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Des objets modernes dans le passé ? Ou la quête de l'artefact

2023, MONDE INCONNU

Are we the first to access technology on Earth? Naturally, that is to say by the long process of evolution, or artificially, someone foreign (alien) to our world having helped us to cross certain stages prematurely? We have spoken of... more

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Xavier 'Gypsy' Petulengro

by Kim Farnell

2022, Astrology Quarterly

One of the most popular astrologers of the late 1930s was Xavier Petulengro. This is a brief biography.

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Archeologies Extraterrestres Entretien De Louise Herve et Chloe Maillet Avec Wiktor Stoczkowski a Propos De Des Hommes Des Dieux et Des Extraterrestres

by Louise Hervé

2022, CEHTA

Archéologies extraterrestres Entretien de Louise Hervé et Chloé Maillet avec Wiktor Stoczkowski à propos de Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres Extraterrestrial Archeologies. Interview between Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet with... more

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Schreiner, Julia: Jenseits vom Glück. Suizid, Melancholie und Hypochondrie in deutschsprachigen Texten des späten 18. Jahrhunderts. München, R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2003. 323 S. (Ancien Régime,Aufklärung und Revolution, 34). I 49.80. ISBN 3-486-56734-9

by Paul Gebhardt

2022, Gesnerus

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Archéologies extraterrestres

by Louise Hervé

2022, Images Re-Vues

Archéologies extraterrestres Entretien de Louise Hervé et Chloé Maillet avec Wiktor Stoczkowski à propos de Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres Extraterrestrial Archeologies. Interview between Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet with... more

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Archeologies Extraterrestres Entretien De Louise Herve et Chloe Maillet Avec Wiktor Stoczkowski a Propos De Des Hommes Des Dieux et Des Extraterrestres

by Louise Hervé

2022, CEHTA

Archéologies extraterrestres Entretien de Louise Hervé et Chloé Maillet avec Wiktor Stoczkowski à propos de Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres Extraterrestrial Archeologies. Interview between Louise Hervé & Chloé Maillet with... more

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Archéologies extraterrestres. Entretien de Louise Hervé et Chloé Maillet avec Wiktor Stoczkowski à propos de "Des hommes, des dieux et des extraterrestres"

by Wiktor Stoczkowski

2021, Images Re-vues. Histoire, anthropologie et théorie de l'art

"Dans votre livre, Des hommes des dieux et des extraterrestres1, vous proposez l’étude ethnologique d’une « croyance moderne », appuyée sur une série de récits relatant l’influence qu’ont pu avoir les extraterrestres sur l’humanité à... more

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Manuel De Carli, Review, La Scienza e i Segreti della Natura a Napoli nel Rinascimento. La Magia Naturale di Giovan Battista Della Porta by Donato Verardi, in Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 14, Number 2, Summer 2019, pp. 291-293

by DONATO VERARDI

2020

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Dusky Countenances: Ambivalent Bodies and Desires in the Theosophical Society

by Rajbir Singh Judge

2018, Journal of the History of Sexuality

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The Malkin Tower, A Seventeenth-Century Witches Coven Discovered? The Archaeological and Historical Evidence Behind the British Witch Trials of 1612 Considered.

by David Barrowclough

2015

ABSTRACT The Jacobean era's infamous witchcraft trials are recalled after reservoir repairs close to Pendle Hill reveal a buried cottage with bricked‐up cat. Interpretations of the building as the site of Malkin Tower, recorded in court... more

Figure 2. Pendle Hill, long associated with witchcraft and a dominant landmark ir Lancashire.

Figure 1. Lower Black Moss Reservoir (on the left), possible site of Malkin Tower.

Figure 3. Sealed into the walls: the ruins of the witch's home, where the mummified animal was found. Walls of the 17th century cottage, which became a cat's tomb, at Lower Black Moss, Pendle Hill, Lancashire. Centre of witchcraft: Experts suspect the cottage could have been home to the mysterious Malkin Tower coven. Photograph: Lorne Campbell/United Utilities/PA

Figure 5. The stone building following excavation with Pendle Hill in the background.

Figure 6. A close-up of the interior of the building after excavation.

Figure 7.The nineteenth century stove. Photograph: Lorne Campbell/United Utilities/PA.

Figure 9. Lancaster Castle, site of the Witch Trials. where the Lancaster Assizes of 1612 took place.

An alternative location lies near the village of Newchurch in Pendle (Fields 1998, 60). Douglas claims there is ‘persuasive’ evidence that an area near Sadler's Farm (now known as Shekinah Christian Centre) was the site of Malkin Tower. Numerous reports of alleged witchcraft come from the area, and it is in the vicinity of other locations named during the trial such as Greenhead. Greenhead, near Fence, being the home of Christopher Nutter and his son Robert, for whose deaths Anne Whittle and Anne Redferne were charged with murder (Davies 1971, 34; Hasted 1993, 33). Others involved in the trials were known to have lived in the area; alleged witches Jane and John Bulcock resided at Moss End Farm in Newchurch, and John Nutter, whose cows were claimed to have been bewitched, lived at the neighbouring Bull Hole Farm. Southerns' son Christopher Holgate also lived nearby. But neither the deeds of Sadler's Farm, which date back to the seventeenth century, nor contemporary maps of the region mention Malkin Tower or any fields in which it may have stood (Peel and Southern 1985, 155). Historical and documentary evidence alone has therefore proved insufficient to locate the site of Malkin Tower.

Figure 12. The walls within which the cat was found sealed. It appears that the cat was probably alive when buried in the wall, sometime in the 1800s.

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'The Wonderful Discovery of Witches' Unearthing the Occult: Necromancy and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England

by David Barrowclough

2014, Cambridge: Red Dagger Press

Consideration is given to how elements of the occult: witchcraft, magic and sorcery may be identified in the archaeological record. Working definitions of occult terminology are established before proceeding to propose a new approach,... more

In the case of Meg Shelton, archaeological evidence takes the form of a large boulder placed over her alleged grave at St Anne’s Church, Woodplumpton in Lancashire (Figure 1). That Meg Shelton was a real figure is confirmed by the historic sources, which tell us she was crippled, and accused of the theft of basic staples from her neighbours, as a result of which she became an outcast known as the ‘Fylde Hag’. History records that she, like other men and women who failed to conform to society, was accused of witchcraft, and branded variously as the Singleton or Woodplumpton witch. Folklore provides us with several instances of her alleged powers, which focus on an ability to shape-shift, taking the form of an animal in order to sneak into her neighbours farms to steal food in various fanciful ways. It further provides an unconvincing account of her death, crushed to death between a barrel and a wall, following which she was Said to have twice dug herself out of her grave to haunt her neighbours, prompting them to finally bury her head first down a vertical shaft capped-off by a large boulder to prevent her rising from the dead any more (Fishwick, 1891). Whatever the truth of the various accounts, the material evidence in the form of her grave, marked by a large boulder, attests to the historic accounts in which she is named as a witch. Unfortunately, we rarely have such rich accounts to work from, but as the excavation at Barway in Cambridgeshire demonstrates, we may still be able to identify occult sites in the archaeological record, and even unpack something of their meaning.

What is taken to be an occult site, most likely the remains of a magic circle, were discovered on the tip of Barway a small fen island approximately three miles south of Ely, Cambridgeshire in the East Anglian Fens at Grid Reference TL 5440 7564 by the landowner Philip Randall (Figures 2, 3 & 4). His family had farmed the land for several generations during which time they had reliably recorded and reported a number of archaeological finds (Barrowclough 2013; forthcoming 2014). The island is seen today as a small rise, only 4m above sea level, above the black earth of the peat fens, however prior to their drainage it would have represented an island of dry land set in a flooded landscape. Seventeenth-century accounts describe how for half the year the waters of the River Great Ouse, which are now canalised and flow c.150m away, separated the Isle of Ely from Cambridgeshire. The wetlands were gnat infested and associated with malarial illness, and the people considered to be uncivilised, independent-minded and especially prone to belief in witches (Porter 1958).

The archaeological site plan (Figure 4) shows four pits, 1-4. The distance from Pit 1 to Pit 2 was 100 yards, and from Pit 1 to 3, and Pit 1 to 4, 50 yards each. Pits 1 and 2 lie on a northernly alignment, which looks towards Ely Cathedral (Figure 3). Pits 3 and 4, run east-west in line with Pit 1, and each are equidistant from it. Pits 1 and 2 were each associated with packing stones and capped with a copper lid (Figure 5). Pit 1 lies 100 yards north of Pit 2, both are circular in plan and both are partially filled with large stones, each the size as a man’s fist. It was the accidental discovery of the first pit that drew Randall’s attention to the site, as stones of this size are rarely found on his farm. Indeed he expressed the opinion that it would probably take about half a day to search out enough stones to match those in each pit. What is more the stones are arranged within each of the pits so as to fill only the northern semi-circle, as shown in Figure 5. Above the stones, and partially capping each pit was a copper disc c.15 cm dia. In the case of Pit 1 the disc was circular and thus would have completely capped the stones, but that found in Pit 2, which must have originally started out as a circular disc, had been bent over so as to form a semi- circle. It had not been placed over the pit as one might expect in order to cap the unpacked half of the hole, instead it had been carefully placed with the straight edge facing south, Figure 5. Further investigation revealed two more pits, 3 and 4, running east-west in line with Pit 1, and each 50 yards equidistant from it. In each of these pits was a shoe. The shoes were small, suggestive of having belonged to a woman, dating by their style to the seventeenth century. This dating is approximate but consistent with what is known of the site. In particular, Pit 2 lies beneath a well established orchard, predating the Randall family’s ownership of the farm, precluding a date more recent than the early 1800s. No other features or artefacts were found, but it is noteable that continuing along the line of sight from Pit 2 to Pit 1 lies Ely Cathedral (Figure 3).

Figure 5. Pits 1 and 2, plan and section views, with copper lids below.

The rural counties of East Anglia were an ideal hunting ground for those seeking out evidence of witchcraft. Between 1645 and 1647 Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne interrogated as many as three hundred men and women, resulting in the cruel deaths of more than a hundred convicted witches (Sharpe 1996, 129-30). Matthew Hopkins was no stranger to Ely as his father, James, had lived in Littleport, just north of the city (Figure 2) with his wife, and she, following his death, had moved into Ely to be close to her daughter (Gaskill 2005,15). Hopkins began the witch-hunt in 1646 before being struck down by Consumption leaving John Stearne, a native of Bury St Edmonds to conclude the investigation in the following year. In all seventeen people were accused of witchcraft in the small communities on the Isle of Ely, with additional ‘large confessions’ extracted in the villages of March and Chatteris, and a further nine accused by Hopkins at King’s Lynn further down the River Great Ouse (Gaskill 2005). The point here is not the spiteful small-minded accusations levelled at the often down-at-heel defendants by their neighbours, nor the alacrity with which those charged at defending justice sought to subvert it, such shameful behaviour is all too often a feature of these fen communities today. Instead it is to illustrate how familiar the entire community was with the intimate workings of the occult. What is striking is that the accounts of the trials make no effort to explain the background or methods of witchcraft as it was taken as read that these were widely understood, and that the casting of spells were, if not a daily occurrence, certainly as regular a part of life as the ploughing of fields and harvesting of crops. The popular currency of the occult was confirmed by the folklorist Edith Porter who found ample evidence of a continuing tradition of cunning folk living and working in the Cambridgeshire fens in the nineteenth and twentieth- century stories that she collected (Porter 1969).

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History of the Occult

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