Forbidden Histories
@forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
400 followers 130 following 78 posts
Understanding historical complexities of science-magic relationships. By Dr. Andreas Sommer (occasionally foul-mouthed researcher, formerly at Cambridge University). https://www.forbiddenhistories.com/
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forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
How the founder of German psychology scoffed & pathologized unorthodox science out of intellectual discourse – and tried to alter the historical record in due course. Plug for my recent article in the @spr1882.bsky.social encyclopedia. www.forbiddenhistories.com/2025/10/wundt
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Greetings from Basel! Picture obviously taken from a safe distance... 😅
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bjohnsonfreelance.bsky.social
Hello!

In case you don't know me, I'm a freelance editor, translator, and humanities scholar, specializing in TTRPGs, as well as magic and the occult.

My research reconstructs the cosmologies, epistemologies, and practices of historical individuals who engaged with various esoteric disciplines.
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Nice: a major exhibition on #ghosts & #spirits in western #art is coming to the #KunstmuseumBasel in my current home town. It’s supposed to kick off on 20 September, so expect to see a brief report & pics.
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forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
New podcast episode: Forgotten pioneers of the subconscious mind (Carl du Prel & Frederic Myers) on temple sleep, oracles, and other ancient magical practices. youtu.be/Cgr0cDxxmGE?...

If you enjoyed the episode, please remember to like, share and subscribe! 🙏🥹
Ancient Magic and the Unconscious Mind
YouTube video by Forbidden Histories
youtu.be
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Thanks for the update, Emma! Good to know he apparently wasn't into spiritualism, though it would have been cool & not particularly surprising.
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
In case you guys know something - or know someone who knows something about Hans Christian Andersen & #spirittualism. 🧐
emmamerkling.bsky.social
Any Hans Christian Andersen experts following me? Came across an issue of The Spiritualist for which he seems to have written as a correspondent... including on William Crookes and the psychic force. Was this really him? iapsop.com/archive/mate...
iapsop.com
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
New podcast episode: Forgotten pioneers of the subconscious mind (Carl du Prel & Frederic Myers) on temple sleep, oracles, and other ancient magical practices. youtu.be/Cgr0cDxxmGE?...

If you enjoyed the episode, please remember to like, share and subscribe! 🙏🥹
Ancient Magic and the Unconscious Mind
YouTube video by Forbidden Histories
youtu.be
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
This is insane! I just wrote to Yvette Cooper, please consider doing the same.
drlindseyfitz.bsky.social
The brilliant @lmbd1418.bsky.social has suggested people write to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper re: my case. If you could spare five minutes, she's created a draft letter which you can use to send to [email protected]. I appreciate everyone's support. ❤️

docs.google.com/document/d/1...
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Uhm, this. 👇
drfrancisyoung.bsky.social
The reason historians don’t now use the term ‘witch hunts’ as a generalised term for the prosecution of people for witchcraft is that it implies witchcraft was always prosecuted in a different way compared to other crimes - it wasn’t
us.theconversation.com
The witch hunts of 1400-1780 and today's misinformation crisis have striking parallels.

Both were fueled by new media technologies that allowed false information to spread rapidly and widely. buff.ly/6RFALyJ By Julie Walsh @wellesley.edu
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Honk if you miss the good old days, when academic publishers still had the decency to at least send a complementary hardcopy of the journal issue with your article. 📯
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
4 episodes (each in English & German) already available. Would be keen to hear what you lovely people think! 🥹
forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
The latest addition to the FH multimedia universe: The podcast, where contents are discussed in an entertaining dialogue format.

Each episode can be streamed & downloaded in English & German. Here is the introduction (in English): forbiddenhistories.podbean.com/e/introducti...

Enjoy!
Introduction: From Magic to Science? | Forbidden Histories
Introduction to Forbidden Histories - evidence-based history of science & magic that will boggle your mind. :) Also make sure to visit the Forbidden Histories Website.
forbiddenhistories.podbean.com
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wjsociety.bsky.social
James also thinks inquiry needs to be conducted in a scientific fashion, but especially in philosophical inquiry, he doesn't think this should be done using jargon, in a technical fashion. James's outlook here is evolutionary… amphilos.blogspot.com/2025/07/an-i...
An interview with Alexander Klein
William James, Where All Consciousness Is Motor - 3:16 ...James also thinks inquiry needs to be conducted in a scientific fashion, but espec...
amphilos.blogspot.com
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enniusredloeb.bsky.social
August is the time for reaping.
#medievalcalendar
Bodleian Library MS. Rawl. D. 939; Astrological and ecclesiastical calendar in six pieces; 14th century; England; section 2ar @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social
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dailygrail.com
Happy 498th birthday to English mathematician, occultist, and court astronomer/advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, John Dee.

Here's one of the wax seals (in the British Museum) used in the 'Enochian magic' practiced by Dee and his scryer Edward Kelley, through which they (apparently) spoke with angels.
A circular disk made of wax, about 5 inches across in diameter and half an inch in thickness. It has an outer circle around its diameter, with inscribed writing between the edge and the circle, and then a heptagon inscribed within the circle with the points touching the circle. Again, writing is inscribed around the heptagon. Within this is a 7-pointed star, and within that is a hexagon, and withing the hexagon is a pentagram.
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tedmccormick.bsky.social
Pinker has been a loud-and-proud voice for anti-intellectualism and a promoter of chin-stroking race-science platforms such as Quillette for a decade.

This isn't lack of awareness. It's an attempt to protect his extremely lucrative brand from association with the causes that helped build it.
coreyatad.com
incredible lack of self-awareness from Pinker here
In my 22 years as a Harvard professor, I have not been afraid to bite the hand that feeds me. My 2014 essay "The Trouble With Harvard" called for a transparent, meritocratic admissions policy to replace the current "eye-of-newt-wing-of-bat mysticism" which "conceals unknown mischief." My 2023 "five-point plan to save Harvard from itself" urged the university to commit itself to free speech, institutional neutrality, nonviolence, viewpoint diversity and disempowering D.E.I. Last fall, on the anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023, I explained "how I wish Harvard taught students to talk about Israel," calling on the university to teach our students to grapple with moral and historical complexity. Two years ago I co-founded the Council on Academic Freedom at Harvard, which has since regularly challenged university policies and pressed for changes.
So I'm hardly an apologist for my employer when I say that the invective now being aimed at Harvard has become unhinged. According to its critics, Harvard is a
"national disgrace," a "woke madrasa," a "Maoist indoctrination camp," a "ship of fools," a "bastion of rampant anti-Jewish hatred and harassment," a "cesspool of extremist riots" and an "Islamist outpost" in which the
"dominant view on campus" is "destroy the Jews, and you've destroyed the root of Western civilization."
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forbiddenhistories.bsky.social
Living in Switzerland now, I thought it was high time to produce more output in my German mother language. If you read German, or know folks who may be interested, feel free to share zis: @andreassommer.bsky.social
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drlindseyfitz.bsky.social
Original testimony of Abigail Williams from the Salem Witch Trials, 1692.

Now located in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.
Handwritten testimony in fading black (or possibly brown) ink on a half of a sheet of parchment.