alanbjones

The Vampire of "Romantic" Fiction The Undead Through the Ages: A History of Vampire Lore and Myth The vampire stands as one of humanity's most enduring monsters, a creature that has stalked the collective imagination for millennia. Yet the suave, aristocratic bloodsucker of modern fiction bears little resemblance to the bloated, plague-spreading revenants that terrorised medieval villages. The history of vampire lore reveals not a single coherent tradition, but a complex tapestry of beliefs...

Heremtic Knowledge: The Thrice-Greatest Heremes The Thrice-Greatest Wisdom: A Journey into Hermeticism Picture this: It's 1462 in Renaissance Florence, and Marsilio Ficino, the brilliant translator working for the powerful Cosimo de' Medici, is labouring over a Latin translation of Plato's complete works. Suddenly, a manuscript arrives that causes him to drop Plato immediately—despite having promised his patron he'd finish the job. What could be so compelling that even Plato himself had to...

The Rainbow Chakras The Rainbow Delusion When a yoga teacher in Hampstead tells you to "open your heart chakra" whilst bathing it in green light, or a wellness influencer peddles crystals aligned to your "seven energy centres," they're perpetuating one of the most successful acts of cultural repackaging in modern spirituality. The neat system of seven chakras, each with its assigned colour, location, and psychological correspondence, has become so ubiquitous in Western alternative healing...