Witchy Business: Resources for Researching Occult, Supernatural, Ghostly, and Spellbinding Topics for Writers
By Emilie-Noelle Provost | October 23, 2024 |
Although part of me is convinced it’s still August, the Halloween season is upon us. After a couple of months of less regimented summer days, the cooler fall weather always brings with it a return to my regular work schedule. As a writer, this in part means a return to researching subjects I want to incorporate into my novels, stories, essays, and articles to make sure I get the details right.
In honor of this spooky time of year, I wanted to share some resources I’ve used in the past to learn about mystical and eerie topics. I hope you won’t find them too terrifying.
Divination and Fortune Telling
Human beings have been trying to predict the future for nearly as long as we’ve been on the planet. Over time, these practices, collectively referred to as divination, have taken many forms.
When it comes to making predictions for individuals, perhaps no method is as widely used as tarot card reading. One of the most straightforward online resources I’ve found for learning about the cards and their history is this HowStuffWorks article from 2023. There are also several good resources available online that explain the individual meanings of each card.
Other methods used to gain insight into the future include reading tea leaves, casting bones, scrying, and using an Ouija Board. Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Divination by Richard Webster is a great resource for learning about all of these and others, including tarot cards. The book also provides instructions, so you can try some of them yourself.
Witches Past and Present
According to some sources, our idea of witches being people who embody magical powers dates back to the ancient Greeks. But our modern, Western concept of witches being women dressed in black cloaks and pointed hats using their powers to do harm comes from the Middle Ages, when the Christian church made it its mission to rout out perceived heretics and rival belief systems.
One of the most well known manifestations of this effort is the 15th century tome Malleus Maleficarum, The Hammer of Witches. Steeped in misogyny, the book offered disturbingly detailed instructions for identifying and prosecuting witches, and provided justification for torturing and burning alive thousands of innocent people, mostly women, over the next three centuries. Copies of Malleus Maleficarum are available at many libraries. Or you can download a digital copy for as little as $4.99.
Contemporary witches have it much better than their forbears. Modern witchcraft, much of it based in the Wiccan religion, embraces feminine energy and power. While there is a lot of information out there on the topic, a few things stand out including this fascinating August 2018 article in The New Yorker and this piece published in The Atlantic in March 2020.
Monsters, Cryptids, and Bogeymen
Who can resist a good Sasquatch sighting story? Or a hair-raising tale about El Chupacabra raising havoc in the night? The Monster Spotter’s Guide to North America by Scott Francis has these and much more, including a wide variety leviathans, devils, frogmen, werewolves, skin-walkers, and zombies. As an added bonus, Francis has organized these monsters by geographic region, making it easy for writers to find appropriate creatures for their stories.
Ghosts, Phantoms, and Wraiths
Of all the supernatural beings out there, ghosts freak me out the most. Perhaps this is because I know several people who have encountered one. Maybe you have, too. But even if you haven’t, you can still write about poltergeists, shadow people, orbs, and spirits using these helpful resources:
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley contains more than 600 entries about ghosts, haunted places, and other specter-related phenomena around the world. There’s nothing else like it for researching the subject.
Although its website looks a bit dated, the Ghost Research Society, a nonprofit based in Illinois, is a good place to find first-person reports about ghosts, hauntings, and “life after death encounters.” The society has also published a number of books under its own imprint.
The Dead/Undead
From medical dramas to vampire tales, much has been written about the dead and undead, and there are a lot of good resources out there about them. These are some of my favorites:
Where are They Buried? How Did They Die? by Tod Benoit is an encyclopedia of sorts listing “fitting ends and final resting places of the famous, infamous, and noteworthy.” Benoit has organized the departed into categories such as “sports heroes” and “notable figures from history,” which is helpful. Whether you’re using the book for research or not, it’s an interesting read.
If you’ve ever wandered through an old burial ground and wondered what the symbols on the grave markers meant, you’ll enjoy Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography by Douglas Keister. The book, illustrated with color photographs, covers everything from plants and flowers, Greek iconography, mythical creatures, and maritime symbols to the various incarnations of skulls and crossbones.
Although it doesn’t deal strictly with the dead, a good, free online resource for medical and health terminology is Harvard Medical School’s Medical Dictionary of Health Terms. It’s easy to use and very comprehensive. I’d recommend avoiding it, though, if you’re prone to hypochondria.
In cultures around the world, vampires and their close relatives go by many names, from the Balkans’ Dhampire to Korea’s Kumiho. This list of vampiric creatures is a good place to start if you’re looking to put an exotic twist on the basic sleeps-in-a-coffin, turns-into-a-bat blood sucker.
Another favorite is The Things That Fly in the Night: Female Vampires in Literature of the Circum-Caribbean and African Diaspora by Giselle Liza Anatol. It sounds a little out there at first but the book does an excellent job dismantling Hollywood’s sexualized female vampire trope and discussing the cultural roles these undead women play in a variety of New World folklore.
Fairies
Fairies are small mythical beings with magical powers, often taking on human-like forms. The list of creatures defined as fairies is long and includes brownies, elves, ogres, trolls, gnomes, sprites, and changelings, among others. Published in 1978, my favorite book on the subject is Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee. I received a copy for Christmas when I was fourteen years old and have been enchanted by its ethereal watercolor illustrations ever since. The book is out of print but it’s not hard to find a used copy online.
Happy Halloween!
Do you have any favorite resources for finding information on supernatural topics? If so, which would you recommend to other writers?
Emilie-Noelle Provost is a writer, editor, and author who lives in a northeastern Massachusetts mill town with her husband, daughter, and three crazy rescue cats. She is an avid hiker and a fan of European crime dramas.
Emilie-Noelle has worked as an editor for four magazine titles and has written and published hundreds of articles. She is the author of two novels. The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters, was published by North Country Press in 2018. Her second novel, The River Is Everywhere, the coming-of-age story of a Franco-American teenager, was a finalist for a 2023 National Indie Excellence Award, a 2023 American Fiction Award, and a 2024 American Legacy Book Award. The novel was published in March 2023 by Vine Leaves Press.
She is currently working on a series of novels set in Île d’Orléans, a historic island in the Saint Lawrence River near Québec City.
I was so excited to see the title of this article!! Thank you for writing this! Excellent!
This time of the year, given that we’re practicing for Requiem Masses, my thoughts naturally turn toward the four last things–death, judgment, heaven, and hell–and for the first time, whilst I sing, a ghost story has been brewing to completion. The lives of the saints have been a great help and inspiration. Happy All Hallow’s Eve!!!
Hi Emile-Noelle: Gee, I wish I had this info earlier. I’ve been researching elemental witchcraft, magick, and ghosts these past 5 years for my Gothic horror novel just released a few weeks ago. I am working on the sequel though, so I appreciate your suggestions. I didn’t know about The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits by Rosemary Ellen Guiley. With all the ghost stories I write, this should be on my shelf! For my magick research I used The Magic System Blueprint by CR Rowenson, which gave me a great overview. Thanks for the tips.
Hi Emilie-Noelle! What timing your post is. I am in the beginning stages of writing a series of cozy mysteries about witches and their craft. I hadn’t heard of the Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits so I just added that to list for research. The Atlantic Article was very interesting. Halloween is my favorite holiday (no stress, no shopping, no guests) and this article is just perfect. Thanks for the info.
Louisiana is famous — practically tailor-made — for otherworldly “visitations” (not “hauntings”). Louisiana Spirits Paranormal Investigations is the group to contact for researching ghostly phenomena in Cajun Country
Christine: I thought they were called “haints.”
Interesting you should ask, Barry. From what I understand, haint is a Southern term for ghost, most common among the Gulla-Geechee people of South Carolina. It gave its name to a pale blue color of paint, “haint blue,” which traditionally is used on porch ceilings to ward of evil spirits.