Print and the ascent of magic

Image: A panel devoted to the evolution of tarot cards from Aby Warburg’s Bilderatlas Mnemosyne

SAS Libraries  contain a wealth of material on the supernatural and the paranormal, produced for various purposes and in a wide range of formats. Collection items include 16th century editions of the Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches) and King James’ Daemonologie. But also the Ambigué Magique, an 18th century conjurer’s ‘blow book’, and a VHS recording of a documentary on Mama Lola, a voodoo priestess practicing from her Brooklyn apartment in the 1990s, featured in the BBC Other worlds series. 

 
This course will consider the role played by print in ‘democratizing literary magic’, in the words of historian of witchcraft, Owen Davies. But it will also deal with how its practitioners have been persecuted and prosecuted, studied and described. 

Over the course of three consecutive sessions, students will get the opportunity to see and handle rare and unusual items from different SAS Institute libraries, relating to Witchcraft, Caribbean Cosmologies, and Tarot. 

The course complements the upcoming exhibition at the Warburg Institute, Tarot: Origins & Afterlives (31 January – 30 April 2025), and students will be given a tour of the exhibition by its curators. 

This short course is part of the London Rare Books School programme.

 

Course Fees

• Standard: £175
• Concession*: £100

*student/unwaged

The course is limited to 15 delegates and bookings must be made by the 12 March 2025.