Talk:Book curse

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Book curses

I got here this evening by roundabout means. The Wiki paranormal/skeptical section is an embarrassment. It caters to a mean-spirited "scientific" crowd which is only interested in shooting the messenger and making sure he stays dead. As a result, there are a lot of things Wiki does not know and a lot of people Wiki does not see. As I happen to be one of the more literate of these invisible people, I will pass on some notes.

The opening premise of the Book Curse article, that curses are written out, is false. There is no point. The next edition, the next copy, may simply leave out the curse words, and the curse will magically disappear. Any such words were presumably added afterwards, by an ignorant, jealous owner.

Moreover, virtually every book published today is, in fact, cursed, at least, cursed as Wiki understands it. What do you suppose "Copyright 1973 by . . . No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission . . . " (Taken from a book on my desk.) That's a curse, at least as far as you understand it. Disobey and you risk the full force of the law. One of my friends is a retired copyright attorney, she constantly warns me about taking risks with copyright. Those who put curses on things don't really much care how the penalty is carried out, so long as there is a penalty of some sort. Laws as curses are much easier to generate than magical curses.

The following story of a cursed book is known to me personally, as I am the modern publisher of the book in question:

In 1647, William Lilly, then the most famous astrologer in England (he was consulted by the nobility all through the Civil War), foresaw he would be ill and decided to take the year off and write a book, which he called Christian Astrology. From then, until now, this remains the most famous book on astrology ever written in English. In three volumes, he had finished the first two and was halfway through the third when, in August 1647, the plague struck. (This was a minor plague. The sort that turned up every decade or so.)

Various members of his household were struck. Two servants died. Lilly fled London for the countryside, writing furiously as he did so. He started putting dates in the text itself, as if he feared that every day would be his last. In the process, he got sloppy. Errors appeared. Big, simple, stupid errors. Astrology depends on exact calculations and in reprinting his book, I checked every one of them. The first two volumes were letter perfect. Not so the third. Lilly struggled on to early October, when he finally finished the book and sent it to the printer.

Christian Astrology was reprinted in 1659. Some years after I published my edition of the 1647 edition, I got a copy of the 1659 edition on CD-Rom. Eagerly I went to Book 3 and checked for the mistakes, confident they would of course have been corrected, eager to revise my edition in light of the author's own corrections. To my surprise, I found every error unchanged and still there. 1659 was an exact, word-for-word reprint of 1647. It contained errors which had doubtless been found and exposed a decade earlier. Things that were simple to fix. No author would allow such a thing to happen.

Which made the 1659 edition pirate. Unauthorized. But who had published it, and why?

This past summer I was contacted by researchers in London. (Maybe from Warburg, I'm not certain.) A woman who was known to me, part of the community I work in. She was interested in the William Lilly / John Gadbury dispute that blew up in 1659, and which has never been explained. Suppose, I said, that the young Gadbury had wanted Lilly to teach him magic (which Lilly gave up prior to 1640) and that Lilly refused and as a result, Gadbury arranged republication of Christian Astrology, warts and all, as revenge?

She did not know, and, indeed, with the remaining artifacts, we may never know. But I know what happened next.

Embarrassed and humiliated, Lilly cursed his book, that it should not be printed again without his express permission. If Lilly was half as good a magician as he was an astrologer, he was a most powerful magician. Indeed it was a powerful curse, but it was also a sloppy one. A well-made curse would have had a "sundown" provision: a date or a condition upon which the curse would evaporate. Curses are rather like electrical capacitors. They will hold a "charge," (curse) discharging (cursing someone) only upon specified conditions, and can do so almost forever. 350 years is not long for a curse. This, by the way, is the embarrassment of Wiki's paranormal work, that the editors are unaware of the elemental basics of the topic, that curses have conditions and that a simple expiration date should be one of them.

How do I know the book, Christian Astrology, was cursed? (Aside from the fact that I myself removed it.) We know to suspect curses if books that are otherwise of interest are not reprinted. We may get a working confirmation of our suspicions by talking those who have tried to reprint. In point of fact only a properly trained clairvoyant, like myself, I guess, can give a definitive answer. "Science" is far too crude for that, which is why it is silly to pretend science can be an arbiter in these matters. Science cannot. It is unqualified. In falsely claiming otherwise, science drives away and destroys real knowledge.

On the copyright page of my edition, I summarized the previous editions: 1647, 1659 (pirate), 1852 (the Zadkiel edition that was badly chopped up), the 1985 Regulus facsimile, the 1985 retyped edition published by Just Us and Associates, the Ascella edition of 1999, and finally, mine, the Astrology Classics, of 2004.

Summary of the editions:

The Zadkiel edition of 1852, titled, An Introduction to Astrology, omitted some things, included others and was a wild, disorganized mess. It was hailed at the time, but so little of Lilly's book actually got published that it has since been discarded, though you can find reprints here and there. Aside from original 17th century editions, this is the only edition of Christian Astrology which I myself do not own, though years ago I glanced at it.

Back in 1998 I had the publisher of the Regulus facsimile edition on the phone for more than an hour, pouring out an amazing story of the enormous difficulties and frustrations he had in trying to make his facsimile. Lost his marriage, his publisher sabotaged his work, expensive plates went missing or were destroyed, etc. (By the way I have names for all these people, but as Wiki has a habit of attacking "paranormal" people - see the James van Praag Wiki page - those names will be withheld. If it's not already clear, I have only scorn for skeptical attacks. They have made the world a shabbier place.)

I have the resulting Regulus facsimile in my library. Also in my library, the Just Us edition. Which is available as a free on-line download. I used the Just Us edition as a source for mine (it saved me the effort of retyping it), which I carefully checked it against the facsimile for transcription errors. And to my amazement, I found misspellings, typos and entire lacunae on virtually every page of the book, which runs over 800 pages. For example, there is a lacunae on the very first page of Book One.

The publisher of the Ascella edition is personally known to me. She gave up her project, gave up her publishing business, after finishing the second of the three books. At the time I heard that she had contracted a brain lesion. She found it impossibly hard work. It wasn't the transcribing that bothered her. She had previously transcribed Dariot, Culpeper, Saunders and several others.

Around the same time - 1998 - I was phoned by Olivia Barclay. It was her personal edition of Christian Astrology (value: $2000) that Regulus had chopped up for the facsimile. It was done at her request, as she used it as a teaching text. Barclay, being deceased, I can perhaps mention by name. The Regulus edition was going out of print, she said, which I already knew, having previously spoken with its publisher, who was exhausted and could not go through hell again. Olivia asked if I could reprint it.

That was back before print on demand. I had never published anything but said I would try. I had a new duplexing copier in the next room, I took the book and set to work. I could make a crude comb-bound edition. About a hundred pages into it, I noticed a funny kind of headache but kept on to the end.

When I was finished I phoned a friend in Los Angeles. Was it a curse, I asked? Yes, she said. Whereupon I sat down and, with her on the phone, burned up the curse on the spot. It was not the first bit of "astral space junk" I had disposed of. The technique I used was new to me, I had learned it a few years before in quasi-magical classes given by a roving band of Filipinos. Which is enough of a hint that those who are interested can find them, though they will deny teaching any such thing, as they, in fact, do not. I was adapting. I have used that same technique several times since.

In 2004 I published my edition of Christian Astrology, books 1 and 2. The next year I published Book 3, the one with the errors in it, all dutifully noted and corrected. I run a small publishing house, I have 40-odd books in print. These two are my best-selling volumes. Total sales, since 2004, are approaching the combined sales of all previous editions. My edition is a word-for-word transcription of the original, with slightly updated verb tenses. The text is reset, there is a glossary, there are reset charts, there are marginal notes to clarify points that are now obscure, etc. I did not lose my home, my friends did not attack me, my business did not go bust, I did not get brain lesions. I had a perfectly fine time of it, and that was because I, myself, had previously removed the curse which Lilly put on it. I've published 40 more books since.

In the years since I have been gradually putting this story out. A man in Washington, DC, heard of me and asked if I could take the curse off Picatrix, a 12th century book of magic. He presumed there was a curse on it, for as hard as he tried, he could not print it, nor has anyone else. (The modern editions are all locked up in libraries, which is not "publishing" as it's generally known.) I presumed he was right, that the book was most likely cursed.

I declined to help, and for two reasons. One, since this was a book of magic we might well expect that not only is it cursed, but the curse would be compound. In other words, the curse would have a curse on it, such that if the main curse was disturbed, a much nastier curse would result. No thank you! The second reason is that magic is more easily done than most would believe, such that a book like Picatrix could cause real harm if it were freely available. Which is to say there are a lot of old books, like Picatrix, molding away in libraries, which are best left alone. In thinking about it, it seems the curse on Picatrix really is compound. The burning technique I use, which is not at all magical, could handle a compound, I think. But taking it off is still a bad idea.

When I was contacted by the researcher last summer, I pointed out the lacunae in the Just Us edition of Christian Astrology. As it happens, she was one of the people who was personally responsible for it. She told me that not only was the Just Us edition complete and correct, but that she herself had checked it against the same Regulus facsimile, and that the revision of 1997 was, in fact, perfect.

This quite surprised me. I had presumed that when I ended the curse in 1999, that its glamour was broken (that's a technical term, by the way). But it seems as if, as late as 2011, those who had been previously contaminated by the curse, remain contaminated. After I pointed that out, she broke off contact. I presume I am persona non grata.

None of this was done in an effort to entertain the public or to make big bucks. Christian Astrology happens to be the very best book of its type. Lilly's foolish curse seriously harmed astrological studies for more than three centuries. What I have described are the private affairs of those who actually work in the "paranormal". You've just gotten a slice of that. I don't care if you believe it or not. When there is work to do, the work is done.

So, yes. There are books, known to me, that are cursed. Depending on the person, depending on the length of exposure, the penalty for breaking the curse can take on a variety of forms. Books that are cursed do not advertise the fact, for no such notice is necessary. If another cursed book comes to my attention, and if I believe that the curse should be removed, I will do so. Dave of Maryland (talk) 03:18, 12 January 2012 (UTC)