The Book of Faustus

Alejandro Jodorowsky Explains the Tarot

The master of film himself offers wonderful insights into the meaning of the Tarot.

His magical masterpiece, The Holy Mountain, is now a cult classic…

Continue reading “Alejandro Jodorowsky Explains the Tarot”

Hijacking Satan, Church Propaganda in Medieval Florence

In the magnificent baptistery of the Duomo of Florence, there is a master work of the Infernal Majesty of Satan and the fallen angels, eagerly munching the tenderest parts of the damned. This may be one of the earliest artistic versions of Satan as the Pan-like devil we know Him as today.

This, and Marcovaldo’s other 13th century works incorporate a blend of Byzantine and Romanesque styles, popular in Tuscany in the time. But this image of Satan is something quite new, though old. These devils are a frightening hybrid of the Satyr and a more ancient god in Tuscany, Fufluns.

These pagan deities, whose domains were merriment, orgiastic revelries and having a good time in general, are now demonized to represent the downfall of sinners, and the mysterious fits of ecstasy of the Cult of Dionysis, only known by this time in rumors or works of Greek tragedy like Euripedes’ Bacchae, were now the Church’s tool of the imagination, used to keep the masses scared and afraid, and so obedient.

Continue reading “Hijacking Satan, Church Propaganda in Medieval Florence”

The VVitch as a Wes Anderson Movie

Hell is BADASS

Taking a quick look at some of the ghoulish and misshapen figures, you might think this is something by Hieronymus Bosch. It’s actually a commissioned religious piece by Master van Eyck. Take a moment to appreciate the horrors of the pits of Hell that this man painstakingly rendered in the smallest detail:

Death looms over the Abyss with bat-like wings. Note with delight the amount of clergymen you can spot by their headdresses or tonsured hair. Very gratifying.

Meanwhile, this motherfucker is wearing some sort of flesh-crown and smiling with painful glee, while his ghoulish, fanged belly devours the ass of some sinner, all the while triggering your deepest trypophobia.

Here a Lovecraftian child of Dagon is fighting with a bear monster over who is going to get wing or the thigh of the next sinner entree.

Yes, people of the ancient world had imaginations just as fucked up as we do today, as you can tell by these demonic creatures that would look right at home in a Hellraiser movie.

Young Witches in Britain, or The Golden Age of Witchcraft

Being a more “patriarchally” minded practitioner of magic, my opinion of Wicca has not always been a positive one. My rigid and narrow-minded Christian upbringing must have confined me to believing in a religion as valid, only if it had a mysterious and nebulous ancient origin. Wicca being a modern development (Thank you Mr Gardner), I took issue with what I perceived as artificial tradition.

I still don’t have much experience with Wicca apart from a bi-annual ritual gathering I attend, but I do appreciate it more now as I see it has inspired a new and growing revival of a modern brand of witchcraft. It is bringing young people back to nature, empowering women and the LGBT, and liberating society from the prison of the Church.

BBC Radio 1 released the short documentary below, interviewing five modern witches in Britain, who discuss the rising popularity of witchcraft in the West. We may truly be experiencing the dawn of a new Withcraft Revival, and that is definitely a good thing.

#witchesofinstagram

⚪ Full MoonMarch 2, 2018
☾ Last Quarter MoonMarch 9
⚫ New MoonMarch 17
Vernal Equinox (Spring)March 20, 2018
Mercury Retrograde BeginsMarch 23, 2018
⚪ Full MoonMarch 31, 2018

Rise up before dawn and you will find Saturn, Mars and Jupiter all lined up neatly in a row. I’ll be taking some pictures of them if I can wake myself up that early for once.

WTF: Queer Ghost Hunters

There’s something for everyone out there in TV land…

Weird Satanist Guy

Unfortunately after about three Sazeracs I become this guy.