Hello, everyone! Here’s another in our ongoing series, “What’s in This Massively Expensive Scholarly Book?”

Hello, everyone!

I’ve been quiet about any upcoming book projects… but I’m now happy to announce that I’ve been contracted by Routledge to write a history…

Hello, everyone! Today I’m going to be discussing Simone* Kotva’s book Cyprianus. I’ll give the information from the website, as I don’t…

I went back to England to the York Witchcraft and Magic conference to present on animal usage in British grimoires and MacBeth. I had a…

I write this on a day that is significant for so many of us. That’s right — it’s the day that I talk about my York Witchcraft and Magic…

During ChaosiumCon, Ken Hite and I played hooky and went on a run through the bookstores of Ann Arbor and Detroit. If you’d like to hear…

My review of the Golden Hoard Steganographia is mentioned in a recent episode of Esoterica:

While on my way to ChaosiumCon, I stopped at the Toledo Museum of Art’s exhibition Cursed!: The Power of Magic in the Ancient World. For…

That took a lot. Due to our lovely tariffs (on which I’ve ranted here and here), the post office in Finland no longer ships parcels to the…

Welcome back, everyone!

You’ve already seen (I hope) part one of the books I read while in a cabin with no Internet. On to part 2 — also consisting of books I…

Hello, everyone! I spent an entire week offline in a cabin reading. It was a fulfilling and relaxing experience. Now behold the books I…

Welcome back, everyone!

As I’ve been reading more sources on the Italian Inquisition, such as Barbierato’s In the Room of the Circles, I’ve been intrigued by…

Hello, everyone! I took a week off, but now I’m back.

It’s come to my attention that the Berlin Staatsbibliothek is in the process of digitizing their copy of the German Summa Sacre Magice, the…

I had a great time at the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft’s Yule party. I delivered a lengthy talk on encountering — often deliberately —…

For those who are in the Cleveland area on the 21st, the Buckland Museum of Witchcraft is hosting me for a talk:

Apparently I found the key to generating Facebook engagement, so that’s good. The downside is that people care more about what I write…

Hey folks! I’ve been busy a few weekends, so I haven’t gotten my blogging done. It’s time to get back to it.

Hello, everyone!

Bret Kramer kindly reminded me that “Hands of the Living God” is under submission to Sentinel Hill Press, which I had forgotten. Apologies…

In the aftermath of my tariff post, it seems that most occult small presses and distributors I mentioned have found ways to resume their…

Today I’ll be covering two short books released by Hyldyr Press: The Merseburg Spells: Germanic Paganism (second edition) by a team led by…

All right. This is pretty strange, even by my standards.

I hope all of you are safe and doing well.

Given the readership of this blog, I’m sure that most of my readers have a long list of books they wish to read but didn’t quite get to…

Most of the attention toward historical manuals of magic — and much of my own focus — goes toward the field of ritual magic, with its…

I’m back from another international excursion. This one was prompted by two conferences: the Centre for Renaissance and Early Modern…

One of the mysteries I’ve wondered about is the curious item in Hohman’s Long-Lost Friend for “Another remedy to be applied when any one is…

I’ll probably be off the blog for a couple of weeks.

I have gone somewhat radio silent over the past couple weeks. Apparently I decided that having an article and three presentations due…

I’ve been overseas and just getting back into the swing of things.

Welcome back, everyone! Today I’ve got a quick review of The Long-Hidden Friend, Or, The Long Lost Friend: Historical Pennsylvania German…

I had a great time at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, although I missed many of my colleagues who weren’t able to make it…

I’m still at the International Congress of Medieval Studies, having shown people numerous pictures of dragons and spirits. I’ll keep this…

Hello, everyone! I’ve just received an electronic review copy of The Black Raven, newly translated from Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek…

Dan Harms' illustrated lecture unpacks an intriguing graveyard rite to raise the dead, used in early Modern Britain. Drinks soiree follows.

For my presentation for the International Congress of Medieval Studies, I’m working a bit with the incantations dedicated to the spirit…

Hey, I promised you infrequent updates, and I didn’t want to let you down by posting too regularly.

Today we’ll take a look at Hyldyr Press’ new edition of the Galdrabók, the famous Icelandic book of magic, translated by Kári Pálsson…

Today we’ll take a look at Hyldyr Press’ new edition of the Galdrabók, the famous Icelandic book of magic, translated by Kári Pálsson…

I hope everyone is doing all right out there.

At this moment, there is some ambiguity on the impact of tariffs on book production. I’m hearing that the rate on books will be 7%…

Hi, everyone! I hope you’re well and safe.

I received some good responses to my post about the occult links in the 2024 Nosferatu remake. Here’s a couple of other items.

One of the difficult parts of grimoire scholarship is that you can’t ever be certain that someone isn’t working on the same project. For…