Modern Occultist News

ON THIS DAY IN OCCULT HISTORY March 3 “ Carmen : Scandal at the Opéra-Comique” (Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this blog may earn us a small commission at no cost to you. Every bit helps keep the lantern lit.)   Scandal in Four Acts On March 3, 1875, the gaslights of the Opéra-Comique rose upon a work that would, in time, conquer the world—though on that first evening it seemed instead to unsettle it. Georges Bizet’s Carmen arrived not as a polite entertainment, but as a provocation. The Opéra-Comique was, by reputation, a sanctuary of respectable diversion: sentimental romances, moral reconciliations, melodies fit for the family salon. Into this cultivated space stepped factory girls who smoked onstage, soldiers who deserted, lovers who did not repent, and a heroine who would rather die than surrender her freedom. The shock was immediate and palpable. Critics dismissed the opera as “trivial and brutal.” Audiences shifted uneasily. Some whispered. Others recoiled. ...

ON THIS DAY IN OCCULT HISTORY MARCH 2  ·  MODERN OCCULTIST DIGITAL QUARTERLY  Special report   The Blood Moon Tonight Into Tomorrow: A Total Lunar Eclipse, a Blood Moon, and the Last of Its Kind Until 2029 March 3, 2026   ·   Totality: 11:04–12:03 UTC   ·   Maximum: 11:33 UTC   ·   Duration: 58 minutes 19 seconds (Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this blog may earn us a small commission at no cost to you. Every bit helps keep the lantern lit.) Tonight, beginning just before midnight on March 2nd, the full Worm Moon will begin its passage through the Earth’s shadow. Totality — the Blood Moon — arrives in the small hours of March 3rd. This is the last total lunar eclipse visible from North America until New Year’s Eve, 2028. Do not miss it.   There is a particular kind of silence that falls on a clear winter night when the moon begins to disappear. It is not darkness, exactly — darkness is the absence...

TODAY IN OCCULT HISTORY  MARCH 1  ·  THE MODERN OCCULTIST DIGITAL QUARTERLY   The Devil Came to Me March 1, 1692: The Three Women, the Confession That Lit a Bonfire, and the Curse That Came True (Affiliate disclosure: Some links on this blog may earn us a small commission at no cost to you. Every bit helps keep the lantern lit.)   “Tituba, what evil spirit have you familiarity with?” “None.” “Why do you hurt these children?” “I do not hurt them.”    —   Examination of Tituba, Salem Village Meeting House, March 1, 1692 On the morning of March 1st, 1692, three women were brought before magistrates John Hathorne and Jonathan Corwin in the meeting house of Salem Village, Massachusetts. The building was packed. Word had spread quickly. The accused were Sarah Good , a pregnant beggar who wandered Salem’s streets muttering under her breath and was broadly disliked; Sarah Osborne , an elderly woman who had scandalized the village...