Supernatural

Users of the Sortes Astrampsychi chose a specific question from a list of 92. Then, they randomly picked a number between one and ten, which, when added to the number of the chosen question, directed them to one of 1,030 possible answers.

To Divine the Future, the Ancients Relied on These Chance-Based Fortune-Telling Tools

Texts like the "Sortes Astrampsychi" promised insights on clients' love lives, career prospects, financial woes and families

If a reader stared at one of Spectropia’s illustrations under a strong light source for about 20 seconds and then gazed at a blank wall in a darkened room, a version of that image in inverted colors appeared.

This 19th-Century 'Toy Book' Used Science to Prove That Ghosts Were Simply an Illusion

"Spectropia" demystified the techniques used by mediums who claimed they could speak to the dead, revealing the "absurd follies of Spiritualism"

The Ghost of a Fisherman, Tsukioka Kogyo, woodblock print, 1899

Why Images of Ghosts Have Endured in Japan for Centuries

A new exhibition at the National Museum of Asian Art displays haunting, colorful woodblock prints

Charlotte Brontë’s attraction to the strange and horrific was an early vehicle for her love of storytelling.

An Early Charlotte Brontë Story Speaks to the Author's Lifelong Fascination With the Supernatural

The 1830 account details an eerie encounter with a stranger who predicted the death of the writer's father

Another supposedly unlucky thing: black cats.

Why Are We So Scared of Friday the 13th?

From the Knights Templar to Norse mythology, here’s how fear of the spooky date crept into popular culture

Hugh Gray's famous 1933 photo of a creature he believed to be Nessie

Loch Ness Monster Lovers Come Together for Biggest Hunt in 50 Years

Volunteers will convene in the Scottish Highlands armed with drones, hydrophones and other technologies

Creation of the Birds, 1957, by Remedios Varo, is one of more than 60 works featured in a new Chicago exhibition about the Surrealist.

How Remedios Varo Became One of the 'Witches' of Surrealism

In Mexico City, the Spanish-born artist created dreamlike works that drew on magic, mysticism and more

An 1843 illustration for A Christmas Carol by George Leech, in which Ebenezer Scrooge is shown his own tombstone

Charles Dickens Was a 'Fascinated Skeptic' of the Supernatural

A new exhibition explores the writer's enduring interest in ghosts and other paranormal phenomena

Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth, a Viking prince who seeks to avenge the murder of his father.

The History Behind Robert Eggers' 'The Northman'

The revenge saga blends traditional accounts with the supernatural to convey the lived experience of the Viking age

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What the History of 'Spirit Photography' Portends for the Future of Deepfake Videos

Today’s video hoaxes can be downright ugly. But image-makers have been fooling viewers from the beginning

An engraving from German zoologist Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen Der Natur, a 1904 book that celebrated the symmetry of nature

From Books Bound in Human Skin to Occult Texts, These Are Literature's Most Macabre, Surprising and Curious Creations

A new tome takes readers into collector Edward Brooke-Hitching's "madman's library"

Smithsonian gemologist Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) meets her colleague, Diana Prince (Gal Gadot) in Wonder Woman 1984, which was filmed at three Smithsonian museums.

How 'Wonder Woman 1984' Was Filmed at the Smithsonian

The blockbuster saw the superhero working as a museum anthropologist. But how accurate was its depiction of the Institution at the time?

Christopher Lee as the titular vampire in Terence Fisher’s 1958 Dracula, showing off bloody canines that would prove weirdly influential.

How the Vampire Got His Fangs

An incisive history of a Halloween snarl

Why Were Two Victorian Chess Pieces Hidden in a Barn?

They may have been intended to protect the property’s human and animal inhabitants from evil spirits

Previous excavations at the site have revealed raven talons, toad bones and even bronze cauldrons filled with the remains of ritually sacrificed puppies

This Ancient 10-Year-Old Received a ‘Vampire Burial’ to Prevent Return From the Dead

The malaria-stricken Roman child was buried in the ominously named Cemetery of the Babies with a stone inserted into its mouth

Eeek!

Zombie Movies Are Never Really About Zombies

Zombies have offered a way to work out cultural fears about everything from race to climate change

A friendly Nauga.

How the Nauga and its Fictional Friends Helped Make Synthetic Fabric Cuddly

What started out as an advertising ploy turned into a low-key cultural phenomenon

Shakespeare wrote 'Macbeth,' which features three witches, during James I's reign, which also was the time of some of England's most famous witch trials.

England’s Witch Trials Were Lawful

It might seem like collective madness today, but the mechanisms for trying witches in England were enshrined in law

The beast of Gévaudan terrorized French villagers for three years, killing around 100 and injuring nearly 300.

When the Beast of Gévaudan Terrorized France

The tale of this monster grew in the telling, but the carnage still left nearly 100 dead

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