Search Results for: immortality related magic

Science Fiction or The Road to Immortality – FreemanTV.com

Science fiction is an existential metaphor that allows us to tell stories about the human condition. Isaac Asimov once said, individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today but, the core of science fiction; its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all. Stargate SG1 200 My first memory of science fiction comes from the early series of Battlestar Galactica. I was always Apollo and my good friend played Starbuck. I would wear my fathers cufflinks on my shirt collar as my Viper fleet insignia. Years later in college, when introduced to Freemasonry and their symbols, I immediately recognized my Battlestar badges from youth and came to learn that my father was a Worshipful Master of the Free and Accepted Masons of Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Even more curious was learning that my father had also worked with Jimmy Carter on the submarine, Killer 1, and chased flying saucers for Project: Bluebook. He told of sitting on a south sea island with 4 radar dishes tracking incoming UFOs. All I could ask was, So flying saucers are real? To which he simply said, Yeah. I found further connections of Battlestar and Freemasonry. Battlestar Galactica is a retelling of the Mormon creation myth.

In Battlestar, the Twelve Colonies home planet is named Kobol. This is an anagram of the Mormon "Kolob," a celestial body named in the Book of Abraham and identified as being near the home or origin of God. The founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, stated that he wished to make Freemasonry into what it ought to be and thats when the gold tablets and a top hat led to magic underwear, Mitt Romney, and one crazy temple with rituals that mimic Freemasonry. If you ever want to get rid of a Mormon at your door, study Freemasonic ritual and start asking them how they fold their aprons during their initiation or if they were buried in the rubbish pile by the ruffians. Trust me, they wont have much to say after that. Freemasonry can be proven to be extraterrestrial in origin. Zecharia Sitchen recounts the tale of King Hiram of Tyres extra-planetary adventure and his return bringing a strange man known in Freemasonry as Hiram Abif, the first Master Mason. He was brought to King Solomon to build a structure to house the Ark of the Covenant, the first weapon of mass destruction given to the Hebrews by God. The television show Stargate SG1 originally aired in June of 1997 with the pilot episode, Children of the Gods. Even though the crew of SG1 has displayed the Space Command seal on their chests since then, I still find it difficult to convince people of the existence of the United States Space Force. In reality, we now have Space Battlelabs and Space Battalions titled 23rd Space Operations Squadron or 8th Space Warning Squadron and they have mottos such as, Master of Space, They Shall Not Pass, and Gateway to the Stars. The premise of Stargate, in case youve been under a rock, is that several million years ago, an ancient race of advanced humanoid beings, now known as the Ancients, created a device capable of near-instantaneous transportation across the universe by means of a subspace wormhole. This device, which has been used by countless races since its creation, has more commonly become known as a stargate. The Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, is a particle accelerator that will provide many answers to our questions about the Universe - What is the reason for mass? Where is the invisible matter in the Universe hiding? What is the relationship between matter and antimatter? Will we have to use a theory claiming more than four dimensions? and what about "time" ? Scientists say to open wormholes we'll need a particle accelerator. To keep them open will require something referred to as "exotic matter" or "dark matter." At the end of every Stargate SG1 episode the credits state, We gratefully acknowledge the cooperation of the Department of Defense, Department of the Air Force and U.S. Space Command. The shows producers maintained a close working relationship with the US Air Force. Two Air Force Chiefs of Staff, Generals Michael Ryan and John Jumper, made cameos on the show. In 2004, Richard Dean Anderson who plays Col. Jack ONeill in Stargate, was declared an honorary Air Force brigadier general, rarely given to civilians, to thank him and the other people behind Stargate SG-1 for their very positive portrayal of Space Command. By the 10th season of Stargate, the writers and producers decide to poke fun at themselves in an episode titled, 200. In this episode, an alien producer is trying to create a film from his television series, Wormhole X-Treme, and he is asking the crew of SG1 to give him some ideas. It is questioned whether it is a good idea to make the Stargate project public. To which General Landry states, A fictionalized and, albeit, slightly ridiculous version of Stargate Command is an excellent cover for the real thing in the event of a security leak. Plausible deniability. With the cast holding out for more money, the producer, Grell, exclaims, Where do they think it comes from? To which the SGC crew look at one another and shrug with a smirk on their faces. I have often wondered this question about Facebook and even sat through the movie Social Network to learn the secret of Internet Money. Millions of mysterious dollars seem to have fallen into Mark Zuckerbergs hand. If youre not serving the military industrial complex then you are not making a suitable income in America. The ending sequence of SG1 is a folder with the stamp, Double SECRET Productions. Which really says it all. Its double secret because it is right in your face. Much can be learned from deciphering corporate logos.

It is for each individual Mason to discover the secret of Masonry, by reflection upon its symbols and a wise consideration and analysis of what is said and done in the work. Masonry does not inculcate her truths. She states them, once and briefly; or hints them, perhaps darkly; or interposes a cloud between them and eyes that would be dazzled by them. Seek, and ye shall find, knowledge and truth. Morals and Dogma, Albert Pike on the lessons of the Grand Elect, Perfect, and Sublime Mason. (14th degree) p.218

The signs and symbols that we see everyday are a method of showing allegiance to this brotherhood. With a discerning eye one can extrapolate the hidden meaning of these corporate logos. Some, like Endemol, (end em all) seem simple enough being a reptilian eye; others are more covert and require knowledge of the inner workings of the Masonic lodge rituals. The rituals are based on the Kabbalah. Grand Sovereign Commander of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry and the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, Albert Pike, mentions the connections between Freemasonry and Kabbalah no less than 70 times in his seminal work, Morals and Dogma; an outline of the degrees of Freemasonry. In the book, he states, One is filled with admiration, on penetrating into the Sanctuary of the Kabbalah, at seeing a doctrine so logical, so simple, and at the same time so absolute. The necessary union of ideas and signs, the consecration of the most fundamental realities by the primitive characters; the Trinity of Words, Letters, and Numbers;ten ciphers, and twenty-two letters, a triangle, a square, and a circle,--these are all the elements of the Kabbalah. Aleister Crowley boasted that if he wore all his Masonic medals, he would fall on his face from the weight of it! Within his Kabbalistic system, the Tree of Life contains a hidden 11th cypher or sephira, Daath or the Abyss, which separates the lower sephiroth from the supernals. This account derives from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawns view of Genesis, in which Daath represents the fall of man from a unified consciousness into a duality between ego and divine nature. The Abyss is guarded by the demon Choronzon, who manifests during the third, ceremonial method of crossing this gulf. Within these realms exist the shells or qlippoth. The Qliphoth are separation or excrement or negative representations of Divinity. These are the Fallen Angels, Samael, Beelzbub, Lillith, just to name a few. Understanding the qliphothic powers fully, can result in the destruction of the ego, and therefore lead to actual madness. The Qliphoth is the psychic equivalent of working with toxic wastes. In Kabbalistic magic, the number 66, which in Hebrew would be VV, represents the Qliphoth; in English 66 is OX or FF.

Goetic evocation, the basest form of magick, calls upon these beings to do ones bidding, catering to the magicians most carnal desires. Crowley states that this shadowy practice is for the intentional conjuration of spiritual beings who are, by definition, Fallen Angels, Evil Spirits and Demons! Even the Beast 666, was reluctant to perform such rituals. Crowley was aware of the possibility of opening the spatial gateways and of admitting an extraterrestrial Current into the human life-wave. Our government doesnt seem as concerned. Kabalistic signs and ciphers are being used around us at all times. Hitlers war machine, the Volkswagen, used VW as its corporate logo. The logo is actually 2 Vs interlaced. This symbolizes the Qliphoth and goes one step further. In crossing the Vs you get a third V. Remember, V or Vav in Hebrew equals 6. So, this would make VW 666. In Hebrew, 666 would look like the Monster drink logo. In English the letters that represent 666 are FOX. F-6 O-15 (1+5=6) X-24 (2+4=6). Also notice that Phillips 66s crest has 6 points. It is the same for Highway 66, which was the first military road west to gather the gold. If one is privy to this information and couples this with global politics, predictions of world events are possible. This is the path to World War III. First you must defeat the peoples hearts then, you can defeat them in war. With discernment of the Kabalistic codes it became easy to predict who would be forced into office in 2004. W. The TV series Fringe also shows revelations of the Qlippoth in another dimension. Under the supervision of Homeland Security, Fringe Division uses "fringe" science and FBI techniques to investigate unexplained and often ghastly occurrences, which are related to mysteries surrounding a parallel universe. The symbol Fringe uses for their parallel universe is FF or again, 66. Youll see 6 Vs at the beginning of The Matrix and V For Vendetta. If you read the graphic novel by Alan Moore you will know it is a combination of the philosophy of Adam Weishaupts Illuminati and the magical beliefs of Aleister Crowley. In Star Wars Revenge of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker sacrifices the Jedi children as Emperor Palpatine executes Order 66, or Operation: Knightfall, and all his clones turn on the Jedi in a mass slaughter. Its amazing how much Pope Benedict looks like the Emperor of Star Wars and the Pope is a Nazi Youth from Bavaria and exonerated the Knights Templar! This double V symbolism has been used in the past by Woodrow Wilson who unwittingly ruined the country by accepting the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and set the stage for the banker take-over. We see this symbolism in the television show, The Voice, with a two fingered peace sign over a V. The company, Talpa, which produces The Voice uses for their logo the Kabbalistic Tree of Life with Heaven in the Abyss. The peace sign is the sign of Typhon, father of all monsters, and was taught to Winston Churchill by Crowley to fight off the solar forces of the Nazis Pop star, Katy Perry, simply sings of this violation with her song, E.T. She has all the little girls singing lyrics like, Wanna be your victim. Ready for abduction. Fill me with your poison. They say be afraid. You're not like the others, futuristic lover. Different DNA. They don't understand you. Boy, youre an alien. And, Im ready to go, lead me into the light. At Super Bowl XLVI Madonna displayed both the VV and OX symbolism. According to Kenneth Grant, an accolade of Crowley, The Heart of the Sigil of Nodens is identical with the Mark of the Beast: the fusion of O and X. Nodens is the God of the Great Deep or Abyss. Considering that Madonna has now taken on the name of Esther, one can be certain of her Kabbalistic beliefs. Madonnas tour is titled MDNA making her stage name another Kabbalistic moniker by removing the vowels and also putting the emphasis on DNA, which Madonna is clearly concerned with. Reporters say she has her dressing rooms swept for any remnants of her DNA by a special security team. Our "leaders" and celebrities have always been wrapped in the occult. They speak of opening portals or dimensional rifts. They tell of using spirits to do their bidding. They act as if there is no cost for this. Just join and you'll be taken care of. All you need do is swear a blood oath to our god. Most people no longer believe in a spirit realm and can take these oaths with a grain of salt; they believe there is no consequence. Another constant theme for the brotherhood is eternal life, The Tree of Life, et al. They know people can live a lot longer than we currently do and cloning has become a big issue for them. The longer you live, the longer you get to keep hold of your soul. Is this at the heart of Transhumanism?

Have a look at Grallators Antimatter Annihilator Detector logo.

The scientists of CERN collaborating on the so-called ALPHA (Antihydrogen Laser Physics Apparatus) experiment, were able to trap the antihydrogen atoms for as long as 1,000 secondsor just over 16 minuteswhich is forever, says CERN spokesman Professor Jeffrey Hangst. To produce antihydrogen, the ALPHA team brought together negatively-charged antiprotons and positive antielectronsalso known as positronsin the very cold vacuum chamber where they combined to make antihydrogen. The longevity of their antihydrogen is remarkable given that theyd only trapped it the first time for a fleeting sixth of a second in November of 2010. The Grid" has many capabilities that are not discussed by Faux News. Here's what they say: The Grid could provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call. CERNs Grid could determine the outcome of future human events and process who will be in the detention camps created by National Security Presidential Directive 51, if CERN would let the U.S. use the Helix Nebula Cloud. Some have backed Europe-only clouds because the U.S. Patriot Act could force private data to be turned over to U.S. authorities. While CERN will use the tool to analyze data from ATLAS and ALICE, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory hopes to simplify the analysis of genomes to provide further insight into the evolution and biodiversity of DNA. David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could "revolutionize" society. "With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine," orOut of this door might come something, or we might send something through it, said Sergio Bertolucci, Director for Research and Scientific Computing at CERN. After many damning headlines of time traveling owls dropping baguettes on the electronics and a CERN physicist admitting links with al-Qaida, CERN reached world record levels December 9, 2009. The LHC beams collided at 7 TeV, an energy level never reached before. Some scientists feared that such collisions would create stranglets and rogue black holes capable of swallowing the earth itself. It was this day that a blue spiraling vortex seemed to open in the morning sky of Norway. The Christian Science Monitor reported, Space aliens welcoming Obama? Because this was also the day Barack Obama came to receive his Nobel Peace Prize. This event became known as the Norway Spiral and dazzled spectators near Skjervoy in northern Norway. The spiral anomaly occurred in front of the EISCAT antennae array in Svalbard. EISCAT is an acronym for the European Incoherent Scatter Scientific Association used to study the interaction between the Sun and the Earth as revealed by disturbances in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. At the Ramfjordmoen facility EISCAT also operates an ionospheric heater facility, similar to HAARP. In 2008, Doritos embarked upon an "out-of-this-world" advertising campaign, literally, beaming a 30sec ad for Doritos brand tortilla chips into a solar system 42 light years away using the antenna array. The ad was beamed towards a distant star, within the Ursa Major constellation, that is orbited by planets, which may harbor life. Fox (666) raised the bar December 12, 2008 by transmitting the first motion picture in to deep space, making The Day the Earth Stood Still the world's first galactic motion picture release using the Deep Space Communications Network located at Cape Canaveral. At the time of this publication, if any civilizations are currently orbiting Alpha Centauri, they will be able to receive and view the film. "We are thrilled about beaming this film into space. This will be our first full-length movie transmission. And what could be more relevant to send into Deep Space than a movie about the Earths acceptance of visitors from outer space," commented Jim Lewis, Managing Director, Deep Space Communications Network. I dont know if Jim was watching the same movie I was but to me it seems the message of The Day the Earth Stood Still is humans will never change just destroy us. Maybe I didnt understand Keanus emotional content well enough.

"This has all happened before, and it will all happen again."

In Battlestar Galactica, the original Earth was revealed to have been a different planet, one which had become an uninhabitable wasteland by a nuclear war waged by its Cylon creations thousands of years before. The Cylons of the 1978/1980 series are not the mechanical foils seen throughout the series, but an advanced reptilian race who created the robots (who were referred to as Cylons within the show) to serve them, maintain their vast empire and to man their military forces in the face of a sudden population drop that eventually led to the Cylons' extinction. In the new version, Cylons are cybernetic workers, soldiers and space planes created by humans. As in the original series, the Cylons destroy almost the entire human civilization, chasing a few ship-borne survivors into deep space. A telepresence robot, Robonaut 2 (R2), was installed on the International Space Station on the 39th and final launch of space shuttle Discovery. Telepresence refers to a set of technologies that allow a person to feel as if they are present via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location. Designed to work autonomously, Robonaut 2 Power Soaked on Sept. 1, 2011 and was awakened electronically for the first time in the stations U.S. Destiny lab on Aug. 22. Before, we saw if Robonaut had a heartbeat, Fossum said, Today, we wake him up. On October 13, R2 moved for the first time while in space. Project M was a proposed NASA project headed by Stephen J. Altemus, to send a Robonaut to the Moon. Project M has since been scaled down into Project Morpheus. The biggest scientific instrument to be installed on the International Space Station was delivered by Endeavor STS-134. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) is the largest superconducting magnet ever used in space. Built at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the AMS will help scientists better understand the fundamental issues on the origin and structure of the Universe by observing dark matter, missing matter and antimatter. We will be able to see the Anti-Universe. 56 institutes from 16 countries have picked up most of AMSs $1.5-billion costs, with Nobel laureate Samuel Ting coordinating the effort. On the final flight of NASA's shuttle program, Atlantis carried six adult stem cells from Tissue Genesis for the Department of Defenses research into human longevity. NASA is hopeful the human adult stem cell experiments will lead to the reversal of the rapid aging process that zero gravity has on astronauts. This is TGI's 19th shuttle payload involving regenerative cell research. Stem cells have the potential of turning into any other kind of cell in the body. It is this general-purpose nature that makes them such an extraordinarily attractive object to medical scientists. Florida General Surgeon Dr. Sant Antonio, who obtained the specimens for NASA said, "I believe NASA will soon be injecting stem cells into astronauts. They've come a long way and just in time for the last shuttle mission. It's a great feeling." An iPhone and two Nexus S smartphones were used by astronauts to log the experiments, and were left on the ISS to allow the crew to pilot Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) from aboard the ISS. Barack Obama stood on the platform that he would not weaponize space. So, I began the Space War News to track the moment that he did. This was not a difficult reality to see. I have Wernher von Brauns enemy list that began with the Red Scare and continued through terrorists and asteroids concluding with an alien invasion to set the final nail on weapons in space. Not only did von Braun speak of benevolent extra-terrestrials, he also spoke of inter-dimensional entities. If you dont know, Wernher von Braun was a Nazi scientist brought to America through Project Paperclip to work with NASA and Walt Disney. Former spokesperson for Wernher von Braun and current President of the Institute for Security and Cooperation in Outer Space, Carol Rosin, was tasked with educating about the need to ban all space-based weapons by educating decision makers and the grassroots about how the military industrial complex can feasibly be transformed into a peaceful world cooperative space exploration complex. According to Rosin, von Braun spoke of the existence of "Off Planet Cultures" and about how these OPC's are going to be identified as being "enemies," when they are not enemies. "The message that he was giving me continually was that we must prevent the weaponization of space from happening because otherwise the truth would never be officially acknowledged about who we were, who we are, as a human species in the universes." Universes, is the way he put it to me. I had never heard that term before. I thought we lived in (the only) galaxy solar system universe. But he always used the word universes. But what he always added on to his talks with me that for years I did not say because of the ridicule factor was this message that we must prevent the weaponization of space from happening and that the big lie is that none of them are hostile, talking about this list of potential enemies against whom we have been taught to fear and even hate that none of them are hostile. I watched as they shut down the Columbia Endeavor for the Discovery of Atlantis and trained NASAs astronauts for the Space X Dragon. I was able to predict this with precision. My Space War News has a lot to offer. Ive telecast CERNs announcement of the Higgs boson, the Bombing of the Moon, the transit of Venus and the launch of a NASA Black Brant XII missile from Wallops Island, Virginia on September 19, 2009. This military launch was of particular interest to me because it was carrying the Cloud of CARE. CARE stands for the Charged Aerosol Release Experiment. The rocket deployed a cloud of aluminum oxide into the upper atmosphere at about the height of the International Space Station or about 200 miles above the Earths surface creating a blue noctilucent cloud. The news said their experts knew nothing about this event and it might have been an alien invasion. This sort of thing seemed to play right into von Brauns warnings. I mean, you could have watched the launch live on FreemanTV.com! So, I was not shocked when the Norway Spiral was later determined not to be aliens but a test launch of a Russian Defense Ministry Bulava ballistic missile from a submarine in the White Sea that morning. Speaking on the Norway Spiral, Dr. Dimpfl said the resulting blue beam was aluminum oxide, "the chemical formula for sapphires, so what youre looking at is sunlight scattering off lots of tiny sapphires." The question becomes, what was EISCAT doing to that aluminum oxide cloud? I was shocked to find that a tactical nuclear missile launched over a wartime president receiving a Nobel Peace Prize did not worry people. At least its not aliens! Why do they call the mock alien invasion Project Blue Beam? Project Blue Beam is a conspiracy theory that claims that NASA is attempting to implement a New Age religion with the Antichrist at its head and start a New World Order, via a technologically simulated Second Coming. Serge Monast claims that the infamous NASA Blue Beam Project has four different steps in order to implement a new age religion with the Antichrist at its head. He says, We must remember that the new age religion is the very foundation for the new world government, without which religion the dictatorship of the new world order is completely impossible. That is why the Blue Beam Project is so important to them and has been so well hidden until now. The first step in the Project concerns the re-evaluation of all archaeological knowledge. Just watch Ancient Aliens! The second step involves a gigantic 'space show' with three-dimensional laser projections of multiple holographic images to different parts of the world, each receiving a different image according to predominating regional national religious faiths. So far the Queen, Tupac, and Elvis have appeared on stage as holograms! If you want an idea of what this might look like just pay attention to how they control the tributes in the movie The Hunger Games. The third step is telepathic and electronically augmented two-way communication with ELF, VLF and LF waves that will reach each person from within his or her own mind, convincing each of them that their own god is speaking to them from the very depths of their soul. The fourth step concerns the universal supernatural manifestation by electronic means. It contains three different orientations: - make mankind believe that an alien invasion is about to occur at every major city on earth in order to provoke each major nation to use its nuclear weapons in order to strike back. - make the Christians believe that the Rapture is going to occur with the supposed divine intervention of an alien civilization coming to rescue earthlings from a savage and merciless demon. - a mixture of electronic and supernatural forces. The waves used at this time will allow "supernatural forces" to travel through optical fibers, coaxial cables (TV) electrical and phone lines in order to penetrate to everyone at once through major appliances. Please remember that sorcery is the reason for the creation of the electromechanical television system. Telefunken in Nazi Germany manufactured the first commercially made electronic television sets, originated the FM radio broadcast system, and created the first electro-mechanical binary programmable computer. You better be concerned with their energy saving Lighting technology. If you dont think these new energy saving light bulbs are dangerous just look up their official directions and protocols for if one accidentally breaks. "Science will help our faith to purify itself. And faith at the same time will be able to broaden the horizons of man, who cannot just enclose himself in the horizons of science." Gabriele Gionti , the Vatican Attach to CERN. The God particle is the name physicist and author Leon Lederman gave to the Higgs boson in his book The God Particle: If the Universe Is the Answer, What Is the Question? Its meant to communicate the importance of the particle to the understanding of physics; Lederman has also said that he settled for the God Particle because the publisher rejected his intended title, the Goddamn Particle. Higgs, an atheist, does not agree with the god particle nickname as it might offend people who are religious.

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Science Fiction or The Road to Immortality - FreemanTV.com

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The Victorian Love Affair with Death! Dissection and Magic! Future Death/Future Cemeteries! The "Hot Nurse!" The Morbid Anatomy Lecture Series This Week and Next at London’s Last Tuesday Society

Dear Londoners:

Are you interested in learning more about "the Victorian love affair with death" this Monday, June 17th? Or, perhaps you might be more curious to find out about the relationship between magic and dissection the very next evening? Or if that does not interest, perhaps you might be tempted by a lecture entitled "Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries" with Dr. John Troyer, deputy director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath taking place this Thursday June 20th? Or, if none of this appeals, perhaps you might fancy a heavily-illustrated talk tracing the figure of the "hot nurse" in romantic fiction with the Natasha McEnroe, director of the Florence Nightingale Museum this Sunday, June 23rd?

If none of this has piqued your interest, do not despair; the following week will bring more events and lectures, including a virtual tour of Amsterdam's astounding Vrolik Museum--with its "two skeletons of dwarves, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of pathologically deformed bones, [and] the giant skull of a grown man with hydrocephalus" (Monday, June 24th); The Science Museum's Phil Loring on Galvani's experiments to wake the dead in 19th century London (Tuesday, June 25th); Mike Jay on James Tilly Matthews’ "influencing machine" (Wednesday, June 26th) followed by Pamela Pilbeam--author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks--with an illustrated lecture on Madame Tussaud and the Guillotine (Thursday, June 27th).

And, if talks don't interest, perhaps you might just fancy a backstage tour of the zoological collections of The Natural History Museum (Friday June 28th) or a workshop in the crafting of bat skeletons in glass domes (Saturday and Sunday, June 29th and 30th).

Full details and ticket links follow; most events cost £7 and take place at 7pm at London's Last Tuesday Society. Hope to see you at one or more!

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The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry: Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann

17th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

The Victorians had a love affair with death which they expressed in a variety of ways, both intensely sentimental and macabre. Tonight’s lecture–the last in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry–will take as its focus the apex of the phenomenon of hair jewelry fashion in the Victorian Era as an expression of this passion. Nineteenth century mourning rituals will be discussed, with a particular focus on Victorian hairwork jewelry, both palette worked and table worked. Also discussed will be the historical roots of the Victorian fascination with death, such as high mortality rates for both adults and children, the rise of the park cemetery, and the death of Queen Victoria’s beloved Prince Albert and her subsequent fashion-influencing 40-year mourning period. Historical samples of hair art and jewelry from the lecturer’s personal collection will also be shown.

Karen Bachmann is a fine jeweler with over 25 years experience, including several years on staff as a master jeweler at Tiffany and Co. She is a Professor in the Jewelry Design Dept at Fashion Institute of Technology as well as the School of Art and Design at Pratt Institute. She has recently completed her MA in Art History at SUNY Purchase with a thesis entitled “Hairy Secrets; Human Relic as Memory Object in Victorian Mourning Jewelry”. In her downtime she enjoys collecting biological specimens, amateur taxidermy and punk rock.

More here.

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Dissection and Magic with Constanza Isaza Martinez

18th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

This lecture examines images of human corpses in Early Modern European art in relation to two specific themes: the practice of ‘witchcraft’ or ‘magic’; and the emergent medical profession, particularly anatomical dissection. As the images demonstrate, the two practices were closely linked during this period, and the corpses were a source - albeit fraught with anxieties - of power and knowledge for the figures of the witch and the anatomist.

Constanza Isaza Martinez is an artist, photographer, and independent researcher. She gained her BA in Photographic Arts from the University of Westminster, and her MA in History of Art from the Courtauld Institute. Both her art and her research have frequently explored themes of mortality, mutability, death, and decay. For more information, please visit http://www.constanzaisaza.com.

More here.

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Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries: Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath

20th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Approximately 1500 people die every day across the United Kingdom, roughly one person a minute. And unless you are a person who works in a profession connected to the dying, chances are good you rarely (if ever) see any of these 1500 dead bodies. More importantly-- do you and your next of kin know what you want done with your dead body when you die? In the future, of course, since it's easier to think that way. Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death and Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.

Dr. John Troyer is the Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His interdisciplinary research focuses on contemporary memorialisation practices, concepts of spatial historiography, and the dead body?s relationship with technology. Dr. Troyer is also a theatre director and installation artist with extensive experience in site-specific performance across the United States and Europe. He is a co-founder of the Death Reference Desk website and a frequent commentator for the BBC. His forthcoming book, Technologies of the Human Corpse (published by the University of North Carolina Press), will appear in 2013.

More here.

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‘She Healed Their Bodies With Her White Hot Passions’: The Role of the Nurse in Romantic Fiction with Natasha McEnroe: Illustrated lecture Natasha McEnroe, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum

23rd June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

“She stood by, handing him the required instruments while he stitched up an ice-pick stabbing that had by some miracle barely missed a woman’s heart. She heard the woman’s thick voice as she went under the anaesthetic: ‘My man didn’t really mean to hurt me, Doc. He was just mad account of I didn’t have him a meat supper when he got home from work.’” [Society Nurse, 1962].

Under such dramatic circumstances, it is no wonder that passion flares between the beautiful young nurse and her handsome doctor colleague. The figure of the nurse in romance fiction is a powerful one, her starched white apron covering a breast heaving with suppressed emotion. Victorian portrayals of the nurse show either a drunken and dishonest old woman or an angelic and devoted being, which changes to a 20th-century caricature just as pervasive – that of the ‘sexy nurse’. In this talk, Natasha McEnroe will explore the links between the enforced intimacy of the sickroom and the handling of bodies for more recreational reasons.

Natasha McEnroe is the Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum. Her previous post was Museum Manager of the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy and Curator of the Galton Collection at University College London. From 1997 – 2007, she was Curator of Dr Johnson’s House in London’s Fleet Street, and has also worked for the National Trust and the Victoria and Albert Museum. Natasha has lectured widely at venues including the Royal Society, the British Museum and the Hunterian Museum.

More here.

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Face lift or face reconstruction? Redesigning the Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam's anatomical museum: An illustrated lecture with Dr. Laurens de Rooy, curator of the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam

24th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Copies of the book Forces of Form: The Vrolik Museum will be available for sale and signing.

Two skeletons of dwarfs, rare Siamese twins, cyclops and sirens, dozens of pathologically deformed bones, the giant skull of a grown man with hydrocephalus, the skeleton of the lion once owned by king Louis Napoleon, as well as the organs of a babirusa, Tasmanian devil and tree kangaroo – rare animals that died in the Amsterdam zoo ‘Artis’ shortly before their dissection. Counting more than five thousand preparations and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father Gerard (1775-1859) and his son Willem Vrolik (1801-1863), was an amazing object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and 50s this museum, established in Gerard’s stately mansion on the river Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists from both the Netherlands and abroad. After the Vrolik era, the museum was expanded with new collections by succeeding anatomists and the museum now houses more than 10,000 anatomical specimens.

Since 1984, the museum has been located in the academic Hospital of the University of Amsterdam. In 2009 the museum collections were portrayed by the photographer Hans van den Bogaard for the book Forces of Form. This book was the starting point for the creation of a new 'aesthetic' of the museum and its collection, eventually resulting in the grand reopening of the renovated and redesigned permanent exhibition in September 2012. For the first time since the death of father and son Vrolik, all of their scientific interests - the animal anatomy, the congenital malformations and the pathologically deformed human skeletons can all be viewed together, thus giving an impression of what that mid-19th century anatomy was all about. In this talk, Museum Vrolik curator will take you on a guided tour of the new museum, and give an overview of all the other aspects of the 'new' Museum Vrolik.

Dr. Laurens de Rooy (b. 1974) works as a curator of the Museum Vrolik in the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. He studied Medical Biology, specializing in the history of science and museology. during his internship he researched the collection of father and son Vrolik. In 2009 he obtained his PhD in medical history.

More here.

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The Walking Dead in 1803: An Illustrated Lecture with Phil Loring,
Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London

25th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

A visiting Italian startled Londoners at the turn of the 19th century by making decapitated animals and executed men open their eyes and move around, as if on the verge of being restored to life. This was not magic but the power of electricity from the newly invented Galvanic trough, or battery. It was also the dawn of the modern neurosciences, as the thrust behind these macabre experiments was to understand the energy that moved through the nerves and linked our wills to our bodies. This talk will discuss a variety of historical instruments from the Science Museum's collections that figured in these re-animation experiments, including the apparatus used by Galvani himself in his laboratory in Bologna. This will be a partial preview of an upcoming Science Museum exhibition on nerve activity, to open in December 2013.

Phil Loring is BPS Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London. He has a Master's degree in Medical Anthropology from Harvard University and is currently completing his Ph.D. in the History of Science, also from Harvard, with a dissertation on psycho-linguists in Cambridge, Massachusetts, after the Second World War. Phil has been at the Science Museum since 2009, and during that time he has been particularly committed to sharing artefacts related to psychology and psychiatry with adult audiences. He's currently preparing an exhibition on the history of nerves, to open in December 2013.

More here.

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The Influencing Machine: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom with Mike Jay

26th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews’ case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and war. But Matthews’ case was even stranger than his doctors realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real. Caught up in high-level diplomatic intrigues in the chaos of the French revolution, he found himself betrayed by both sides, and in possession of a secret that no-one would believe…

Mike Jay is an author, historian and curator who has written widely on the history of science and medicine, and particularly on drugs and madness. As well as The Influencing Machine, he is the author of Emperors of Dreams: Drugs in the Nineteenth Century and High Society: Mind-Altering Drugs in History and Culture, which accompanied the exhibition he curated at Wellcome Collection.

More here.

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Madame Tussaud, the French and the Guillotine: Illustrated Lecture by Pamela Pilbeam Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks

27th June 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

`You perceive that this is some sort of holy of holiest, the nearest Victorians got to a Cathedral, with its saints enniched within’. The chief saint in Madame Tussaud’s exhibition was Bonaparte, the chief villains were Robespierre and his revolutionary colleagues. When she arrived in Britain in 1802 for a short tour that lasted until she died in 1850, her exhibition was an exploration of the evils of the French Revolution. She had modelled the guillotined revolutionaries, as well as Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, from their severed heads- and brought a model of a guillotine and the Bastille fortress to expose the short comings of the French. The British, busily at war with their nearest neighbour, loved this critical exposure. Later the focus of her collection became her `Shrine to Napoleon’ consisted of two rooms dedicated to the Emperor. Napoleon had always had a leading role in her touring company, but in 1834, when she was a well-established figure in the world of entertainment and about to open a permanent museum in Baker Street, Madame. Tussaud began to amass large quantities of Napoleonic memorabilia. She built up a collection which Napoleon III acknowledged, when he tried abortively to buy it from the Tussauds, to be the best in the world. Madame Tussaud’s presentation of French politics and history did much to inform and influence the popular perception of France among the British. This paper will explore that view and how it changed during the nineteenth century.

Pamela Pilbeam is Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks.

More here.

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Backstage Tour of the Zoological Collection of the Natural History Museum with Miranda Lowe

28th June 2013

Limited to 10 participants; Time 3:00 - 4:00

Ticket price £20; Tickets here

Today, ten lucky people will get to join Miranda Lowe, Collections Manager of the Aquatic Invertebrates Division, for a special backstage tour of The Natural History Museum of London. The tour will showcase the zoological spirit collections in the Darwin Centre, some of Darwin’s barnacles and the famed collection of glass marine invertebrate models crafted by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the 19th and early 20th century.

Miranda Lowe is the Collections Manager of the Aquatic Invertebrates Division, Life Sciences Department, The Natural History Museum (NHM), London. Within Zoology Miranda specifically manages the Crustacea collections as well as the team of curators responsible for the Invertebrate collections. Darwin barnacles and the Blaschka marine invertebrate glass models are amongst some of the historical collections that are her interests and under her care. In 2006, she was part of the organising committee and invited speaker at the 1st international Blaschka congress held in Dublin. Miranda collaborated with the National Glass Centre, Sunderland, UK in 2008 to exhibit some of the Museum’s Blaschka collection alongside contemporary Blaschka inspired art. She also has an interest in photography, natural history - past and present serving on a number of committees including the Society for the History of Natural History (SHNH) and the Natural Sciences Association (NatSCA).

More here.

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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop: Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series : With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library

29th June and 30th June 2013, 1 to 5pm

Ticket price £150; Tickets here (29th) and here (30th)

In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student, but one should feel welcome to bring small feathers, stones, dried flowers, dead insects, natural elements, or any other materials s/he might wish to include in his/her composition. Students will leave the class with a visually striking, fully articulated, “lifelike” bat skeleton posed in a 10” tall glass dome. This piece can, in conjunction with the other creations in the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, act as the beginning of a genuine collection of curiosities! This class is part of the DIY Wunderkammer workshop series, curated by Laetitia Barbier and Wilder Duncan for Morbid Anatomy as a creative and pluridisciplinary exploration of the Curiosity Cabinet. The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display. More on the series can be found here.

Wilder Duncan is an artist whose work puts a modern-day spin on the genre of Vanitas still life. Although formally trained as a realist painter at Wesleyan University, he has had a lifelong passion for, and interest in, natural history. Self-taught rogue taxidermist and professional specimen preparator, Wilder worked for several years at The Evolution Store creating, repairing, and restoring objects of natural historical interest such as taxidermy, fossils, seashells, minerals, insects, tribal sculptures, and articulated skeletons both animal and human. Wilder continues to do work for private collectors, giving a new life to old mounts, and new smiles to toothless skulls.

Laetitia Barbier is the head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library. She is working on a master’s thesis for the Paris Sorbonne on painter Joe Coleman. She writes for Atlas Obscura and Morbid Anatomy.

More here (29th) and here (30th).

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The Coming of Age of the Danse Macabre on the Verge of the Industrial Age: Illustrated lecture with Alexander L. Bieri

9th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

During the middle ages, the danse macabre developed into an independent art form, most often in the shape of murals which adorned the walls of cemeteries. These depictions of death followed a strict rulebook and generally were a representation of the class system of the time, which was based on nobility or – to be more precise – the estate-based society. The advent of the bourgeois during the 1700s and the upcoming industrialisation put a question mark not only behind the societal system, but quite naturally also behind many of the established art forms. The danse macabre was widely regarded to be an outdated concept and a discussion evolved whether the skeleton still was the appropriate epitome for death. One of the proponents of this discussion was the Swiss artist Johann Rudolf Schellenberg, who created the first modern danse macabre in 1785, far away from the old class system, a work of art which still has an uncanny actuality and addresses many of the modern fears still extant in society at present. His trailblazing work updated the genre overnight and can be seen as the master source of all similar works of art to follow. A complete set of the plates is held by the Roche Historical Collection and Archive in Basel, which also holds one of the world’s oldest anatomical collections. The lecture not only discusses Schellenberg’s danse macabre in detail, but also gives an insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions, especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.

Alexander L. Bieri (*1976) is the curator of the Roche Historical Collection and Archive, a department within Roche Group Holdings. He assumes this position since 1999. Based in Basel, Switzerland but active as a consultant throughout the world, he has published many books and articles both on Roche-related and other themes. He also is responsible for a variety of Roche in-house museums and curated special exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad. In his capacity as an expert for 20th century architecture and design, he is a member of ICOMOS. In 2012, he was appointed lecturer for exhibition design at the Basel University.

More here.

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Photo courtesy of
Tonya Hurley

Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death": Illustrated lecture and book signing with Andrew Chesnut

10th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

The worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to “Holy Death” or “Saint Death,” the worship of Santa Muerte–like Day of the Dead–is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics. Worshippers of "The Bony Lady" include the very poor, prostitutes, drug dealers, transvestites, prison inmates and others for whom traditional religion has not served, and for whom the possibility of unpredictable and violent death is a very real part of everyday life. In the view of her worshippers, Santa Muerte is simply a branch of Catholicism which takes at its central figure the most powerful of all saints--Saint Death herself, the saint all must, after all, one day answer to.The Catholic Church sees it, however, as, at best, inadvertent devil worship, with the worship of death--and the manifestation of a saint from a concept rather than an individual--as heretical to its core tenants. Tonight, R. Andrew Chesnut, author of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint and Chair in Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University, will detail his research into the history and ongoing development of this fascinating "new religion."

Copies of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Sain will be available for sale and signing.

Dr. R. Andrew Chesnut earned his Ph.D degree in Latin American History from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1995 and joined the History Department faculty at the University of Houston in 1997 where he quickly became an internationally recognized expert on Latin American religious history. His most recent book is Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012). It is the first in-depth study of the Mexican folk saint in English.

More here.

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From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett and London's Folk Medicine: An Illustrated lecture with Ross MacFarlane, Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library

15th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

During his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British Isles. Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets, charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in 20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices. Lovett, however, was a marginal figure in folklore circles, never attaining the same degree of influence as many of his peers. Whilst he hoped in his lifetime to establish a 'National Museum of Folklore', Lovett's sizeable collection is now widely dispersed across many museums in the UK, including Wellcome Collection, the Science Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum and the Cuming Museum. This paper will offer an overview of the range of healing objects Lovett collected, the collecting practices he performed and recent efforts to rehabilitate his reputation.

Ross MacFarlane is Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library, where he is heavily involved in promoting the Library's collections, particularly to academic audiences. He has researched and given public talks on such topics as the history of early recorded sound and the collecting activities of Henry Wellcome and his members of staff. Ross is a frequent contributor to the Wellcome Library's blog and has had led guided walks around London on the occult past of Bloomsbury and the intersection of medicine, science and trade in Greenwich and Deptford.

More here.

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The Vampires of London: A Cinematic Survey with William Fowler (BFI) and Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)

18th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

This heavily illustrated presentation and film clip selection explores London's Highgate Cemetery as a locus of horror in the 1960s and 1970s cinema, from mondo and exploitation to classic Hammer horror.

William Fowler is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

Mark Pilkington runs Strange Attractor Press and is the author of 'Mirage Men' and 'Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science's Outer Edge'.

More here.

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"Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games" Screenings of Short Films from the BFI Folk Film Archives with William Fowler

24th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Tonight, the British Film Institute's William Fowler will present a number of rare and beautiful short films from the BFI National Archive and Regional Film Archives showing some of our rich traditions of folk music, dance, customs and sport. Highlights include the alcoholic folk musical Here's a Health to the Barley Mow (1955), Doc Rowe’s speedy sword dancing film and the Padstow Mayday celebration Oss Oss Wee Oss (Alan Lomax/Peter Kennedy 1953).

The programme provides a taste of the BFI's 6-hour DVD release 'Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games', a rich and wide-ranging collection of archive films from around the UK.

William Fowler is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

More here.

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Of Satyrs, Horses and Camels: Natural History in the Imaginative Mode: illustrated lecture by Daniel Margócsy, Hunter College, New York

25th July 2013

Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm

Ticket price £7; Tickets here

This talk argues that the creative imagination played a crucial role in the development of science during the scientific revolution. Modern, natural knowledge emerged from the interaction of painters, printmakers, artisans, cartographers, and natural historians. All these practitioners carefully observed, pictured and cataloged all the exotic naturalia that flooded Europe during the Columbian exchange. Yet their collaboration did not end there. They also engaged in a joint, conjectural guesswork as to what other, as yet unknown plants and animals might hide in the forests of New England, the archipelago of the Caribbean, the unfathomable depths of the Northern Sea, or even in the cavernous mountains of the Moon. From its beginnings, science was (and still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts. This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the scientific revolution. It shows how painters’ and printmakers’ fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe. The leading naturalists of the age, including Conrad Gesner, Carolus Clusius and John Jonstonus, constantly consulted the oeuvre of Dürer, Rubens and Hendrick Goltzius, among others, as an inspiration to hypothesize how unknown, and unseen, plants and animals might look like.

Daniel Margocsy is assistant professor of history at Hunter College – CUNY. In 2012/3, he is the Birkelund Fellow of the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. He has co-edited States of Secrecy, a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Science on scientific secrecy, and published articles in the Journal of the History of Ideas, Annals of Science, and the Netherlands Yearbook of Art History.

More here.

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All talks and workshops take place at The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified; please click here to buy tickets. More on all events can be found here. Click on images to see larger versions.

Top Image: A Victorian woman in full first year mourning. Found on Victorian Mourning: Courtesy of Jack Mord of The Thanatos Archive

Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-victorian-love-affair-with-death.html

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The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead! Speaking Reliquaries and Death’s Head Iconography! Real Magic Lantern Show! Bizarre Spectacles from History! Make Your Own VIctorian Memorial Hair Jewelry! The Morbid Anatomy Lecture Series This Week at London’s Last Tuesday Society!

Dear friends of London:

Are you interested in learning more about the "The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" (TONIGHT! top image)? Or perhaps the history of bizarre live theatrical performances "from phantasmagoria to self-crucifiers" (4th image)? OR the art and history of "speaking reliquaries" (2nd image) or death's head and memento mori imagery?

If none of this draws you, than perhaps you might be interested in a workshop wherein students make their own Victorian-style hair art jewelry under the tutelage of a Tiffany's master jeweler (bottom image)? Failing that, perhaps you might be enticed by a real magic lantern show (!!!) showcasing "the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling" of lantern slides (3rd image)?

If any of the above is of interest, then this is the week for you. If not, there is much more to come over the next few weeks and on into July.

Full details and ticket links follow; most events cost £7 and take place at 7pm at London's Last Tuesday Society. Hope to see you at one or more!

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Neapolitan Cult of the Dead with Chiara Ambrosio
10th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

.. Naples, the most macabre of cities. Naples, the mouth of Hades. The dead are played with there like big dolls...
--The Necrophiliac, Gabrielle Wittkop

Naples is a unique city in which the sacred and the profane, Catholicism and paganism, beauty and decay blend and contrast in intriguing ways. No practice illustrates this tangle of ideas better than what is known as "The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" in which devout Catholics--generally poor women--adopt anonymous skulls found in charnel houses and clean, care for, and sometimes house them, offering up prayers and offerings to shorten that soul's time in purgatory before reaching paradise, where, it is hoped, it will assist its earthbound caretaker with special favors. The macabre artifacts of this cult can be seen in the Cimitero delle Fontanelle (see above) and the crypt of the church of Saint Mary of Purgatory.

In tonight's illustrated lecture, Italian artist and filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio will elucidate this curious and fascinating "Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" and situate it within a the rich death culture and storied history of Naples.

Chiara Ambrosio is a visual artist working with video and animation. Her work has included collaborations with performance artists, composers, musicians and writers, and has been shown in a number of venues including national and international film festivals, galleries and site specific events. She also runs The Light and Shadow Salon is a place for artists, writers and audience to meet and share ideas about the past, present and future of the moving image in all its forms.

More here.
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I am Amazed and Know Not What to Say! - A Vile Vaudeville of Gothic Attractions: Illustrated lecture by Mervyn Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern
11th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

An illustrated talk in which writer and showman ‘Professor’ Mervyn Heard waxes scattergun- sentimental over some of the more bizarre, live theatrical experiences of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century – from the various ghastly manifestations of the phantasmagoria to performing hangmen, self-crucifiers and starving brides.

Mervyn Heard is the author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern (2006), was responsible for designing the phantasmagoria intallation for the Tate Britain’s Gothic Nightmare (2006), and has staged bespoke magic lantern performances worldwide in playhouses, cinemas, department stores, museums, tents and dissecting theatres.

More here.
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Professor Heard's Most Extraordinary Magic Lantern Show with Mervyn Heard
12th June 2013
First performance begins at 7pm
Second performance begins at 9pm
Ticket price £10; Tickets here

Professor Heard is well known to patrons of the Last Tuesday Lecture programme for his sell-out magic lantern entertainments. In this latest assault on the eye he summons up some of the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery, lantern stories and optical effects by special request of Morbid Anatomy. These he will present on a magnificent mahogany and brass magic lantern projector perfectly suited for the purpose.

Mervyn Heard is the author of Phantasmagoria-The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern (2006), was responsible for designing the phantasmagoria installation for the Tate Britain’s Gothic Nightmare (2006), and has staged bespoke magic lantern performances worldwide in playhouses, cinemas, department stores, museums, tents and dissecting theatres.

More here.
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"Speaking Reliquaries" and Christian Death Rituals: Illustrated lecture with Karen Bachmann
13th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

In this 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will focus on what are termed "speaking" reliquaries: the often elaborate containers which house the preserved body parts--or relics--of saints and martyrs with shapes which reflect that of the body-part contained within. Bachmann will examine these fascinating objects from an art historical perspective, and discuss their relationship to concepts of human body parts as icons of the immortal. They will be put into the larger context of Christian death rituals, in particular the veneration of saints body parts as sacred and magical relics. Also discussed will be the extremely odd proclivities of a variety of renaissance saints, such as Catherine of Sienna who drank pus from open sores. This will serve as the genesis in our further discussions of human hair, teeth, and nails as icons of the immortal.

More here.
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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann
14th, 15th, and 16th June 2013 from 1 - 5pm
Ticket price £50; Tickets here (14th June), here (15th June), and here (16th June)

Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre. The technique of "palette working" or arranging hair in artful swoops and curls will be explored and a variety of ribbons, beads, wire and imagery of mourning iconography will be supplied for potential inclusion. A living or deceased person or pet may be commemorated in this manner. Students are requested to bring with them to class their own hair, fur, or feathers; all other necessary materials will be supplied. Hair can be self-cut, sourced from barber shops or hair salons (who are usually happy to provide you with swept up hair), from beauty supply shops (hair is sold as extensions), or from wig suppliers. Students will leave class with their own piece of hair jewelry and the knowledge to create future projects.

More here.
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The History of the Memento Mori and Death's Head Iconography
Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
14th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

In tonight's lecture--the second in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will explore the development of the memento mori,objects whose very raison d'être is to remind the beholder that they, too, will die. Bachman will trace the symbolism and iconography of the memento mori and death's head imagery in both Medieval and Renaissance art, focusing on jewelry. She will also discuss the development of the "portable relic" -- a wearable form of body part reliquary, will be the focus of this lecture. The importance of hair in contemporaneous art of the period will be addressed, as well as the development of bereavement jewelry with hair.

More here.
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The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry: Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
17th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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Dissection and Magic with Constanza Isaza Martinez
18th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries: Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath
20th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Approximately 1500 people die every day across the United Kingdom, roughly one person a minute. And unless you are a person who works in a profession connected to the dying, chances are good you rarely (if ever) see any of these 1500 dead bodies. More importantly-- do you and your next of kin know what you want done with your dead body when you die? In the future, of course, since it's easier to think that way. Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.

More here.
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“She stood by, handing him the required instruments while he stitched up an ice-pick stabbing that had by some miracle barely missed a woman’s heart. She heard the woman’s thick voice as she went under the anaesthetic: ‘My man didn’t really mean to hurt me, Doc. He was just mad account of I didn’t have him a meat supper when he got home from work.’” [Society Nurse, 1962].

More here.
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Face lift or face reconstruction? Redesigning the Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam's anatomical museum: An illustrated lecture with Dr. Laurens de Rooy, curator of the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam
24th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Copies of the book Forces of Form: The Vrolik Museum will be available for sale and signing.

More here.
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The Walking Dead in 1803: An Illustrated Lecture with Phil Loring,
Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London
25th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.

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The Influencing Machine: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom with Mike Jay
26th June 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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Pamela Pilbeam is Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London. She is the author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks.

More here.
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Backstage Tour of the Zoological Collection of the Natural History Museum with Miranda Lowe
28th June 2013
Limited to 10 participants; Time 3:00 - 4:00
Ticket price £20; Tickets here

More here.
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop: Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series : With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
29th June and 30th June 2013, 1 to 5pm
Ticket price £150; Tickets here (29th) and here (30th)

More here (29th) and here (30th).
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The Coming of Age of the Danse Macabre on the Verge of the Industrial Age: Illustrated lecture with Alexander L. Bieri
9th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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Photo courtesy of
Tonya Hurley

Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death": Illustrated lecture and book signing with Andrew Chesnut
10th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

Copies of Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Sain will be available for sale and signing.

More here.
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From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett and London's Folk Medicine: An Illustrated lecture with Ross MacFarlane, Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library
15th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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The Vampires of London: A Cinematic Survey with William Fowler (BFI) and Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)
18th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

William Fowler is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

Mark Pilkington runs Strange Attractor Press and is the author of 'Mirage Men' and 'Far Out: 101 Strange Tales from Science's Outer Edge'.

More here.
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"Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games" Screenings of Short Films from the BFI Folk Film Archives with William Fowler
24th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

William Fowler is curator of artists' moving image at the BFI National Archive and co-programmes the cult cinema strand at Flipside at BFI Southbank.

More here.
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Of Satyrs, Horses and Camels: Natural History in the Imaginative Mode: illustrated lecture by Daniel Margócsy, Hunter College, New York
25th July 2013
Doors at 6:30 / Talk begins at 7:00 pm
Ticket price £7; Tickets here

More here.
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Morbid Anatomy Library Acquisition Number 1,352: New Lot of Santa Muerte Related Materials from Mexico

The Morbid Anatomy Library is delighted to announce the acquisition of a new lot of materials related to Santa Muerte, which is, depending on whom you ask, a Mexican-based "cult" or "new religion" which worships death as a female saint.

"Santa Muerte," which literally translates to "Holy Death" or "Saint Death," is popular in Mexico and the United States with disenfranchised populations for whom conventional Catholicism has not provided a better or safer life. It is thought to have its roots in the rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.

The artifacts donated to the library, many of which you see above, include sacred books and pamphlets, devotional statues, magical soaps and oils, charms, incense, and even "La Biblia de la Santa Muerte." They were generously donated by Friends of Morbid Anatomy Tonya Hurley and Tracy Hurley Martin as found on their travels in Mexico. Stay tuned for a series of future guest posts documenting their travels.

These artifacts are now on display and available to researchers. The library will host no-appointment-necessary open hours tomorrow, Sunday December 16th, from 1-4:30. Address and directions here. For more on the fascinating Santa Muerte--and more images!-see this recent post.

Source:
http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.com/2012/12/library-aquisiton-number-3352-new-lot.html

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How Scientists Are Solving the Mystery of Aging – Newswise

Newswise Anti-wrinkle creams, superfoods that keep you young, dietary supplements that promise improved memory, "immortal" cells that can renew themselves foreverin our stores and media, claims about aging abound.

But do you actually understand how your body and mind change as you age? How much of aging is particular to you, and how much can you control? Do you know how you want to age, or what aging well means? Do you know what aging is?

The bottom line is, for a phenomenon that's happening to all of us at this very moment, aging remains remarkably mysterious.

Experts across Tufts University are working to change that. At the School of Medicine, they are studying cardiac health in postmenopausal women; at the School of Dental Medicine, they are putting students in special suits to simulate aging; and at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, they are teaching future dietitians, scientists, and policymakers about the nutritional needs of older adults.

And the hub of it all is one of the largest research centers in the world that focuses on healthy aging and its relationship to nutrition and physical activity: the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging(HNRCA) at Tufts.

To me, aging is the most compelling issue in modern biology. Its surprisingly complex," said Christopher Wiley, a scientist on the Basic Biology of Aging Team who studies the role of nutrition and metabolism in aging at a cellular level. "There are so many ways of getting at the same problem. There's always going to be something new to figure out and something new to study."

Its an exciting moment in the science of agingand an important one, said Sarah Booth, director of the HNRCA and senior scientist and leader of the center's Vitamin K Team. Within 10 years, people aged 65 and older will outnumber those 18 and younger, according to the U.S. Census Bureaus 2017 National Population Projections. This will significantly affect public health and the health of our economy.

According to the Administration on Aging, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, consumers aged 65 and older spent an average of $6,668 on out-of-pocket health care costs in 2020, up 38 percent since 2010. In 2017-2018, 40.4 million people provided unpaid care to a family or non-family member aged 65 and older.

Booth also pointed out that one in five people aged 65 or older remain in the workforce, which raises questions about how to accommodate different generations with different skills, experiences, work philosophies, and physical needs in the workplace. Aging is the new reality, Booth said. And most people arent even thinking about the implications for society.

To adjust to this new normal, we must understand what aging really is. And from Tufts converging studies, an answer is emerginga deeper, more nuanced one that challenges and often contradicts the popular understanding, that could transform how each of us lives, as well as our whole society.

We know about aging now what we knew about cancer in the 1980s. Were just at the tip of the iceberg here, Wiley said. But we're already at a point where we are testing interventions for human aging, which is absolutely fascinating, and really exciting.

How to talk about Aging

Why do we still know so little about aging? Humans have always gotten olderyet the term geroscience, the study of the mechanisms of aging, didnt even exist until a decade ago.

Aging research is new, because aging as we know itlarge numbers of people spending long periods of time in older ageis new. Life expectancy in the U.S. was only about 62 for men and 64 for women 100 years ago, in 1943. In 2020, persons reaching age 65 had an average life expectancy of an additional 18.5 years (19.8 years for women and 17.0 years for men).

So what is aging, anyway?

Heres what it isnt, according to Wiley: conditions such as arthritis, cataracts, heart disease, Alzheimers, Parkinsons.

We associate these chronic degenerative diseases with aging, because their incidence rates increase exponentially among older people, Wiley said. The basic processes that underlie aging can drive chronic degenerative conditions. But chronic degenerative conditions are not aging, per se.

Another thing that aging is not, at least for the purposes of most research: what happens when were younger. We're technically getting older from the moment we're born, but that doesnt become relevant at the HNRCA until we reach a certain age. "We're really talking about the processes that occur either positively or negatively at a specific segment of the lifecycle at the opposite end from infants: older adults," Booth said.

"Older adults" is the proper term, Booth emphasizednot "elder, elderly, or "old, which are vague, negative, and no longer used in the scientific literature.

How old is an older adult? It depends who you ask. A number of federal agencies set it at 65, but that number may date back to the average lifespan of American men in the 1930s, when social security was established in the United States, Booth said. Other federal agencies focus on adults 60 and older, while the American Association of Retired Persons works with those 50 and older.

Sixty-five is also a common cutoff in research on older adults, Booth saidalthough studies of older women often use menopause, because it's a distinct, measurable event that changes aging. Studies of sarcopenia, or muscle wasting, often focus on adults in their 80s and 90s, which is the period when that disease tends to develop. "It really depends on the scientific question," Booth said.

Sensitivity and attention to nuance are needed not only to research aging, but also to talk and think about itand the HNRCA is up to that challenge. Its really exciting that we have a lot of people who understand the importance of looking at healthy aging from a multidimensional perspective, and an institution that not only understands the science, but respects the process of aging," Booth said.

What is Aging?

So what is the process of aging, biologically?

Wiley defines it simply: It's a loss of function over time.

It happens to everything. Metal rusts and loses strength. Springs get less springy. The wind-up toy stops working.

More complex objects have more parts to wear down, more functions to be lost, anda much wider range of possible failures. "You could have two cars, same makes, same model, driven by the same person, and two different things will fail on the car," Wiley said.

The same thing happens to the human body. "There's damage to your cells happening all the time," Wiley said. Except the body, with its many interlinked processed, systems, and levels of organization, is much more complex than a carand therefore has many more points of potential failure.

When you think about just how intricate and finely tuned the human body is, Wiley suggested, the real mystery isn't why it failsit's why it survives. "The fact that life works is amazing," Wiley said.

The body does have one advantage: it's self-repairing. "The body tries to maintain itself and restore homeostasis even in the face of all this stress and all this damage. We have these really sophisticated programs for dealing with these points of failure," Wiley said.

But as we get older, Wiley said, cells are unable to keep up with the repairs. Small failures accumulate.

"It can start with something as simple as a broken molecule, one little thing that goes wrong in one cell, and then it's like the butterfly effect," Wiley said. "The tissue starts struggling, and then the organ, and then your entire body."

Different types of cells express damage in different ways. The lenses of our eyes stiffen and cloud. The cartilage in our joints thins and our ligaments shorten, losing flexibility. Blood vessels harden, bones become fragile, and muscle and brain mass decline.

We can replace thingships, livers, even heartsbut not forever. Were too complex, and the damage too steady.

"There's definitely a misconception out there that we're trying to make people immortal. But there is never going to be an immortality vaccine," Wiley said. "There's never going to be one thing that defeats all of aging. There's always going to be another point of failure."

The Goal of Health Aging

If we can't defeat aging, what can we do?

Figure out how to live longer, is most people's first thought. Theres a lot of discussion and interest in the space of how to extend our lifespans, and more and more private philanthropy looking for magic bullets, Booth said.

But theres a fundamental limitation to studying how to make human lives longer. We dont get grants for a hundred years, Wiley said. And whos going to do it?

Also, living longer doesnt address the real problemand could actually make it worse. The challenge is that more and more people are living disabled for longer periods of time before life ends, which has huge consequences for society in terms of health care, culture, and ethics," Booth said.

Thats why more and more research and federal funding focuses not on extending chronological age (the number of years an organism has been alive) but on slowing down biological aging, or how old our cells and tissues actually are and how well they function. Lengthening the time in which we can continue to move around, care for ourselves, and participate in social life and activities, is a worthier goal than extending years of suffering, Booth argued. Were really talking about helping people live as long as they can in a healthy way, free of disability caused by chronic disease, Booth said.

People tend to use the word longevity to refer to both longer life and better health as we age, which is why Booth prefers lifespan for chronological age and healthy aging for improving biological age. Weve got a very confusing national debate right now because people are conflating a lot of different concepts, Booth said. We need to be more thoughtful on how we define terms, or they could actually be detrimental to the concept of healthy aging.

Healthspan has promise as a term for our years free of disability, Booth notedbut it doesnt cover the increasing numbers of older adults who are losing their health but retaining their abilities through the new field of gerotechnology, which spans smartphone features, ambient systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, and more. We are continuously moving that threshold of that ability to live independently, Booth said. Its a really exciting time.

The Many Drivers of Aging

How do we lengthen peoples healthy years?

First, according to Booth and Wiley, we must solve a mystery central to aging: why no two individuals age alike.

Theres really not much difference between babies, but you see much greater variation in biological aging in older people, Booth said. The big challenge is, why do some people have these aging processes that dont result in chronic disease-related disability, and others do?

Many drivers of aging are mechanisms that we have in common. We all have telomeresthe protective caps of our chromosomes, often compared to shoelace tipsthat wear down over time, leading to errors in DNA copying and an end to cell replication (called cellular senescence).

But mice have telomeres much longer than those in humans, and they live just three or four years, Wiley pointed out. Plus, humans vary in both telomere length, and how quickly they wear down. "Theres this belief out there that if you were just able to lengthen telomeres, you wouldnt get old, Wiley said. But all our evidence says it's a combination of things.

One of these things is diet, which the HNRCA is now studying in greater depth than ever before. One of six institutes nationwide to receive a grant from the National Institutes of Healthin the amount of $8.5 millionfor the cutting-edge field of precision nutrition, the HNRCA is embarking on a major study of how and why certain diets have different effects on individuals aging and other biological processes.

Other factors that influence aging are genetics, exercise, environment, stress levels, and even socioeconomic class, to name just a few. But we dont know how much each contributesits hard to isolate one factor, or even to look at all of them. We are an accumulation of everything since we were conceivedand even before that, because now theres even evidence that prior generations influence who we are, Booth said. Youre looking at a lot of factors, and youre looking across an entire lifetime. Thats a lot of data points.

Different Disciplines, Same Problem

So how do we look at everything that ever happens to us across our lifetime, and use it to understand aging?

We do it together, according to Booth. The HNRCA brings together more than 40 scientists working across a wide range of fields to study how exercise and nutrition accelerate or slow down the common biological processes of natural aging. It has research teams focusing on the brain, the heart, the eyes, and bones, along with cancer, obesity, and more.

Were bringing the broader sociological demographics to our research to understand why some groups in the population have accelerated aging compared to others, Booth said. Were bringing in engineers, mathematicians, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to look for patterns and predictive algorithms in the data from all these different disciplines.

The HNRCA also partners with dozens of departments across the university, whether examining fruit flies with the Department of Biology in the School of Arts and Sciences or comparing human and canine muscle wasting with the help of the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

Were looking at the same question through different lenses with different tools, technologies, and perspectives, Booth said. Progress in aging research is only going to be achieved by bringing together different disciplines addressing the same problem.

And slowly but surely, that progress is happening, says Wiley. Researchers are making headway in the question of why two worms with the same genetics have different lifespans, zeroing in on small fluctuations early in life that become large differences later.

The biggest change Ive seen in the past ten years is that we really are finding new, different ways of actually intervening somewhere that could potentially extend the healthy years of life, and prevent people from getting age-related diseases, Wiley said.

Public perception has yet to catch up with the new ways scientists are thinking about and researching aging, Wiley said, but theres one thing he hopes people understand.

What aging research is really trying to do is compress the morbidity and make it as small as possibleto alleviate suffering, Wiley said. I think thats a much more humanitarian goal, and I think were having a lot of success with those efforts.

Continued here:

How Scientists Are Solving the Mystery of Aging - Newswise

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Why Do These 6 Animals Represent Death in Cultures Around the … – DISCOVER Magazine

In folklore, animals are depicted as messengers, symbols, or omens. Many of these stories are similar in cultures throughout millennia and featurefolk beliefs brought on by fear of death, illness, and the unexplained. The animals mostly related to symbols or omens of death are scavengers, nocturnal, or associated with negative events.

"So generally, in folklore, animals that are associated with death are the ones that are omens of death," says Sabina Magliocco, a folklorist and professor of anthropology at the University of British Colombia Vancouver.

Animals are associated with symbolism because they are part of the natural world. When we started looking at nature to learn about the environment, we began to look at the natural world for omens. "There's a tradition of people looking to nature and interpreting signs in nature as though [they] were speaking directly to them," says Magliocco.

Dogs, as symbols of death, go back thousands of years. One of the most known depictions isAnubis, the ancient Egyptian god of funerary practices, mummification, and protection of the dead.

(Credit: Shutterstock/Jirik V)

Also known as Inpu or Anpu, Anubis is depicted with the head of ajackal and the body of a male human. According to theRosicrucian Egyptian Museum, Egyptians imagined Anubis this way because jackals often roamed cemeteries feasting on the flesh of the deceased. In this ancient civilization folklore, they thought the depiction would protect the bodies against the wild jackals.

In Egyptian mythology though, Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, would guide souls and dead Pharaohs into the afterlife. Anubis was also known as the guardian of the dead, so mummies wereburied with amuletsadorned with a jackal.

Aside from protecting the dead, Anubis wouldweigh the hearts of the deceasedagainst a feather and ensure a fair judgment, according to the folklore. Anubis was one of the earliest funerary gods in ancient Egypt and was aprominent figure for more than 3,000 years.There were alsoseveral other jackal-like godsin ancient Egypt.

(Credit: Shutterstock/Creative_Bird)

Another ancient depiction of a dog assisting the dead is Mexico's Xoloitzcuintli, or "Xolo" for short, also known as the Mexican hairless dog. This psychopomp, or a spiritual guide, is associated with the Day of the Dead.

(Credit: Shutterstock/Photo Spirit)

According to Mexica or Aztec mythology, the canine assists the dead in reaching their final resting place and helps them cross an uncrossable river. Cynthia L. Vidaurri forAmerican Indian Magazinewrites that humans go through several levels of Mictln to reach the last resting place and endure various challenges.

Vidaurri also writes that in these creation stories, humans and Xoloitzcuintli were created from the same Bone of Life. The dogs were created to guard humans in life and guide humans once life ended.

(Credit: Shutterstock/Agami Photo Agency)

Bats are associated with darkness, obscurity, and creatures of the night. Their connections with symbols of death began with their links to blood-sucking vampires in Western literature. In Christianity, they are known as "the bird of the devil," or the embodiment of the devil, according to theUniversity of Michigan's dictionary of symbols.

Like black cats, bats are connected to black magic and witchcraft because they appear at dusk. In Dante Alighieri'sInferno, Satan is described with bat wings that freeze hell over with a simple flap of the wings.

Read More: Bat Faces Are Vast and Varied

(Credit: Shutterstock/Eric Isselee)

In Chinese culture, cicadas are associated with a range of meanings. Some intertwine the cicada as a symbol of rebirth and immortality. The insects are linked with symbols of resurrection because of their life cycle, according to theSmithsonian National Museum of Asian Art. Soon after hatching, cicadas will bury themselves into the ground and live on tree roots for 13 to 17 years before rising from the ground again.

(Credit: Yale University Art Gallery/ Hobart and Edward Small Moore Memorial Collection, Gift of Mrs. William H. Moore)

Chinese cultures see the insect's process of emerging from the ground as an analogy of the dead rising into eternity. According to the National Museum of Asian Art, during the Han dynasty, cicada-shaped hade amulets were placed on the tongues of corpses.

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