M.J. Rose

Let us distract ourselves with some old school decadence…

From The Vintage News,

Meet Cora Pearl- The decadent 19th-century French Courtesan once had waiters carry her naked on a silver plate

“Cora Pearl was a 19th-century courtesan of the French demimonde who enjoyed her greatest celebrity during the period of the Second French Empire. Working as a street prostitute, she made a connection with a procurer, a “Monsieur Roubisse,” who set her up in more suitable quarters, taught her the business rudiments of her new trade and tutored her in refining and broadening her repertoire of professional skills. After six years, she despaired of ever freeing herself from his all-encompassing influence. However, fate stepped in, the procurer died of a heart attack, liberating her.

Her first lover of distinction was the multi-titled, twenty-five-year-old Victor Masséna, third Duke du Rivoli, and later fifth Prince of Essling. He set her up in opulence, showering her with money, jewels, servants and a private chef. He provided her with funds for gambling when she visited the casinos and racecourse in the fashionable resort of Baden, Germany. He bought her the first horse she ever owned, and she became an accomplished equestrienne; it was said “she rode like an Amazon” and “was kinder to her horses than her lovers.” Her liaison with Masséna lasted five years. While cultivating Masséna, she was simultaneously sharing her favors with Prince Achille Murat, a man much older than Masséna….”

For the rest, click here.

Here’s some occult trivia with which to wow your devilish hoard on this All Hallow’s Eve….

From Munchies.com,

We Spoke to a Druid About the Occult History of Apple-Bobbing

By Nick Rose

“The apple, for all of its wholesome goodness, has a bit of a dark past.

The forbidden fruit at the root of humanity’s falling out with God is often illustrated as an apple. Cut an apple in half, and you will find a five-pointed star, or pentagram, often associated with Satanism and the occult. More recently, apples have been used in metal videos to convey images of creepy paganism.

Today, most trick-or-treaters who get apples are unaware of their dark past and discard them immediately, presumably because of their lower sugar content than the rest of their loot. Instead, we mostly enjoy them dunked in caramel or bobbed from huge vats of water by children with tied-up hands, in the popular Halloween ritual known as apple-bobbing.

And while apple-bobbing is widely considered to be a fusion of Roman and Celtic pagan traditions, there is evidence that the custom goes back way further, and some believe that it was part of an elaborate human sacrifice ritual…”

For the rest, click here.

Happy Halloween to our dear Museum-goers!

From news.com.au,

Mummified cats, ‘witch marks’ and children’s boots in your walls: The secret objects and hidden magic symbols used to trap evil spirits

by Candace Sutton

“IT STARTED off with the discovery of an old shoe and a lace collar hidden in the dark recesses of an 1830s house in one of the oldest parts of Sydney.
Next it was a tradesman’s boot in a chimney breast of a country house in the NSW town of Mudgee.

Soon Ian Evans was finding mummified cats, children’s shoes and anti-witch symbols known as hexafoils and merels, and ritually burnt marks hidden on and in the walls of homes and other buildings around Australia.

The Newcastle University historian knew he was on to a great hidden secret about an unspoken but widespread ritual of magic in Australia that has no recorded history.

But it was all confirmed by the spine tingling moment he was called to an isolated Tasmanian farmhouse where five members of the same family had died in a month in 1860, and the family had concealed 38 shoes, children’s toys and dolls clothes in the building’s voids.

“They were absolutely terrified,” Dr Evans said.

All the houses had been built before 1935 and secret marks and “ritual magic” objects were part of a terrible secret held by early Australian settlers.

They were deliberately concealed under floorboards, in roofs and the voids of houses by a population gripped with a fear that there was an underworld of evil spirits bringing death and destruction into their lives.

As part of a story which Dr Evans believes has its roots in medieval times, the objects were hidden and the symbols inscribed to decoy witches and devils….”

For the rest, click here.