Something for Hallowe'en

Yours truly having some fun with Hallowe'en:

 http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/529024/Halloween-traditions-and-superstitions

Black Magic Code

 "It began with a letter to a dead man..."

My article 'The Black Magic Code' on Trithemius, cryptography and nigromancy published in Abraxas Journal. For more details see http://fulgur.co.uk/shop/abraxas/abraxas-journal-issue-6/

Vampires

Just found this review at http://pelicanist.blogspot.de/2013/08/the-universal-vampire.html:

Another observation that caught my eye was that the start of popularising the vampire was, ironically enough, the Enlightenment. Leo Ruickbie gathers together what was, at that time, impressive testimony as to the actual existence of such creatures, from medical, legal and military sources. By way of a slight aside I love the Voltaire quote on p.75: “Nothing was spoken of but vampires, from 1730 to 1735“.

Here's the publisher's page: http://www.fdupress.org/book_descriptions/9781611475807.html.

Ruickbie certainly knows his stuff

From The Vampirologist blog:

It features another excellent article, by Leo Ruickbie. Readers may recognise him as the author of A brief guide to the supernatural (2012).

A brief guide serves as a classic example to why you (ok, I) shouldn't judge a book by its cover. I was expecting a threadbare pop-culture treatment, but it's incredibly well-researched. Ruickbie certainly knows his stuff.

See  http://thevampirologist.blogspot.de/2012/10/belated-anniversary-musings.html