The Occult Rejects

The Occult Rejects
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Occultists, Rejects, and Mystics trying to educate others about magick and occultism so others can figure out who they are and the world around them.

  1. 13h ago

    Eating The Dead: A History of Cannibalism

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects SOURCES / FURTHER READING Bello, Silvia M. “Cannibalism: A Taphonomic Perspective.” Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, 2025. Pobiner, Briana L., Michael C. Pante, and Trevor Keevil. “Early Pleistocene Cut-Marked Hominin Fossil from Koobi Fora, Kenya.” Scientific Reports 13 (2023). Defleur, Alban, et al. “Neanderthal Cannibalism at Moula-Guercy, Ardèche, France.” Science 286 (1999): 128–131. Trinkaus, Erik. “Cannibalism and Burial at Krapina.” Journal of Human Evolution 14 (1985). Rougier, Hélène, et al. “Neandertal Cannibalism and Neandertal Bones Used as Tools in Northern Europe.” Scientific Reports 6 (2016): 29005. Bello, Silvia M., et al. “Upper Palaeolithic Ritualistic Cannibalism at Gough’s Cave.” Journal of Human Evolution 82 (2015): 170–189. Bello, Silvia M., et al. “An Upper Palaeolithic Engraved Human Bone Associated with Ritualistic Cannibalism.” PLoS ONE 12 (2017): e0182127. Marsh, William A., and Silvia M. Bello. “Cannibalism and Burial in the Late Upper Palaeolithic.” Quaternary Science Reviews 319 (2023): 108309. Villa, Paola, et al. “Cannibalism in the Neolithic.” Science 233 (1986): 431–437. Boulestin, Bruno, et al. “Mass Cannibalism in the Linear Pottery Culture at Herxheim.” Antiquity 83 (2009): 968–982. Herodotus. Histories, Books I and IV. Minucius Felix. Octavius. Tertullian. Apology. Athenagoras. A Plea for the Christians. Gesta Francorum et aliorum Hierosolimitanorum. Ralph of Caen. Gesta Tancredi. Staden, Hans. Hans Staden’s True History. 1557. Léry, Jean de. History of a Voyage to the Land of Brazil. 1578. Thevet, André. Les singularitez de la France antarctique. 1557. Sugg, Richard. Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires. Routledge, 2011. Sugg, Richard. “Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern Literature and Culture.” Literature Compass 10 (2013): 825–835. Chase, Owen. Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. 1821. Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, Queen’s Bench Division, 1884. Marlar, Richard A., et al. “Biochemical Evidence of Cannibalism at a Prehistoric Puebloan Site in Southwestern Colorado.” Nature 407 (2000): 74–78. Turner, Christy G. II, and Jacqueline A. Turner. Man Corn: Cannibalism and Violence in the Prehistoric American Southwest. University of Utah Press, 1999. Conklin, Beth A. “‘Thus Are Our Bodies, Thus Was Our Custom’: Mortuary Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society.” American Ethnologist 22 (1995): 75–101. Conklin, Beth A. Consuming Grief: Compassionate Cannibalism in an Amazonian Society. University of Texas Press, 2001. Collinge, John, et al. “Kuru in the 21st Century—An Acquired Human Prion Disease with Very Long Incubation Periods.” The Lancet 367 (2006): 2068–2074. Alpers, Michael P., et al. “The Epidemiology of Kuru: Monitoring the Epidemic from Its Peak to Its End.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2008. Mead, Simon, et al. “A Novel Protective Prion Protein Variant that Colocalizes with Kuru Exposure.” New England Journal of Medicine 361 (2009): 2056–2065. Sutton, Donald S. “Consuming Counterrevolution: The Ritual and Culture of Cannibalism in Wuxuan, Guangxi, China, May to July 1968.” Comparative Studies in Society and History. Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    Eating The Dead: A History of Cannibalism

  2. 2d ago

    The Real History of the Magic Circle Part 1: From Ancient Boundaries to Renaissance Ritual Architecture

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    The Real History of the Magic Circle Part 1: From Ancient Boundaries to Renaissance Ritual Architecture

  3. 3d ago

    The Nahua Hidden World Part 2: Mirrors, Plants, Altered States & Death

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Primary Source Sahagún, Bernardino de, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex). Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, 1577. Digital Florentine Codex / Códice Florentino Digital, Getty Research Institute, 2023. Primary source throughout this episode, especially Book 1 for Tezcatlipoca, Book 2 for festivals and sacrifice, and Book 11 for medicinal and psychoactive plants. Pasted markdown Nahua Performance, Ritual & Manuscripts Brylak, Agnieszka. “Some Remarks on the Teponazcuicatl of the Pre-Hispanic Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 27, no. 2 (2016). Used for Nahua song, drumming, movement, and embodied ritual performance. Morado Hernández, Elías Israel. “Una aproximación al Códice florentino desde la escucha.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 47, no. 127 (2025). Explores the audible, oral, rhythmic, and performative world preserved beneath the written Florentine Codex. Dupey García, Élodie. “Rethinking the Reverse of the Codex Cospi: Ritual Offerings to Divine Effigies in Temples.” Ancient Mesoamerica (2026). Important to the discussion of divinatory manuscripts as ritual technologies connecting interpretation with prescribed ritual action. Pasted markdown Tezcatlipoca, Obsidian Mirrors & John Dee Campbell, Stuart, Elizabeth Healey, Yaroslav Kuzmin, and Michael D. Glascock. “The Mirror, the Magus and More: Reflections on John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror.” Antiquity 95, no. 384 (2021): 1547–1564. doi: 10.15184/aqy.2021.132 Geochemical analysis connecting John Dee’s obsidian mirror with Mexican obsidian from the Pachuca source. Getty Research Institute. “Through the Mirror.” Obsidian Mirror-Travels: Refracting Ancient Mexican Art and Archaeology. Background on Indigenous Mexican obsidian mirrors, divination, supernatural vision, and Tezcatlipoca. Caputo, Giovanni B. “Strange-Face-in-the-Mirror Illusion.” Perception 39, no. 7 (2010): 1007–1008. doi: 10.1068/p6466 Experimental study showing striking facial distortions during prolonged mirror gazing under dim illumination. Mash, Joanna, Paul M. Jenkinson, Charlotte E. Dean, and Keith R. Laws. “Strange Face Illusions: A Systematic Review and Quality Analysis.” Consciousness and Cognition 109 (2023): 103480. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2023.103480 Systematic review of strange-face illusions and the methodological limits of earlier mirror-gazing research. Pasted markdown Ololiuhqui & Ergoline Chemistry Meira, Marilena, Eliezer Pereira da Silva, Jorge M. David, and Juceni P. David. “Review of the Genus Ipomoea: Traditional Uses, Chemistry and Biological Activities.” Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia 22, no. 3 (2012). doi: 10.1590/S0102-695X2012005000025 Reviews morning-glory chemistry, including ergoline alkaloids such as ergine/LSA. Steiner, Ulrike, and Eckhard Leistner. “Ergoline Alkaloids in Convolvulaceous Host Plants Originate from Epibiotic Clavicipitaceous Fungi of the Genus Periglandula.” Fungal Ecology 5, no. 3 (2012): 316–321. doi: 10.1016/j.funeco.2011.04.004 Important for the plant–fungus symbiosis involved in ergoline production associated with Turbina corymbosa. Pasted markdown Peyote & Mescaline Dinis-Oliveira, Ricardo Jorge, Carolina Lança Pereira, and Diana Dias da Silva. “Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Aspects of Peyote and Mescaline: Clinical and Forensic Repercussions.” Current Molecular Pharmacology 12, no. 3 (2019): 184–194. doi: 10.2174/1874467211666181010154139 Carstairs, Shaun D., and F. Lee Cantrell. “Peyote and Mescaline Exposures: A 12-Year Review of a Statewide Poison Center Database.” Clinical Toxicology 48, no. 4 (2010): 350–353. doi: 10.3109/15563650903586745 These sources support the episode’s discussion of mescaline pharmacology, perceptual effects, and autonomic responses. Pasted markdown Psilocybin & Visual Processing Stoliker, Devon, Katrin H. Preller, Leonardo Novelli, Alan Anticevic, Gary F. Egan, Franz X. Vollenweider, Adeel Razi, et al. “Neural Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visual Imagery.” Molecular Psychiatry 30 (2025): 1259–1266. Published online 2024. doi: 10.1038/s41380-024-02632-3 Used for the discussion of altered visual-network connectivity and increased top-down contributions to psychedelic imagery. Pasted markdown Datura & Anticholinergic Delirium Vearrier, David, and Michael I. Greenberg. “Anticholinergic Delirium Following Datura stramonium Ingestion: Implications for the Internet Age.” Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock 3, no. 3 (2010): 303. doi: 10.4103/0974-2700.66565 Used to distinguish potentially dangerous anticholinergic delirium from classical serotonergic psychedelic states. Pasted markdown Yiauhtli / Tagetes lucida Pérez-Ortega, G., M. E. González-Trujano, G. E. Ángeles-López, F. Brindis, H. Vibrans, and R. Reyes-Chilpa. “Tagetes lucida Cav.: Ethnobotany, Phytochemistry and Pharmacology of Its Tranquilizing Properties.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 181 (2016): 221–228. doi: 10.1016/j.jep.2016.01.040 Supports discussion of anxiolytic and sedative-like effects while cautioning against automatically classifying yiauhtli as a powerful psychedelic. Pasted markdown Tobacco, Pulque & Copal Benowitz, Neal L. “Pharmacology of Nicotine: Addiction, Smoking-Induced Disease, and Therapeutics.” Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 49 (2009): 57–71. doi: 10.1146/annurev.pharmtox.48.113006.094742 Used for nicotine’s action at nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and its effects on attention, arousal, reward, and autonomic function. Kumar, Sandeep, Patrizia Porcu, David F. Werner, Douglas B. Matthews, Jaime L. Diaz-Granados, Rebecca S. Helfand, and A. Leslie Morrow. “The Role of GABA(A) Receptors in the Acute and Chronic Effects of Ethanol: A Decade of Progress.” Psychopharmacology 205, no. 4 (2009): 529–564. doi: 10.1007/s00213-009-1562-z Used for ethanol’s effects on GABAergic signaling. The Florentine Codex supplies the historical evidence for picietl/tobacco, octli/pulque, and copal in ceremonial settings. Pasted markdown Sleep Deprivation & Altered Perception Waters, Flavie, Vivian Chiu, Amanda Atkinson, and Jan Dirk Blom. “Severe Sleep Deprivation Causes Hallucinations and a Gradual Progression Toward Psychosis With Increasing Time Awake.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 9 (2018): 303. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00303 Used for evidence that sufficiently prolonged wakefulness can produce perceptual distortions, hallucinations, and increasingly disordered cognition. This does not establish that ordinary Nahua vigils automatically produced hallucinations. Pasted markdown Breathing, Emotion & Brain Rhythms Ashhad, Sufyan, Kaiwen Kam, Christopher A. Del Negro, and Jack L. Feldman. “Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 45 (2022): 223–247. doi: 10.1146/annurev-neuro-090121-014424 Used for the relationship between respiratory rhythms, emotion, cognition, brainstem regulation, and distributed neural activity. Pasted markdown Ritual, Pain, Memory & Cultural Neuroscience Seligman, Rebecca, and Ryan A. Brown. “Theory and Method at the Intersection of Anthropology and Cultural Neuroscience.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5, nos. 2–3 (2010): 130–137. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsp032 Provides theoretical background for examining ritual as an embodied process involving sensory stimulation, emotional arousal, pain, memory, expectation, and social meaning. Pasted markdown Human Sacrifice & Bioarchaeology Moreiras Reynaga, Diana K., Jean-François Millaire, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Juan A. Román Berrelleza, Leonardo López Luján, and Fred J. Longstaffe. “Residential Patterns of Mexica Human Sacrifices at Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico-Tlatelolco: Evidence from Phosphate Oxygen Isotopes.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 62 (2021): 101296. doi: 10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101296 Oxygen-isotope evidence indicates a diverse population among sacrificial individuals, including locals, long-term residents, and non-locals, adding archaeological context to discussions of warfare, captive-taking, slavery, imperial networks, and religious sacrifice. Pasted markdown Nahua Death & Otherworlds Madajczak, Julia, Katarzyna Mikulska, and Roberto Martínez. “Beyond Mictlan: The Otherworlds of the Pre-Contact Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 37, no. 1 (2026): 114–130. doi: 10.1017/S0956536126100911 A major reassessment of the traditional “Sahaguntine paradigm” of Nahua afterlife destinations. The authors argue for understanding Nahua otherworlds as relational and transformational domains rather than simply fixed locations on a supernatural map, including an important reinterpretation of the numbers eight and nine. Pasted markdown Nahualism, Personhood & Ritual Specialists Martínez González, Roberto. El nahualismo. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2016. Antropológica 19. Important for nahualli traditions, transformation, distributed personhood, tonalli, and other animating or supernatural relationships. López Austin, Alfredo. “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 7 (1967): 87–117. Foundational for understanding the divers Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    The Nahua Hidden World Part 2: Mirrors, Plants, Altered States & Death

  4. 4d ago

    The Witch Purge of 1878

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects BIBLIOGRAPHY Core Source on the 1878 Purge Blue, Martha. The Witch Purge of 1878: Oral and Documentary History in the Early Navajo Reservation Years. Navajo Oral History Monograph Series, No. 1. Tsaile, Arizona: Navajo Community College Press, 1988. This is the single most important source for the episode. Blue combines documentary records from 1878 with later Diné oral histories and specifically investigates the Ganado-area killings, Hastiin Biwosi, Ganado Mucho, American intervention, accusations against medicine men, and the larger early-reservation crisis. The book is 35 pages and was published by Navajo Community College Press. Blue also reproduces or discusses several near-contemporary sources that we relied upon through her work, including Charles Hubbell’s May 31, 1878 correspondence, Indian Agent John E. Pyle’s diary, Lieutenant McGunnigle’s 1878 military report, Fort Wingate correspondence connected with Lieutenant Colonel P. T. Swaine, and later Diné oral histories including the 1970 Amos Johnson interview. I would cite these through Blue unless we obtain the original archival documents themselves, rather than pretending we consulted originals we did not. Diné Witchcraft and Accusation Kluckhohn, Clyde. Navaho Witchcraft. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, Vol. 22, No. 2. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Peabody Museum, 1944. This is the major source behind our discussion of different categories of harmful supernatural practice, accusations involving ceremonial specialists, supernatural projectiles, personal materials, confession, interrogation, punishment, jealousy, reputation, and the later memory of the post–Fort Sumner period as one of heightened witchcraft accusations. Harvard’s Peabody Museum confirms the original 1944 publication details. Important production note: Kluckhohn was researching decades after 1878, so in the script his material should continue to be introduced as later ethnographic evidence about the wider Diné belief system, not as eyewitness testimony from the purge. Diné History and the Early Reservation Years Iverson, Peter. Diné: A History of the Navajos. Photographs by Monty Roessel. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002. Extremely useful for placing the purge inside the larger history of the return from Bosque Redondo, economic hardship, early reservation life, accusations of harmful witchcraft, and the later recovery of stability. University of New Mexico Press describes the book as drawing from archival research, traditional accounts, interviews, and historical material. Spicer, Edward H. Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533–1960. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1962. Used particularly for the larger political interpretation involving Manuelito, Ganado Mucho, raiding, livestock theft, early reservation governance, and efforts to suppress renewed depredations. Spicer is useful precisely because his interpretation does not always line up perfectly with Blue or Kluckhohn, allowing us to show that historians have disagreed about exactly how political the purge was. Witch Hunts in the Wider American Context Davies, Owen. America Bewitched: The Story of Witchcraft After Salem. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Useful for comparing the Navajo purge with the broader persistence of witchcraft accusations and witch killings in the United States after Salem, including cases where Indigenous people came into conflict with American courts and authorities over killings motivated by beliefs in harmful supernatural practices. PRIMARY AND INSTITUTIONAL SOURCES “Treaty with the Navaho, 1868.” Fort Sumner, New Mexico, June 1, 1868. 15 Stat. 667. Ratified July 25, 1868; proclaimed August 12, 1868. This is the actual treaty allowing the Diné to return home following Bosque Redondo and is essential for the political background of the episode. Navajo Nation. Navajo Treaty of 1868 / Naaltsoos Sání. This gives us the Diné institutional perspective on the treaty, the Long Walk, imprisonment at Fort Sumner, the return home, sovereignty, and the meaning of the 1868 agreement. The Navajo Nation specifically describes the treaty as ending the Diné exile and allowing their return to their ancestral homeland. National Park Service. Canyon de Chelly National Monument: Administrative History. This is the institutional source supporting one of the most important facts in our opening: Hastiin Biwosi was a resident of Canyon del Muerto, a signer of the Treaty of 1868, and was killed near Ganado in 1878 after being accused of witchcraft. National Park Service. Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site: History & Culture. Useful for the history of Ganado/Pueblo Colorado, John Lorenzo Hubbell, the expanding trading-post economy, the Long Walk background, and the transformation of Diné economic life during the exact period in which the purge occurred. Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Historic Site, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Used for the Long Walk, Hwéeldi/Bosque Redondo, forced confinement, disease, hunger, death, and the disastrous conditions preceding the Diné return home in 1868. Additional Historical Source Yurth, Cindy. “At the Crossroads of Health and Commerce.” Navajo Times, April 11, 2013. Used as supporting evidence for the commonly repeated estimate that as many as forty people in the Ganado area were accused and killed during the 1878 purge. This figure should remain an estimate rather than be presented as a complete documented victim count. Source Note The surviving record of the Witch Purge of 1878 is incomplete and sometimes contradictory. No complete list of victims or formal trial record survives, and estimates of roughly forty deaths should therefore be treated as historical estimates rather than an exact confirmed body count. Accounts of the purge come from contemporary Anglo-American correspondence and military records, later historical scholarship, and Diné oral histories recorded generations afterward. Where those sources disagree, the episode preserves the disagreement rather than presenting one reconstruction as certain. ADDITIONAL HISTORICAL SOURCE Yurth, Cindy. “At the Crossroads of Health and Commerce.” Navajo Times, April 11, 2013. This local Diné-area newspaper history of Ganado specifically discusses the 1878 Navajo Witch Purge and reports that as many as forty people around Ganado were accused and killed, including one person killed at the doorway of Charlie Hubbell’s trading post. I would use this as supporting evidence for the traditional “up to forty” estimate rather than treating forty as a completely documented body count. SOURCE NOTE FOR THE EPISODE I would also put this little note beneath the bibliography because it protects the episode academically: A Note on Sources:  The surviving record of the Witch Purge of 1878 is incomplete and sometimes contradictory. No complete list of victims or formal trial record survives, and estimates of approximately forty deaths should therefore be treated as historical estimates rather than an exact confirmed body count. Accounts of the purge come from a combination of contemporary Anglo-American correspondence and military records, later historical scholarship, and Diné oral histories recorded generations afterward. Where these sources disagree, this episode has attempted to preserve those disagreements rather than presenting one reconstruction as certain. That last paragraph is worth keeping, bro. It gives us cover for almost every difficult issue in this episode: the forty-person estimate, Manuelito's exact involvement, conflicting dates, oral history versus American records, and the fact that we simply do not know every victim's name. And Martha Blue should absolutely be the first source listed. That book is basically the backbone of this entire f*****g episode. Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    The Witch Purge of 1878

  5. 5d ago

    Skinwalker: The Witch Behind the Monster

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Bibliography Diné Culture, Witchcraft, Folklore, and Mortuary Practice Blue, Martha. The Witch Purge of 1878: Oral and Documentary History in the Early Navajo Reservation Years. Navajo Oral History Monograph Series No. 1. Tsaile, AZ: Navajo Community College Press, 1988. Brady, Margaret K. Some Kind of Power: Navajo Children’s Skinwalker Narratives. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1984. Franciscan Fathers. An Ethnologic Dictionary of the Navaho Language. Saint Michaels, AZ, 1910. Frisbie, Charlotte J. “On Two William Morgans in Navajo Studies.” New Mexico Historical Review 83, no. 4 (2008): 495–499. Goddard, Pliny Earle. Navajo Texts. Edited by Gladys A. Reichard. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 34, pt. 1. New York: American Museum of Natural History, 1933. Kahn-John, Michelle, and Mary Koithan. “Living in Health, Harmony, and Beauty: The Diné (Navajo) Hózhó Wellness Philosophy.” Global Advances in Health and Medicine 4, no. 3 (2015): 24–30. https://doi.org/10.7453/gahmj.2015.044. Kluckhohn, Clyde. Navaho Witchcraft. Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University, vol. 22, no. 2. Cambridge, MA: Peabody Museum, 1944. Levy, Jerrold E. “Changing Burial Practices of the Western Navajo: A Consideration of the Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior.” American Indian Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1978): 397–405. Morgan, William. Human-Wolves among the Navaho. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, no. 11. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1936. Nez, Noah. “Skinwalkers.” Skeptical Briefs 22, no. 1 (2012). Pavlik, Steve. “Will Big Trotter Reclaim His Place? The Role of the Wolf in Navajo Tradition.” American Indian Culture and Research Journal 24, no. 4 (2000): 107–125. https://doi.org/10.17953/aicr.24.4.p21t105715725434. Shepardson, Mary. “Changes in Navajo Mortuary Practices and Beliefs.” American Indian Quarterly 4, no. 4 (1978): 383–395. Popular Literature and the Expansion of the Legend Hillerman, Tony. Skinwalkers. New York: Harper & Row, 1986. Kelleher, Colm A., and George Knapp. Hunt for the Skinwalker: Science Confronts the Unexplained at a Remote Ranch in Utah. New York: Paraview Pocket Books, 2005. Krisst, Rima. “‘Dark Winds’ Hears Critics: Director Says TV Series Will ‘Course-Correct’ for Accuracy.” Navajo Times, June 30, 2022. Skinwalker Ranch and Contemporary Reporting Deseret News. “Universe Reports on Strange Utah Occurrences.” December 12, 1996. Deseret News. “No UFOs or ETs Have Dropped in at ‘Spooky’ Ranch.” April 27, 1997. Deseret News. “Mysteries of UFO Ranch in Spotlight.” April 22, 2006. Van Eyck, Zack. “Frequent Fliers?” Deseret News, June 30, 1996. Government Documents All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office. Report on the Historical Record of U.S. Government Involvement with Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, Volume I. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2024. Defense Intelligence Agency. Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program Briefing. 2009. Released through the DIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Defense Intelligence Agency. Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program Contract and Related Records. 2008–2012. Released through the DIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room. Digital Folklore and Modern Legend Formation Blank, Trevor J., ed. Folklore and the Internet: Vernacular Expression in a Digital World. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2009. Blank, Trevor J., and Robert Glenn Howard, eds. Tradition in the Twenty-First Century: Locating the Role of the Past in the Present. Logan: Utah State University Press, 2013. Puglia, David J. “Internet and Media in American Folklore and Folklife.” In The Oxford Handbook of American Folklore and Folklife Studies, edited by Simon J. Bronner, 598–624. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Additional Journalism and Public Sources Indian Country Today. “Many Outraged at Ghost Adventures Navajo ‘SkinWalker’ Episode.” 2017. Navajo Times. Coverage of Tony Hillerman’s death and his reception among Navajo readers, November 2008. University of New Mexico Libraries. Tony Hillerman Portal. Bibliographic and archival materials concerning Skinwalkers and Hillerman’s Navajo mystery novels. Yale University Human Relations Area Files. “Human-Wolves among the Navaho.” eHRAF World Cultures. Scholarly indexing and source evaluation of William Morgan’s study. Yale University Human Relations Area Files. “Navaho Witchcraft.” eHRAF World Cultures. Scholarly indexing and source evaluation of Clyde Kluckhohn’s Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    Skinwalker: The Witch Behind the Monster

  6. Oct 7

    The Nahua Hidden World Part 1: Books, Time, Body & Divination

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects BibliographyPrimary and Digital SourcesInstituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). “Confirman antigüedad prehispánica del Códice Tonalámatl de Aubin.” Boletín 402, August 31, 2026.Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia (INAH). Tonalámatl de Aubin. Codices of Mexico Digital Catalog.Sahagún, Bernardino de, Antonio Valeriano, Alonso Vegerano, Martín Jacobita, Pedro de San Buenaventura, Diego de Grado, Bonifacio Maximiliano, Mateo Severino, et al. Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Florentine Codex). Ms. Mediceo Palatino 218–20. Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence, 1577. Digital Florentine Codex / Códice Florentino Digital. Edited by Kim N. Richter, Alicia Maria Houtrouw, Kevin Terraciano, Jeanette Favrot Peterson, Diana Magaloni, and Lisa Sousa. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2023.Nahua Religion, Calendrics, Personhood, and DivinationDehouve, Danièle. “Embedded Glottograms in the Images of the Gods in Ancient Central Mexico.” Ancient Mesoamerica 36, no. 2 (2025): 242–263. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536125100758.Díaz Álvarez, Ana. “Tlapohualli, la cuenta de las cosas. Reflexiones en torno a la reconstrucción de los calendarios nahuas.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 44 (2012).Dupey García, Élodie. “Rethinking the Reverse of the Codex Cospi: Ritual Offerings to Divine Effigies in Temples.” Ancient Mesoamerica. Published online July 20, 2026.González Torres, Yólotl. “La adivinación por medio del maíz.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 48 (2014): 213–233.Kruell, Gabriel Kenrick. “Algunas precisiones terminológicas sobre el calendario náhuatl.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 54 (2017): 135–164.López Austin, Alfredo. “Cuarenta clases de magos del mundo náhuatl.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 7 (1967): 87–117.Madajczak, Julia. “Life-Giver: The Pre-Hispanic Nahua Concept of ‘Father’ through Colonial Written Sources.” Ancient Mesoamerica 28, no. 2 (2017): 371–381. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536117000086.Martínez González, Roberto. El nahualismo. Antropológica 19. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, 2016.Olko, Justyna, and Julia Madajczak. “An Animating Principle in Confrontation with Christianity? De(re)constructing the Nahua ‘Soul.’” Ancient Mesoamerica 30, no. 1 (2019): 75–88. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536118000329.Rojas, Araceli. “Casting Maize Seeds in an Ayöök Community: An Approach to the Study of Divination in Mesoamerica.” Ancient Mesoamerica 27, no. 2 (2016): 461–478.Ritual, Sound, and Embodied PracticeBrylak, Agnieszka. “Some Remarks on the Teponazcuicatl of the Pre-Hispanic Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 27, no. 2 (2016).Morado Hernández, Elías Israel. “Una aproximación al Códice florentino desde la escucha.” Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estéticas 47, no. 127 (2025).Seligman, Rebecca, and Ryan A. Brown. “Theory and Method at the Intersection of Anthropology and Cultural Neuroscience.” Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 5, nos. 2–3 (2010): 130–137. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsp032.Obsidian Mirrors, Tezcatlipoca, and Visual PerceptionCampbell, Stuart, Elizabeth Healey, Yaroslav Kuzmin, and Michael D. Glascock. “The Mirror, the Magus and More: Reflections on John Dee’s Obsidian Mirror.” Antiquity 95, no. 384 (2021): 1547–1564. https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2021.132.Caputo, Giovanni B. “Strange-Face-in-the-Mirror Illusion.” Perception 39, no. 7 (2010): 1007–1008. https://doi.org/10.1068/p6466.Getty Research Institute. “Through the Mirror.” Obsidian Mirror-Travels: Refracting Ancient Mexican Art and Archaeology.Mash, Joanna, Paul M. Jenkinson, Charlotte E. Dean, and Keith R. Laws. “Strange Face Illusions: A Systematic Review and Quality Analysis.” Consciousness and Cognition 109 (2023): 103480. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2023.103480.Psychoactive and Ritual PlantsBenowitz, Neal L. “Pharmacology of Nicotine: Addiction, Smoking-Induced Disease, and Therapeutics.” Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology 49 (2009): 57–71. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.pharmtox.48.113006.094742.Carstairs, Shaun D., and F. Lee Cantrell. “Peyote and Mescaline Exposures: A 12-Year Review of a Statewide Poison Center Database.” Clinical Toxicology 48, no. 4 (2010): 350–353. https://doi.org/10.3109/15563650903586745.Dinis-Oliveira, Ricardo Jorge, Carolina Lança Pereira, and Diana Dias da Silva. “Pharmacokinetic and Pharmacodynamic Aspects of Peyote and Mescaline: Clinical and Forensic Repercussions.” Current Molecular Pharmacology 12, no. 3 (2019): 184–194. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874467211666181010154139.Meira, Marilena, Eliezer Pereira da Silva, Jorge M. David, and Juceni P. David. “Review of the Genus Ipomoea: Traditional Uses, Chemistry and Biological Activities.” Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia 22, no. 3 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-695X2012005000025.Pérez-Ortega, G., M. E. González-Trujano, G. E. Ángeles-López, F. Brindis, H. Vibrans, and R. Reyes-Chilpa. “Tagetes lucida Cav.: Ethnobotany, Phytochemistry and Pharmacology of Its Tranquilizing Properties.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 181 (2016): 221–228. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2016.01.040.Steiner, Ulrike, and Eckhard Leistner. “Ergoline Alkaloids in Convolvulaceous Host Plants Originate from Epibiotic Clavicipitaceous Fungi of the Genus Periglandula.” Fungal Ecology 5, no. 3 (2012): 316–321. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.funeco.2011.04.004.Stoliker, Devon, Katrin H. Preller, Leonardo Novelli, Alan Anticevic, Gary F. Egan, Franz X. Vollenweider, Adeel Razi, et al. “Neural Mechanisms of Psychedelic Visual Imagery.” Molecular Psychiatry 30 (2025): 1259–1266. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-024-02632-3.Vearrier, David, and Michael I. Greenberg. “Anticholinergic Delirium Following Datura stramonium Ingestion: Implications for the Internet Age.” Journal of Emergencies, Trauma, and Shock 3, no. 3 (2010): 303. https://doi.org/10.4103/0974-2700.66565.Altered States and NeuroscienceAshhad, Sufyan, Kaiwen Kam, Christopher A. Del Negro, and Jack L. Feldman. “Breathing Rhythm and Pattern and Their Influence on Emotion.” Annual Review of Neuroscience 45 (2022): 223–247. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-neuro-090121-014424.Kumar, Sandeep, Patrizia Porcu, David F. Werner, Douglas B. Matthews, Jaime L. Diaz-Granados, Rebecca S. Helfand, and A. Leslie Morrow. “The Role of GABA(A) Receptors in the Acute and Chronic Effects of Ethanol: A Decade of Progress.” Psychopharmacology 205, no. 4 (2009): 529–564. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00213-009-1562-z.Waters, Flavie, Vivian Chiu, Amanda Atkinson, and Jan Dirk Blom. “Severe Sleep Deprivation Causes Hallucinations and a Gradual Progression Toward Psychosis With Increasing Time Awake.” Frontiers in Psychiatry 9 (2018): 303. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00303.Sacrifice, Death, and the OtherworldMadajczak, Julia, Katarzyna Mikulska, and Roberto Martínez. “Beyond Mictlan: The Otherworlds of the Pre-Contact Nahua.” Ancient Mesoamerica 37, no. 1 (2026): 114–130. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0956536126100911.Martínez González, Roberto. “Funeraria nahua, una primera aproximación: el ritual por derecho propio.” Estudios de Cultura Náhuatl 71 (2026).Moreiras Reynaga, Diana K., Jean-François Millaire, Ximena Chávez Balderas, Juan A. Román Berrelleza, Leonardo López Luján, and Fred J. Longstaffe. “Residential Patterns of Mexica Human Sacrifices at Mexico-Tenochtitlan and Mexico-Tlatelolco: Evidence from Phosphate Oxygen Isotopes.” Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 62 (2021): 101296. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101296. Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    The Nahua Hidden World Part 1: Books, Time, Body & Divination

  7. Oct 5

    Who Invented Wicca? Gerald Gardner, Crowley, Grimoires, and the Making of Modern Witchcraft

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Core Academic Studies Callow, John. Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. DOI: 10.1017/9781108956161. Crandall, Lisa. Text A: Teasing Out the Influences on Early Gardnerian Witchcraft as Evidenced in the Personal Writings of Gerald Brosseau Gardner. Master's thesis, University of Ottawa, 2013. Doyle White, Ethan. Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2016. Feraro, Shai, and Ethan Doyle White, eds. Magic and Witchery in the Modern West: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of The Triumph of the Moon. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Hutton, Ronald. “Crowley and Wicca.” In Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, edited by Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr, 285–307. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Lewis, Liam. “‘Eko; Eko; Azarak’: Witchcraft, Medieval Gibberish and Queer Untranslatability in High Magic’s Aid.” Sexualities, first published online October 3, 2024. DOI: 10.1177/13634607241287419. Urban, Hugh B. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Urban, Hugh B. “The Goddess and the Great Rite: Hindu Tantra and the Complex Origins of Modern Wicca.” In Magic and Witchery in the Modern West, edited by Shai Feraro and Ethan Doyle White, 21–43. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Gardner, Valiente, and Early Wiccan Sources Gardner, Gerald B. High Magic’s Aid. London: Michael Houghton, 1949. Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider, 1954. Gardner, Gerald B. The Meaning of Witchcraft. London: Aquarian Press, 1959. Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. London: Robert Hale, 1989. Valiente, Doreen. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. London: Robert Hale, 1978. Heselton, Philip. Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. 2 vols. Loughborough: Thoth Publications, 2012. Lamond, Frederic. Fifty Years of Wicca. Sutton Mallet: Green Magic, 2004. Pre-Gardner Witchcraft, Folklore, and Witch-Cult Sources Leland, Charles Godfrey. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. London: David Nutt, 1899. Murray, Margaret Alice. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921. Murray, Margaret Alice. The God of the Witches. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1931. Ceremonial Magic, Crowley, and Related Source Material Mathers, S. L. MacGregor, ed. and trans. The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis). London: George Redway, 1889. Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox. Various issues, 1909–1919. Crowley, Aleister. Book 4. Parts I–II originally published 1912–1913; Part III, Magick in Theory and Practice, 1929. Crowley, Aleister. Liber XV: Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae, commonly known as the Gnostic Mass. Crowley, Aleister. Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). 1904. Woodroffe, John, writing as Arthur Avalon. The Serpent Power. London: Luzac & Co., 1919. Additional Historical Trails Discussed in the Episode de Givry, Émile Grillot. Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy. English translation, 1931. Fuller, J. F. C. “The Black Arts.” Occult Review 43, no. 5 (1926): 299–308. Discussed and traced by Liam Lewis in the 2024 study cited above. The Occult Observer, Vol. I, No. 3 (1949), including Mir Bashir's article “The Book of Shadows,” later identified by Doreen Va Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

    Who Invented Wicca? Gerald Gardner, Crowley, Grimoires, and the Making of Modern Witchcraft

  8. Oct 4

    Paranormal Activity at Greastone Manor with The Bunker

    Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

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Occultists, Rejects, and Mystics trying to educate others about magick and occultism so others can figure out who they are and the world around them.

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