Feature Image: Hollow Bones by Katrina Haffner

As I’m down on all fours, balanced on one hand and one knee with my opposite leg suspended in the air behind, I hear the instructor intone, “How we begin is not how we end.” He means that our physical state is always changing, that we walk out of the barre studio a little stronger, a little more flexible than we were when we came in.

The year is preparing to turn as I write this, and as it does, millions of people will resolve to begin the New Year by acting, speaking, eating, working, relating to others, and simply being in a way that is different from and hopefully better than whatever they did before. A lot of coaches like to focus on how quickly many resolutions are forgotten or broken, but I think it’s remarkable that we always resolve to change, and how deep down we know that how we begin is not—and doesn’t have to be—how we end.

I like to take my prayers outside. Next to the swing and the backyard fountain is a patch of dirt that wasn’t always there. When we first moved into the house there was a tough, gnarled tree stump in its place. I don’t know what happened to the tree, but I do know that our local mushroom population loved that stump. I watched as a variety of fungi worked on the wood, slowly breaking it down until it disappeared completely. Although it didn’t, not really. It just changed.

I’ve always loved mushrooms. Forever associating them with magic and the line that they straddle—nourishment and healing on one side, death on the other—I find their folklore and their varieties endlessly fascinating. In school we learned to call them decomposers, a special class of plant and fungi that feeds on organisms already dead, thus transforming death into something that can support life once more.

Death is not an end but a new beginning may sound like a cliché, but the fact is that everything in and around us is constantly dying, transforming, and becoming something else. Fungi are the allies that remind us that such a cliché also happens to be absolute truth.

Interestingly, advanced medical research into fungi reveals similar functions on a less physical or literal plane. Many people ingest reishi and lion’s mane to bring life back to overtaxed immune systems. Some scientists are experimenting with various species of psilocybin, exploring their use not just for a good time but also to help people trapped in psychological death states, which might include emotional paralysis, deep depression, and trauma that leave them feeling frozen and isolated.

In his wonderful book on all things fungal, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures, Merlin Sheldrake points out that the treatment of bacterial infections with antibiotics is being challenged in a deep way by fungal infections, which are poised to become more frequent and deadly. This danger has spurred medical researchers to find new and better treatment protocols and has served as a reminder to all of us that an overreliance on antibiotics leaves everyone vulnerable.

I spread truffle-infused honey on a slice of hot buttered bread for my oldest son. He’s been through so much: loss of vision in one eye, the possibility of losing vision in the other eye, the relief when the medical procedure worked and preserved that second eye’s sight. Through it all—the trauma, the surgeries, the fear—he has been so brave … and he’s grown so tall that he now towers above me. He’s grown too in talent, in his ability as a cellist, pianist, and composer, and most of all in wisdom. I think about the changes he’s been through, and then my gaze falls on an orange and blue ceramic piece made by my youngest son. It’s a mushroom. I keep it on my desk to remind me that how we begin is not how we end. Living life leaves a mark.

I am back in class, this time doing forward and reverse lunges at the barre. I breathe into the motion. I reflect on how the greatest quality of fungus is not that it decomposes or that it can open doors of perception, but that it connects. Tiny white hyphae reach for each other, fungal filaments that we now know are required for life, because connection is required for life.

Connection of tree to tree and tree to forest and forest to forest; connection of soil to soil, of each web of life to all others.

My hair is damp with sweat; my thoughts turn to spring and that patch of dirt in my backyard where there used to be a stump of wood. What shall I plant there this season? What new life has death made way for? What is ready to grow? I’m not sure yet, but I’m ready to find out.

Photography: Amanda Valentine
Makeup: Jessica Saint

Louis Armstrong’s soulful voice vibrates through the barge-board wood of my old 1898 Creole cottage as he sings “What a Wonderful World.” In the contemplative quiet of this time of year, candles are flickering around my parlor, orange peels and cinnamon sticks are simmering in a cast-iron cauldron, and my well-worn grimoire is laid out on the wooden kitchen table. My grimoire is divided by tea-dyed strips of antique lace that act as bookmarks for the spells I’ve written over the years.

In the looping black ink of my cursive, the perfect spell forms just for you on these pages. As the wheel of the year turns, bringing the enchantment of the new year upon us… you, my darling, are given an invitation to manifest your very own Renaissance!

Will you accept?

You’re the author of the story of your life, after all. A spell is simply a formula of words, action, and focused energy that contain magical force. Your words are wands. Take my hand and let’s manifest our very own spell!

How do you wish to write it?

CREATING YOUR OWN

PERSONAL RENAISSANCE SPELL

Step 1: Music as Magick. Music is one of the most powerful magical tools in existence. It can create mood, stir emotion, and communicate with our very souls. It’s time to honor yourself by picking your very own theme song. Rocky Balboa has a one that empowers him to keep going. Is there a piece of music that can do the same for you?

Choose a song that makes you feel the way you want to in this new year. Then write down the answer to this question: What emotions does this song stir in you?

As an example, my choice of song is Muddy Waters’s “Mannish Boy.” It’s often one of the first songs I listen to when I start my day. Muddy Waters begins by singing, “Everything … everything… every thing is gonna be all right this mornin’ ” … to which Johnny Winters enthusiastically responds in the background, “Yes I know! ” At that moment, Muddy Waters dives right into a sultry blues riff on his guitar. When I hear this, I feel confident, powerful, sensual, magnetic—and ready to own my day!

Step 2: Create Your Renaissance Vow. What we say matters. Your soul hears everything you say and reacts to it. Write your own personal vow to yourself for this year. You can be inspired by the feelings your theme song stirs in you! An example of what that could look like is this: “For this new year, I vow to tap in to my own innate, powerful confidence and deep knowing. I stand in my full power of radiance, courage, and passion to magnetize the very best to me.”

Step 3: Choose Your Adornment Talisman. Select a necklace, a ring, a flower crown, a bracelet … anything you can wear. This object is a witness to your spell and will soak up the powerful vibes that you cast as you perform it. You can use something you already have, you can make something, or you can go out and buy something that’s appropriate and fits the theme of your year. As an example, to create my adornment talisman necklace, I found a small skeleton key and decorated it with an antique lace ribbon, then used a black velvet cord to radiate strength and power. All right, my witchy friend, you’ve now curated the powerful foundation of your Renaissance spell!

Step 4: Pick a Date. Now you need to pick a magical date to perform your spell! Choose a night between the new moon and the full moon, as when the moon is growing (or waxing), it’s building in power.

Step 5: Gather Ingredients. Once you’ve found your theme song, written your vow, chosen your talisman, and picked your date, it’s time to collect these ingredients for the spell work:

• A mirror to sit in front of
• Your written Renaissance vow
• Your chosen talisman
• A lemon
• A knife and cutting board
• A clear glass full of water
• A taper candle (or birthday candle) and holder
• A lighter

THE RITUAL

On the day you perform your spell, I’d suggest taking a shower or bath to get yourself in the proper mindset.

Choose something to wear that makes you feel beautiful.

Set up your ritual space in front of the mirror so that you can see yourself. Make it clean and appealing. Lay out your ritual objects on a small table or a beautiful piece of cloth.

Then put your chosen theme song on and set it on repeat. Close your eyes and listen to the music.

Feel the power growing. When you’re ready, look at yourself in the mirror and say your Renaissance vow powerfully out loud.

Put your talisman on with purpose, as if you’re receiving the ability to wear it because of the vow you’ve taken.

Close your eyes. Continue listening to your theme song. Imagine the good vibes you’re getting from the music seeping through your pores and into the talisman you’re wearing.

As the energy builds, hold your hands

up, palms facing the mirror, and imagine beams of sunshine radiating out of them. Gaze into your own eyes in the mirror and repeat your Renaissance vow. Connecting with your eyes as you say the vow will make the spell stronger.

Cup your hands as if you’re drinking water, then blow your breath into your palms. This magick gesture puts your “life breath” and your creative force into the lines of your palms.

Now clasp your hands in a prayer position and rub your palms back and forth to energize them. When they’re hot with energy, grab the lemon.

Close your eyes and be still for three full minutes. Feel the energy being transferred from your palms into the lemon.

Cut the lemon in half on the cutting board and then hold one side of it over your water. Squeeze the juice into your glass. Remember that this bright beautiful lemon grew in the sunshine; the juice of the lemon brings power and happiness to your spell. The lemon is a gift from the earth. Take the second half and squeeze all the delicious juice out with intention into your water—like you’re crafting a potion (because you are!)

Bring the glass to your lips and speak your Renaissance vow into the water for the third and final time so that you can see your breath make ripples in the water.

Place the glass with the lemon-juice potion in front of you and light the candle. With your right hand, pick up the glass of water, and with your left hand, hold the lit candle behind the glass so that you can see the candle flame shine through the water.

Now say:
Water for the flow I need. Earth for the dreams I seed. Air for the words I speak. Fire for the passion I seek.

A Vow to the water, earth, air, and fire To craft the life that I desire.

This is your own personal magick water! You have enchanted it with your words and your thoughts and your actions. You summoned the water, earth, air, and fire for this spell. Take a delicious sip.

Now set the candle down in a safe place before you. Take your fingertips, dip them in the water, flick or rub the water droplets onto your adornment talisman, and say:

Adornment magick holds the key To amplify the core of me.
To stir the vibes of strength and passion Dress me in enchanted fashion.

End the spell as we always do:
See it, be it, so be it!

Save this Renaissance-vow lemon-water potion in a mason jar and take a sip every morning for the next nine days while you play your theme song. Wear your talisman whenever you need to be reminded of your power, passion, and purpose.

Here’s to a beautiful new year filled with magick!

Stephanie Levi-John as Lina from Starz’s The Spanish Princess.
Courtesy of Starz

Why are you going to the Renaissance Faire?” I’ve lost count of how many imes I’ve explained to people that, no, there likely won’t be many other Black people there, but I love it just the same. The atmosphere, the chance to step back in time—there’s a reason Colonial Williamsburg is one of my favorite places. From childhood, I dreamed of far-off places and magical eras; I was enchanted by stories of fascinating lives and beauty.

My love for all things Renaissance and Tudor bloomed early, but I didn’t see myself represented in the books, movies, TV shows, or art of the time. And representation matters. It may sound cliché, but it’s true. When a child never sees anyone who looks like them in the media, it affects them. The media has an impact on the formation of identity, and when you’re not represented, you begin to feel less valuable. It influences your sense of self and how you see yourself in the world.

I’ve always loved the art, creativity, and inventiveness of the Renaissance, but I felt like an outsider—observing from the margins of a story that wasn’t mine. I could read about the era, watch it, even dress up in Renaissance clothing, but it was just cosplay.

I was raised to be proud of who I am and to believe that the history of African people is rich, even if we don’t fully understand the details yet. Deep down, I was always searching for connections. Even when the world seemed to suggest that my story—my place in history—was unrecorded, forgotten, and unimportant, I knew there had to be more to it.

In college, Black history courses opened my eyes. I learned that my ancestors’ lives didn’t begin with slavery and that Africa has a rich tradition of art and creativity. Africans traveled the world long before the arrival of European ships. They were explorers, and like all explorers, they sought a world bigger than their community. The transatlantic slave trade ran at the same time as the Renaissance, and there were Black people in Europe. And, contrary to popular belief, not all of them were enslaved.

John Blanke, for instance, was a royal trumpeter who arrived at the at the English court of King Henry VII in the early 16th century. Records describe him as Black, and we know he was paid twenty shillings for eight days of service in November 1507.

In 1526, when most trumpeters were earning eight old pence a day, he petitioned King Henry VIII for a raise and a promotion to a more senior position, successfully doubling his wages. His portrait is featured in the 1511 Westminster Tournament Roll, a sixty-foot-long scroll of painted vellum— evidence not only of Black musicians’ artistic contributions to European courts but also of his life as a free Black man in 16th century England… a man who understood his value and pursued what he deserved with confidence.

It’s believed that John Blanke may have come to England from Spain with Catherine of Aragon when she was betrothed to Henry’s brother, Prince Arthur.

The television series The Spanish Princess, based on the book of the same name by Philippa Gregory, tells the story of Catherine of Aragon arriving in England with her entourage, among whom is a Black servant and lady’s maid named Lina de Cordonnes. Though there is some speculation that this character is a composite of two Black women in service to Catherine, recorded history is clear only about one woman, Catalina.

Her story begins with capture and enslavement, but ends with her returning to Spain, marrying, having a family, and eventually returning to the home of her birth. She would become an important figure in the investigation of Catherine during Henry VIII’s case for divorce. Catalina would have been present in Catherine’s bed chamber. She would have intimate knowledge, and though it is believed she was questioned, Catalina’s account does not exist. Nor does any information on the end of her life. What is important is that we know Catalina lived a full life, and we know her name.

When a Black actress named Stephanie Levi-John was cast as Catalina, there was backlash and accusations of race-swapping because some people said there couldn’t have been Black women in Europe during that time. Those flawed ideas highlight how deeply misunderstood this history is.

Then there’s Alessandro de’ Medici, my first discovery on this journey to find Black people in the Renaissance. Born in 1512, he is thought to be the son of an enslaved woman of African descent in the Medici household named Simunetta, and Lorenzo de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino. There is also an argument that his actual father is Giulio de Medici, who later became Pope Clement VII.

Alessandro was acknowledged by the Medicis, educated, and ultimately became the Duke of Penne and the first Duke of Florence, ruling from 1530 to 1537. Several portraits of Alessandro exist, depicting him with dark skin and tightly curled hair. Alessandro’s story is remarkable, shedding light on the complexities of slavery and the undeniable role Black people have played throughout world history. Though his rule was cut short due to his assassination, he had two children and a great number of his descendants are still in Europe today. John Blanke, Catalina from Granada, Alessandro de’ Medici—these are figures I wish I’d known about as a child, when I played dress-up in bedsheets with my mother’s white slip on my head, imagining I was royalty with long, flowing hair. I’d always believed there must have been Black people in those magical places, with hidden lives, unseen faces, and voices silenced by history. Now they are silent no more.

In the autumn, as the leaves begin to reveal their exquisite colors, can you give yourself permission to reveal and recognize your own most colorful, magickal self ?

Take my hand and let’s follow the smooth, large stones of the forest path. Let’s take a deep breath of the clean, crisp oxygen as we listen to the music of the river churning over the rocks and feel the wind dance through our hair. Let’s imagine the soles of our feet growing roots deep into the ground and our fingertips pointing laser beams into the clouds. The magick will come coursing through our veins.

This power is what I call our Wild. It’s easily accessible when we quiet our minds and allow ourselves to just be—and it’s been with us all along. Magick and witchcraft are simply practices of lifting up our life-force energy, uncovering our uniqueness, and celebrating it and putting it out there into the world to help others. It’s about aligning with the earth, the wind, the fire, the water. And it’s the simple boost of being present and seeing the mystical all around us.

Here are three creative mindset spells to delve into the realm of your most colorful, core self:

• Honoring: The first mindset spell honors your own story so you can revel in the power within you. Often, we don’t allow ourselves the time to appreciate our victories and triumphs because we stack so many tasks onto our to-do lists! Does this sound familiar? One of the keys to standing in your Wild power is to take a break and look back at all the things you’ve already accomplished—both big and small—in your life. Light a yellow or orange candle and grab your journal or grimoire.Take three deep breaths and begin writing down all the things you’re proud of: your accomplishments, things that you’ve manifested, things you’ve actively put time and love into to enhance your life. The items on this list can be anything from taking the time to be a good friend to signing up for that writing class and getting inspired to work on your book. Write it all down! I promise you’ll be shocked at how much you’ve accomplished and manifested!

• Mirroring: The second mindset spell identifies magick traits and actively mirrors those in your own journey. In your magick journal, write down three to five names of your own personal heroes. Below each one of their names, write down the characteristics that make them stand out to you. Some examples might look like: Mr. Rogers, deep capacity for kindness and understanding; David Bowie, being his truest self unapologetically as well as a creative channel; Maya Angelou, speaking her truth and fiercely standing up for what she believed in.My Grandma Helen called this process “magick mirroring.” She believed that if we’re magnetized by a trait or quality in someone else, we have that quality in some capacity in the truest core of us. When we connect to our heroes, it’s because they’re doing something that actively speaks to us and ignites that trait in us!

The next step is to write down how you can embody those traits in a way that is uniquely you. Take a risk and be bold!

• Channeling: The third mindset spell delves into the magick of your imagination. Grandma Helen used to say that our souls are like a library filled with all the books from our many different lives and experiences … but we only get to peek at this one book we’re in the middle of. Imagine all the knowledge and adventures that are in all the other books of your soul library!This is a fun one and can help further encourage your core self. Grab a picnic blanket and your magick journal, and set your blanket somewhere comfortable outside. Lie down, look at the clouds or the stars, and let your mind wander. Imagine opening up an arched wooden door that leads to the great library of all the lifetimes of you. In your mind’s eye, look at the different titles on the shelves. As you reach out to touch a book, let yourself receive images. Ask to see the very best things that will help you in this lifetime. When you’re ready, here are some writing prompts for this exercise: “In a former lifetime, I saw myself as…”; “What I loved about that earlier version of myself was …”; “Something that I can actively do to bring in that version of me today is …”

Magick is joy in action. What actions can you commit to today to give yourself the courage to step into your most powerful Wild self? I believe in you!

You are no doubt expecting me to expound on the romance of flowers in Victorian art, but I think I shall instead start with a splendid murder. In Agatha Christie’s 1932 short story “The Four Suspects,” Miss Marple and her friend Dolly Bantry solve a Secret Service murder by use of the language of flowers. When Sir Henry Clithering, former head of Scotland Yard, tells his friends about a murder victim who received a letter signed “Georgina” shortly before being bumped off, Miss Marple makes the following observation:

My sister and I had a German governess—
a Fraülein. A very sentimental creature.
She taught us the language of flowers—
a forgotten study nowadays but most charming.
A yellow tulip for instance means
Hopeless Love, while a China Aster means
I Die of Jealousy at Your Feet.
The letter was signed Georgina, which I seem to
remember is Dahlia in German.

In the language of flowers, dahlia means treachery and misrepresentation, and therefore Miss Marple and Dolly, avid gardeners, solved the case. For Victorian-born women like Miss Marple, the language of flowers was a way to combine science with secrets, exercising the brain while subverting the strictures that held women in their place. Floriography developed alongside the growing scientific interest in botany and the categorization of different plant types. Studying flowers appeared both remarkably educational and incredibly frivolous, which made it possibly the perfect Victorian pastime. The young women who cultivated the language of flowers learned Latin names and biological details of all the different plants because each part of the plant could send a different message. I see it in the same vein as fern mania (or pteridomania), which gripped Victorian England from the 1850s to the 1890s. (By the way, ferns mean fascination in the language of flowers …)

Obviously, in art, the language of flowers was a way to add layers of meaning to an image, not to mention a way to show off what a splendid still-life painter you were. In George Dunlop Leslie’s 1885 The Language of Flowers, two young women have gathered flowers to study. The young lady in black is looking a bit bored, but her friend, consulting a copy of the useful tome, is holding a sprig of love-in-a-mist. You would think a flower with that particular name had a romantic meaning, but according to the books it actually means perplexity. What—or more likely, who—has this young lady perplexed?

Likewise, we have an insight into the thoughts of the young lady who is sitting and pondering in the quaint and peaceful painting A Quiet Moment (1899) by Carlton Alfred Smith. The girl was reading but has become lost in thought—what is she thinking about? Beside her, daffodils tumble from her basket, hinting at unrequited love, so she is lost in a daydream about someone who is unlikely to be thinking about her.

Flowers represent love’s many forms,including the love from an artist toward the sitter. George Frederic Watts chose two floral signifiers in his honeymoon portrait of his young bride, actress Ellen Terry. In Choosing (1864), shown at right, Ellen bends to inhale the fragrance of a showy red camellia, often taken to represent worldly ambition and her stage career. In her other hand, cradled to her breast, she has a handful of violets, which are felt to represent innocence. Due to the disastrous nature of their marriage, many viewers use this painting as proof that the artist thought his bride was easily distracted by flashy nonsense while overlooking the true treasure of their marriage.

If we use the language of flowers, however, there are less judgmental possible readings that might leave us feeling better toward both artist and model. The violets, sweetly smelling in her cupped hand, represent faithfulness, something Miss Terry holds close to her heart, but she is aware of the beautiful red camellia, which represents both admiration and excellence. Despite her young age, Ellen was already a stage star; she went on to be the greatest actress in England in the 19th century. I think her husband knew that her ambition and talent would, and should, win out. As the couple remained friends, I like to think he didn’t blame her for choosing her camellias.

Speaking of love, it was not unusual for an artist to hint at his less proper feelings for a model through the language of flowers. In his first formal portrait of his best friend William Morris’s wife, Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted Jane Morris sitting behind a vase of white roses, with pink and red carnations at her belt. White roses can mean either passion or virginal love, and carnations signify a woman’s pure love. This painting is seen as an expression of Rossetti’s growing obsession with Jane Morris, which would continue for the rest of his life. He also painted her holding snowdrops, denoting hope, and pansies, which could indicate that he was thinking of her and possibly that he imagined she was thinking of him. More likely it was a secret reference to the fact that when he stayed with the Morris family at Kelmscott Manor, Jane would leave a pansy on his bed if she wished him to visit her room at night.

It should also be noted that Rossetti painted all sorts of flowers in the hands of the lovely Alexa Wilding without having any sort of affair with her. One of the most beautiful is La Ghirlandata (1873), or The Garlanded Woman, which shows honeysuckle and pink roses, expressing love and devotion. Strangely, at the front is monkshood, often read as a warning about the approach of a foe. It seems at odds with the image, and even Rossetti’s brother said he thought his brother meant to paint another flower there. However, meanings can differ between reference books, and some say monkshood could also represent a knight-errant’s courtly protection. So maybe the viewer of the painting is meant to be the knight protecting this beautiful, garlanded woman.

“One day I was counting the cats and I absent-mindedly counted myself.”
—Bobbie Ann Mason, “Residents and Transients”

Women and cats have a long history together, an alliance that goes back to at least 2,000 B.C.E. and the ancient Egyptian veneration of the goddess Bastet. Patroness of childbirth and fertility and protector of the home, Bastet is depicted sometimes as a cat and sometimes as a woman with the head of a cat. She’s also believed to be an aspect of the Egyptian lion goddess, Sekhmet, who predates her as a deity. Domesticated cats lived in Bastet’s temple and also in many an Egyptian home, where they were petted and pampered for keeping vermin at bay. To intentionally kill a cat was punishable by death. In the centuries since, for better or worse, the fortunes of women and cats have continued to intertwine.

Cat goddesses appear in other pre-Christian cultures as well. Artemis, the Greek goddess of the hunt, was able to transform into a cat, as was her Roman counterpart Diana. Magically shapeshifting woman cats abound not just in myth and religion but in literature as well. In Madame d’Aulnoy’s “The White Cat” (1698), the titular feline befriends the youngest son of a king, eventually revealing herself to be a beautiful woman. They marry, of course. “The White Cat” has been retold numerous times, most recently in the “The White Cat’s Divorce,” a 2023 short story by Kelly Link in which the cat runs a cannabis business. In George MacDonald’s 1895 novel Lilith: A Romance, Lilith, the first wife of the Biblical Adam, takes the shape of a cat to trick and threaten the novel’s protagonist, Mr. Vane. In film, Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 Cat People tells the story of Irena Dubrovna, descended from the cat people of a Serbian village. As a result of their history of witchcraft, Irena and her neighbors are fated to become black panthers when physically aroused. On a tamer note, in the Harry Potter series, Hogwarts professor Minerva McGonagall has the magical ability to “transfigure” herself into a cat.

Journalist Akanksha Singh notes how often feline adjectives are used to describe women, especially when it comes to sexuality: “Women are called ‘sex kittens’; women ‘purr’ seductively, and are described as having ‘feline’ good looks.” Of course, there are some famous literary tomcats as well, from Puss in Boots to Felix and Garfield, but these characters are more often associated with practical trickery than magic or seductiveness. As scholar Maria Nikolajeva writes, “A tomcat is expected to be adventurous and mischievous. She-cats are … connected to feminine witchcraft, shape-shifting, mystery, and sexuality.”

That is certainly the case with Catwoman, the morally ambiguous sometime nemesis, sometime love interest of DC Comics’s Batman. While Catwoman originated in the comics, she has been played on television and in film by Julie Newmar, Eartha Kitt, and Zoë Kravitz, among others. Unlike her literary and mythic counterparts, Catwoman doesn’t magically transform into a cat at will. Instead, she dons her cat costume and displays catlike, usually non-magical but extraordinarily seductive powers. She is also just simply a woman with an affinity for cat-kind, which places her within a longstanding and sometimes dangerous historical tradition.

While the Egyptian reverence for Bastet elevated the domestic cat in cultural consciousness, women and cats would come to suffer for their connection to each other. Scholar Jody Berland writes, “Women and cats appear across periods and genres as a twosome denoting intimacy, sensuality, and watchfulness inflected with a wide range of dispositions: maternal, sentimental, magical, seductive, and malevolent.” That malevolent image of the woman-cat duo can be traced to the Middle Ages and the widespread Christian belief that cats were emissaries of Satan, intermediaries between witches and the devil. Writer and veterinarian Elizabeth Lawrence notes, “In 1233 Pope Gregory IX officially proclaimed the link between cats and the devil and gave divine sanction for massacring cats, especially black ones.” From the 11th through the 18th century, such superstitions concerning cats, Satan, and witchcraft were prominent throughout Europe. Cats would often be executed with accused witches as their familiars. Lawrence notes, “Owning a cat, especially a black one, was incriminating evidence against anyone accused of being a witch.” Even now, when cats seem beloved throughout the land, black cats are 75 percent less likely to be adopted than other cats.

These superstitions persist in the stereotype of the crazy cat lady, for many a symbol of spinsterhood and lonely, eccentric old age, but devoid of a witch’s supposed magical powers. The most famous contemporary image of the cat lady may be Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, the mother and daughter in the documentary Grey Gardens. The Beales lived for decades in the decaying house of the film’s title, surrounded by cats. “Crazy” cat ladies have also appeared across the television landscape from The Simpsons to CSI.

And yet, in recent years, “cat lady” has become less an epithet and more a badge of honor. Singers like Katy Perry and Taylor Swift proudly use the term, and celebrities from Jennifer Lopez to Martha Stewart and author Alice Walker have been photographed with their cats. There are cat-lady dolls, games, and books as well, all suggesting a humorous reclamation and celebration of a centuries-old bond. Berland notes, “It is not clear whether the special connection between women and cats has been a cause of cat mistreatment or arose in sympathetic response to it, or more likely a combination of the two.” Either way, women and cats are in this together, and somewhere, Bastet is smiling.

Imagine yourself in a library, surrounded by books, pens, and scattered papers.

Your ink-stained fingers furiously scribble notes as you study an ancient tome, its brittle pages revealing dangerous secrets beyond your wildest imagination. You can just make out the faint whispers of a piano somewhere nearby, and rain taps insistently against the stained-glass window looming over your desk.

That is the aesthetic, the mood, the vibe, of Dark Academia, which has exploded in popularity on Instagram over the past five years. But it’s connected to a lineage of stories that goes back hundreds of years. It’s not just an ambiance but also a genre and perhaps even a subculture. The motifs and set pieces—the building blocks that make up the substance of Dark Academia—are drawn from fictionalized, fantastic universities from an ambiguous past, plus a sensual appreciation for art, culture, and opulence. If you’re thinking of neo-Gothic buildings covered in ivy, floored in marble, and hung with priceless paintings everywhere, then you’re halfway there. Add a sense of mystery, ambition, luxuriance, nostalgia, secrets, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, and you’ve conjured Dark Academia.

Books like Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, Maurice by E.M. Forster, and Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers formed the foundation for what would later become Dark Academia, but most people mark The Secret History by Donna Tartt as the first book to really cement the genre. A captivating story of murder, obsession, and philosophy, The Secret History would come to represent all the strongest aspects of what makes a book Dark Academia, setting the tone for the books in the genre that followed, like If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio and Bunny by Mona Awad.

While there’s always a glamor about Dark Academia, the stories at its base are fundamentally sinister: Our most prestigious institutions are revealed to be rotting from within, host to all manner of arcane forces and power-hungry intellectuals. Dark Academia stories often feature an outsider entering this exclusive world and being dazzled by it … until something goes horribly wrong. The characters that move through

and privilege. And perhaps most important, Dark Academia storylines explicitly explore the way that knowledge and intellectualism can enhance personal power.

There are some core values and ideas that underpin this genre and aesthetic:

• Knowledge is the ultimate power (but that power can come at a very high price).

• You should beware of hubris, that morality is a fluid concept.

• The humanities and classics are worthwhile pursuits (yes!).

• Luxury and sensuality are ideals worth chasing.

But too often, Dark Academia texts contain problematic implicit—and sometimes not-so-implicit—themes, such as nostalgia for a time when wealthy white men held almost all the power. The romanticization of higher education fails to acknowledge its real pitfalls, like the reliance on underpaid adjunct labor and the exclusion of women and people of color. These are not necessarily universal across the genre, but they form some ofthe assumptions that many people have about Dark Academia.

Writers and creators can either reinforce or subvert these concepts, entrenching or expanding generic and aesthetic expectations. Among the works we’d recommend are Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik, Babel by R.F. Kuang, A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid, and Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, if you’re looking for Dark Academia stories with a touch of magic!

In fact, it is more common than not for a hint of enchantment to creep into these stories—not surprising, when you consider how much they rely on mystery, esoteric knowledge, subversion, and scandal. So if you’re looking for haunted libraries, secret spells, and the kind of enchantment that seeks out the shadows, we invite you to grab a cup of your favorite tea and devour a Dark Academia book.

And if you don’t know where to start, might we recommend The Picture of Dorian Gray? Oscar Wilde would never lead you astray …

Read Part One Here!

Featured Image:
A cutting from the Illustrated London News, March 23, 1850, depicts Johannes Gutenberg showing his wife the firstproof sheet of his Bible printed from movable type. Science History Images / Alamy Stock Photo

That network of shapes crawling across the page are a book’s lifeblood. Sometimes the ink is still unstable, so if you drag your fingers through the words in just the right way, you might smear your own history onto a favorite book. I would never encourage such behavior now—but my first and much-loved paperback of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was printed quite cheaply with ink that probably stayed damp forever. My eleven-year-old self smeared the type with my fingers and made sure the book registered my presence in it. I could not resist!

Perhaps you already have a favorite recipe for your calligraphy inks. The very first ink formulas go back about 25,000 to 30,000 years (yes, really) and were made with lampblack—a term that covers any kind of soot or charcoal left from burning wood, once ground up and mixed with water. Lampblack lent itself well to variations: Chinese calligraphers cooked the watery solution into more of a gel with the addition of animal-hide glue, plus charred

bone for a deeper shade of black. The Greeks used cephalopod ink from octopuses and squid.

Iron-gall ink, the other big heritage variety, was made from the blisters (galls) that form when certain wasps lay eggs in oak trees—which were pulped and boiled or fermented in wine, water, or vinegar. Iron sulfate turns the deep purple distillate a browner shade. Gum arabic, the sap of North African acacia trees, holds the color in suspension and keeps it smooth.

Ink had to evolve suddenly with the invention of the printing press. Johannes Gutenberg started a revolution with movable type: individual metal letters that could be hand-set in a flat wooden plate, or platen (remembering that everything had to be laid out backward). You rolled ink over the type, laid a sheet of paper upon it, and then pressed a plain wooden platen on top. When you’d printed all the pages, you could rearrange and reuse the metal bits.

Under the new technology, ink had to produce a crisp image over and over without dripping or drying out. Gutenberg developed a formula that was more of a colored varnish than a watery dye, cooked up from lampblack and linseed oil, pine resin, oils of turpentine and walnut, cinnabar, and a few elements we have yet to figure out. He and his rival printers kept their recipes ultra-secret, so we don’t know exactly how they conjured the magic.

Gutenberg’s Bibles are among the most sought-after treasures on Earth. The first ones date to 1454, using Saint Jerome’s Latin translation from the late fourth century. Out of 160 to 185 copies printed, 49 are known today. And of course you can’t even get close to touching any of them now—but just think how it must have felt to pull those pages from the press (some made of paper, some of vellum) and spread them to dry. Careful not to smear …

Pity the scribe who feared obsolescence! The new technique was dazzlingly efficient. A monk or a nun might produce three pages a day; Gutenberg could print 3,600. He still had many copies illuminated by hand, which of course took longer and made them more luxe. These books offered the best of both worlds, marrying technology to handmade art.

The contrast in productivity was not just amazing by contemporary standards; it was alarming. In the years just after Gutenberg, a German printer called Johann Fust went to Paris to peddle his wares in the world’s biggest university town. Jealous booksellers cried that the only way he could have so many fine books was with the devil’s help, and he fled in fear of a bonfire and an attempt against his life. Whether this story is true or not—and whether Fust’s bulging inventory came about through a source demonic or divine—it shows that the physical body of the book could stir the most intense passions.

Medieval scribes bent over their vellum fourteen hours a day, scratching out the words of God and poets while others read and prayed aloud to keep all thoughts properly focused. With the printing press, we lost a bit of connection to the human touch

… just as, in the digital age, we now miss the old letterpresses (which are still used to produce glorious artistic editions). There’s a beauty in the occasional smudges and misprints of the old presses—we cherish the misplaced letter or comma as a connection to the human element of the writing.

That’s one reason few books in the Western world are as coveted as the Wicked Bible, a version of the King James published in London in 1631. A printer’s error left out the not from the Seventh Commandment, meaning readers are enjoined, “Thou shalt commit adultery.” (Really? If you say so …)

There is also some Wicked scandal about blots and errata in the word greatness, with the n blotted and the second e misprinted as a. Modesty shall draw a veil—but if I ever find a copy of the Wicked Bible, I pray to be allowed to touch the sinful spot and remember how even with the best of spirits, human invention is fallible.

Lingering on the Edges

Speaking of sensitive, forgotten spots … It seems to have been all too easy to forget that books are a rectangular solid with six sides, not just a front, back, and spine. The page edges are partially hidden, a stretch of secret flesh (as it were) playing peekaboo with the covers.

In the past, edges were ripe for ornamentation, with special textures, colors, and designs laid on. Then with the rise of the paperback and efficiency printing, the three unbound edges of the page became a book’s fallow ground, of special interest to

collectors and antiquarians but woefully neglected by publishers. But then came a moment—this moment—when readers, collectors, and publishers of all kinds have been rediscovering old book production and design elements, investing more in the physical body of their cherished tomes.

For example, consider the edge stain, a flourish first used in the fourth century BCE when someone ran a bit of purple around the pages. Inky edges were standard for many books published more than a hundred years ago. They give an open book a subtle frame, setting it apart as a separate world. I find them magical, so in 2013, I decided to make their restoration my crusade. I begged my editor to bring that antique touch to my novel The Kingdom of Little Wounds. (There may or may not have been actual weeping involved.) It was an easy sell; the designers had never done one, and they got so excited that when publication expenses eventually climbed and I offered to give up the edge, my editor told me very severely that I now had to have one. She could not disappoint the designers, who had decided on a beautiful shade of mulberry that evokes nighttime and blood and magic and secrets. The heart wants what it wants.

Decorated edges are also a most welcome trend in book production these days, and it’s relatively cheap to hire a professional to do what your heart desires. You can even spray edges yourself. Think of this as the tattoo area of your book; you can make it as detailed or elegant as you like. Some spectacular edges have been painted with exquisite mini-masterpieces that

form pictures when the book is closed. Today, custom paintwork can include stencils for words and images such as hearts, stars, bees, skulls, your name, your love’s name—almost anything you can imagine.

Now let’s think about gold. Or silver, for you moon goddesses. Back in the day, a fine library’s books typically bore a thin layer of gold leaf on the top edges of the pages, sometimes all the way around. It looked undeniably posh; it also helped keep insects out of the pages, and the slick finish made those books easy to dust. Please tell me you’ve had your edges gilded! If you’re really splashing out, you can also have them gauffered: Press a pattern into the gilt, or carve the layer of gold with a knife to get a beautiful finish. If colored edges just don’t feel right for your treasured volume, a deckle edge is another very nice touch—and nice to the touch, as the pages on the long side are rough, cut to different lengths, generally giving a feel of an artisanal treasure. The purpose of a deckle edge these days is primarily aesthetic and sensory, but it is also a nod to the history of the book as an object.

You’ve probably noticed that when Jane Austen’s characters read a new release, they do it with a knife in hand. That’s because each sheet that came off the press held four to sixteen pages laid out. The sheet had to be folded one to three times, to make a little packet of double-sided pages. The printer typically did not cut the folds apart, so when you received your new tome, you had to slit the page on at least one side in order to get it open. This was often the case with a book intended for rebinding—meaning the covers in which it was sold were temporary, as the purchaser probably had a library of books that they were binding into uniform covers, spines, ornaments, and edges.

So in The Great Gatsby, when the owlish guest comments that the pages in Gatsby’s library are uncut—and that having cut them would have just been trying too hard—he’s talking about Gatsby’s set decoration for the life he wants to convince others he leads. His books are status symbols, more like furniture than the living entities we know ours are.

A collector keeps things pristine, but a reader wants to free the edges. Bibliophiles will pay extra for an uncut volume; we dream of being the one to release the pages, the first to set eyes upon the text. We crave a bespoke book that’s like no other, whether it’s a beloved classic from childhood or the latest volume of a personal dream journal.

Excesses of Size and Scale

Here is an odd fact about us humans: As soon as we love something, we start wanting to see it in a different size. Make it bigger or smaller—or why not enormous (or tiny). If you think Gulliver’s Travels (for example) is awesome when you

hold it in your hands and read in bed, just think how great it will be if it’s the size of a suitcase—or your thumb …

Jonathan Swift’s satirical adventure about scale and proportion is the source of the bibliophile’s technical terms for big and small books: Brobdingnagiana (really big ones) and Lilliputiana (of a size more at home in a dollhouse than a condo).

Our fascination with size has resulted in coffee-table books that really could serve as coffee tables. Or dining tables. Or barn doors (almost). The first salad days of the Big Book came in the Middle Ages, whose largest surviving manuscript gives heft to the word tome: The Codex Gigas, sometimes known as the Devil’s Bible, is 36 inches long by 20 inches wide, and it weighs 165 pounds. It was created in the early 1200s, when a Bohemian monk called Herman the Recluse broke his vows and was ordered to write down the sum of all human knowledge in one night; if he failed, in the morning he would be walled into a cell for eternity. Herman prayed for help—to Lucifer. His prayer was granted, and in that night of scriptomania, he used 309 or more sheets of parchment (requiring the skins of 100 to 160 donkeys)—and produced some stunning illuminations, one of which is, fittingly, a portrait of Lucifer.

Fine, fine—scholars now say that the Codex Gigas was transcribed over the course of twenty years, not one night, and the devil might not have been involved at all. But you still have to

admire the consistency of the handwriting, which looks like the work of one long, sustained session with quill and inkpot—and a stable’s worth of animal hides. You can see it for yourself now in Stockholm, at rest after eight hundred years and several perilous close calls with destruction.

We don’t know why Herman made his book so darned big, but there was actually a practical reason to commission some Brobdingnagiana in his day: People shared their books, and several might be reading at the same time. Or singing at the same time, more to the point. Medieval antiphonaries, containing Catholic liturgies with words and musical notations, could rest open on a stand, large enough for a choir of monks to see and follow along. When they stood singing in their stalls, limbs wobbly with arthritis, the pure notes twined through the pillars and carvings and pointy windows—a magnificent sound conjured from one enormously inspired book. It would have taken several of those monks to lug an antiphonary around, so if your monastery had one, it pretty much stayed where you left it.

Anyway, since when are books purely practical things? As long as we’re making something fantastic, we might as well make it huge. That was probably what Charles II thought when he was gifted with the Klencke Atlas of 1660, which makes even the Codex Gigas look positively Lilliputian. Six feet tall and more than three and a half feet wide when shut, the Klencke is a marvel

of the era’s technology for mapmaking as well as bookbinding. It was never destined to be a page turner, because the maps inside were meant to be removed and hung on the wall. The bookbinding was mostly for convenience in moving them from one spot to another.

A big book is majestic, yes; it can help a choir carry a tune or plot a voyage through the known world. But there is something to be said for books that go the other direction. Reading is an intimate experience, so there is nothing quite like holding, say, a very little copy of Little Women in the palm of your hand, or The Divine Comedy fitted into a walnut shell. You could loop an entire Lilliputian book on a chain at your neck; then you’d never be short something to read.

By official designation, a miniature book measures below three inches in every direction. Many are produced using a single sheet of paper, printed with 64 mini-book pages and folded so that the pages face the correct direction and follow sequentially. The portability and intimacy help provide comfort and inspiration in unexpected ways. The miniature printed book was especially beloved during the Victorian era—when, incidentally, the invention of aniline chemical inks took inkmaking out of a cottage industry and into factories. Miniature books were a good antidote to the increasing depersonalization of industrial life. Starting in the 1890s, David Bryce of Glasgow, Scotland, gained renown by producing marvels of miniature engineering and design. His focus was on the Bible, but another of his most popular offerings was a miniature Qu’ran (his spelling) that Indian soldiers carried into the trenches of World War I.

That size is also just right for small hands, so many examples of Lilliputiana were children’s Bibles or other instructive works for young minds. One perennial favorite is a little miracle called London Characters, describing various jobs and professions—cunningly tucked inside a cardboard matchbox and billed as “The Safest Series for Children.” Or the delightfully self-referential The Mite, which contains information about the history and process of … printing books. In 1891, it popped off the presses at 21 millimeters by 13, or about three-quarters of an inch by a half-inch. Unsurprisingly, a copy ended up in the greatest miniature library on the planet: the one in Queen Mary’s dollhouse, along with tiny tomes handwritten by the likes of Vita Sackville-West and Arthur Conan Doyle. It was outdone in 1900 with an edition of Omar Khayyam (a.k.a. The Rubaiyat thereof) small enough to fit in place of a jewel in a signet ring.

In 1985, a truly microscopic version of Old King Cole was printed via offset lithography, the same technique newspapers use today. The ink is transferred from the metal type to a rubber roller, which then rolls (logically) over the page to be printed. The result measures just one millimeter by 0.9—about the size of a sharp pencil tip. It is so small it has to be mounted on a card. That merry old soul called for a print run of 85 nearly invisible copies. If you want to read it, you’ll have to use a needle to turn the pages.

I’m going to stop there, with the triumph of a printing process that Gutenberg would still recognize. In the age of silicon, books have become even more unimaginably microscopic, the equivalent of the Kish tablet engraved on a grain of sand … almost figments of the imagination.

Give us something to hold!

Books as Villains

But I must issue a caution: These gorgeous (and sometimes weird) volumes can be fatal. That’s especially true of some of the oldest and rarest and most likely to appeal to the bibliophile.

In particular, you have to watch out for the green ones.

Arsenic has many applications, and the Victorians couldn’t get enough of the stuff, using it for everything from painting a bookbinding brilliant emerald to killing bugs and mice to (through small oral doses) brightening the complexion. Any of those functions can also prove fatal to humans. Decorating a binding often means licking the tip of a paintbrush to get a sharp line. When somebody was painting with arsenic, the results were woefully predictable: burns and lesions in mouth and throat, numbness and tingling in hands and feet, and potentially death.

Even today, you must exercise caution when it comes to what you read and how long you linger over it. The arsenic may work its way out of leather, cloth, and paper to find you. Don’t wait to break out in blisters: If your hands are covered in an eerie green powder, wash them immediately and put the book into a sealed plastic bag. Then call the folks over at the Poison Book Project; they are making a catalog of every volume ever produced with arsenic, and they’d love to have a crack at yours.

Which leads us to the problem of forbidden books.

I would concede that access to some books should be restricted, with arsenic-infused bindings forming one of the top categories. But that’s a problem with the body of the book, its physical being. When it comes to the soul, the essence—well, who are we? Are we for free speech and the right to read what we want, when we want, whether in a beautifully printed edition or a handful of manuscript pages exchanged in a writers’ group? Do we presume to tell others what they can and cannot read, however unpleasant we find their choices? (Hint: No, we do not.)

Say you’ve had a rough day. Felt misunderstood, kicked around, bruised. Your friends haven’t been through what you have; they love you, but they just don’t get this. Where do you turn to find a kindred spirit, one who shows it’s possible to survive what you are enduring, who not only understands you emotionally but also offers a friendly physical form, a rudder by which to steer through rough waters—the comfort of an object that is so much more than the sum of its pages and ink? That’s right, I am prescribing a book (or this magazine). But what if the books that speak to your experience, the ones that put you on the page, have been removed from your library? What if you never

even hear of Gender Queer? Or the Wicked Bible? Or Harry Potter?

That’s right, the bespectacled boy wizard has been banned from many school libraries, because some watchdogs have said he’s too dark and occult and witchy for children.

According to PEN America, an organization supporting human rights and the freedom of literary expression, about fifty groups nationwide are pushing through challenges and bans to books in local and school libraries. Among the most frequently challenged authors are favorites and titans such as Maia Kobabe, Toni Morrison, and Sarah J. Maas. In one school district in Escambia County, Florida, for example, 1,600 books were recently banned or otherwise restricted pending investigation. Five of them were dictionaries, because words are dangerous.

You might have heard that when a book is banned, it’s good for sales; it isn’t. Think of all the libraries that will not have that potentially life-changing book that you crave on the shelves, the bookstores where no one will have heard of it, and the insults and attacks on various social media platforms that will drive readers away. I don’t need to read that book for myself, someone might say, I saw the nasty reviews on Goodreads. Some banned authors have found their library and bookstore events canceled because the sponsoring institutions could not afford the security needed to host them.

Books have real power in the physical and metaphysical worlds. But even arsenic-laced tomes don’t attack people out of malice. When a book is banned, thousands of readers are denied an experience that might mean the world to them—make them feel seen, understood, important, inspired. Without that smeary newsprint copy of a beloved novel, or the miniature sacred text to bring into battle—some beacon of perfectly bound, deckle-edged, heavenly-smelling light—who will we be?

Johann Fust, the printer who fled Paris because he had so many books that shoppers believed Satan must have lent him a hand.

Herman the Recluse, writing impossible passages overnight to save himself from enclaustration.

Or someone whose name we’ll never know, because she was wrapped in white linen and forced to fall silent.

Read. Talk. Celebrate your personal library—go ahead and share it. You might connect a reader with a book that saves her life.

You are just one person, but so was Gutenberg, and look what he accomplished.

Are you, like me, a passionate collector of the printed word?

Do you share my somewhat problematic tendency to acquire more books than your bookshelves can properly hold, more than you can possibly read in a timely manner? In my collection you’ll find novels read for pleasure, coveted antique classics, and literary resources for my passions for herbalism, foraging, witchcraft, art, cooking, and more. I must find ways to cleverly store books on bedside tables, in charming baskets and old wooden boxes tucked beneath furniture, and as decorative stacks woven into my home’s decor.

If you happen to share my predicament, I am here to tell you that your library of treasured books need not ever collect the dust of time. They can continually assist you in your spiritual growth. You can draw on their magic to obtain guidance, inspiration, and wisdom.

I’m assuming you are familiar with the practice of divination: the intuitive art of connecting to Spirit (yours included) to discover hidden knowledge and insight. Among the different divinatory practices are cartomancy (tarot and oracle card reading), scrying by gazing into a reflective surface like a crystal ball, tasseomancy (the reading of tea leaves), and bibliomancy (prophesying with books).

The basic idea of bibliomancy is to take any book of your choosing, close your eyes, open to a random page, and drop your finger down on the paper. The word, phrase, or passage you land on serves as inspiration or guidance from a higher place. Prior to opening the book, you could ask a specific question or just be open to receiving general information.

The History of Bibliomancy

The word bibliomancy comes from biblio, meaning “of or relating to a book or books,” and mancy, which translates to “divination by means of.” It is a tradition that dates back to the ancient Romans and the use of sortes to predict one’s future. Sortes were small tablets, usually made of wood, upon which were written lines from celebrated poets. Verses from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Aeneid, were especially popular.The tablets were thrown like dice or placed in a sitella (an urn) filled with water. Whichever verses turned up when cast like dice or drawn from the water were messages applicable to the life of

the person seeking the advice. The same practice was also common among early Christians, who consulted the Bible instead of secular verses—a practice known as sortes biblicae.

Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, who reigned from 534 to 509 B.C., practiced bibliomancy using The Sibylline Books, a collection of oracular versus in Greek hexameter purchased from a sybil (an oracle). But the practice of bibliomancy survived into the modern age, surging during the Edwardian period, particularly among the British.

In both the Victorian and Edwardian eras, it was customary to give a book to celebrate significant occasions like birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, or to ring in the New Year. In fact, Edwardians held a superstitious belief that it was unlucky not to have a book in hand when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s.

Edwardians embraced the idea that books could foretell the future for oneself and one’s family. On New Year’s, it was common to engage in bibliomancy, with the head of family (usually the patriarch) opening their new book to a random page and reading a passage to predict their family’s future for the coming year. Popular books for bibliomancy in this period included much-loved classics like Westward Ho! by Charles Kingsley, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, and Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan.

Bibliomancy in Contemporary Practice

I prefer to get somewhat creative with my modern-day bibliomancy. The basic intuitive process is the same: Have a question in mind, or be open to receiving a general message meant for you. Choose the book that calls to you, close your eyes, feel the energy, and drop your finger down on the word, phrase, or passage meant for you. You will intuitively know which one.

As a psychic medium, I know that there is energy around certain things that are meant to happen but that nothing is set in stone. Therefore my advice is to use bibliomancy not as a form of fortune-telling but as a way to receive spiritual guidance and higher wisdom as you exercise your gift of free will.

It’s important to create a sacred space that’s conducive to receiving enlightened information. Light a candle, play soft music, bring in crystals and flowers (I love spring lilacs, as they enhance connection to the spirit realm), close your eyes, feel

your breath, and imagine your beautiful energy connecting to the ether.

When selecting your book, you can choose a novel, poetry, a classic, a book customarily used in the past for bibliomancy, a work of nonfiction, or even a dictionary. You can also look to your favorite author for guidance.

Expanding Upon the Traditional Practice of Bibliomancy

Traditional bibliomancy can be likened to drawing an oracle card or doing a one-card tarot pull. With tarot, though, a variety of spreads require multiple cards, so why not try something similar with bibliomancy?

Three-Passage Reading

The most popular three-card tarot spread is the past-present-future card spread, which is generally used to gain a better understanding of self or a situation. We can implement this same structure in bibliomancy. For example, I conducted a three-passage reading with my treasured 1852 copy of Nathaniel

Hawthorne’s The Snow-Image, and Other Twice-Told Tales. For this particular reading, I chose to receive general guidance.

Past: “and mingle my spirit with the wildest of the confusion”

Present: “Instead of the rich man’s wealth and the warrior’s sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both.”

Future: “the clear sky over my head, and the afternoon sunshine falling gently bright through the window frame and doorway. I heard the tinkling of a cowbell, the twittering of birds, and the pleasant hum of insects.”

Five-Passage Reading

A five-passage spread (based on the traditional five-card spread) is a great option if you want to dig a little deeper. The first passage represents your current situation, and the second represents your response to it. The third represents what is holding you back, and the fourth shows what you can do to change the situation. The fifth passage reveals the likely outcome if you make that change.

Further Tips:

• Think about how the words you land on speak to you personally. The information you receive will most likely be symbolic, not to be taken at face value.

• If the text you land on feels wrong or does not speak to you on an intuitive level, just try again. People often do this when drawing tarot cards. But keep in mind, just because something is seemingly negative, that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Sometimes the most important growth comes from a challenge.

• Don’t feel married to doing traditional spreads. You can make up your own, tailored to your own needs.

• Also, it’s a good idea to take notes in a designated journal, especially if you are doing a multipassage reading and want to remember the information given to you. Jot down the actual words from the book, as well as any intuitive thoughts and impressions you receive. The journal makes a wonderful gift to self—one that you can look back on, reflect upon, and use to witness and celebrate your personal growth.

Featured Image:
Model and photographer YINSEY WANG @tornandpolished
Gown by MEG LARA @meg.lara.atelier
Color toned with onlythecurious presets @only.thecurious

Incipit

Take a moment. Slide your hand down the slick page in front of you, then pick up the magazine in both hands and lift it to your face. Smell: paper, ink, glue, that magical just-printed aroma. The art, the ideas—wait, don’t even think about those yet. Stroke the cover; run your fingers over the spine and along the page ends and up the line of the deep trench of the gutter between pages. Riffle the page edges and flick the corners to feel the crispness against your forefinger.

In short, slip into the pleasures of bibliophilia. This is your body on the bodies of books.

They are our solace when sad, our sensory delights, our friends and our lovers. Our minds and souls, sometimes our dangers and downfalls. They have such a hold over us that in the past, we’ve thought they must have been made by a god—or by the devil. We fall in love with a beautiful cover every day.

Who hasn’t been utterly beguiled by a physically wonderful tome? I once splurged on a novel published in 1928 that was falling apart—but it was falling apart with light purple endpapers embossed in a pattern of flying cranes, with a surprising shimmer and glisten. I don’t remember the story so well now, but I do remember that from time to time in the reading, I paused to touch those endpapers and feel happy.

So I just took that book down and did it again. It felt good. And I rediscovered the pages’ rough deckle edges, another tactile pleasure and a monument to the history of bookmaking … More on that later.

Books are our greatest invention, and they keep us reinventing ourselves. We want to be with them, to stay up all night turning pages, to paint and design and ornament them, to cover our shelves and our tables with them—basically, to live with them—then curl up and read ourselves into a dream between their covers.

We love them. And there are so many reasons why.

Anatomy of a Tome

We are crazy about the bodies of books, their physical presence. How many of us as children tried to make one at home—hoping that all it would take would be a stack of paper and some ink? Then there turned out to be a certain something more to making a book, a je ne sais quoi that makes it stand up, lie down, fall open, and crackle and feel and smell like an entity with form and substance … even while we tell ourselves that

what really matters is the numinous something-beyond-the-page conjured up in words and images.

It has to be a hard copy.

There’s the mysterious come-hither on the shelf, that thin part with the title, author’s name, and publisher; smooth or bumpy, jacketed or not, just waiting for a finger to hook it and pull it free: the spine. It holds the volume together, sure, and hides what we’ve decided we don’t want to see, the folded and gathered sheets of paper stitched and glued inside.

The boards, historically wood, now cardboard, wrapped in cloth or in paper, protecting the body of the book. The pulpy flesh of it, the pages, that fall tenderly open like a fan in your hands. Blow gently to make them sway back and forth, tantalizing with glimpses of a word here and there, or a bright burst of colored illustration. Then put your hand down firmly and read.

Before we had the magical technologies of paper and ink, publication (that is, making some information public) might mean that your ideas were literally written in stone, which could be expensive and time-consuming to arrange. Or you could write on damp clay with a reed. These early texts weren’t curl-up-in-bed material; they were mostly tax records, inventories, and occasionally lists of kings. The oldest piece of writing we have, the Kish tablet, dates as far back as 3500 to 2900 BCE (give or take) and was found in modern-day Iraq, known in ancient times as Mesopotamia. We don’t know exactly what the rows of wedgy cuneiform say, but we cannot stop looking. Any printed word has an allure.

Scrolls made of flexible, rollable papyrus came along just a thousand years after the Kish tablet. The oldest known papyrus document is Egypt’s Diary of Merer (a daily account of doings at a limestone quarry, perhaps contributing to the Great Pyramid), which dates to 2568 BCE. Papyrus was an amazing innovation; it was almost paper, being strips of river reeds laid over each other and beaten more or less flat.

Some writing surfaces might carry more glamor. Some were originally flesh. Vellum (usually made from bleached calfskin) and parchment (made from the untanned skins of sheep, goats, and cows) had their heyday in the Middle Ages; they are more durable than paper, and they are the reason we still have some beautiful books that were hand-copied and -illustrated long ago. But for cost, convenience, portability, and versatility, there’s just nothing like paper, and it continued to develop even as

parchment and vellum ruled the monasteries.

The process for macerating trees and other plants—that is, dissolving and mashing them in liquid—wasn’t developed until around 105 CE, in China. In the next couple of centuries, Chinese papermakers worked with mulberry bark, or cheaper bamboo, or ultra-luxe blue sandalwood bark (still the national favorite). They rolled the gooey pulp flat and thin, then experimented with sizing, a chemical treatment that makes paper absorb ink evenly. With the addition of gypsum, lichen glue, starch, and other sizing agents as yet unidentified, Chinese paper became thinner, whiter, crisper, and amazingly versatile.

As a consequence, Chinese culture used paper like nobody’s business, for clothes, kites, ceremonial money to be burned at funerals … and in the 600s, toilet paper. There’s a contender for the title of most conspicuous consumption: It was far too expensive and precious for everyday use but a desirable item for display and fancy occasions. And if you needed to, you could use it to jot down a few thoughts.

Paper enabled all sorts of revolutions.

Mummy Pages

Paper is not just wood pulp and lignin; along with sizing, it often contains a stabilizer such as kaolin clay or a calcium compound. These ingredients create a sort of ecosystem that might evolve over time. Acid is a well-known danger: If contents are acidic, they might turn brown. Higher-quality paper sometimes contains an alkaline chemical reserve to fight any acids picked up in the environment and keep the paper bright and white for a thousand years (guaranteed!).

Other common ingredients have been cotton, linen, and … mummies? Maybe.

Until about 150 years ago, paper manufacturing was a major consumer of cloth fibers, which led manufacturers into some odd underground chambers—a thrilling and very American cautionary tale. By the 1850s, the U.S. was publishing more newspapers than any other place on earth, and transporting materials to factories made it all terrifically expensive. Paper quality was going down all over the world, as we can see now when we open an old volume and find it foxed—freckled with reddish-brown spots that some scientists think are the result of reduced cloth content and hasty production methods.

Rags suitable for pulping were especially hard to come by, so American manufacturers looked to the one place where old linen was found in abundance: Egypt. The tombs of Egypt, that is, where the linen was doing no good at all wrapped around the limbs of some millennia-year-old mummies. Where we now see precious artifacts that must be preserved, our 19th century counterparts saw raw material (literally).

I do wonder how this idea got workshopped around the factories. The mummies were already here, the bodies already separated from their wrappings. They had sailed here to star in a rather bizarre sort of stage show in which an emcee would strip-tease a centuries-old bonbon for the titillation of more modern humans. According to the calculations of one Isaiah Deck, an enterprising geologist and amateur archaeologist, there were enough mummified people, cats, crocodiles, and other creatures preserved in linen to supply American mills for about fourteen years.

Did anyone put this brainchild to work? It is possible. We can’t account for the whereabouts of every single mummy that came ashore. It is said that during the Civil War, they arrived by the shipload in paper-starved places such as Gardiner, Maine, where their rags were turned into grocer’s paper. When cholera broke out in Gardiner shortly afterward, some people called the conclusion obvious. Today, others point out that the cholera bacteria could not have survived hundreds of years entombed in a dry, airless environment.

But doesn’t paper exist precisely to spread stories like this one?

Giddy Bibliosmia

When you walk into your favorite library or bookstore, you sink into a deep pocket of delicious scent. Vinegar. Vanilla. Grass. Sharp, sweet, and umami. That aromatic cocktail is a bibliophile’s opium, launching us into an immersive, visceral experience. The heady formula quickens the pulse—so much to discover!—at the same time as it soothes the soul. It’s no wonder that perfumes and aromatherapy based on the scents of old books have exploded in popularity. They might make you feel cozy or connected to a time when the pages were damp from the press. Or inspired to write something that will add its own grace notes to these.

Smell is the most primal of the senses and perhaps the hardest to pin down. It’s the first to develop in utero and the one that seems to matter most when we want to be transported to … anywhere we are not at the moment. A spice bazaar. A seaside villa. A field of lavender or narcissus. Any important moment—because smell is plugged into the brain’s limbic system, which regulates emotion, memory, and erotic response. Every can’t-put-a-name-to-it scent emanating from a book promises the fantasies that sustain our humanity. Add all that to the adventures and artworks that we find in the pages, and the experience is transcendent. We recapture our pasts; we entertain intimations of our futures.

That indefinable je ne sais quoi in the vocabulary of scent—well, for books, we do know at least some of the quoi. The smell varies from book to book (paper to paper, ink to ink, paste, leather, etc.), but a few elements stay consistent—though you might be surprised to find out what some of them are. While the other components of a book play a part, the majority of the scent comes from the cellulose and lignin from the trees used for paper. They are among several VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that decay at warm temperatures; we experience the release of their

changed molecules as an aroma.

Advanced bibliophiles can walk into a place blindfolded and tell you where at least a few of the books must be from. They have a keen sense of bibliosmia (or bibliosma), the scent of books, and they can work it like a “nose” in the perfume industry. So the distinctive smoky-sweet aroma of one copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses gave historians a glimpse into the life of its owner, fellow-author T.E. Lawrence.

In London, researcher Cecilia Bembibre asked visitors to the St. Paul’s Cathedral library to describe what they thought they were smelling. Using their answers, she and her associate Matija Strlič broke various smells into components they put on a “historic book odor wheel,” like the wheels that winemakers use to balance opposing notes and educate consumers—a sort of color wheel for scents. Points around the circle register expected substances such as acetic acid (vinegar) and vanillin; other odors that the library visitors identified ranged from chocolate and burnt coffee to the more abstract “yellow-brown” and “creamy.” The wheel can help to pinpoint and re-create historic aromas, so perhaps someday there will be a heritage library of smells housed side by side with the books.

If your nose is very educated, you might catch subtle variations that mark differences in soil and weather, or a whiff of water or incense you recognize. You might start using words such as furfural and benzaldehyde. Will the precise terms for cellulose breakdown and the chemistry of vanillin enhance your experience of old-book smell? If so, let us steer you to a heavy tome in our alchemical section … Enjoy the vellichor, a new word for the evocative experience of old books massed together.

Even if you reject scientific language, you might try reorganizing your library based on what the smell of each book conjures up for you. There could be new magic in the recombination.