The Occult Rejects

The Occult Rejects

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. 15h ago

    Back To Basics: Creating and Using Sigils Part 1

    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.

    Back To Basics: Creating and Using Sigils Part 1

  2. 2d ago

    The Mechanics of Magick: The Ecstatic Body Episode Three: From Humors to Hysteria

    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 and Foundational Medical Texts Avicenna. The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna. Translated by O. Cameron Gruner. London: Luzac & Company, 1930. Breuer, Josef, and Sigmund Freud. Studies on Hysteria. Translated and edited by James Strachey, with Alix Strachey. New York: Basic Books, 1957. Originally published 1895. Charcot, Jean-Martin. Leçons sur les maladies du système nerveux faites à la Salpêtrière. 3 vols. Paris: Adrien Delahaye and Émile Lecrosnier, 1872–1887. Colombo, Realdo. De re anatomica. Venice: Nicolò Bevilacqua, 1559. Descartes, René. The Passions of the Soul. Translated by Stephen H. Voss. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1989. Originally published 1649. Descartes, René. Treatise of Man. Translated by Thomas Steele Hall. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972. Falloppio, Gabriele. Observationes anatomicae. Venice, 1561. Ficino, Marsilio. Three Books on Life. Translated by Carol V. Kaske and John R. Clark. Binghamton, NY: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1989. Freud, Sigmund. Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 7, translated and edited by James Strachey, 123–246. London: Hogarth Press, 1953. Originally published 1905. Galvani, Luigi. Commentary on the Effects of Electricity on Muscular Motion. Translated by Robert Montraville Green. Cambridge, MA: Elizabeth Licht, 1953. Originally published 1791. Haller, Albrecht von. “De partibus corporis humani sensilibus et irritabilibus.” Commentarii Societatis Regiae Scientiarum Gottingensis 2 (1753): 114–158. Harvey, William. An Anatomical Disputation Concerning the Movement of the Heart and Blood in Living Creatures. Translated by Gweneth Whitteridge. Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1976. Originally published 1628. Janet, Pierre. L’Automatisme psychologique: Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inférieures de l’activité humaine. Paris: Félix Alcan, 1889. Mesmer, Franz Anton. Mesmerism: A Translation of the Original Medical and Scientific Writings of F. A. Mesmer. Translated by George Bloch. Los Altos, CA: William Kaufmann, 1980. Paracelsus. Selected Writings. Edited by Jolande Jacobi. Translated by Norbert Guterman. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951. Vesalius, Andreas. The Fabric of the Human Body: An Annotated Translation of the 1543 and 1555 Editions of “De humani corporis fabrica libri septem.” Translated by Daniel H. Garrison and Malcolm H. Hast. 2 vols. Basel: Karger, 2014. Medieval Islamic Medicine and Its Transmission Burnett, Charles, and Danielle Jacquart, eds. Constantine the African and ʿAlī ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Maǧūsī: The Pantegni and Related Texts. Leiden: Brill, 1994. Jacquart, Danielle, and Claude Thomasset. Sexuality and Medicine in the Middle Ages. Translated by Matthew Adamson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988. McGinnis, Jon, ed. Interpreting Avicenna: Critical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. McVaugh, Michael R. Medicine Before the Plague: Practitioners and Their Patients in the Crown of Aragon, 1285–1345. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Pormann, Peter E., and Emilie Savage-Smith. Medieval Islamic Medicine. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Siraisi, Nancy G. Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987. Siraisi, Nancy G. Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Medieval and Early Modern Gender, Reproduction, and Sexuality Green, Monica H. Making Women’s Medicine Masculine: The Rise of Male Authority in Pre-Modern Gynaecology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. King, Helen. The Disease of Virgins: Green Sickness, Chlorosis, and the Problems of Puberty. London: Routledge, 2004. Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Murray, Jacqueline. “The Law of Sin That Is in My Members: The Problem of Male Embodiment.” In Gender and Holiness: Men, Women and Saints in Late Medieval Europe, edited by Samantha J. E. Riches and Sarah Salih, 9–22. London: Routledge, 2002. Park, Katharine. Secrets of Women: Gender, Generation, and the Origins of Human Dissection. New York: Zone Books, 2006. Park, Katharine. “The Rediscovery of the Clitoris: French Medicine and the Tribade, 1570–1620.” In The Body in Parts: Fantasies of Corporeality in Early Modern Europe, edited by David Hillman and Carla Mazzio, 171–193. New York: Routledge, 1997. Stolberg, Michael. “A Woman Down to Her Bones: The Anatomy of Sexual Difference in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries.” Isis 94, no. 2 (2003): 274–299. Renaissance Anatomy, Circulation, and the Early Nervous Body Cunningham, Andrew. The Anatomical Renaissance: The Resurrection of the Anatomical Projects of the Ancients. Aldershot, UK: Scolar Press, 1997. French, Roger. William Harvey’s Natural Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Kusukawa, Sachiko. Picturing the Book of Nature: Image, Text, and Argument in Sixteenth-Century Human Anatomy and Medical Botany. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012. Martensen, Robert L. The Brain Takes Shape: An Early History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. O’Malley, Charles Donald. Andreas Vesalius of Brussels, 1514–1564. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964. Pagel, Walter. William Harvey’s Biological Ideas: Selected Aspects and Historical Background. Basel: Karger, 1967. Sawday, Jonathan. The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture. London: Routledge, 1995. Wear, Andrew. Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550–1680. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Descartes, Mind, Brain, and Mechanical Physiology Clarke, Desmond M. Descartes: A Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Gaukroger, Stephen. Descartes: An Intellectual Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995. Lokhorst, Gert-Jan. “Descartes and the Pineal Gland.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, revised 2024. Sutton, John. Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to Connectionism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Alchemy, Natural Magic, Imagination, and Occult Philosophy Bruno, Giordano. Cause, Principle and Unity and Essays on Magic. Edited by Richard J. Blackwell and Robert de Lucca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Copenhaver, Brian P. “Scholastic Philosophy and Renaissance Magic in the De vita of Marsilio Ficino.” Renaissance Quarterly 37, no. 4 (1984): 523–554. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Newman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Pagel, Walter. Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. 2nd ed. Basel: Karger, 1982. Walker, D. P. Spiritual and Demonic Magic from Ficino to Campanella. London: Warburg Institute, 1958. Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Irritability, Electricity, and the Development of Neurophysiology Clarke, Edwin, and L. S. Jacyna. Nineteenth-Century Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Finger, Stanley. Origins of Neuroscience: A History of Explorations into Brain Function. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Piccolino, Marco. “Luigi Galvani and Animal Electricity: Two Centuries after the Foundation of Electrophysiology.” Trends in Neurosciences 20, no. 10 (1997): 443–448. Steinke, Hubert. Irritating Experiments: Haller’s Concept and the European Controversy on Irritability and Sensibility, 1750–90. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2005. Mesmerism, Suggestion, and Altered States Crabtree, Adam. From Mesmer to Freud: Magnetic Sleep and the Roots of Psychological Healing. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993. Darnton, Robert. Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968. Ellenberger, Henri F. The Discovery of the Unconscious: The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: Basic Books, 1970. Harrington, Anne. The Cure Within: A History of Mind–Body Medicine. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. Gauld, Alan. A History of Hypnotism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Hysteria, Charcot, Janet, and Freud Bogousslavsky, Julien, ed. Following Charcot: A Forgotten History of Neurology and Psychiatry. Basel: Karger, 2011. Goldstein, Jan. Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Makari, George. Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. New York: Harper, 2008. Micale, Mark S. Approaching Hysteria: Disease and Its Interpretations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995. Micale, Mark S. “Charcot and the Idea of Hysteria in the Male: Gender, Mental Science, and Medical Diagnosis in Late Nineteenth-Centur 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 Mechanics of Magick: The Ecstatic Body Episode Three: From Humors to Hysteria

  3. 3d ago

    The Occult Rejects with David Beth

    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.

  4. 4d ago

    The History of Baphomet Part 2: How Baphomet Became Satan: From Lévi’s Goat to the Modern Sigil

    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 — EPISODE TWO ÉLIPHAS LÉVI AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FOUNDATION Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme de la haute magie. First installments, Paris, 1854. Earliest publication context for Lévi’s Baphomet drawing. Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. Paris, 1855–1856. Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. 2nd, greatly expanded ed. Paris/London/New York: Germer Baillière, 1861. Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by Arthur Edward Waite. London, 1896. Strube, Julian. “The ‘Baphomet’ of Eliphas Lévi: Its Meaning and Historical Context.” Correspondences 4 (2016): 37–79. Du Potet de Sennevoy, Jean. La magie dévoilée. Paris, 1852. Important to the spiritualistic-magnetic context from which Lévi developed his theory of the magical agent. Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. First edition, 1595; expanded later edition, 1609. Directly relevant because Lévi explicitly invoked Khunrath’s androgyne while explaining the mixed-sex anatomy of Baphomet. Forshaw, Peter J. The Mage’s Images: Heinrich Khunrath in His Oratory and Laboratory. Leiden: Brill, 2025. Detailed modern analysis of Khunrath’s Adam Androgyne and Rebis imagery, including the 1595 Solve / Coagula detail. Hesteau de Nuysement, Clovis. Traittez de l’harmonie et constitution généralle du vray sel, secret des philosophes, et de l’esprit universel du monde. The Hague: Théodore Maire, 1639. Relevant for another alchemical print identified by Strube among the visual influences surrounding Lévi’s Baphomet. Ragon, Jean-Marie. Orthodoxie maçonnique, suivie de la Maçonnerie occulte et de l’initiation hermétique. Paris: E. Dentu, 1853. Important immediate precursor linking alchemical matter, the Goat of Mendes, Kabbalistic ideas, and “specific magnetism”; Lévi reviewed the work in the year before his Baphomet appeared. Decker, Ronald, Thierry Depaulis, and Michael Dummett. A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot. London: Duckworth, 1996. Useful background for Lévi’s use of the Tarot of Marseille and the Devil card. Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Useful for distinguishing the ram deity Banebdjedet and the ancient religious context of Mendes from later European “Goat of Mendes” constructions. THEOSOPHY AND EARLY RECEPTION Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. Isis Unveiled. 2 vols. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877. Important for the early esoteric reception of Lévi, the Astral Light, and the wider nineteenth-century occult synthesis. Waite, Arthur Edward. Translator’s introduction and notes to Lévi’s Transcendental Magic. London, 1896. Useful for the Anglophone reception and criticism of Lévi. DE GUAITA, WIRTH, AND THE GOAT-PENTAGRAM de Guaita, Stanislas. La Clef de la Magie Noire. Paris, 1897. Primary source for the famous inverted goat-headed pentagram with Leviathan, Samael, and Lilith. Wirth, Oswald. Le Symbolisme hermétique dans ses rapports avec l’alchimie et la Franc-Maçonnerie. Paris: Librairie Initiatique, 1909. Wirth, Oswald. La Franc-Maçonnerie rendue intelligible à ses adeptes: Le Livre du Compagnon. 3rd ed. Paris, 1924. Important for Wirth’s goat-pentagram and his discussion of inverted polarity. Wirth, Oswald. Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Age. Paris: Le Symbolisme / Émile Nourry, 1927. Important for Wirth’s identification of the Devil card with the Baphomet of the Templars. ALEISTER CROWLEY AND THELEMA Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. London: Jonathan Cape, 1969. Crowley, Aleister. Liber XV: Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae, commonly known as The Gnostic Mass. Crowley, Aleister. The Book of Lies. London, 1913. Crowley, Aleister. Magick in Theory and Practice and Magick: Liber ABA, Book 4. Various editions. O.T.O. manifestos and institutional documents. Useful for the Order’s constructed genealogies linking modern initiation with Templar, Masonic, Rosicrucian, Gnostic, and related traditions. MAURICE BESSY AND MODERN SATANISM Bessy, Maurice. Histoire en 1000 Images de la Magie. Paris, 1961. Bessy, Maurice. A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural. English ed., 1964. LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Bible. New York: Avon Books, 1969. LaVey, Anton Szandor. The Satanic Rituals. New York: Avon Books, 1972. Church of Satan. “The History of the Origin of the Sigil of Baphomet and its Use in the Church of Satan.” Institutional history tracing de Guaita, Wirth, Bessy, the LaVeyan sigil, and the organization’s 2026 revision. Use as a primary institutional source rather than an independent authority on medieval Templar history. van Luijk, Ruben. Children of Lucifer: The Origins of Modern Religious Satanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Introvigne, Massimo. Satanism: A Social History. Leiden: Brill, 2016. THE SATANIC TEMPLE AND THE MODERN MONUMENT The Satanic Temple. Official materials concerning the Baphomet Monument, its 2014 commission, 2015 unveiling, and religious-representation campaigns. Cave et al. v. Jester, No. 4:18-cv-00342 (E.D. Ark.), Opinion and Order and Judgment filed 31 March 2026; related Eighth Circuit appeals docketed in 2026. Primary legal sources for the Arkansas litigation involving equal treatment and the Baphomet monument. Laycock, Joseph P. Speak of the Devil: How The Satanic Temple Is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. MODERN OCCULTISM, SATANISM, AND SYMBOLIC RECEPTION Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Works on Western esotericism and modern occultism, useful for the methodological distinction between documented transmission and retrospective esoteric genealogy. Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Works on modern Western esotericism and occult revival movements. Faxneld, Per. Studies on modern Satanism, esotericism, gender, and religious transgression. Partner, Peter. The Knights Templar and Their Myth. Useful for understanding how later esoteric and conspiratorial traditions continued to reinterpret Templar 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.

    The History of Baphomet Part 2: How Baphomet Became Satan: From Lévi’s Goat to the Modern Sigil

  5. 4d ago

    The History of Baphomet Part 1: Before The Goat

    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 AND MEDIEVAL SOURCES Anselm of Ribemont. Letter concerning the First Crusade and Antioch, 1098. Important for the early form Baphometh and the Crusading context in which the word first appears. Gavaudan. Senhors, per los nostres peccatz. Late twelfth-century Occitan crusading poem. Consult the critical text and commentary available through RIALTO, especially the occurrences of Bafometz in an explicitly Christian-Muslim polemical context. Austorc d’Aorlhac. Ai Dieus, per qu’as facha tan gran maleza. Mid-thirteenth-century Occitan lament. RIALTO’s commentary identifies Bafomet as probably referring to Muhammad and discusses the deformation of Muhammad’s name. Ramon Llull tradition / Occitan Doctrina pueril. Medieval Occitan material containing the heading De Bafomet, useful as part of the broader linguistic history of forms associated with Muhammad and Islam. Michelet, Jules, ed. Le Procès des Templiers. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841–1851. Major published collection of the French Templar proceedings and an important source for testimony involving heads, idols, Baffometi, Baphometi, and related accusations. Clement V. Vox in excelso, 22 March 1312. Papal decree suppressing the Order of the Temple. The Chinon Parchment, August 1308. Papal record concerning the interrogation, penitence, absolution, and reconciliation of senior Templar leaders. MODERN SCHOLARSHIP ON THE TEMPLARS Barber, Malcolm. The Trial of the Templars. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Barber, Malcolm. The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the Temple. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Demurger, Alain. The Last Templar: The Tragedy of Jacques de Molay, Last Grand Master of the Temple. London: Profile Books, 2009. Demurger, Alain. The Knights Templar: A New History. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. London: Profile Books, 2007. Nicholson, Helen J. The Knights Templar: A New History. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2001. Partner, Peter. The Knights Templar and Their Myth. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books, 1990. Frale, Barbara. “The Chinon Chart: Papal Absolution to the Last Templar, Master Jacques de Molay.” Journal of Medieval History 30, no. 2 (2004). Wright, Thomas. Narratives of Sorcery and Magic. London, 1851. A nineteenth-century secondary compilation preserving discussion of the Templar testimony involving “Baffomet,” “Baphomet,” “Yalla,” and “Mahomet”; useful as a reception source and pointer back toward the trial editions rather than as a substitute for the medieval records. RENAISSANCE ALCHEMY AND THE PRE-LÉVI VISUAL LANGUAGE Rosarium Philosophorum. Frankfurt, 1550. Important for the illustrated alchemical conjunction of solar and lunar, masculine and feminine principles and for the hermaphroditic imagery that predates Lévi by three centuries. Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. First edition, 1595; expanded later edition, 1609. Essential for the Adam Androgyne and the Alchemical Hermaphrodite or Rebis, including the paired Solve / Coagula language later recalled by Lévi. Forshaw, Peter J. The Mage’s Images: Heinrich Khunrath in His Oratory and Laboratory. Leiden: Brill, 2025. Major modern study of Khunrath’s engravings; especially useful for the sequence of the 1595 circular images, the Rebis, and the detail explicitly catalogued as “Solve [et] Coagula.” Hesteau de Nuysement, Clovis. Traittez de l’harmonie et constitution généralle du vray sel, secret des philosophes, et de l’esprit universel du monde. The Hague: Théodore Maire, 1639. The volume contains a print identified in modern scholarship as another visual source relevant to Lévi’s later synthesis. Guazzo, Francesco Maria. Compendium Maleficarum. Milan, 1608. Useful for the broader early-modern demonological visual environment in which goat-headed and winged devil imagery circulated, without treating those images as earlier Baphomets. TEMPLAR SURVIVAL MYTHS AND ESOTERIC REINTERPRETATION Le Forestier, René. La Franc-maçonnerie templière et occultiste aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Paris/Louvain: Aubier-Montaigne/Editions Nauwelaerts, 1970. Nicolai, Christoph Friedrich. Versuch über die Beschuldigungen, welche dem Tempelherrenorden gemacht worden, und über dessen Geheimniß. Berlin, 1782. Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph von. “Mysterium Baphometis Revelatum.” 1818. 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 History of Baphomet Part 1: Before The Goat

  6. 5d ago

    Homunculus: The Occult History of Creating Artificial Life

    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 PRIMARY AND HISTORICAL SOURCES Apollonius Rhodius. Argonautica. Especially Book IV for the story of Talos. Aristotle. Generation of Animals. Aristotle. History of Animals. Relevant to ancient theories of reproduction and spontaneous generation. Babylonian Talmud. Sanhedrin 65b. Rava's creation of an artificial man and the encounter with Rabbi Zeira. Besetzny, Emil, ed. Die Sphinx: Freimaurerisches Taschenbuch. Vienna: Rosner, 1873. Especially “Die wahrsagenden Geister des Brs. Joh. Ferd. Grafen von Kueffstein,” beginning around p. 111. This is an important early printed source for the later story of Kueffstein's alleged “prophesying spirits” or homunculi. Hartmann, Franz. The Life of Philippus Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, Known by the Name of Paracelsus, and the Substance of His Teachings. London: George Redway, 1887. Hartmann reproduces the Kueffstein story while explicitly tracing it to Besetzny's 1873 Sphinx and alleged Masonic manuscripts and Kammerer's diary. Hartsoeker, Nicolaas. Essay de dioptrique. Paris: Jean Anisson, 1694. Contains Hartsoeker's famous speculative depiction of a miniature preformed organism associated with spermist preformationism. Homer. Iliad. Book XVIII. Relevant passages include Hephaestus's intelligent golden attendants and his self-moving tripods. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Book X. Pygmalion and the animation of the manufactured human form. Pseudo-Paracelsus / Paracelsian tradition. De natura rerum. Particularly the section traditionally cited for the generation of the homunculus. Modern scholarship makes the authorship and textual history substantially more complicated than older occult editions suggest. Sefer Yetzirah / Book of Formation. Various recensions and translations. Foundational for later Jewish mystical traditions involving creation through letters, numbers, and divine language. ALCHEMY, HOMUNCULI, AND ARTIFICIAL LIFE Newman, William R. Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature. University of Chicago Press, 2004. Particularly Chapter 4, “Artificial Life and the Homunculus.” This is one of the most important scholarly sources for the entire episode and for the larger medieval/early-modern debate over art versus nature. Newman, William R. “The Homunculus and the Mandrake: Art Aiding Nature versus Art Faking Nature.” In Genesis Redux: Essays in the History and Philosophy of Artificial Life. University of Chicago Press, 2007. Especially useful for the relationship between the Paracelsian homunculus, mandrake/Alraun traditions, and artificial generation. Newman, William R. “Bad Chemistry: Basilisks and Women in Paracelsus and pseudo-Paracelsus.” Ambix 67, no. 1 (2020): 30–46. DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2020.1720341. Gantenbein, Urs Leo. “Real or Fake? New Light on the Paracelsian De natura rerum.” Ambix 67, no. 1 (2020): 4–29. DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2020.1720339. Essential for the disputed authorship, multiple-author evidence, and the 1571 earliest presently identified manuscript of De natura rerum. Hirai, Hiro. “Into the Forger's Library: The Genesis of De natura rerum in Publication History.” Early Science and Medicine 24 (2019): 485–503. Important for the pseudo-Paracelsian publication context surrounding the text. Murase, Amadeo. “The Homunculus and the Paracelsian Liber de imaginibus.” Ambix 67, no. 1 (2020): 47–61. DOI: 10.1080/00026980.2020.1720359. Useful for showing that the biological bottle-creature was not the only homunculus concept found within the broader Paracelsian textual tradition. THE LIBER VACCAE / BOOK OF THE COW Saif, Liana. “The Cows and the Bees: Arabic Sources and Parallels for Pseudo-Plato's Liber Vaccae (Kitāb al-Nawāmīs).” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 79 (2016): 1–47. Essential for the Arabic context, surviving fragments, textual transmission, and artificial-generation experiments. Van der Lugt, Maaike. “‘Abominable Mixtures’: The Liber vaccae in the Medieval West, or The Dangers and Attractions of Natural Magic.” Traditio (2016). Particularly valuable for the Western reception of the Liber Vaccae, its controversial operations, and medieval arguments over natural versus illicit magic. Page, Sophie. Magic in the Cloister: Pious Motives, Illicit Interests, and Occult Approaches to the Medieval Universe. Especially the chapter “The Liber Vaccae: Magical Uses of Monstrous Creations.” Useful for manuscript culture and the practical reception of the text in medieval magical collections. Anonymous / Pseudo-Plato. Kitāb al-Nawāmīs / Liber Vaccae / Liber institutionum activarum. Surviving Arabic fragments and Latin manuscript tradition. The work circulated under several titles and pseudonymous attributions. JĀBIR, TAKWĪN, AND ISLAMIC ALCHEMY Haq, Syed Nomanul. Names, Natures and Things: The Alchemist Jābir ibn Hayyān and His Kitāb al-Ahjār (Book of Stones). Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, vol. 158. Important for the Jabirian corpus, theories of qualities and balance, and the complicated question of Jabirian authorship. Kraus, Paul. Jābir ibn Hayyān: Contribution à l'histoire des idées scientifiques dans l'Islam. 2 vols. Cairo, 1942–1943. Foundational scholarship behind the theory that much of the Jabirian corpus emerged from a later intellectual school rather than exclusively from a single eighth-century author. O'Connor, Kathleen Malone. The Alchemical Creation of Life (Takwīn) and Other Concepts of Genesis in Medieval Islam. PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1994. A major study devoted specifically to takwīn, artificial generation, and concepts of life and creation in medieval Islamic alchemical thought. GOLEM AND JEWISH ARTIFICIAL-HUMAN TRADITIONS Idel, Moshe. Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990. The major scholarly study for the development of golem traditions, Sefer Yetzirah, ritual techniques, language, and artificial anthropoids in Jewish mysticism. Babylonian Talmud. Sanhedrin 65b. Sefer Yetzirah. Various editions and translations. MANDRAKE / ALRAUN Newman, William R. “The Homunculus and the Mandrake: Art Aiding Nature versus Art Faking Nature.” In Genesis Redux, 2007. Dafni, Amots, et al. “The Rise and Fall of Mandrake in Medicine.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2022/2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.jep.2022.115874. Useful for the historical medical use of mandrake and its transition between medicine, folklore, and magical practice. A Comprehensive Review on the Ethnopharmacology, Phytochemistry, Pharmacology, and Toxicology of the Mandragora Genus. Review covering traditional uses, atropine, scopolamine, other alkaloids, pharmacology, and toxicity. Grynkiewicz, Grzegorz, and Marcin Gadzikowska. “Tropane Alkaloids: Chemistry, Pharmacology, Biosynthesis and Production.” Molecules 24 (2019). Useful background for the pharmacology of atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine, and related tropane alkaloids. PREFORMATION AND THE SPERMATIC HOMUNCULUS Hartsoeker, Nicolaas. Essay de dioptrique. Paris: Jean Anisson, 1694. The surviving work is especially valuable because Hartsoeker's famous figure has repeatedly been misrepresented as an actual microscopic observation. The historical evidence instead supports it as a speculative illustration associated with spermist preformation theory, and Hartsoeker himself did not use “homunculus” as the name for the figure. LITERARY ARTIFICIAL LIFE Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. London, 1818. Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. Faust: Part Two. Completed shortly before Goethe's death and published in 1832. Particularly the laboratory creation and subsequent journey of the Homunculus. THE CORTICAL HOMUNCULUS Penfield, Wilder, and Edwin Boldrey. “Somatic Motor and Sensory Representation in the Cerebral Cortex of Man as Studied by Electrical Stimulation.” Brain 60, no. 4 (1937): 389–443. DOI: 10.1093/brain/60.4.389. Foundational source behind the cortical motor and sensory maps later popularly represented as the cortical homunculus. Penfield, Wilder, and Theodore Rasmussen. The Cerebral Cortex of Man: A Clinical Study of Localization of Function. New York: Macmillan, 1950. The source for the familiar separate sensory and motor homunculus illustrations arranged along brain cross-sections. Catani, Marco. “A Little Man of Some Importance.” Brain 140, no. 11 (2017): 3055–3061. https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awx270. An open-access historical reassessment of Penfield and Boldrey's 1937 paper and its 126 cases. Gandhoke, Gurpreet S., et al. “Edwin Boldrey and Wilder Penfield's Homunculus: A Life Given by Mrs. Cantlie (In and Out of Realism).” World Neurosurgery 132 (2019): 377–388. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31470165/. Examines the illustrator Hortense Cantlie, the difference between the 1937 and 1950 presentations, and the limitations of the maps. Production visual note (not spoken): The script discusses, but the Word file does not reproduce, a cortical homunculus diagram. For a video episode, display a properly licensed and credited pair of sensory and motor maps when this chapter begins. A reusable redrawn source is available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Homunculus-de.svg ; verify license/attribution for any selected version. To show 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.

    Homunculus: The Occult History of Creating Artificial Life

  7. Oct 28

    Adrenochrome: The Chemical, The Scientists, and The Blood-Harvesting Legend

    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 RESEARCH BIBLIOGRAPHY  I. CHEMISTRY, MEDICINE, AND EXPERIMENTS 1. Weinstein, S., and R. J. Manning. “Intermediate Oxidation Products of Epinephrine.” Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine 32, no. 7 (1935): 1096–1097. doi:10.3181/00379727-32-7983P. Link: https://doi.org/10.3181/00379727-32-7983P Access/evidence: Publisher text available. Episode use: Early adrenaline oxidation; do not describe this as proven isolation of modern adrenochrome. 2. Green, David Ezra, and Derek Richter. “Adrenaline and Adrenochrome.” Biochemical Journal 31, no. 4 (1937): 596–616. doi:10.1042/bj0310596. Link: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1266980/ Access/evidence: Full article accessible. Episode use: Foundational chemistry and historical nomenclature. 3. Osmond, Humphry, and John Smythies. “Schizophrenia: A New Approach.” Journal of Mental Science 98, no. 411 (1952): 309–315. doi:10.1192/bjp.98.411.309. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14917992/ Access/evidence: Citation verified; full text not reviewed. Episode use: Original proposed biochemical hypothesis. 4. Hoffer, Abram, Humphry Osmond, and John Smythies. “Schizophrenia: A New Approach. II. Result of a Year’s Research.” Journal of Mental Science 100, no. 418 (1954): 29–45. doi:10.1192/bjp.100.418.29. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13152519/ Access/evidence: Citation and publisher extract verified; full paper not reviewed. Episode use: Early follow-up research. 5. Hoffer, Abram. “Adrenochrome in Blood Plasma.” American Journal of Psychiatry 114, no. 8 (1958): 752–753. doi:10.1176/ajp.114.8.752. Link: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.114.8.752 Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper paywalled. Episode use: Hoffer’s claimed measurement, not an accepted consensus. 6. Szára, Stephen, Julius Axelrod, and Seymour Perlin. “Is Adrenochrome Present in the Blood?” American Journal of Psychiatry 115, no. 2 (1958): 162–163. doi:10.1176/ajp.115.2.162. Link: https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/abs/10.1176/ajp.115.2.162 Access/evidence: Publisher abstract available. Episode use: Reports nondetection using the researchers’ method; a direct historical contrast with Hoffer. 7. Cohen, Gerald, Bernard Holland, and Marcel Goldenberg. “The Stability of Epinephrine and Arterenol (Norepinephrine) in Plasma and Serum: A Comparison of Normal and Schizophrenic Subjects.” AMA Archives of Neurology & Psychiatry 80, no. 4 (1958): 484–487. doi:10.1001/archneurpsyc.1958.02340100084020. Link: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/archneurpsyc/article-abstract/652760 Access/evidence: Publisher abstract/introduction available. Episode use: A related but distinct experimental question about catecholamine behavior. 8. Heacock, R. A. “The Chemistry of Adrenochrome and Related Compounds.” Chemical Reviews 59, no. 2 (1959): 181–237. doi:10.1021/cr50026a001. Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/cr50026a001 Access/evidence: Bibliographic record and period text identified. Episode use: Comprehensive contemporary chemistry review. 9. Payza, A. N., and M. E. Mahon. “Spectrofluorometric Estimation of Adrenochrome in Human Plasma.” Analytical Chemistry 31, no. 7 (1959): 1170–1174. doi:10.1021/ac60151a028. Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac60151a028 Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper paywalled. Episode use: Analytical-method dispute and measurement limitations. 10. Payza, A. N., and Margaret Mahon. “Modification of Spectrofluorometric Determination of Aminochromes in Human Plasma.” Analytical Chemistry 32, no. 1 (1960): 17–19. doi:10.1021/ac60157a005. Link: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac60157a005 Access/evidence: Citation verified; full paper not reviewed. Episode use: Follow-up modification to assays. 11. Grof, Stanislav, M. Vojtěchovský, V. Vítek, and S. Pranková. “Clinical and Experimental Study of Central Effects of Adrenochrome.” Journal of Neuropsychiatry 4 (1963): 33–50. Link: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14089791/ Access/evidence: PubMed bibliography verified; full study not reviewed. Episode use: Historical publication and experimental research context; no specific numerical outcomes in the final script pending original paper. 12. Throne, M. L., and C. W. Gowdey. “A Critical Review of Endogenous Psychotoxins as a Cause of Schizophrenia.” Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal 12 (1967). doi:10.1177/070674376701200209. Link: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/070674376701200209 Access/evidence: Publisher entry located; full review not reviewed. Episode use: Period critique of the psychotoxin hypothesis. II. SCOTTISH RITE, ROCKEFELLER, AND HISTORICAL CORRESPONDENCE 13. Scottish Rite Masonic Museum & Library. Melvin M. Johnson Records, Dementia Praecox Committee archival descriptions, including June 1952 proceedings (Box 65, Folder 15) and September 1952 proceedings (Box 71, Folder 4). Link: https://srmml.libraryhost.com/subjects/1437?page=2 Access/evidence: ARCHIVE CATALOG ONLY; minutes not acquired. Episode use: The catalog documents a collection; it does not disclose the meeting’s contents. 14. McGill University Library, Osler Library/Penfield Fonds. Nolan D. C. Lewis correspondence to Wilder Penfield, July 17, 1935. Link: https://digital.library.mcgill.ca/images/penfieldfonds/large/pen_a_n_16_1_item07.pdf Access/evidence: Original archival file identified; page-image check needed. Episode use: Early committee/program affiliation, long before the adrenochrome hypothesis. 15. Hoffer, Abram. Published 1980 article discussing the Scottish Rite Dementia Praecox Committee and the claimed 1952 Waldorf Astoria presentation. Journal of Orthomolecular Psychiatry 9, no. 1 (1980), starting p. 2. Link: https://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/1980/pdf/1980-v09n01-p002.pdf Access/evidence: Later participant account; not contemporaneous minutes. Episode use: Use attribution such as “Hoffer recalled” for 1952 events. 16. Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report, 1954, pp. 86 and 110. Link: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Report-1954-1.pdf Access/evidence: OFFICIAL REPORT; cited amounts remain pending page-image review. Episode use: Separate reported Hoffer travel assistance from University of Saskatchewan schizophrenia research funding. 17. Rockefeller Foundation. Annual Report, 1957, pp. 107–108. Link: https://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/Annual-Report-1957-2.pdf Access/evidence: OFFICIAL REPORT; page-image recheck pending. Episode use: Later Saskatchewan research support and Hoffer’s program role. 18. University of Saskatchewan / Saskatchewan Archives and associated holdings. Abram Hoffer Fonds inventory, including experimental records and Rockefeller Foundation correspondence. Digitized finding aid hosted by Purdue University Libraries. Link: https://collections.lib.purdue.edu/psychoactive/assets/pdfs/HofferInventory.pdf Access/evidence: ARCHIVE FINDING AID ONLY; folders/experiments not acquired. Episode use: Research papers, cat-experiment slides, and grant correspondence require direct access. 19. Huxley, Aldous, and Humphry Osmond. Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond. Edited by Cynthia Carson Bisbee, Paul Bisbee, Erika Dyck, Patrick Farrell, James Sexton, and James W. Spisak. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2018. Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv7r40jc Access/evidence: Published correspondence identified; specific passages should be checked against edition. Episode use: Primary historical correspondence in an edited scholarly edition; includes discussion of related compounds and research support. III. INTELLIGENCE DOCUMENTS, PATENTS, AND REGULATION 20. Dulles, Allen W. Memorandum on psychochemical research, December 3, 1955. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1950–1955, The Intelligence Community, document 244. U.S. Department of State. Link: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1950-55Intel/d244 Access/evidence: OFFICIAL TEXT AVAILABLE. Episode use: Cold War psychochemical context; does not show CIA adrenochrome administration. 21. Central Intelligence Agency. “Report of Trip, 6–11 April 1955, to [Redacted].” Report dated April 11, 1955; MORI/document number 146122, 44 pages. Link: https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/REPORT%20OF%20TRIP%2C%206-11%20APRIL%201955%2C%20TO%20%28DELETED%29%5B12885865%5D.pdf Access/evidence: INDEXED LEAD ONLY; full scan not obtained. Episode use: Indexed excerpt appears to mention adrenochrome; exact author, page, and full context are unverified. 22. Patterson v. United States litigation materials. Court-filed exhibit dated April 6, 2012, listing CIA/MKULTRA FOIA records, including MORI 146122. Link: https://edgewoodtestvets.org/court-filed-documents/pdfs/20120406-405-Patterson-Dec-ISO-MTC-22-Ex-V.pdf Access/evidence: COURT EXHIBIT/INDEX; does not include the entire 1955 report. Episode use: Independent record identifier, not proof of a CIA adrenochrome experiment. 23. United States Patent and Trademark Office. Adrenochrome Compositions, U.S. Patent 2,581,850, issued January 8, 1952. Link: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2581850A/en Access/evidence: PATENT TEXT AVAILABLE. Ep 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.

    Adrenochrome: The Chemical, The Scientists, and The Blood-Harvesting Legend

  8. Oct 27

    WHO Sold Us Halloween? A History w/ Christian Kenny & Nick (Occult Rejects)

    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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    The Occult Rejects
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
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