fiat lux 93

[enchantedbook]

“Wildwitch” by Rohan Eason

[killerbeesting]

Eudora Welty, Pageant of Birds (Farish Street Baptist Church, Jackson), 1930s–early 1940s

[kuutamosonaatti]

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) | dir. Francis Ford Coppola

[shisasan]

red. 🥀

[silenceformysoul]

Jean-François Portaels (1818-1895) - La sorcière

[lepetitdragonvert]

The Witch

[lepetitdragonvert]

Elfin Song, a book of verse and pictures by Florence Harrison.

[beckerrarebooks]

Some of the most intriguing publications in our rare book collections are the 16th and 17th century prophetic texts found within the Paracelsus Collection. While Paracelsus’s first forays into the genre were short pieces without any illustrations, he wanted to create a work that was visually engaging. Working with the Augsburg printer Heinrich Steiner, he produced the Prophecy for the Next Twenty-Four Years, a fully illustrated prophecy where each prophetic verse is accompanied by an allegorical image. This prophecy echoes several themes that appear in numerous other prophecies—a renewal of Christendom, the rise of a heroic king, the calling of the Elect—but it isn’t overly specific. The key to a good prophecy is to make it vague enough that it can be interpreted to fit a variety of potential situations, which is why the prophecies of Nostradamus (1503-1566) continue to exert a pull on the popular imagination.

The Prophecy for the Next Twenty-Four Years first appeared in 1536, but the images here come from a later edition printed in the latter half of the 16th century. What messages can you see in them?

You can find more information about early modern prophecies in our digital exhibit Prophetic Illustration in the Paracelsus Collection.

[deathandmysticism]

Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptiacus, 1652

[thecolorblockcurator]

Eleanor Hardiman

eleanorhardiman.co.uk

[aqua-regia009]

Triumph Of The Will: The Challenge (Detail) - James Tissot

[bartleby-company]

Illustrations from Vaught’s Practical Character Reader, a book on phrenology by L. A. Vaught published in 1902.

[historyarchaeologyartefacts]

A Tsimshian wooden mask representing the spirit of the Upper Air. 19th century AD, from British Columbia, Canada. The mask was sold at christie’s in 2019 [1365x2048]

Source: https://reddit.com/r/ArtefactPorn/comments/fm6c6r/a_tsimshian_wooden_mask_representing_the_spirit/

[redlipstickresurrected]

Beatrice Wanjiku aka Beatrice Wanjiku Njoroge (Kenyan, b. 1978, Ngong Hills,Nairobi, Kenya) - An Unstructured Mess, Paintings: Mixed Media on Canvas

[electripipedream]

Yayoi Kusama Self Obliteration 1968

[signorformica]

Animas. Mexican folk retablo ~ 19th century • Bibliothèque Infernale on FB

[deathandmysticism]

Photograph by Rev. Edward Smith of a devil dancer, present-day Sri Lanka, 1917

[egypt-museum-deactivated2021071]

Pyramid of Giza

Night view at Giza Pyramids, sound and light show.

Photo via: (Christian Heeb).

[egypt-museum-deactivated2021071]

Relief depicting Isis, the goddess who gives life and health. Symbol of fertility. Mother of Horus and wife and sister of Osiris. Represented as a woman with cow horns and the solar disk. First courtyard of Ramesses II, Temple of Luxor.