized apps to communicate with it. This inefficient concept only exists because tech firms and their cronies wish to "own" all material and snuff it out at a Stalinesque whim.

As always I am 100% opposed to all censorship and all ignorance- todays "activist" haranguing about "extremism" on the internet is no less stupid and evil than some man in a long wool cloak with a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum centuries ago. It's the same superstitious nonsense, the same abuse as before.

Strange Phenomena of New England: Now Available!

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This book is an excellent primer on the Salem Witch Trials- it contains mostly a slew of primary source documents; letters from the era, trial proceedings, and- at the end- the culminating document which ended the era for good, namely the recanting and apology of the jury involved for having condemned innocent people to death. While I have strong opinions on the subject of why the trials happened (my theory is a fusion of the ergot, property, and social panic theories and accepts none completely) I kept my own words to a minimum and relegated them to the foreword.

Some of the claims made especially during testimony are bizarre in the highest degree- flying objects strange creatures, demonic sexual intercourse, and what we would now deem both ghosts and psychic attack. Some of the stories told are chilling, especially when one considers that most of the accused were tortured and mistreated, even if only about a tenth of them ended up actually executed.

84 pages.

A Tryal of Witches: Now Available!

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This little work is quite nice, and comprises two sections; a longer one that is a verbatim reprint of a 17th century witch trial, and second to that a short appendix with a few notations about the subject at large. I have decided to leave it in its original 19th century reprint form, with regards to the proceedings, which of course are in 17th century old English, archaic terms and all, because it is an important primary source document about persecution, and these days everyone should study more about moral panics and hysteria.

35 pages.

The Witch Persecutions: Now Available!

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This small work is a compilation text and combines multiple sections each containing a primary source on various instances of persecution related to the witch trials. Burrs' work does not contain all of these pieces of lore verbatim- several of the longer sections are truncated and one omits passages from a lengthier manuscript. It is nonetheless of great use to those studying the period of history in which burning witches was in vogue. Notable here is a smuggled letter from one condemned to his son in the Bamberg proceedings, telling that those who accused him and even the executioners were sympathetic and understood the trials to be nonsensical, but nobody spoke for fear of reprisal on themselves and their friends and families.

50 pages.

The Magic of the Middle Ages: Now Available!

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This work is Rydberg's finest- an academic compilation of subjects ranging from a treatment of the burning times, and of religious philosophy (dualism, specifically) to short passages on some cryptids of note, to various meanderings through the high ritual magick and alchemy of the era spoken of. Clearly hostile to Catholic lore, Rydberg manages to choke back his disdain of that church long enough to give it a fair shake at explaining its constant pogroms through especially the era of King James.

Its third section is a strange sort of quasi-fictional tale involving a group of men time traveling to the dark ages and confronting a sorcerer who is under the belief that he himself conjured them, written partly in the first person.

114 pages.

Magic Plants: Now Available!

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"Magic Plants" is not an herbal, strictly speaking, although it treats on the use of herbs in a sorcerous context in some primary sources it lists. Rather, it is a general treatise on the philosophy behind such use within the context of natural magic.

Translated from "De Vegetabilis Magicis" by Goldsmid in the mid 1800s, it is a dense little work, which, in its appendix, adds a tract detailing some witch trial material (almost surely to show the reader the torments applied for an understanding of natural healing and science in the burning times, especially to those who did not even practice sorcery) which speaks of herbalism insofar as witching ointment and a Satan-bestowed "mysterious black powder" used to harm cattle and people is concerned.

28 pages.

Demonology of King James I: Now Available!

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Here is one of the most interesting of all spiritual works; a tract on demonology literally written by a king- King James I of England that is- in the twilight of the 16th century.

Originally composed in extremely old English, this edition has been modernized, although a few generally outdated terms (like betwixt) have been retained for stylistic effect. The entire work is delivered in the form of a dialogue, between the fictional Epistemon and Philomathes. This usage was considered by James to be of greater entertainment than delivering a more academic text.

It covers the nature of witchcraft, the different types of magic (differentiating, for example, necromancers, sorcerers, and witches) and the nature of airy spirits or "fairies." It proceeds to heavily denounce Catholicism and list some categories of demonic entities, the meaning of incubus and succubus and what they pertain to, and their connection to the "night mare" (sleep paralysis) among other things.

75 pages.