“You don’t need a Ph.D to transcribe,” Christopher Fletcher, coordinator of the project and a fellow of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, tells Smithsonian.com. “[The initiative] is a great way to allow the general public to engage with these materials in a way that they probably wouldn’t have otherwise.”

The three manuscripts now available online reflect the varied and complex ways that magic fit into the broader religious landscape of a shifting and modernizing West. The 17th-century Book of Magical Charms contains instructions on a range of magical practices—“from speaking with spirits to cheating at dice,” according to the Transcribing Faith website—but also includes Latin prayers and litanies that align with mainstream religious practices. An untitled document known as the “commonplace book” explores strange and fantastical occurrences, along with religious and moral questions. Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits by Increase Mather, a Puritan minister and president of Harvard who presided over the Salem Witch Trials, expresses a righteous condemnation of witchcraft.

Read more at Smithsonian Magazine

I have friends who hope those pursuing it know how to shield themselves properly.

I have friends who might look at this as new knowledge about their pagan faith.

I have friends who probably would consider this demonic, Satanic, and that anyone who thinks this is something to pursue is bound for  the fiery lakes of hell.

Me? I definitely want to poke around in the scanned books. Don’t be surprised if something I find there pops up in Untune the Sky or some other Fury Triad work. Possibly it could slip into this final draft of The Dead Shall Live! It’s not too late.

I love delving into old tomes [as I’ve mentioned before re: A Discovery of the Impostures of Witchcraft and Astrologers and other Troy Books]to find spiritual/religious/paranormal/medical tidbits and more. In fact, I need to write about that soon. About adder heads, prayers to heal gout, and other fun stuff that was in This Crumbling Pageant.

[Puts that on list. On very long list.]

Does this kind of online activity excite you? Frighten you? Intrigue you?

Tell me!