berchtoldstag

The Alemannic holiday celebrated generally on this day in Liechtenstein and certain Swiss cantons and strongly associated with Rauhnächte traditions has contending etymologies and pedigrees including a late twelfth century abbot, a storied hunting expedition undertaken around the same time by a like-named duke or to the alpine pagan protectoress of wild things called Perchta (*Brehtaz, Bertha) and leader of the entourage of the hunting party. This final candidate is the most interesting and compelling, the figure a cultural continuity from pre-Christian influences and was given the role of upholding totem and taboo, reinforcing ritual fasting and the prohibition of working on the holidays, Sabbaths and monitoring the progress of servants and craftspeople to make sure that they were keeping up with the productivity quotas—later transferred to winnowing the naughty from the nice (see also) like her male counterpart Krampus—with the good and upstanding rewarded with a silver coin the next day in a shoe or pail and the recalcitrant would be eviscerated and have their innards and the contents of their bellies replaced with straw, flax and pebbles.

the stone tape theory

Adapted for television and first broadcast as a Christmas ghost story back in 1972, the eponymous play directed by Peter Sasdy and written by Thomas Nigel Kneale innovatively tempered horror with elements of scientific plausibility by a research and development team of an electronics firm that have occupied a recently renovated a reportedly haunted Victorian mansion as their new facility and begin collaborating on a new project in computer programming and finding a new format for recording digital media.
Once mysterious events begin happening including the death of one colleague, they conduct some research and interview locals to discover that an unsuccessful exorcism had taken place in the house in 1890. The chief researcher theorises that the apparition that frightened his colleague to death was not a ghost in the traditional sense but that the room, the exposed stone walls somehow psychically recorded that botched casting out spirits and tries to tease out the secret of triggering the playback mechanism and harness it for data storage, only to realise that successive tragedies record over one another. Since the broadcast, the hypothesis of residual hauntings and the “stone tape theory” have been adopted by parapsychological investigators.

your daily demon: orobas

Presenting as a horse and infernal patron of all things equine (see also), this spirit with the rank of prince rules the first segment of Capricorn, from today until 26 December and according to the Ars Goetia and other sources can be reliably invoked to suppress gossip and libellous speech and foretell the future. With an etymology possibly from a Latin word, orobias, for a sort of cedarwood incense, the demon makes an appearance in pop-culture properties including several video games and is paired with battle angel called Mehaiah under the archangel Haniel.

saint sebastian

Definitely the saint portrayed as the thirstiest, this captain of the Praetorian guard that prudently, sensibly hid his Christianity from Diocletian is venerated on this day in the Orthodox Church on the occasion of his martyrdom in 288, born around 256. Once his faith was revealed, the emperor (previously) ordered him lashed to a tree and shot with arrows. The firing squad departed, leaving Sebastian for dead, but he was able to miraculously recover—with the help of Saint Irene, widow of one of his previously martyred companions. Later Sebastian ambushed and berated Diocletian for his sinful ways and petitioned for better treatment for the Christian community. 

The emperor was first taken aback by such open and direct criticisms, especially from one who was supposed to be dead but soon regained his composure and ordered the saint to be cudgelled to death—probably not as pretty of a picture. Patron of the persecuted, archers and athletes, this Apollonian figure is also the protector of the plague stricken, due to a conflation with Hermes during medieval times, whom was said to deal diseased arrows from on high, and possibly because of his initial recovery which granted him a second martyrdom (called a sagittation and a fairly common theme) and that the wounds resembled the pox and buboes, whose appearance was alarming but not always a sign of certain death.

évêque de reims

Credited with prophesizing the invasion and saving a significant number of the city’s citizens—depending on one’s sources of either the Vandals in 407 or the Huns fifty years later—Bishop Nicasius (Nicaise) who established the first cathedral of Rheims lured the marauders to the church as the main repository of plunder, affording more people the chance to escape is venerated on this day. Along with some faithful companions, Nicasius was beheaded at the altar, his matyrdom grouping him with the cephalophores—head-bearers, praying as the ax came for him, reportedly from Psalm 119, finishing the verse after being decapitated and frightening the attackers into temporary retreat. Having earlier in his career, survived a bout of smallpox and attributing his recovery to piety and prayer, the Church made him patron and protector of the disease.

your (nearly) daily demon: caim

Presenting in the form of a thrush—disturbingly with arms and hands, this fifty-third spirit has the rank of infernal president—that is the presiding officer over a convocation and gives good counsel, dispelling sophistry and reveals the language of the birds, the apparition of glowing coals appearing under his feet if compelled to answer by a rendering of his sigil. Caim’s corresponding battle angel is a Principality called Nanael, called forth by reciting a certain Psalm but no elaboration as to whether or not his feet are held to the fire, however.

antiserum

On this date at the medical campus of the Collège de Paris in 1890, physiologist Charles Robert Richet (*1850 – †1935) successfully demonstrated that a form of passive immunity can be built up and fortified by a convalescent transfusion of monoclonal, polyclonal antibodies from a previous disease survivor. Informing the field that would come to be known as serotherapy (antidotes, antitoxins and antivenoms) and also applying this gradual exposure method to combat and lessen allergic reactions, Richet was awarded a Nobel prize in 1913 for his pioneering work in anaphylaxis and prevented countless deaths from our own over-zealous bodies. Richet, however, had other notions which were opposed to the rigorous science that he helped progress in his championing of eugenics and white supremacy and a life-long devotion to the paranormal, over the years coining the term ectoplasm as well as “sixth sense,” articulating what those abilities might be: telekinesis, mediumship, etc. Richet did not react well to be shown his study subjects were fraudulent.

your daily demon: furcas

Ruling portion of the infernal progression from today until 2 December and attaining uniquely among his cohort the rank of knight, this wizened man sat agee is the fiftieth in the calendar and can be summoned to dispense knowledge on things pertaining to rhetoric, according to the Ars Goetia, as well as chiromancy and pyromancy. Named after the Greco-Roman term for sepulchre, Furcas’ invocation is said to bring peace of mind and dispels anxiety.

your daily demon: crocel

Presenting generally in the form of an angel and ruling the first five degrees of Sagittarius—from today until the twenty-seventh of November, this infernal duke, summoned by the sigil here, is called upon for divining or dowsing (or more practically for plumbing matters) and is versed in the science of hydrotherapy, and can reveal springs and sources of thermal baths, according to the Ars Goetia. The forty-ninth in the calendar of demonology, Crocel commands forty-eight legions and can sew indecisiveness and confusion for one’s adversaries.

your daily demon: haagenti

Great president of the infernal realms, forty-eighth in the calendar of demi-weeks and ruling from this date until the twenty second (the twenty-ninth degree of Scorpio, this demon whom presents as a griffin is well-versed in the alchemical arts, hermetical magic according to the Ars Goetia and other sources, and can aid in and impart wisdom regarding the transmutation of baser metals into more precious ones and water into wine and for whom cats are sacred, preferring a more feline aspect when compelled by an exorcist to assume human form. 

 

your daily demon: vual

Ruling the twentieth to twenty-fourth degrees of Scorpio—corresponding from today until the seventeenth of November, we make the acquaintance of the infernal grand duke Vual that presents according to the Ars Goetia et al. as a great and terrible dromedary. 

This camel demon controls thirty-seven legions of spirits and is a master negotiator, both politically and in romance. Their sigil looks a bit like a single-humped desert wanderer.

your daily demon: bifrons

From the Latin for “two-faced” like Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings, transitions, borders and thresholds, the infernal earl who rules sixty legions of spirits and governs the second quadrant of Scorpio, is ascendant from the seventh through the twelfth of November. This demon according to the Ars Goetia and other sources imparts knowledge of herbs and the curative properties of precious stones and has the ability to shift the departed in their plots from one place to another.

your daily demon: vine

Ruling the tenth to fourteenth degrees of Scorpio—corresponding with today until the sixth of November is the infernal potentate called Vine, according to the Ars Goetia after Johann Weyer’s late sixteenth century hierarchy and expanded, elaborated by Aleister Crowley and illustrated by Jacques Collin de Plancy. Generally depicted as a noble lion on a black steed and holding a viper as a staff, the demon king can be compelled to assume human form and will give counsel on all the secrets of the past, present and future (quite the thorough opposition-researcher) and is invoked to reveal the presence of other spirits or practitioners of the diabolical arts and is attributed with the power of troubling the waters and tearing down walls.

tendencies for everybody

Via Strange Company, we learn that our preoccupation with royal births and impatience for the latest (or perhaps yet to come) gossip has informed the daily horoscope column.

As one shrewd editor found himself short on reporting with the birth of another grandchild of the monarch, the Sunday Express decided to engage celebrated astrologer R.H. Naylor (their second-choice after a mystic called Cheiro, after cheiromancy—that is palmistry—had to turn down the newspaper) to do a forecast for the yet-unborn Princess Margaret (†2002, appearing in print three days after her birth in August 1930—I surmise she was a Leo) and as it were tell her adventurous (the Queen’s younger sister lived up to these predictions vague and universally applicable as they were) life backwards and let her age into her fortune. Using the commission to develop his nascent technique of solar signs—that is a simplified method based on one’s birth and the house of the zodiac that the sun was in, Naylor was able to offer readers both a general personality assessment and a daily prognostication. After having predicted the crash of an airship, Naylor was criticised for failing to forecast World War II. His column nonetheless remained popular and spawned many imitators.

inkubo

Considered lost for decades only for a copy to re-emerge in 1996 in a film archive in Paris, the horror movie by Leslie Stevens with cinematography by Conrad Hall (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Cool Hand Luke, American Beauty), starring William Shatner and Milos Milos (*1941 – †1966, the titular incubus and in life the lover of the estranged wife of Mickey Rooney and died in a murder-suicide pact), had its debut on this day in 1966.

Months before Shatner would begin his work on a television series filled with other constructed languages including Klingon which has also become a fully-formed and informed language in its own right, this cinematic experiment was only the second wherein all dialogue was in Esperanto. Though dubbed versions were prohibited, the creator’s use of the auxiliary language was not to make a single cut for all international markets but rather to convey an atmosphere of other-worldliness—Esperanto speakers disappointed with representation of the language by the actors’ poor pronunciation and the script’s grammatical failings. The setting is a pilgrimage destination, a village called Nomen Tuum (“your name”) with an enchanted well that can heal and enhance one’s looks—attracting a rather vain and corrupt patronage that crowds out those legitimately ill. In turn demons are drawn to pander to those who would treat this miraculous place as a beauty parlour and recruit them for the side of darkness. First shown at the San Francisco Film Festival and screened to a group including those above Esperanto enthusiasts and the scandal of Milos prior to release, the only willing distributor was in France, which premiered the film in November. Watch the whole film here or see a clip below. >

clytemnestra

 

Drawn from Greek mythology, we enjoyed these sympathetic gods, heroes and monsters dealing with life under quarantine by artist and illustrator Jonathan Muroya. Interviewed by NPR for his series, Muroya admits that “Probably at my worst times I’m Jason on the couch in his Golden Fleece watching TV,” by contrast, “Probably at my best, maybe Persephone, just wanting to be outside.” We’re all doing our level best in these circumstances. At these times cooped up, isolated and anxious, what legendary figure can you most relate to? 

 

 

vitalienbrüder

Executed by means of a beheading that as capitial punishment goes was extraordinarily dramatic on this day in 1401 (*1360), Klaus Störtebeker (see previously for more of the lore) was the leader of a band of privateers—the Victual Brothers—engaged to supply Stockholm with provisions during a siege with Denmark.

Once their services were no longer needed after peace was achieved, they continued their piracy, adopting the new name for their group “Likedeelers”—the equal-sharers, maintaining a stronghold in East Frisia. Threatened with disruption to trade, a fleet of ships from Hanseatic Hamburg finally took on Störtebeker, double-crossed by a disgruntled mate who sabotaged his escape vessel, and brought the fugitive back to city to stand trial. Despite offers to exchange a gold band long enough to encircle Hamburg for the freedom of him and his crew, Störtebeker and seventy-three of his companions were sentenced to death for their crimes. The Lord Mayor did agree to acquises to one last request: that Störtebeker be beheaded first and that all men he could pass after decapitation would be spared. Störtebeker’s body rose (minus the head) and managed to walk past eleven crewmates before being tripped up. The Lord Mayor, however, did not honour those wishes.

the pharmacological merits of apotropaic magic

Just as drills for a zombie apocalypse is a useful heuristic for disaster-preparedness in general, so too are models of the inevitable vampiric saturation of run-away predation verses a more managed approach a tool for understanding contagion and immunity. Deferring to science, Dracula will always best our superstitions and folk-interventions.

valerie and her week of wonders

Debuting in theatres on this day in 1970, the cinematic adaptation by director Jaromil Jireš of the eponymous 1935 novel Valerie a týden divů from Czechoslovakian surrealist writer Vítězslav Nezval, the disorientating horror film is considered a pioneering part of the scene’s New Wave movement (see also). This exploration sexual awakenings through a vampiric lens blends in elements of classic folklore structure, including a talisman in the form of heirloom earrings, stolen, bartered-over and ultimately swallowed for protection. Below is the movie in its entirety dubbed into Italian and with English subtitles.

hocus potus

Just as the Twitterati has formed broad cliques reflective of larger social orders, WitchTok—the portmanteau of TikTok for practitioners of hexes and witchcraft—is a real and popular phenomenon reportedly and is being credited by some with infecting Trump with COVID-19.

While we don’t think that’s how magic works, we’ll certainly let them cast their spell and encourage more, seeing that that coven that claimed to curse Trump the night of the inauguration might need to check their work. Oh yes, and please vote—unless you want more of over-reliance on homeopathy essential oils and accusing ones neighbour of suffering a witch to live out of deep desperation as ones healthcare and jobs disappear.