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Post by dem bones on Jul 24, 2010 16:55:58 GMT
Only now am I feeling suitably diabolical to revisit Peter Haining (ed.) – The Necromancers: The Best Of Black Magic And Witchcraft (Hodder & Stoughton, 1971, Coronet, 1972) 
Introduction – Robert Bloch
Robert Graves – Modern Witchcraft
Rollo Ahmed – Black Magic Today
Aleister Crowley – The Black Lodge
Betty May – The Sacrifice
W. B. Yates – The Sorcerers
Denis Wheatley – A Life For A Life
C. W. Olliver – The Witches’ Sabbat
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Salem Mass
Cotton Mather – The Tryals Of The New England Witches
An Indictment For Witchcraft
W. Harrison Ainsworth – The Lancashire Witches
Margaret Murray – An Initiation To Witchcraft
A Pact With The Devil
[How To Raise A Spirit]
Anonymous – The Black Goat Of Brandenberg
Benvenuto Cellini – My Experiences In Necromancy
Lawrence Flammenberg – The Necromancer
E. F. Benson – Gavon’s Eve
The Confession Of The Witches Of Elfdale
Sax Rohmer – The Witch Finders
Robert Anthony – The Witch-Baiter
P. T. Barnum – The Spell On witchcraft
Frank Hamel – Familiars
August Derleth – Saunder’s Little Friend
Ronald Seth – The Chambre Ardente Affair
Algernon Blackwood – The Tarn Of Sacrifice
Montague Summers – The Hell-Fire Clubs
Michael Harrison – At The Heart Of It
Robert Bloch – BeelzebubAnother of Haining's excursions into the murky world of Witchcraft & Black Magic, this one a mixture of fact, 'fact', folklore and unashamed fiction, the contents of which were shamelessly ripped off by dastardly Dennis Wheatley for his Satanism and Witches : Essays and Stories ( Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult # 21 (Sphere, 1974). The anthology approach works surprisingly well imo, making for a far more entertaining read than your average dry-as-dust scholarly occult work, even if some of the alleged non-fiction is dubious as indeed, may be some of the author attributions. To make a start: Nathaniel Hawthorne - Young Goodman Brown: Salem; Brown, a devout Puritan, is enticed by a stranger dressed in 'grave and decent attire' to attend a Sabbat on a try-and-buy-into-our-religion basis. As they travel deeper into the woods, Brown is astonished to recognise many a face among the Devil's disciples. Goody Cloyse, who taught him his catechism; that holiest of holies, Deacon Gookin; one by one those he's always regarded as the living saints are revealed as Devil-worshippers. Only when he realises that his fellow initiate is none other than Faith, his sweet young wife, does he finds the strength to fight and urges her, "look up to heaven and resist the wicked one" which seems to do the trick. Come the following morning, the village and its occupants are back to normal and it seems he must have dreamt the whole episode, but the ordeal has ruined him. He lives on in lonely misery, distrustful of a human race that has become despicable to him. Robert Anthony (Anthony Rudd) - The Witch-Baiter: Justice Mynheer van Ragevoort tries and condemns 'witches' with commendable impartiality: one a confession has been tortured from them, they're hung and quartered in keeping with the law. Comes the night when he's blindfolded and bundled from his home by the men of the village to preside over the trial of 'the witch of witches'. Having passed sentence, he's again abducted, this time by members of the Vehmgericht, a secret society who've decided that his insane reign of terror must be curtailed. He's given an extended session in the dungeon, and then released to discover his latest victim .. A nasty, no frills early Weird Tale, revived by both Christine Campbell Thomson for By Daylight Only and Charles Birkin for Tandem Book Of Horror. Robert Bloch - Beelzebub: Author Howard, driven to distraction by his wife, career and life in general, is haunted and ultimately destroyed by a special fly. Sax Rohmer - The Witch Finders: According to Mr. Haining "a rare piece of factual writing from the master story-teller" (i've no idea if this is true?). Rohmer pursues the Witch Finders across Europe, from Sprenger in Germany to Hopkins in England. He who unleashed Fu Manchu upon the world speaks with great authority on the subject and yet .... surely witches were hung in England, not "burnt at the stake"? Anonymous - How To Raise A Spirit: It all looks like too much hard work, especially if you're using a corpse that "hanged, drowned or otherwise made away with itself," and besides, it's most likely all a big swizz anyway. Anonymous – The Black Goat Of Brandenberg: The Satanists slowly torture it to death then burn the remains as an offering to Lucifer from whom they hope to learn the whereabouts of Germany's lost treasure. Their leader is thrown into a dungeon at Spandeau for his pains! Haining assures us that this tantalising fragment is all that survives of a mid-seventeenth century German terror novel. Dennis Wheatley (ed.) – Satanism and Witches : Essays and Stories [Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult # 21] (Sphere, 1974) 
Benvenuto Cellini – My Experiences In Necromancy
Sax Rohmer – The Witch Finders
William Godwin – The Lancashire Witches
Robert Anthony – The Witch-Baiter
Ronald Seth – The Chambre Ardente Affair
Margaret Murray – An Initiation To Witchcraft
P. T. Barnum – The Spell On witchcraft
Cotton Mather – The Tryals Of The New England Witches
Nathaniel Hawthorne – The Salem Mass
Aleister Crowley – The Black Lodge
Betty May – The Sacrifice
Elliott O’Donnell – Sylvan Horrors
Elliott O’Donnell – Vampires, Werewolves, Fox-Women, etc.
Robert Graves – Modern Witchcraft
Anonymous – An Indictment For Witchcraft
Anonymous – A Pact With The Devil
Anonymous – How To Raise A Spirit
Anonymous – The Black Goat Of Brandenberg
Anonymous – The Confession Of The Witches Of Elfdale
Dennis Wheatley – White And Black Magic
Dennis Wheatley – The Black Art And The Supernatural
Dennis Wheatley – The Witches’ Sabbath
Dennis Wheatley – The Black Mass
Dennis Wheatley – The Devil’s Secret Societies
Dennis Wheatley – Foretelling The Future
Anonymous – The Secret Grimoire Of Turiel |
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Post by dem bones on Aug 24, 2019 8:57:51 GMT
E. F. Benson - Gavon's Eve: ( Illustrated London News, 13. Jan. 1906: The Room in the Tower, 1912). Gavon's Loch, near Brora, Sutherland. Local farmer Sandy consults the scary village witch to find out what has become of his missing lover, Catrine Gordon. Mrs Macpherson performs a necromantic ritual over a slab in the ruins of the Pict's Castle. A beautiful corpse rises from the foaming waters .... The "Hugh" this time around is Hugh Graham. August Derleth - The Little Friend: ( Weird Tales, May 1948, as Saunder's Little Friend: For full-blown spoiler, see Not Long For This World). Set in London's East End. Grasping lawyer Rainleigh Saunder is persecuted to death by his late Aunt Agatha's hideous familiar. Don't look in the trunk!
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Post by dem bones on Aug 25, 2019 14:28:56 GMT
Algernon Blackwood (& Wilfred Wilson) - The Tarn Of Sacrifice: (The Wolves of God & Other Fey Stories, 1921). Lake District. The Blood Tarn takes its name from an episode during the conquest when three Roman captives - a priest, his daughter and her lover - were hurled to their deaths from the crag above. Holt, a hero of the Somme, is hiking the moorland when he meets a beautiful young woman who claims to have awaited his coming for a considerable time. Accella has even prepared a straw bed for him. Soon Holt is so overcome with love, lust and race memory that her father's determination to repeat the human sacrifice seems entirely reasonable ....
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 22, 2020 14:40:12 GMT
I used to have The Necromancers in paperback. Unusually, the cover of the original hardback edition is also as good as hell. I can't make it any smaller.  |
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Post by helrunar on Dec 22, 2020 15:31:12 GMT
Michael, that's gorgeous.
cheers, Hel
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Post by andydecker on Dec 22, 2020 17:05:44 GMT
The imagination of the artists of the time was wonderful. And Pan is sitting on his throne bringing illumination :-)
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 23, 2020 14:11:19 GMT
Is that a cat sat on Pan's head?
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Post by Swampirella on Dec 23, 2020 15:18:08 GMT
Is that a cat sat on Pan's head? It sure looks like it, but I'd say it was a candle. Or a cat-shaped candle. Or since it's Pan, a live cat with a lit wick stuck to it's head  |
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Post by Dr Strange on Dec 23, 2020 22:20:10 GMT
Is that a cat sat on Pan's head? It sure looks like it, but I'd say it was a candle. I think he's just had a good idea. Incidentally, the engraving is by Jan Ziarnko and is taken from Pierre de Lancre's book A Portrait of the Inconstancy of Witches (1612):  De Lancre was a French magistrate who conducted a witch hunt in Labourd in the Basque region of France in 1609. I'm pretty sure this image must have been one of the sources for Eliphas Levi's Baphomet, which is also notable for having a flaming torch between its horns. |
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Post by Michael Connolly on Dec 31, 2020 21:08:58 GMT
It sure looks like it, but I'd say it was a candle. I think he's just had a good idea. Incidentally, the engraving is by Jan Ziarnko and is taken from Pierre de Lancre's book A Portrait of the Inconstancy of Witches (1612): De Lancre was a French magistrate who conducted a witch hunt in Labourd in the Basque region of France in 1609. I'm pretty sure this image must have been one of the sources for Eliphas Levi's Baphomet, which is also notable for having a flaming torch between its horns. It still looks like a cat to me. |
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