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. 1d ago

    Christian Architecture As Ritual Technology Part 4-Constantine & the Public Church Basilicas, Empire, Spolia, & the Stones of the Old World

    Thank you and enjoy the episode! Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Substack https://substack.com/@theoccultreject... Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Buy Me A Coffee buymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejects Patreon @theoccultrejects  Krautheimer, Richard. Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture. 4th ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.  Essential. This is the backbone source for early Christian basilicas, liturgical space, urban context, and the development of Christian architecture after Constantine. Krautheimer is especially useful for not treating churches as isolated floor plans, but as part of city, ritual, bishop, patronage, and memory. Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312–1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.  Very useful for Rome as a layered city: imperial remains, Christian churches, papal authority, public space, and the transformation of Roman urban memory. Krautheimer, Richard, Wolfgang Frankl, and Spencer Corbett. Corpus Basilicarum Christianarum Romae: The Early Christian Basilicas of Rome. 5 vols. Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1937–1977.  Heavy academic reference work. Best for the Lateran, Old Saint Peter’s, early Roman churches, plans, architectural evidence, and dating. Mathews, Thomas F. The Early Churches of Constantinople: Architecture and Liturgy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1971.  More focused on Constantinople, but excellent for connecting architecture and liturgical movement. White, L. Michael. Building God’s House in the Roman World: Architectural Adaptation among Pagans, Jews, and Christians. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.  Great for the transition from house settings and adapted spaces into larger public Christian architecture. Brandenburg, Hugo. Ancient Churches of Rome from the Fourth to the Seventh Century: The Dawn of Christian Architecture in the West. Turnhout: Brepols, 2005.  Very useful for Rome, the Lateran, Santa Maria Maggiore, Santa Sabina, and the formation of Christian public architecture. Snyder, Graydon F. Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine. Macon: Mercer University Press, 2003.  Best for the “before Constantine” contrast: house churches, burial spaces, symbols, and pre-public Christian material culture. Elsner, Jaś. Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100–450. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.  Excellent for the transformation from Roman imperial art and space into Christian visual culture and triumphal imagery. Elsner’s work is especially useful for your “empire becomes the bones of the church” angle. Constantine, Legal Shift, and Imperial Patronage Eusebius. Life of Constantine. Translated by Averil Cameron and Stuart G. Hall. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999.  Primary source. Use carefully because it is highly pro-Constantine and partly panegyric, but it is essential for Constantine’s Christian image, patronage, and sacred building projects. Eusebius is one of the key ancient witnesses for Constantine’s role in Christian imperial memory. Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History. Translated by Kirsopp Lake. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926–1932.  Useful background for the pre-Constantinian church, persecution memory, martyr tradition, and Christian self-understanding before public imperial patronage. Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.  Major scholarly source on Constantine, Eusebius, politics, Christian patronage, and imperial ideology. Drake, H. A. Constantine and the Bishops: The Politics of Intolerance. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000.  Excellent for the political complexity of Constantine’s relationship with bishops and Christian institutions. Lenski, Noel, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.  Good edited volume for Constantine’s world: religion, politics, empire, law, cities, and Christianization. Odahl, Charles Matson. Constantine and the Christian Empire. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2010.  Useful general scholarly overview, especially for readers/listeners who need the historical framework. MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianizing the Roman Empire: A.D. 100–400. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984.  Classic work on Christianization as a social and political process. Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.  Excellent big-picture framing. Helps avoid the cartoon version where Constantine instantly creates medieval Christianity. Basilicas, Liturgy, Space, and the Body Yasin, Ann Marie. Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.  Very strong for how churches organized community, memory, saints, ritual space, and sacred presence. Yasin, Ann Marie. “Sacred Installations: The Material Conditions of Liturgy in Late Antique Churches.” In Objects in Context, Objects in Use, edited by Luke Lavan, Ellen Swift, and Toon Putzeys. Leiden: Brill, 2007.  Useful for altars, liturgical furnishing, and how sacred space is made materially. Bowes, Kim. Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.  Good for the public/private transition, elite patronage, domestic religion, and late antique religious change. Markus, R. A. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.  Important for the shift from ancient Christian worlds into more structured post-Constantinian Christianity. Brown, Peter. The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.  This will become even more important for your next episode on martyrs, relics, tombs, bones, and pilgrimage. MacCormack, Sabine. Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981.  Great for public ceremony, imperial ritual, Christian adaptation, and how power becomes theatrical and architectural. Lateran, Old Saint Peter’s, and Holy Sepulchre Davis, Raymond. The Book of Pontiffs: The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715. Rev. ed. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2010.  Translation of the Liber Pontificalis. Useful for the Lateran, papal memory, church foundations, donations, and claims about Constantine. Mango, Cyril. The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312–1453: Sources and Documents. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.  Excellent sourcebook for texts on Christian art, architecture, and sacred building. Ward-Perkins, J. B. “The Shrine of St. Peter’s and Its Twelve Spiral Columns.” Journal of Roman Studies 42, no. 1–2 (1952): 21–33.  Very useful for Old Saint Peter’s, reused columns, Solomonic column traditions, and apostolic memory. The tradition of reused marble columns at Old Saint Peter’s directly supports your spolia-and-memory section. Krautheimer, Richard. “Mensa-Coemeterium-Martyrium.” Cahiers Archéologiques 11 (1960): 15–40.  Important for tomb, altar, martyr memory, and architectural development. Wilken, Robert Louis. The Land Called Holy: Palestine in Christian History and Thought. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.  Useful for Jerusalem, holy geography, sacred memory, and the Holy Sepulchre. Taylor, Joan E. Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-Christian Origins. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993.  Strong source for holy places, memory, archaeology, and early Christian sacred geography. Biddle, Martin. The Tomb of Christ. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1999.  Useful for Holy Sepulchre archaeology and the architectural framing of crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Spolia, Reused Stone, and Roman Material Inheritance Kinney, Dale. “Spolia. Damnatio and Renovatio Memoriae.” Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 117–148.  One of the key scholarly pieces for spolia, memory, reuse, and interpretation. Kinney, Dale. “Rape or Restitution of the Past? Interpreting Spolia.” In The Art of Interpreting, edited by Susan C. Scott, 52–67. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.  Great for your nuance: spolia is not always theft, not always theology, not always conquest. It can be practical, symbolic, aesthetic, political, or all of those at once. Brilliant, Richard, and Dale Kinney, eds. Reuse Value: Spolia and Appropriation in Art and Architecture from Constantine to Sherrie Levine. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.  Excellent broader collection on reuse, appropriation, memory, and architectural meaning. Hansen, Maria Fabricius. The Eloquence of Appropriation: Prolegomena to an Understanding of Spolia in Early Christian Rome. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2003.  Very relevant to your point that reused materials could create a meaningful Christian aesthetic, not just a cheap construction solution. Brenk, Beat. “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics versus Ideology.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 103–109.  Very useful for the practical-versus-symbolic debate. Greenhalgh, Michael. The Survival of Roman Antiquities in the Middle Ages. London: Duckworth, 1989.  Good for how Roman materials, statues, columns, and monuments survive, are reused, or are reinterpreted. Pensabene, Patrizio 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.

    Christian Architecture As Ritual Technology Part 4-Constantine & the Public Church Basilicas, Empire, Spolia, & the Stones of the Old World
  2. 5d ago

    The Mechanics Of Magick: The Ecstatic Body Ep 1: Before the Brain Scan | How Human Beings Explained Orgasm Before Modern Neuroscience

    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 Buy Me A Coffee buymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects BIBLIOGRAPHY Episode One: Before the Brain Scan Modern Sexual Response and Neuroscientific Framing Basson, Rosemary. “Human Sex-Response Cycles.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 27, no. 1 (2001): 33–43. Georgiadis, Janniko R. “Doing It… Wild? On the Role of the Cerebral Cortex in Human Sexual Activity.” Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2 (2012): 17337. Georgiadis, Janniko R., and A. A. T. Simone Reinders. “Men versus Women on Sexual Brain Function: Prominent Differences during Tactile Genital Stimulation, but Not during Orgasm.” Human Brain Mapping 30, no. 10 (2009): 3089–3101. Kaplan, Helen Singer. The New Sex Therapy: Active Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1974. Masters, William H., and Virginia E. Johnson. Human Sexual Response. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966. Stoléru, Serge, Virginie Fonteille, Christelle Cornélis, Christian Joyal, and Virginie Moulier. “Functional Neuroimaging Studies of Sexual Arousal and Orgasm in Healthy Men and Women: A Review and Meta-Analysis.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 36, no. 6 (2012): 1481–1509. Wise, Nan J., Eleni Frangos, and Barry R. Komisaruk. “Brain Activity Unique to Orgasm in Women: An fMRI Analysis.” Journal of Sexual Medicine 14, no. 11 (2017): 1380–1391. Ancient Egyptian Primary Sources and Textual Collections Allen, James P., trans. The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005. Faulkner, Raymond O., trans. The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts. 3 vols. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips, 1973–1978. Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 1, The Old and Middle Kingdoms. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. Lichtheim, Miriam. Ancient Egyptian Literature. Vol. 2, The New Kingdom. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. University College London. “Kahun Medical Papyrus.” Digital Egypt for Universities. Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Accessed July 21, 2026. University College London. “Healing Papyri from Lahun.” Digital Egypt for Universities. Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology. Accessed July 21, 2026. Ancient Egyptian Religion, Sexuality, and Medicine Allen, James P. Genesis in Egypt: The Philosophy of Ancient Egyptian Creation Accounts. Yale Egyptological Studies 2. New Haven, CT: Yale Egyptological Seminar, 1988. Assmann, Jan. The Search for God in Ancient Egypt. Translated by David Lorton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. Graves-Brown, Carolyn. Dancing for Hathor: Women in Ancient Egypt. London: Continuum, 2010. Hornung, Erik. Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt: The One and the Many. Translated by John Baines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982. Manniche, Lise. Sexual Life in Ancient Egypt. London: KPI, 1987. Matić, Uroš. “Sexuality in Ancient Egypt: Pleasures, Desires, Norms, and Representations.” In The Cambridge World History of Sexualities, vol. 2, edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, 22–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Nunn, John F. Ancient Egyptian Medicine. London: British Museum Press, 1996. Pinch, Geraldine. Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Ritner, Robert Kriech. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization 54. Chicago: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1993. Robins, Gay. Women in Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. Smith, Mark. Following Osiris: Perspectives on the Osirian Afterlife from Four Millennia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Stevens, Anna. “The Material Evidence for Domestic Religion at Amarna and Preliminary Remarks on Its Interpretation.” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 89 (2003): 143–168. Mesopotamian Primary Sources and Translated Literature Black, Jeremy, Graham Cunningham, Eleanor Robson, and Gábor Zólyomi. The Literature of Ancient Sumer. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. Foster, Benjamin R. Before the Muses: An Anthology of Akkadian Literature. 3rd ed. Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2005. Jacobsen, Thorkild. The Harps That Once…: Sumerian Poetry in Translation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987. Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sacred Marriage Rite: Aspects of Faith, Myth, and Ritual in Ancient Sumer. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1969. Wolkstein, Diane, and Samuel Noah Kramer. Inanna: Queen of Heaven and Earth—Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer. New York: Harper & Row, 1983. Mesopotamian Sexuality, Sacred Marriage, and Gender Assante, Julia. “The Kar.kid/Ḫarimtu: Prostitute or Single Woman? A Reconsideration of the Evidence.” Ugarit-Forschungen 30 (1998): 5–96. Biggs, Robert D. ŠÀ.ZI.GA: Ancient Mesopotamian Potency Incantations. Texts from Cuneiform Sources 2. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1967. Budin, Stephanie Lynn. Fertility and Gender in the Ancient Near East. London: Routledge, 2014. Budin, Stephanie Lynn. The Myth of Sacred Prostitution in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Leick, Gwendolyn. Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. London: Routledge, 1994. Lapinkivi, Pirjo. The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evidence. State Archives of Assyria Studies 15. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2004. Peled, Ilan. “Sexuality in the Systems of Thought and Belief of the Ancient Near East.” In The Cambridge World History of Sexualities, vol. 2, edited by Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, 43–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. Peled, Ilan. Masculinities and Third Gender: The Origins and Nature of an Institutionalized Gender Otherness in the Ancient Near East. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2016. Parpola, Simo, and Robert M. Whiting, eds. Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002. Stol, Marten. Women in the Ancient Near East. Translated by Helen Richardson and Mervyn Richardson. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Westenholz, Joan Goodnick. “Tamar, Qĕdēšā, Qadištu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia.” Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (1989): 245–266. Wiggermann, Frans A. M. “Sexualität: In Mesopotamien.” In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, vol. 12, edited by Michael P. Streck and others, 410–426. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. Mesopotamian Medicine, Reproduction, and the Body Böck, Barbara. The Healing Goddess Gula: Towards an Understanding of Ancient Babylonian Medicine. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 67. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Geller, Markham J. Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Horstmanshoff, H. F. J., Marten Stol, and Cornelis Tilburg, eds. Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine. Studies in Ancient Medicine 27. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Scurlock, JoAnn, and Burton R. Andersen. Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine: Ancient Sources, Translations, and Modern Medical Analyses. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005. Steinert, Ulrike. “Fluids, Rivers, and Vessels: Metaphors and Body Concepts in Mesopotamian Gynaecological Texts.” Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 22 (2013): 1–23. Steinert, Ulrike. “Concepts of the Female Body in Mesopotamian Gynecological Texts.” In The Comparable Body: Analogy and Metaphor in Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman Medicine, edited by John Z. Wee, 275–357. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Stol, Marten. Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting. Cuneiform Monographs 14. Groningen: Styx Publications, 2000. Broader Comparative and Methodological Studies Budin, Stephanie Lynn. “Phallic Fertility in the Ancient Near East and Egypt.” In Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day, edited by Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren Kassell, 31–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Faraone, Christopher A., and Laura K. McClure, eds. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006. King, Helen. Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece. London: Routledge, 1998. Stol, Marten. “Women in Mesopotamia.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38, no. 2 (1995): 123–144. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., and Mathew Kuefler, eds. The Cambridge World History of Sexualities. Vol. 2, Systems of Thought and Belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024. 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 Ep 1: Before the Brain Scan | How Human Beings Explained Orgasm Before Modern Neuroscience
  3. Sep 11

    The Origins of Christian Demons

    If you enjoy this episode, we’re sure you will enjoy more content like this on The Occult Rejects.  In fact, we have curated playlists on occult topics like grimoires, esoteric concepts and phenomena, occult history, analyzing true crime and cults with an occult lens, Para politics, and occultism in music. Whether you enjoy consuming your content visually or via audio, we’ve got you covered - and it will always be provided free of charge.  So, if you enjoy what we do and want to support our work of providing accessible, free content on various platforms, please consider making a donation to the links provided below.   Thank you and enjoy the episode! Links For The Occult Rejects https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects Occult Research Institute https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/ Cash App https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects Venmo @TheOccultRejects Buy Me A Coffee buymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejects Patreon https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects Primary textsHebrew Bible / Old Testament: Genesis 6:1–4Leviticus 16Deuteronomy 32:17Psalm 91Psalm 106:37Isaiah 34:14–15Job 1–2Zechariah 3Second Temple Jewish texts: Tobit1 Enoch, especially the Book of the WatchersJubileesDead Sea Scrolls / Qumran texts, especially 1QS 3–4 and the War ScrollNew Testament texts: Mark 1Mark 5Matthew 8:29Matthew 12Luke 8Luke 111 Corinthians 10:202 Corinthians 4:4Colossians 2:15Ephesians 6:12Patristic / late antique texts: Justin Martyr, First ApologyAthenagoras, Plea for the ChristiansOrigenAugustineEvagrius PonticusTestament of SolomonAramaic incantation bowlsSelected scholarship Annette Yoshiko Reed, “When Did Daimones Become Demons? Revisiting Septuagintal Data for Ancient Jewish Demonology,” Harvard Theological Review 116.3 (2023).Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, “Evil Spirits in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Brief Survey and Some Perspectives.”John J. Collins, “The Two Spirits and the Origin of Evil,” in Understanding Texts in Early Judaism (2022).James C. VanderKam, “Mastema in the Qumran Literature and the Book of Jubilees.”Graham H. Twelftree, In the Name of Jesus: Exorcism among Early Christians (Baker Academic, 2007).Ky Heinze, Origen on Demonic Executioners and the Problem of Evil (Cambridge University Press).Andrew Crislip, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism,” Harvard Theological Review 98.2 (2005).Robin M. Jensen, From Idols to Icons: The Emergence of Christian Devotional Images in Late Antiquity (University of California Press, 2022).Gary B. Ferngren, Medicine and Health Care in Early Christianity (Johns Hopkins University Press).Useful bridge / reference sources Bible Odyssey, especially the entries on Demons and Unclean Spirits, Nephilim, Satan, and Exorcism in the Gospels.Britannica, especially the entries on Tobit, Asmodeus, First Book of Enoch, Satan, the devil, and Paul.  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 Origins of Christian Demons
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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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