Encyclopedia of the Unexplained: Magic, Occultism and Parapsychology

Encyclopedia of the Unexplained

 

Esbat

The term used by witches for a routine meeting of a coven, which may be held once or more each week, distinguished from the SABBATS or major festivities and rituals: this distinction was drawn by Margaret MURRAY in her books and has been adopted in modern WITCHCRAFT.

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti

The "World Teacher' of the THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY. He declined to accept the role and in 1929 repudiated the Society and all religious sects and organizations: since then, he has continued to teach and lecture and is the author of numerous books.

 

Runes

The letters used in northern Europe, in the early centuries AD that were believed to contain magical power; it was to win mastery of them that the god Odin hung nine days and nights on the World Tree. They became a preoccupation, in this century, of various German nationalists and occultists who saw in them emblems of the Aryan master race and credited them with mysterious powers.

 

'SCIENCE IS BEGINNING TO ACCEPT THAT THE UNEXPLAINED HAS TO BE EXPLAINED...

'It cannot just be explained away as nonsense as it was in the heyday of positivism. just because it was not phenomena science was supposed to deal with, this encyclopedia...is lavishly and beautifully illustrated... The written entries offer a considerable and considered insight into various topics. There is none of the sensationalism that haunts most popular writing about the unexplained.

- David Cohen in The Times Educational Supplement.

 

The Encyclopedia of the Unexplained offers a unique and fascinating journey through disputed territory. Unlike conventional encyclopedias, it is concerned with those beliefs, claims and phenomena that remain the subject of controversy and speculation - the hidden forces that are today attracting greater interest in the West than at any time since the seventeenth century.

 

Richly illustrated, with almost 450 clear and lively entries and a comprehensive bibliography, this extraordinary encyclopedia will equip the curious to explore the unknown with an open mind.

 

Richard Cavendish (1930 - 2016) was a writer, lecturer, broadcaster, historian & leading authority on Magic and Witchcraft. He is the author of 'The Black Arts', a study of the European tradition of magic.

 

Joseph Banks Rhine, usually known as J. B. Rhine, was an American botanist who founded parapsychology as a branch of psychology, founding the parapsychology lab at Duke University, the Journal of Parapsychology, the Foundation for Research on the Nature of Man, and the Parapsychological Association