The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is one of the oldest divination texts in the world and one of the strangest survival stories in the history of magic. This episode brings you the 3,000-year story of the I Ching, the world's most reinvented book of divination, from Bronze Age turtle-shell pyromancy to Carl Jung's couch and modern computing.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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Antitheatrical writers in early modern England compared the actor’s transformation into a character to a kind of illicit magic. In response, playwrights like William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, and Ben Jonson created a body of plays that treated the conjuror’s circle as a mirror of the theater. This episode brings you a story of magicians, witches, and the spectacles they conjured: the story of magic on the early modern English stage.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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How did a sixteenth-century criminal record give rise to one of Scotland’s most famous legends? Whether an enchanter, a prophet, or a hero who spoke truth to power, his story would be remembered and retold, transforming the real man into a mythic figure. This episode brings you the story of Highland second sight, the historical "Dark Kenneth" (Coinneach Odhar), and the legend of the Brahan Seer.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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Death wasn’t the end for ancient Egyptians; it was a gauntlet. The soul faced guardians, gods, the weighing of the heart against the feather of Ma’at, and the ever-present threat of Ammit waiting to devour the unworthy, with only magic to guide the soul to the Field of Reeds. This episode brings you the story of the afterlife, the Duat, and the most sophisticated collection of funerary spells the ancient world ever produced: the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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In an early medieval Constantinople filled with pagan artifacts and dark histories, one man's writings would reveal a world in which sorcery, religion, and politics were inextricably intertwined. This episode brings you the story of a scholar, bishop, and savvy political survivor in an era of iconoclasm: the story of Ignatios the Deacon.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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In the sixteenth century, witch trials were a fact of life. Women were being hauled before courts across Europe. Confessions were extracted under torture. Executions followed. Into this world stepped Johann Weyer, who looked at all of it—the confessions, the trials, the executions—and said that these women are sick, not sinful. They are patients, not criminals. And the men putting them on trial ought to know better. This episode brings you a story of religious belief and scientific inquiry at the dawn of the modern era, the story of Johann Weyer.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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Albertus Magnus, the thirteenth-century polymath known as the Universal Doctor, had a problem. To some, he was the greatest natural philosopher of his age. To others, he was a dangerous sorcerer who built talking automatons, disguised himself as a midwife to learn forbidden secrets, and wrote books on summoning demons. Was Albertus Magnus a saint, or was he a sorcerer? The answer to this question would help define the very boundary between science and magic. In this episode, I bring you the story of Albertus Magnus and the Mirror of Astronomy.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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In 1785, a scandal broke that would captivate all of Europe, destroy reputations, and help light the fuse of revolution. At its center stood three remarkable figures: an ambitious con artist who claimed royal blood, a desperate prince of the church, and a flamboyant mystic. This episode brings you the story of Count Alessandro di Cagliostro and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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Picture masked figures appearing at your door on a dark winter's evening, their faces hidden behind soot and disguise, ready to perform ancient rituals of death and resurrection. This is mumming, a tradition stretching back centuries. From medieval Europe to its journey across the Atlantic to its dramatic transformation in modern Philadelphia, this episode brings you the story of Christmas mumming and how folk traditions are constantly remade.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

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In 1865, German physician and medical writer Justus Hecker published a volume titled The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. In a footnote, he remarked on a strange phenomenon: an outbreak of meowing nuns. In this minisode, I bring you the story of the meowing nuns of late medieval France and the men who told their story.

Researched, written, and produced by Corinne Wieben with original music by Purple Planet.

Sources

Primary

• Aristotle. History of Animals. Translated by d’ A. W. Thompson. In Aristotle, Complete Works. Vol. 1, 774–993. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
• Aristotle. Politics. Translated by Ernest Barker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• Hecker, J. F. C. The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. Translated by B. G. Babington. London: Woodfall, 1844. 
• Zimmerman, J. G. Solitude. Vol. II. London: Dilly, 1798.

Secondary

• Bartholomew, Robert E. Little Green Men, Meowing Nuns and Head-Hunting Panics: A Study of Mass Psychogenic Illness and Social Delusion. London: McFarland, 2001.
• Bartholomew, Robert E. and Simon Wessely. “Protean Nature of Mass Sociogenic Illness: From Possessed Nuns to Chemical and Biological Terrorism Fears.” British Journal of Psychiatry 180, no. 4 (2002): 300–306.
• Mercer, Christia. “The Philosophical Roots of Western Misogyny.” Philosophical Topics 46, no. 2 (2018): 183–208.
• Penso G. Roman Medicine. 3rd ed. Noceto: Essebiemme, 2002.
• Tasca, Cecilia et al. “Women and Hysteria in the History of Mental Health.” Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health 8 (2012): 110-9.

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