Juhyo: Japanese Monster Trees

David Weber on the Japundit blog:

They’re out there lurking in the dark, in the desolate wilderness of winter — the beautiful and eerie offspring of Yuki Onna, the Japanese snow woman spirit. They are the Juhyo, or monster trees. Every winter the trees of Mount Zao in the Yamagata Prefecture undergo a shocking transformation. From mild-mannered conifers, these trees become hulking monstrosities of snow and ice.

Full article (many pictures)

Societas Magica

The Societas Magica is an organization dedicated to furthering communication and exchange among scholars interested in the study of magic, both in the positive contexts of its expression as an area of necessary knowledge or religious practice (as in early modern occultism and contemporary paganism), and in its negative contexts as the substance of an accusation or condemnation (as in sorcery trials, and many philosophical and theological accounts, both early and late). The interests of our membership include, but are not limited to, the history and sociology of magic; theological, and intellectual apprehensions of magic; practices and theories of magic; and objects, artifacts and texts either qualified as magical by their creators, or forming the substance of an accusation of magic by others.

The Society will be holding its first full conference on MAGIC: FRONTIERS AND BOUNDARIES June 11-15 at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Keynote Speakers will be Marvin Meyer, Richard Kieckhefer, and T.M. Luhrman.

Online PDFs of the Societas Magica newsletter dating back to 1996 are linked on their website.

Link

British intelligence agency releases file on WW II astrologer

The British intelligence agency MI5 has released a file from the National Archives on astrologer Louis de Wohl, who was hired during World War II in an effort to second-guess what astrological information Hitler might have been getting and possibly acting upon.

Articles in The Guardian, The Times and in The Independent. A quick glance shows that the Independent article takes De Wohl's being the son of a Hungarian nobleman as fact, though the Guardian quotes an MI5 officer as saying that De Wohl didn't speak a word of Hungarian. The Times' article is the most acerbic of the three.