Prophecies that came true, innocent witches, astrologers to kings and queens: the true history of the occult, day by day.
On 2 July 1566 the famed seer Michel de Nostredame died at his home in Salon-de-Provence. According to tradition, the night before he told his secretary, 'You will not find me alive at sunrise.' The next morning he was found dead beside his bed.
Read the story →On 6 July 1415 the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus, condemned for heresy by the Council of Constance, was burned alive at the stake. His death is seen as a herald of the reform movements that would shake Europe a century later.
Read the story →On 7 July 1456 the church tribunal assembled at Rouen declared null the trial that in 1431 had condemned Joan of Arc for heresy and witchcraft. The young woman, burned for her 'voices', was officially cleared 25 years after her death.
Read the story →Between 10-12 July 1441, astrologers Roger Bolingbroke and Thomas Southwell, in service to Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester, were arrested for casting a horoscope predicting a fatal illness for King Henry VI that summer. On 24-25 July, Eleanor herself was examined at Westminster on charges of treason and sorcery.
Read the story →On 13 July 1527 John Dee, the most famous court astrologer in English history, was born in London. He chose the date of Elizabeth I's coronation by horoscope; a scholar of mathematics, alchemy and angelic tongues, he lived on the border between science and magic.
Read the story →On 15 July 1834 a royal decree officially abolished the Spanish Inquisition. The institution that for three and a half centuries had pursued heresy, witchcraft and forbidden books passed into history, leaving tens of thousands of trial records behind.
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On the night of 17 July 1918, Tsar Nicholas II and his family were shot in Yekaterinburg. A letter attributed to Rasputin had warned that if he were killed by nobles, the dynasty would perish within two years: 19 months after his death in December 1916, the prophecy had come true. The letter's authenticity is debated.
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On July 19, 1692, during the Salem witch trials, Rebecca Nurse was executed by hanging on charges of witchcraft. Known for her pious standing in the community, she remains one of the most tragic figures of the witch-hunt era.
Read the story →On 21 July 1542 Pope Paul III, with the bull 'Licet ab initio', established the Roman Inquisition (the Holy Office). Charged with investigating heresy, magic and forbidden doctrines, over the centuries it would try many famous figures, including Galileo.
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On 22 July 1209 the first great blow of the Albigensian Crusade fell upon Béziers: the city sheltering the 'heretic' Cathars was put to fire and sword. The famous phrase attributed to that era — 'Kill them all, God will know His own' — is the legacy of that day.
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On 26 July 1875 Carl Gustav Jung was born in the Swiss village of Kesswil. The psychiatrist who took alchemy, the I Ching and archetypes seriously opened modern psychology's door to divinatory traditions with his concept of 'synchronicity'; his reflections on tarot symbolism are still discussed today.
Read the story →On 28 July 1794 Maximilien Robespierre was sent to the guillotine. Weeks before his fall, the 'Mother of God' sect of the seer Catherine Théot — who had proclaimed him the messiah of the coming age — had been exposed, a connection his enemies skilfully used against him.
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