#the gypsy handbook

[weepingpeaceearthquake]

Put an end to that toxic relationship. The collective is going through an upgrade and you can't afford to take this baggage with you.

[oonathefaewitch]

Hey so I'm a self-taught witch who practices independently and I was hoping to learn a little bit from others as well. Do you have any books/resources/people you recommend looking into?

Hi there!

I'm a self-taught witch as well and I'm still at the beginning of my journey, at the moment I'm yet to finish the big blue book Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft of which I'm also sharing the lessons (you can find tose posts in my archive here) so for now I can only really recommend that one, but I'm marking down all the recommendend supplementary redings at the end of every lesson if you wanna check them out!

I'm also reading a very interesting and complete book about tarot called Holistic Tarot which i really recommend, it's a bit expensive maybe but it's totally worth it

Other than that I can write down here the list of recommended reading at the end of the blue book (with extra books other than the ones already listed at the end of every lesson), I can't recommend those personally (even if I did buy some of them but I still have to read them) but I think they're worth a shot if you'd like to know more, I'll add the other two I mentioned above in the list, in any case if you find other books online read carefully all the reviews cause many books are not serious about this topic

Also I'm not sure but I think these books below are all from white people and mainly about white cultures (and most of them are very old), so If you (or anyone else) have some recommendations about other cultures' book about witchcraft or ancient traditions I'd be glad to know more about that too!

As for people and other resources, I follow some witches on Twitter that shares interesting stuff, it would be too long to link all of their profiles so I can give you directly the list of people I follow here

I hope you'll find this helpful~

Color Healng by Mary Anderson

Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Greece by Edward E. Jr Barthell

Crystal Gazing by Theodore Besterman

I-Ching: The Book of Changes by J. Blofeld

Primitive Song by C. M. Bowra

Gerald Gardner: Witch by J. L. Bracelin

The Lost Gods of England by Brian Branston

Development of Religion and Thought is Ancient Egypt by J. H. Breasted

Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft / Amazing Secrets of the Psychic World / Color Magick / Gypsy Dream Dictionary / A Pocket Guide to the Supernatural / Practical Candleburning Rituals / Scottish Witchcraft & Magick / The Tree: Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft / Wicca For Life / The Witch Book: Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, WIcca and Neopaganism / Witchcraft From the Inside by Raymond Buckland

The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries by Zsuzsanna Budapest

Amulets and Talismans by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge

Egyptian Language by Oxford University Press

How to Read the Aura, Practice Psychometry, Telepathy and Clairvoyance by W.E. Butler

Ancient Ways by Dan and Pauline Campanelli

Handbook of Unusual and Unorthodox Healing by J. V. Carney

Handbook of Bach Flower Remedies by Philip M. Chancellor

Color Therapy by Linda Clark

Precious Stones: Their Occult Power and Hidden Significance by W. B. Crow

Lid Off the Cauldron / The Witches Speak Athol by Patricia Crowther

Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper

Earth Power / Living Wicca / Magical Herbalism by Scott Cunningham

Practical Guide to Astral Projection by Melita Dennings and Osborne Phillips

The Silent Path by Michael Eastcott

Patterns of Comparative Religion / Rites and Symbols of Initiation - Birth and Rebirth by Mircea Eliade

The Dream Game by Ann Faraday

What Witches Do / Eight Sabbats For Witches / The Witches' Way by Janet and Stewart Farrar

Magical Rites From the Crystal Well by Ed Fitch

The Golden Bought by Sir James G. Frazer

The Wisdom of Pagan Philosophers by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy

Totem and Taboo by Sigmund Freud

Witchcraft Today / The Meaning of Witchcraft / High Magic's Aid / A Goddess Arrives by Gerald Gardner

Complete Herbal by Gerard

Stalking the Healthful Herbs by Euell Gibbons

Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense, and Us by Justine Glass

Seasonal Occult Rituals by William Gray

The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft by Rosemay Ellen Guiley

Ancient Art and Ritual Kessinger by Jane E. Harrison

Palmistry, the Whole View by Judith Hipskind

Myth and Ritual by S. H. Hooke

Witch: A Magickal Journey by Fiona Horne

The Runes and Other Magical Alphabets by Michael Howard

Witchcraft by Penethorne Hughes

Memories Dreams and Reflections by Carl G. Jung

Aradia, Gospel of the Witches of Italy by Charles Godfrey Laland

Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion / Gogmagog - the Buried Gods by T. C. Lethbridge

Healing For Everyone by E. Loomis and J. Paulson

Numerology by Vincent Lopez

Commond and Uncommond Uses of Herbs of Healthful Living by Richard Lucas

The Herb Book by John Lust

Pagan Parenting by Kristin Madden

Witta: An Irish Pagan Tradition by Edain McCoy

The Principles and Practice of Radiesthesia by Abbè Mermet

The Hearbalist by J. E. Meyer

The Craft by Dorothy Morrison

Green Witchcraft series by Ann Aoumiel Moura

Sexual Occultism by John Mumford

The Family Wicca Book by Ashleen O'Gaea

Reclaim the Power of the Witch by Monte Plaisance

Potter's New Cyclopedia of Botanical Drugs and Preparations by R. C. Potter

How to Make and Use Talismans / The Art of True Healing by Israel Regardie

The Seventh Sense by Kenneth Roberts

High Magic's Aid by Scire

The Book of Charms and Alisman by Sepharial

The Spiral Dance by Starhawk

The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion L. Starkey

Medical Palmistry by Marten Steinbach

Is This Your Day? by George S. Thommen

Magic and Healing by C. J. S. Thompson

Where Witchcraft Lives / An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present / Witchcraft For Tomorrow by Doreen Valiente

The Rites of Passage by Arnold Van Gennep

Herbal Manual by H. Ward

Holistic Tarot by Benebell Wen

The I-Ching by R. Wilhelm

The Christians As the Romans Saw Them by Robert L. Wilken

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Wicca and Witchcraft by Denise Zimmermann and Katherine A. Gleason

[theoutcastrogue]

“The Feud” (1926), by Federico García Lorca

Fight with Cudgels (c. 1820–1823), one of Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings.

Halfway down the gorge knives of Albacete, beautiful with enemy blood, shine like fish. In the sour green a hard light of a card cuts out enraged horses and profiles of riders. Two old women cry in an olive tree. The bull of the feud climbs right up the walls. Black angels were bringing handkerchiefs and snow water; angels with big wings of Albacete knives. Juan Antonio de Montilla rolls dead down the slope, his body full of irises, a pomegranate in his temples. Now he rides a cross of fire down the road of death.

               *

Through the olive groves come judge and Civil Guard. The sliding blood is moaning the mute song of a snake. Civil Guardsmen, Sirs, it’s the same as always: four Romans are dead and five Carthaginians.

               *

The afternoon, grown wild with figs and hot murmurs swoons and falls into the rider’s wounded thighs. And black angels were soaring through the western sky. Angels with long tresses and hearts of olive oil.

Atropos, or The Fates (c. 1820–1823), one of Francisco Goya’s Black Paintings.

Notes

Reyerta / The Feud. Ms. dated August 6, 1926. Sent to Guillén the following month (EC 573–74) with the title “Reyerta de mozos” (Brawl [Feud, Dispute] between Young Men). Published in La Verdad (Murcia) on October 10, 1926; and, with the title “Reyerta gitana” (Gypsy Brawl), in the Catalan literary magazine L’Amic de les Arts, June 1927. [N.B. In 1928 the poem was included in Lorca’s seminal collection Romancero gitano.]

According to Lorca, this poem is an image of random violence, expressing “a silent, latent struggle all over Andalusia and Spain among groups that attack each other without knowing why, for mysterious reasons: because of a look, a rose, a love affair two centuries old, or because a man suddenly feels a bug on his cheek”. Richard Ford in A Handbook for Travelers in Spain (1855) marvels that “where an unarmed Englishman closes his fist, a Spaniard opens his knife. Man, again, in this hot climate, is very inflammable and combustible; a small spark explodes the dry powder, which ignites less readily in damp England.” Derek Harris believes that the reference to playing cards in line 6 “indicates a reason for the fight while the verb recortar [cut out] indicates that the horses and the horsemen of lines 7–8 are in silhouette.” Robert G. Harvard points out that “cards depict motifs in profile, and the equivalent of a jack in Spanish cards is a horse and rider.” Lines 29–30 bring out the enduring nature of the violence, referring not only to the Punic Wars for the possession of Spain but also, ironically, to classroom competition among Spanish children. In some schools, particularly Jesuit ones, the class was divided into competing teams, the “Romans” and the “Carthaginians”. 2: Albacete: town between Madrid and Valencia famed for its navajas, with long blades that fold back into a handle.

Navaja, Spain, probably Albacete, 19th century [x]

[Translation by Will Kirkland and Christopher Maurer, notes by Christopher Maurer. From Federico García Lorca: Selected Verse (Revised Bilingual Edition, Macmillan, 2003). You can read the poem in the original Spanish below the cut.]

Reyerta

En la mitad del barranco las navajas de Albacete, bellas de sangre contraria, relucen como los peces. Una dura luz de naipe recorta en el agrio verde, caballos enfurecidos y perfiles de jinetes. En la copa de un olivo lloran dos viejas mujeres. El toro de la reyerta se sube por las paredes. Ángeles negros traían pañuelos y agua de nieve. Ángeles con grandes alas de navajas de Albacete. Juan Antonio el de Montilla rueda muerto la pendiente, su cuerpo lleno de lirios y una granada en las sienes. Ahora monta cruz de fuego, carretera de la muerte.

               *

El juez, con guardia civil, por los olivares viene. Sangre resbalada gime muda canción de serpiente. Señores guardias civiles: aquí pasó lo de siempre. Han muerto cuatro romanos y cinco cartagineses.

               *

La tarde loca de higueras y de rumores calientes cae desmayada en los muslos heridos de los jinetes. Y ángeles negros volaban por el aire del poniente. Ángeles de largas trenzas y corazones de aceite.

[newyorksportstours]

NYC Public Library - Favorite NYC History Books

The NYPL Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy recommends our favorite, most readable, most memorable New York City nonfiction. These are the true stories of New York that engaged us, that intrigued us, and that we thought you might like to read as well.

97 Orchard: An Edible History Of Five Immigrant Families In One New York Tenement

Jane Ziegelman

Explores the culinary life that was the heart and soul of New York’s Lower East Side around the turn of the twentieth century—a city within a city, where Germans, Irish, Italians, and Eastern European Jews attempted to forge a new life. Through the experiences of five families, all of them residents of 97 Orchard Street, she takes readers on a vivid and unforgettable tour, from impossibly cramped tenement apartments down dimly lit stairwells where children played and neighbors socialized, beyond the front stoops where immigrant housewives found respite and company, and out into the hubbub of the dirty, teeming streets.

Staff says: “Food history and New York seamlessly woven together in a easy-to-read yet meticulously well researched book. I learned not only about the foods that certain immigrants ate, but how this changed over time, how Americans viewed ‘foreign’ cuisines over many different eras, and how this was a description of New York history and not just a reflection of imported appetites.”

American Passage: The History Of Ellis Island

Vincent J. Cannato

A chronicle of the landmark port of entry’s history documents its role as an execution site, immigration post, and deportation center that was profoundly shaped by evolving politics and ideologies.

Staff says: “The history of the island and the immigration station, and also of immigration policies in NY and the US. This book is well researched, scholarly and a very easy read. If you only read one book on Ellis Island, then this is it!”

The Battle For New York: The City At The Heart Of The American Revolution

Barnet Schecter

Provides a dramatic account of the seminal role played by New York City during the American Revolution, from its September 1776 fall to the British under General William Howe, through years of occupation, and beyond, interweaving illuminating profiles of the individuals on both sides of the conflict with a study of the cultural, political, social, and economic events of the eighteenth century.

Staff says:“It sticks in the mind, especially for the quality of the research and the tour of today’s New York in light of the events of history.”

The Big Oyster: History On The Half Shell

Mark Kurlansky

For centuries New York was famous for its oysters, which until the early 1900s played such a dominant a role in the city’s economy, gastronomy, and ecology that the abundant bivalves were Gotham’s most celebrated export, a staple food for the wealthy, the poor, and tourists alike, and the primary natural defense against pollution for the city’s congested waterways.

Staff says: “Lots of good NYC history in there along with the fascinating world of food history and bivalve science.”

Dark Harbor: The War For The New York Waterfront

Nathan Ward

Traces the historical influence of the Mafia on New York’s waterfront, drawing on the investigative series of New York Sun reporter Malcolm “Mike” Johnson into the region’s racketeering, violent territorial disputes, and union corruption.

Staff says: “The real story behind the film On the Waterfront. I also get annoyed when films are historically inaccurate for the sake of plot, ending, etc when the truth is probably just as exciting: see Bridge On The River Kwai. Well researched, and exciting.”

The Great Bridge: The Epic Story Of The Building Of The Brooklyn Bridge

David McCullough

Evaluates the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge as the greatest engineering triumph of its time, citing the pivotal contributions of chief engineer Washington Roebling and the technical problems and political corruption that challenged the project.

Staff says: “A favorite that everyone knows for good reason!”

Eat The City: A Tale Of The Fishers, Trappers, Hunters, Foragers, Slaughterers, Butchers, Farmers, Poultry Minders, Sugar Refiners, Cane Cutters, Beekeepers, Winemakers, And Brewers Who Built New York

Robin Shulman

Traces the experiences of New Yorkers who grow and produce food in bustling city environments, placing urban food production in a context of hundreds of years of history to explain the changing abilities of cities to feed people.

Staff says: “This interesting collection of micro histories tells the story of such New York food industries as beekeeping, fishing, urban farming, brewing, winemaking, and butchering. The author profiles people currently involved in each industry and then traces the origin, rise, usual fall, and then resurgence of that field. It was fascinating to learn about the methods of the different food industries within the unique environment of New York City.”

Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, And Became The World’s Most Notorious Slum

Tyler Anbinder

Details the notorious neighborhood that was once filled with gaming dens, bordellos, dirty streets, and tenements, that welcomed such visitors as Charles Dickens and Abraham Lincoln, and brings to light the hidden world that existed beneath the squalor—a world that invented tap dancing and hosted the prize-fight of the century.

Staff says: “An accessible and broad work looking at the notorious downtown slum’s population and sociology.”

The Island at the Center of the World: the Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America

Russell Shorto

A history of the Dutch role in the establishment of Manhattan discusses the rivalry between England and the Dutch Republic, focusing on the power struggle between Holland governor Peter Stuyvesant and politician Adriaen van der Donck that shaped New York’s culture and social freedoms.

Staff says: “The book is well-researched, the stories are well-told, and it will flesh out that point of history that most people only remember as song lyrics: 'Even old New York was once New Amsterdam…’”

Just Kids

Patti Smith

In this memoir, singer-songwriter Patti Smith shares tales of New York City: the denizens of Max’s Kansas City, the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner’s, Brentano’s and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with a young man named Robert Mapplethorpe—the man who changed her life with his love, friendship, and genius.

Staff says: “I rather enjoyed the descriptions of Patti and Robert are discovering New York, especially Brooklyn, together. She writes prose like a poet, with detail and care and without an overabundance of imprecise words.”

Ladies And Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, And The Battle For The Soul Of A City

Jonathan Mahler

A kaleidoscopic portrait of New York City in 1977, The Bronx Is Burning is the story of two epic battles: the fight between Yankee Reggie Jackson and team manager Billy Martin, and the battle between Mario Cuomo and Ed Koch for the city’s mayorship. Buried beneath these parallel conflicts—one for the soul of baseball, the other for the soul of the city—was the subtext of race.

Staff says: “During the 1977 World Series, Howard Cosell really did say "Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is burning” as flames licked up in the distance from Yankee Stadium. 1977 was the crux of the “bad ol’ days” of New York City—white flight had taken its toll; unemployment was outrageous for everyone, but close to 80% for young blacks and hispanics; infrastructure was in disrepair; crime was outrageous. This was the New York that inspired movies like “Death Wish” and “The Warriors.” NYC had bottomed out in 1977 and this is the history of that fateful year.“

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York

Luc Sante

Luc Sante’s Low Life is a portrait of America’s greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city’s slums; the teeming streets—scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape.

Staff says: "This book sparked an interest in shady urban histories for me. Now that I know a lot more about the city and the context of the time frame, I even read it again. Fun, even if sensationalistic.”

Native New Yorkers: The Legacy of the Algonquin people of New York

Evan T. Pritchard

A comprehensive and fascinating account of the graceful Algonquin civilization that once flourished in the area that is now New York.

Staff says: “New York history from the Native point of view, and it will make you confront every sentimental myth you may have heard before. Everyone should read it.”

The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York

Deborah Blum

The story of how poison rocked Jazz Age New York City. A pair of forensic scientists began their trailblazing chemical detective work, fighting to end an era when untraceable poisons offered an easy path to the perfect crime.

Staff says: “Absolutely fascinating. I was surprised when I found myself at the end already. Unlike a modern forensic science drama on TV, the chemistry is all there—yet still readable and interesting. The era (late 1910s-mid 1930s) and setting are both equally captivating. So many times I thought I knew something that I clearly didn"t. This book taught me tons and still read quickly like a mystery novel, only the mysteries were all actual cases and hence more interesting than usual literary invention.”

Up in the Old Hotel

Joseph Mitchell

Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould’s Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style.

Staff says: “Mitchell, in an incredibly vivid writing style, tells the tales of some of the people he met in NYC in the '20s - '50s. The people are the history of New York.”

Source: NYPL’s Favorite NYC History Books

[utexaspress]

Remembering Lhasa de Sela

By Fred Goodman

The singular, otherworldly American singer Lhasa de Sela—who wrote and recorded in Spanish, French, and English and performed songs in nearly a dozen other languages—would have turned forty-seven on September 27. A spiritual and artistic pilgrim, she possessed an insatiable hunger for knowledge and left behind a musical legacy culled from her unique affinity for the romantic, mystic, and cerebral. Beginning with her first album in 1997, Lhasa’s multilingual songs and her spellbinding shows made the singer-songwriter a sensation in Montreal and Europe. But even today, nearly ten years after her death, her work and individuality have yet to register with listeners in her homeland. Contradictory and complex, Lhasa was both a naïf and a melancholic, a pixie with an enduring apprehension of life’s hardships as well as its magic. In the course of a heartbreakingly brief career of just thirteen years and three albums, she worked her own musical turf, part Edith Piaf, part Tinkerbell. She came by her artistic and spiritual wanderlust honestly. Raised in a family of bohemian nomads, Lhasa was born in an unused Catskills Mountains ski chalet in Big Indian, New York, twenty-five miles northwest of Woodstock. The attending hippie doctor, shirtless and in overalls, focused most of his medical supervision on splitting a gallon of Gallo burgundy with the expectant mother. Beautiful and healthy, the as-yet unnamed baby was wrapped in a blanket; with no cradle to hand, she slept in a dresser drawer. Her peripatetic life began just a few days later, when the family was kicked out of Big Indian and set off for Mexico. But it wasn’t until five months later that her parents finally found a name they felt suited their new daughter. Having read Timothy Leary’s popular handbook on LSD, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the couple then tackled the original Buddhist tome that had inspired Leary. Along with providing a spiritual guide to navigating bardo, the state in which a Buddhist’s consciousness sits suspended between death and rebirth, the book told of the holy city of Lhasa, built high on the Tibetan plateau. The name means “place of the gods,” and somehow, those rarified heights and aspirations felt like an appropriate christening and wish. “They were incapable of having a middle-class life,” Lhasa de Sela would say years later when asked about her mother and father. “Their parents were well-off, but they were the black sheep of their families. They took a lot of hallucinogenic drugs and took incredible risks.” Raised in a converted school bus crossing back and forth between Mexico and the United States, Lhasa and her three sisters were homeschooled and grew up without a telephone or television. And while their parents rejected the bulk of mainstream America’s material and social assumptions, they were fierce about instilling in their children an unquenchable curiosity, a deep devotion to spiritual and intellectual advancement, and the veneration of creativity. “What was really passed to us in the way we were raised is that life is an interior search,” says her sister Miriam. “A lot of soul-searching and trying to be truthful to your intuition. And in a very vague way trying to trust something that’s invisible. I would have to say that was a huge part of Lhasa’s life: constant self-searching.” That spiritual and intellectual search would, in turn, illuminate her writings and performances. An exhilarating childhood, it was also a life of uncertainty, isolated and lived without nets. The month that Lhasa turned eight, she was living in a broken-down bus behind an Exxon station in Elk Grove, California. Her father was picking melons by day and rebuilding a replacement engine salvaged from a junkyard by night; Lhasa and her sisters studied with their mother in the mornings and worked gathering tomatoes in the afternoons. On her birthday, there was a Raggedy Ann party in the bus; Lhasa’s mother made a doll, her sisters crafted a piñata, and friends provided a Raggedy Ann cake. As an adult, Lhasa would tag it her most memorable birthday. Though lived close to the bone, that unorthodox upbringing proved a petri dish for nurturing a family of extraordinarily focused iconoclasts and autodidacts. Lhasa’s sisters would go on to careers as circus performers—a tightrope walker, a trapeze artist, and a gymnast—with Lhasa at one point taking a break from her own career to join their circus troupe in France. A loner at heart, Lhasa would always remain somewhat estranged from society at large; her unusual upbringing and the lessons imparted by her parents—particularly, that life is an adventure not to be missed—left her unable to fathom the lack of curiosity and discipline in so many of the people she met. “She kind of fit in everywhere but also nowhere,” says her half-brother, Mischa Karam. At the age of twelve, Lhasa heard Billie Holiday for the first time and became obsessed with transforming herself into a singer. A move at nineteen to Montreal, with its thriving dual French and English music scenes, broadened her perspective. Lhasa’s unique ability to incorporate whatever came her way, forged in that unlikely, supercharged childhood, would lead her as a musician to make use of anything she deemed moving and meaningful, from Gypsy music to Mexican rancheras, Americana, jazz and fado, chanson française and South American folk melodies. She had an eye for the authentic, an unfailing ear for the heartfelt. Though she was likely this country’s first world music chanteuse, Lhasa nonetheless remains virtually unknown in the United States. In recent years, reggaetón and Spanglish pop hits such as “Despacito” have worked their way into America’s pop lexicon, but that wasn’t the case twenty-odd years ago, when Lhasa released her first album, the all-Spanish La Llorona. A musical séance calling up ghosts from a long-lost world of legend and romance, the album became a bestseller in Canada and made her a star in France and much of Europe but never registered here. Her trilingual second album, The Living Road, was one of the United Kingdom’s most critically lauded albums of 2003, and critics there acclaimed Lhasa “a multilingual global diva.” Her continuing American anonymity feels inexplicable. “The language really did not make any difference,” observed the Canadian music journalist Nicholas Jennings. “What she was putting forth transcended language, she was such an intense performer. She had all the depth of emotion of an actress or an opera singer. You couldn’t take your eyes off her.” As ambitious as she was artistic, Lhasa had set her eyes on conquering the United States. She didn’t imagine her time was running short. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, Lhasa nonetheless continued to plot an American tour while writing and recording her only all-English album, 2009’s Lhasa. But for Lhasa, America would prove a dream that has yet to come to fruition: she died at her home in Montreal on New Year’s Day, 2010, at the age of thirty-seven. About the author: Fred Goodman is a former editor at Rolling Stone whose work has appeared in the New York Times and many magazines. His previous books include the award-winning The Mansion on the Hill: Dylan, Young, Geffen, Springsteen, and the Head-on Collision of Rock and Commerce. Spotify Playlist | YouTube Playlist

[neworleansvoudou]

If getting exclusive ebooks, articles and downloads about hoodoo, conjure, rootwork and witchcraft sounds good to you, my Conjure Club is just the ticket! Soon we will have an interactive forum and access to Crossroads University's Magick Spell Bank at the new Crossroads University website, where Conjure Club will soon be housed. 🌟🌟🌟 How it Works: 1. One exclusive download every 9 days for one whole year 2. Special interactive forum for club members 3. One whole year membership 4. Bonus downloads. 5. Access to me for questions about any of the download topics 6. Discounts on products related to the downloads at creolemoon.com 6. Members receive a copy of the 400 page Anthology of Conjure at the very end of the year. 🌟🌟🌟 What kind of titles do you have? 95% of the ebooks and documents.you receive were authored by me. They are exclusive to Conjure Club and most are unavailable elsewhere. I write about things not often if ever published. I share how we do things in my generation (b. 1960). I also show how our older practices can be adapted to modern times. The other content consists of authorized excerpts from other authors of their books and public domain works that are related to hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, and witchcraft. 🌟🌟🌟 Some titles include:Formulas for Enhancing Dreams, Divination, Psychic Development and Prophecy,10 Old-style Hoodoo Powder Formulas, Astrological Formulary, Biblical Formulary, Spirit Spotlight: Al Anima Sola, The Use of Tide Water in Hoodoo and Conjure, Working with the Saints in the New Orleans Hoodoo Tradition, Working with St. Anthony of Padua, Hyssop: The Holy Herb and Its Uses, Folk Remedies of Southern Louisiana, Fabulous Spring Magic Money Hand, The Sacramentals of Saint Raymond, Crossroads Mama’s 105 Spiritual Baths for Every Occasion, Workin’ in da Boneyard, Gypsy Wisdom Spells, Charms and Folklore,Day of the Dead Handbook,Fortune Telling with Playing Cards,The Big Book of Mystical Chants and Prayers,New Orleans Gris Gris, Prayers to the Saints and Spirits,Herbal Tea Remedies 🌟🌟🌟Wont you join us? Visit creolemoon.com for details! #conjureclub #hoodoo #conjure witchcraft #rootwork #neworleansvoodoo (at Saint Johns, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cgvg1lNutW-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[marvelman901]

Skein, AKA Gypsy Moth (Sybil Dvorak). . She started off as a villain against Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew)... . Published in All-New Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z 10 (2006). Art by Jean Jacques Dzialowski, Al Milgrom and Sandy Plunkett. . #marvel #gypsymoth #spiderwoman #supervillain #skein #comics #00s #sandyplunkett #jeanjacquesdzialowski #almilgrom https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc05P6qMKDg/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[weepingpeaceearthquake]

Remember trauma can keep you at the age you experienced it at. So many people are exactly the age where their hurt came from.

[murroyilodel]

Photo: The Choir and Congregation, Jesuit High School; Portland, OR

We at Disney Theatrical Productions took what we learned from the world premiere productions, as well as various high school pilots, to craft a guidebook for creating your own vision of the show.

I’m reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame Production Handbook, and I keep coming across all these gems:

On lines and casting

Given that this musical was created for adult performers and audiences, these alternatives to explicit content are approved for high school productions without the need to consult with your licensing representative at Music Theatre International (MTI):

p.4 – CUT FLORIKA: “I can see you want to. I can see it in your eyes. Oh – I can feel it too!”

Similarly, to achieve a wider range of opportunity and representation in this story for your female performers, you may choose to cast a female actor to play Clopin. If you decide to do so, you are permitted to change the character’s gender, including altering the following:

p. 20 – ALT CONGREGANTS: “Queen of the Gypsies”

p. 27 – ALT ESMERALDA: “… at following rules, mademoiselle.”

Any relevant pronouns

On representation

While many theaters today are working toward better representation of racial diversity in their casting, the largest minority group in the U.S. is still mostly ignored: In 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 53 million adults in the U.S. were living with a disability. When casting your production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, consider actors and singers whose abilities will allow them to excel at the roles they are assigned, regardless of their physical appearance or likeness to a preconceived notion of the character.

“Have an open mind and heart. This musical is really perfect to show representation of different classes and levels. I encourage theaters to look at any persons with disabilities; it’s worth it to take the risk. If you don’t, you won’t know how successful it could be.” — John McGinty, deaf actor; Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame at Sacramento Music Circus & La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts

On sets

I would encourage directors to use their imaginations. We tried to do the show with as little as possible; you don’t need bells, a rose window, candles, or swords to tell this story. What you need is people and your imagination to tell it, so that the audience both sees a wonderful production and imagines it for themselves. The Hunchback of Notre Dame asks the audience to be a part of the action in a way that a lot of shows don’t. It’s a show that can be done on virtually any budget – you could probably do it with just a couple chairs and nothing else. That’s the joy of this piece because the writing and the story by Victor Hugo are so rich. — Scott Schwartz, director of the world premiere co-productions at Paper Mill Playhouse and La Jolla Playhouse

On props

Basket with bread & strawberry (12-14) – The bread can be a stage prop but the strawberry should be real so that Quasimodo can devour it onstage.

Swords (22, 62, etc.) – Phoebus will need a sword on his person throughout, as will the Soldiers for the fight in Scene 9 of the first act. Purchase plastic swords from a costume shop or, to more closely hew to story theater style, simple wooden dowels will do nicely. To keep your actors safe in their swordplay, see Stage Combat Tips on p. 61 of this handbook.

Tomato & other fruit (30) – Your actors can feign throwing “fruit” while Quasimodo reacts as though he’s been hit. This will keep everyone safe and will adhere to the story theater style.

Knife (38, 62) – To ensure your performers’ safety, purchase a rubber stage knife for Esmeralda.

On costumes

Quasimodo: It’s unlikely that Frollo gives Quasimodo new attire often, so be sure to distress the isolated bell-ringer’s clothing so that it looks well-worn. A basic belted tunic paired with pants and boots will work well, and perhaps a hooded cloak for when he ventures from the cathedral. If Frollo is dressed starkly in a dark robe, consider a contrasting color palette of warm earth tones for his charge. A hump can be sewn easily into his costume, or stuff a small lightweight backpack that your actor can wear underneath his tunic. Alternatively, forego a costume piece and let your actor’s movement and posture create his titular back.

I’ll write more if anyone is interested! :D

[pkstudiosindia]

Next-gen Maruti Suzuki Gypsy Rendered Based On Jimny – India Car News

Featured Post in Automobile Genie dot com - Automobile Genie

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We reported earlier that Maruti Suzuki is readying the 5-door Jimny off-roader for the Indian market. This mannequin will change the long-lasting Gypsy SUV, which is now not out there commercially. The firm has already began assembling the three-door Jimny at its Gurgaon platform for the export markets.

Maruti Suzuki is anticipated to start out growing the Jimny utilizing regionally sourced parts from the mid-2021. The 3-door mannequin may be launched within the Indian market in 2021. However, the 5-door Suzuki Jimny will arrive in 2022-23. The new mannequin will tackle the newly launched second-gen Mahindra Thar, which has been receiving overwhelming response from consumers.

Mightyseed has launched photos of the subsequent-gen Maruti Gypsy neo-traditional. The rendering exhibits a cool and rugged wanting modern-day Gypsy. Upfront is a round headlamps and 5-slot grille that resembles the outdated mannequin. Other design highlights embrace flared wheel arches, flat hood, silver skid plate and twin-tone bumper.

The subsequent-gen Maruti Suzuki Gypsy rendering retains the compact wheelbase, which performs an essential function in making the brand new Jimny a succesful mini off-roader. This two-seater life-style choose-up affords first rate load bay, flared wheel arches with massive alloy wheels and off-street tyres and interesting rear profile with tapered beneath-physique. At the again, the rendering options LED tail-lights, tailgate mounted spare wheel and silver skid plate.

For folks not within the know, Maruti Suzuki had showcased the three-door Jimny mini off-roader on the 2020 Auto Expo. The new mannequin relies on the ladder-on-body chassis with 4WD system as normal. Under the bonnet is a 1.5-litre K15B petrol engine that’s able to producing 100bhp of energy and 130Nm of torque. Transmission selections embrace a 5-velocity handbook and a 4-velocity torque convertor computerized.

The new mannequin is supplied with modern-day consolation and comfort options like touchscreen infotainment system with smartphone connectivity, computerized AC, keyless entry, engine begin-cease button and computerized headlamps. The SUV additionally will get twin-entrance airbags, ABS with EBD, brake help, ESP, ahead braking help and hill begin help options.

Source

Next-gen Maruti Suzuki Gypsy Rendered Based On Jimny

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[rhianna]

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves, by 'A Highland Seer'

It is somewhat curious that among the great number of books on occult science and all forms of divination which have been published in the English language there should be none dealing exclusively with the Tea-cup Reading and the Art of Telling Fortunes by the Tea-leaves: notwithstanding that it is one of the most common forms of divination practised by the peasants of Scotland and by village fortune-tellers in all parts of this country. In many of the cheaper handbooks to Fortune-telling by Cards or in other ways only brief references to the Tea-cup method are given; but only too evidently by writers who are merely acquainted with it by hearsay and have not made a study of it for themselves.

This is probably because the Reading of the Tea-cups affords but little opportunity to the Seer of extracting money from credulous folk; a reason why it was never adopted by the gypsy soothsayers, who preferred the more obviously lucrative methods of crossing the palm with gold or silver, or of charging a fee for manipulating a pack of playing-cards.

[louisajaneauston]

Foraging Wild Garlic

I am blogging a foraging a wild herb profile every month throughout the year & listing what is available to for the current month in the UK. Please be careful when foraging and refer to a guide book. My favourites are Food for Free by Richard Mabey, River Cottage Handbook no.7 Hedgerow by John Wright & The Thrifty Forager by Alys Fowler. Also be aware not to over forage as you need to leave enough food for the wildlife.

Wild Garlic Allium Ursinum from the liliaceae family

Folk Names: Bear’s Garlic, Bear’s Leek, Broad Leaved Garlic, Buckrams, Devil’s Garlic, Gypsy’s Onions, Moly, Ransoms, Ramp, Ramps, Ramsons, Roman Garlic, Stinkers, Stinking Jenny , Wood Garlic.

Appearance & habitat: Wild Garlic is a tall hairless perennial plant which grows in large numbers in damp, acidic soils in shaded deciduous woods/forests in most parts of Europe, Northern Asia & Northern America. Leaves can be harvested in January (if it is mild).

The leaves are broad, elliptical, shiny, spear-like and can grow up to 25cm long. The stem is long and triangular shaped. The flowers are white, star shaped, in a round umbel with 8-12 segments. The plant gives off a sweetly pungent, strong garlic scent and tastes more like chives, and gentler than conventional garlic. They tend to flower before trees  get their leaves in April to June, and this is what gives off the yeasty-garlicy smell that is a giveaway sign of wild garlic. The leaves are very similar to Lilly-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis), Autumn Crocus (Colchicum autumnale) and Wild Arum (Arum maculatum) which are extremely poisonous so do take caution, only pick if it smells of garlic when crushed.

Culinary uses: Wild Garlic leaves can be substituted for garlic or spring onions, can be treated like spinach in eaten raw in salads, sandwiches, combined into sauces, butter, mayonnaise, dressings, soups, stews, omelettes, stir-fries, risotto, makes a fantastic pesto (see recipe) and can be boiled as a vegetable. Add it towards the end of cooking to preserve freshness. The leaves can be used as a wrap and compliments tomatoes. The bulb can also be eaten raw but digging up wild plants is not good for wildlife, the bulb is very small so is hardly worth the effort. The flowers can also be eaten  as seed pods or flowers.

Nutrition & Benefits: Wild Garlic is rich in iron, vitamin C, vitamin A, manganese, copper, magnesium, traces of Selenium,  antioxidants, Aallicin, Adenosine. Traditionally used as a spring tonic, to cleanse the blood and boost the immune system.  It is beneficial for rheumatism, reducing high blood pressure and blood cholesterol levels, asthma, emphysema, digestive problems and cleansing the blood.  It has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties that protect against free radicals. The juice can be used as a household disinfectant but I wouldn’t advise this because of the odour it gives off. The juice is good for weight loss and applied as a poultice to areas of rheumatic pain, arthritic joints, boils and abscesses. It increases the blood circulation locally.

History & Folklore: Wild Garlic is an indicator of ancient woodland and has been eaten for thousands of years. The first use of wild garlic can be traced to the Mesolithic period in Denmark from a archeoligical find, and to Neolithioc settlement, Thayngen-Weier  in Switzerland, where there is a high concentration of pollen within the layer of the settlement.

The vernacular name Ramsons is from Anglo Saxon Old English Hramsa and Ramsey in Essex and Ramdale in Lincolnshire are places which take their name from the plant. Hramsa means Rank derived from the butter and milk of cow which have eaten Ramsons to be bitter or rank. Ramsdale derives from the Norse name Raumsdalr, meaning Valley of the River Rauma in Oppland and Møre og Romsdal in Norway. “Raum the Old”, son of King Nor is the legendary founder of Norway who is linked to the Raumi tribe.  It was grown in monastic gardens as food according to an account from the 16th century.

According to Essex folklore, the allium family is one of the most useful plants in curing illnesses. Aubrey 1847 “Eat Leekes in March and ramsons in May And all the year after physicians may play”

It is known as Bear’s garlic/leek in Europe as brown bears where partial to digging up and eating  the bulbs when they awoke from hibernation.

Recipe for Wild Garlic Pesto

100g Wild Garlic leaves

50g Parmesan cheese

50g toasted pine nuts

2 tablespoons olive oil

Lemon juice squeezed from half a lemon

Salt & pepper

Wash the leaves thoroughly and roughly chop with scissors. Pulse the pine nuts for a few seconds in a food processor, then add the leaves, olive oil & parmesan. Add lemon juice, salt & pepper to taste, if the pesto needs to be thinned add more oil.

 Plants you may expect to find in June;

Borage leaves & flowers, Bellflower flowers, Bittercress, Brooklime, Broom, Common Chickweed, Common Fig, Common Mallow leaves, Common Orache, Common Sorrel, Darwin’s Barberry berries, Elderflower, Fairy-ring Champignon, Fat Hen, Fennel, Garlic Mustard, Garden Orache, Good King Henry, Gooseberry, Hastate Orache, Hawthorn, Hogweed, Lemonbalm, Nettle-leaved Bellflower flowers, Perennial Wall Rocket, Pignut, Marsh Samphire, Rampion, Red Goosefoot, Spearmint, Spear-leaved Orache, Stinging Nettle, Sea Beet, Shaggy Inkcap, Shepard’s Purse, St George’s Mushroom, Three-cornered garlic, Watercress, Watermint, Wild Leek, Wild Rose flowers, Wild Strawberry, Wild Thyme, Wood sorrel,.

[davideastman-bct]

Project Research

Book

Techniques of the Professional Pickpocket - Very easy to search and find a pdf copy.

Apollo Robins - Gentleman Thief

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZGY0wPAnus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-dWSIUNF10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktABbmy6IgQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO2LqCfNCRQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-eMyC5bWo

Penn and Teller - Explanation of Misdirection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo5BRAKvJoA

James Freedman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPwpqK_37_I

Pickpocket Tutorials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS7GYh64cE0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAXEM8qhfMU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykFMmnOfvL4

Articles

https://boingboing.net/2011/06/23/bell-dummy-for-train.html

https://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/bob-arnos-path-to-pickpocketing/

https://vagabondish.com/colombias-underground-school-for-pickpockets/

Otero-Millan, J., Macknik, S. L., Robbins, A., & Martinez-Conde, S. (2011). Stronger Misdirection in Curved than in Straight Motion. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 5. doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2011.00133 

Attention and Misdirection: How to Use Conjuring Experience to Study Attentional Processes. (2015). The Handbook of Attention. doi: 10.7551/mitpress/10033.003.0025 

Movies

Bastille Day - On of the main characters is a pickpocket who uses, by the looks of it, proper technique.

Focus - Will Smith consulted Apollo Robbins so he could show proper technique in the film, so the lifts are realistic. Article - https://www.motionpictures.org/2015/02/apollo-robbins-teaches-will-smith-margot-robbie-art-of-grifting-in-focus/

Ocean’s 11 and 12 - small scenes that use sleight of hand.

The Italian Job (remake) - Scene of a bully being distracted and having his wallet stolen from his back pocket.

Sherlock Holmes 2: A Game of Shadows - Scene where Sherlock steals and replaces Moriarty’s ledger/notebook

The A-Team - Face steals a news ID badge while talking/flirting with her.

Kingsman - Scene of stealing someones car keys and swapping poisoned brandy while person is distracted.

TV Shows

Criminal Minds Season 4 Episode 13 - Gypsies family where a pickpocket training jacket was shown. A scene that helped give me the idea for a digital version.

White Collar Season 2 Episode 15 - A clearer look at a pickpocket training jacket that I re-created for my analog version.

Blacklist Season 1 Episode 14 - A brush pass which uses similar principles to work.

Leverage - One of the main characters is a thief who picks peoples pockets regularly.

Hogan’s Heroes - Character “Newkirk” steals things basicly every episode. Looks very fake but it has to be based on some technique to convince the audience that he is picking people’s pockets like in Leverage.

Elementary Season 2 Episode 3 - Joan Watson steals a guys watch and mentions some small details on how to pick pockets she had learned. But Sherlock steals people’s phones regularly.

[tipsycad147]

Inquisition

Inquisition The Catholic Church’s persecution of heretics, lasting several centuries and spreading throughout Europe and even into the New World. The primary objective of the Inquisition was to eliminate religious threats to the Church, especially powerful sects such as the Waldenses, Bogmils, Cathars and Albigenses, as well as Jews and Muslims. As the Inquisition gathered power, it was turned against Gypsies, social undesirables, people caught in political fights—and witches. Historians estimate that between 200,000 and 1 million people, mostly women, died during the “witch-craze” phase of the Inquisition alone.

The roots of the Inquisition start with the First Crusade launched in 1086 by Pope Urban II, a campaign against Muslims to regain territory in the Holy Land. At the same time, the church found itself beset by religious sects growing in power and influence. The church dealt with these sects unevenly, sometimes with tolerance and sometimes with suppression. In 1184, Pope Lucius III issued a bull to bishops to “make inquisition” for heresy. many bishops were too busy to devote much time to this.

The Inquisition is considered to have begun during the term of Pope Gregory Ix, from 1227 to 1233. In 1229, he invited Franciscan monks to participate in inquisitions, a role that expanded for the order for more than two centuries. In 1233 Gregory issued two bulls giving the Dominican order the authority to prosecute heretics. The Dominicans were empowered to proceed against accused heretics and condemn them without appeal, with the help of the secular arm. The Dominicans became the dominant inquisitors for the church.

In 1307, key members of the knIghts templAr were arrested in France and prosecuted as heretics. The objective of king Philip the Fair was more political than religious; he desired to seize the wealth of the Templars, and he wished to maneuver the church to be subservient to the throne. The Templars were accused of witchcraft and Devil worship as part of their heresy. The first public burning of 54 Templars took place on may 12, 1310, and led to the destruction of the entire order. many Templars were tortured into confessions.

The Inquisition took another deadly turn in the 13th century with the issuance of several bulls that gave inquisitors increasing powers to arrest, torture and execute. After 1250, Pope Innocent IV issued a series of bulls to aid Dominican inquisitors in carrying out their duties. His final bull, Ad Extirpa (“to extirpate”), issued on may 15, 1252, turned Italy into a virtual police state with everyone at the mercy of inquisitors. Anyone who exposed a heretic could have him arrested. The inquisitors had the power to torture people into confessions and sentence them to death by being burned alive at the stake. The bull also put a police force at the disposal of the Inquisition.

Practices of the Inquisition

Manuals.

In the early stages of the Inquisition, there were few official guidelines concerning the arrest, questioning and punishment of heretics. In the 1240s, manuals and handbooks for inquisitors began to circulate, which continued into the 17th century. The most influential early handbook was Practica officii inquisitionis heretice pravitatis, authored in 1323–24 by the famous inquisitor, Bernard Gui. Another famous handbook was the Malleus Maleficarum, written in 1488 by two Dominicans, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.

Traits of the ideal inquisitor.

Innocent IV issued a bull in 1254 stating that inquisitors should be forceful preachers and “full of zeal for the state.” By the early 14th century, inquisitors were required to be at least 40 years of age; most of them were doctors of law trained at universities.

In his influential manual, Gui sets the requirements for a good inquisitor. Essentially, the man must be inflamed with a passion to eradicate all heresy, but show compassion and mercy too:

The inquisitor . . . should be diligent and fervent in his zeal for the truth of religion, for the salvation of souls, and for the extirpation of heresy. Amid troubles and opposing accidents he should grow earnest, without allowing himself to be inflamed with the fury of wrath and indignation. He must not be sluggish of body, for sloth destroys the vigor of action. He must be intrepid, persisting through danger to death, labouring for religious truth, neither precipitating peril by audacity nor shrinking from it through timidity. He must be unmoved by the prayers and blandishments of those who seek to influence him, yet not be, through hardness of heart, so obstinate that he will yield nothing to entreaty, whether in granting delays or in mitigating punishment, according to place and circumstance, for this implies stubbornness; nor must he be weak and yielding through too great a desire to please, for this will destroy the vigour and value of his work—he who is weak in his work is brother to him who destroys his work. In doubtful matters he must be circumspect and not readily yield credence to what seems probable, for such is not always true; nor should he obstinately reject the opposite, for that which seems improbable often turns out to be fact. He must listen, discuss, and examine with all zeal, that the truth may be reached at the end. Like a judge let him bear himself in passing sentence of corporeal punishment that his face may show compassion, while his inward purpose remains unshaken, and thus will he avoid the appearance of indignation and wrath leading to the charge of cruelty. In imposing pecuniary penalties, let his face preserve the severity of justice as though he were compelled by necessity and not allured by cupidity. Let truth and mercy, which should never leave the heart of a judge, shine forth from his countenance, that his decisions may be free from all suspicion of covetousness or cruelty.

Inquisitors were given full indulgences. They had the power to arrest anyone of any social rank, to seize and sell the property of those they accused and to absolve excommunications. They were both prosecutor and judge. In the early Inquisition, there were many who did their best to pursue truth as they saw it, but many others were corrupted by their power, especially as the Inquisition spread from religious heretics to accused witches.

Arrests and interrogations.

In the early Inquisition, accused heretics were given ample opportunity to turn themselves in and repent. They were notified through priests that they should voluntarily convert. Their names were publicly read at sermons. Failing voluntary action, the accused would be arrested and interrogated. If they capitulated, they might be sentenced to penances, fines, whippings, and imprisonment—sometimes for life. A reformed heretic was useful to the church, both as persuasion to others and also for providing the names of other suspects. Unrepentant and relapsed heretics were tortured and sentenced to be burned at the stake.

If an accused heretic died in jail or prior to arrest, the Inquisition did not hold back, but conducted a posthumous trial. If convicted, the body of the accused was dug up and burned.

Torture.

Initially inquisitors themselves could not perform the torture. In 1256 Pope Alexander IV gave inquisitors the right to absolve each other and give dispensations, so that they could torture the accused themselves.

By the end of the 13th century, inquisitors throughout Europe were operating under Ad Extirpa. Pope John xxII expanded the Inquisition, but did attempt to restrict torture in 1317 by issuing a decree that it should be employed only with “mature and careful deliberation.” Torture could not be repeated without fresh evidence against a person. However, zealous inquisitors found ways around restrictions. For example, torture over a period of time was not repeated torture, but torture that was “continued.” Confessions were always technically “free and spontaneous,” for victims were tortured until they “freely” confessed.

There were six primary methods of torture:

• ordeal by water, in which a person was forced to ingest large quantities of water quickly, which burst blood vessels;

• ordeal by fire, in which the soles of the feet were burned by fire or hot irons;

• the strappado, a pulley, used to hang and drop the accused to dislocate joints;

• the rack, a wooden frame used to stretch a body;

• The wheel, a large cartwheel to which the accused was tied and then beaten with clubs and hammers; and • the stivaletto, wooden planks and metal wedges used to crush feet and legs.

In addition, the accused were imprisoned, sometimes in dungeons, beaten, starved and psychologically abused. Details about how these methods were applied are given in the torture entry.

Execution.

Burning was seen as the only way to exterminate heretics and discourage participation in religious sects. After the corpse was burned, every bone was broken in order to prevent martyrdom and relics for any followers. The organs were burned, and all the ashes were thrown into water.

Accused witches, who were heretics because they were witches, were burned as well. In England, most witches were hung.

Witchcraft and Sorcery

In the extension of its power as a religious, social and political force, the church had long opposed pagan practices and sorcery, especially sacrifices to Demons. From the 8th century to about the 12th century, the church sought to wipe out paganism. By the 13th century, there was more tolerance, and the church itself even acquired an aura of magical power. Practices of alchemy, Magic, sorcery, divination and necromancy were widespread, even in the church. John xxII was well aware of this activity and was a believer himself, using magical talismans for protection. A necromantic plot of sympathetic magic was directed at him and his cardinals. The plot failed, but the pope responded by turning the Inquisition against sorcery.

On July 28, 1319, John XXII ordered the prosecution of two men and a woman who were believed to be consulting with Demons and making magical images. He soon followed with another bull directing the Bishop of Toulouse to proceed against sorcerers as if they were heretics. The bishop accused heretics of sacrificing to and worshipping Demons and making pacts with the Devil.

John XXII was especially interested in wiping out magical practices among the clergy and prominent people, but his campaigns sometimes backfired, making the victims and their works more popular than ever. In 1330 the pope issued a bull ordering that sorcerer and witch trials be concluded, and no new ones started. John XXII died in 1334. His successor, Benedict XII, resumed the use of sorcery as a crime of heresy, expanding into small-time practitioners in villages.

In the 14th century, the association between sorcery and heresy took on new dimensions, bringing sorcery and witchcraft into the Inquisition. But nearly 200 years passed before the essential elements of witchcraft as heresy solidified: the Devil ’s pACt, Sabbats, shApe-shIFtIng and mAleFICIA. In 1398, the theological faculty of the University of Paris adopted 28 articles of witchcraft, which became a foundation for subsequent treatises on witchcraft by Demonologists. The articles were considered proof of witchcraft, and they established as fact that a Devil’s pact was necessary for the performance of all acts of magic and witchcraft. The first reference to sabbats in trials occurred in 1475, but sabbats received scant attention until later in the 15th century. Lurid descriptions were given about witches engaging in ritual feasting, sexual orgies and the ritual murder and cannibalism of infants and children.

Devil’s pacts became a central element in the 16th century In the 15th century, the writers of inquisitional handbooks and treatises emphasised sorcery and witchcraft and drew upon the influential writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, who in the late 13th century condemned any kind of invocation of Demons and Devil pacts either implicit or explicit.

The campaigns to stamp out sorcery and witchcraft had the effect of whipping up public fears of the powers of magic. People already lived in fear of bewitchment, and the Inquisition intensified it. Ironically, the attention validated the reality of magic and evil powers.

Most accusations against witches concerning evil spell-casting, but diabolical elements were introduced by inquisitors, who sought to prove Devil worship and pacts in order to convict of heresy. Torture also increased in order to secure the necessary “free confessions” to diabolism.

The witch craze raged for nearly three centuries, from the 1500s to the late 1700s, with the most intense persecutions taking place in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the Inquisition lost momentum and finally came to an end.

The Spanish Inquisition

The Inquisition took its own course in Spain and Portugal, where it was turned primarily against Jews and Muslims, religious sects and even Freemasons. Accusations of witchcraft and sorcery were used against many of the accused. The driving force behind the Spanish Inquisition was political unification of the three dominant kingdoms of Spain, Castile, Aragon and Granada, pursued by king Ferdinand, who ascended the throne of Aragon in 1479, and his wife, Queen Isabella, who ascended the throne of Castile in 1474. In 1478, Pope Sixtus IV authorised the examination of Jewish converts to Christianity. The new royals used this against what they perceived as “the Jewish” problem in their own land.

The Spanish Inquisition operated outside the jurisdiction of Rome and had its own organisation of councils and inquisitors, overseen by an Inquisitor General. As the first Inquisitor General, Torquemada established rules and procedures. Salaries and expenses of inquisitors were paid from the goods and properties confiscated from the accused, so there was great motivation to target heretics.

The typical procedure against an accused heretic was to read accusations against him from anonymous accusers. The wordings were deliberately vague, and the accused was forced to guess the identity of his accusers and why he was targeted. If he guessed wrongly, he was sent back to prison and recalled again. If he guessed correctly, he was asked why the witnesses accused him of heresy. In that way, the accused were manoeuvred into acknowledging guilt and also naming others who might be dragged into court as well. Throughout, the accused was assigned an “advocate,” a sort of public defender, who in actuality did little to defend the accused. Instead, the advocate encouraged the accused to admit guilt.

In many cases, cruel torture was applied. The torture was both physical and psychological. The latter included taking the accused into dark, underground chambers where inquisitors waited with a black-robed and hooded executioner.

Victims were not given formal trials, but rather subjected to long interrogations punctuated by long periods in prison and by torture. Finally the accused was made to appear at an auto-da-fé, at which a sentence was given. The condemned were not always executed; many were sentenced to prison, whippings, scourging, galleys and fines.

Unrepentant or relapsed heretics were sentenced to death by burning at the stake. If they confessed during the auto-da-fé, they were given the mercy of strangulation prior to burning. The executions were spectacular affairs conducted in a public square, attended by royalty. The stakes were about four yards high, with a small board near the top where the condemned were chained. Several final attempts were made to get the condemned to reconcile to Rome. The executions proceeded by first burning the faces of the condemned with flaming furzes attached to poles that were thrust at them. Then dry furzes set about the stakes were set afire.

The Spanish Inquisition did not succumb to the witch craze that swept through Europe, but instead kept most of its focus on religious heretics. The Spaniards extended their Inquisition into the New World, setting up an office in Mexico, whose jurisdiction reached into what later was part of the American Southwest (see SAntA Fe WItChes). The Spanish Inquisition came to a formal end in 1834.

FURTHER READING :

Lea, Henry Charles. The History of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages. New York: macmillan, 1908.———. Materials Toward a History of Witchcraft. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1939.

Taken from : The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca – written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – Copyright © 1989, 1999, 2008 by Visionary Living, Inc.

http://occult-world.com/witch-trials-witch-hunts/inquisition/

Picture https://www.jw.org

[chibisquirt]

During World War II, the military once again started to promote shows with female impersonation in them. There was a school in Fort Meade, Maryland to teach Special Services (the department responsible for maintaining soldier morale and supervising troop recreation) officers how to assist commanding officers in soldier entertainment. Special Services officers looked through records for soldiers with show business experience and held amateur nights to find talent; organized soldier workshops on scriptwriting, costume and set design, stage managing, directing, and makeup; and published handbooks called "Blueprint Specials" that had scripts, music, lyrics, designs for sets and costumes, and dress patterns (made out of things like salvaged blankets, t-shirts, parachutes, semaphore flags, rope, and mops) for drag routines. Supplies were often lent or donated from the American Red Cross, USO, civilian women near bases, and family members, who were proud of their female-impersonating sons and brothers for helping with troop morale. Shows were put on both for soldiers and for the American public. Soldiers often put on all-male shows for each other, and these were particularly important for entertainment and morale in places like basic-training camps, remote areas with no local civilian entertainment, and occupied enemy countries where fraternization with locals was forbidden. The military also put on shows for non-soldiers. This Is the Army opened on Broadway on July 4, 1942, was cast with enlisted men, and was an instant hit. It toured the U.S., Europe, North Africa, and Pacific, and was praised by reviewers for its patriotism. Regardless of intended audience, soldier shows featured three basic styles of drag: chorus line or "pony ballets," which were husky men in dresses played for laughs, skilled dancers and singers, and female impersonators who emulated stars such as Carmen Miranda, the Andrews sisters, Gypsy Rose Lee, and Mae West.

https://cap-chronism.dreamwidth.org/2504.html

Okay, but imagine Steve’s USO tour...

[weepingpeaceearthquake]

If you come out today and your mom doesn't accept you, I am your mom now.