Listener discretion advised: This episode delves into the disturbing details of the Whitechapel murders of 1888, and may not be suitable for all audiences.

Serialized from 1989 to 1996, Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's graphic novel From Hell was first released in a single volume in 1999, just as the world was groaning into the present century. This is an important detail, because according to the creators of this astounding work, the age then passing away could not be understood without reference to the gruesome murders, never solved, of five women in London's Whitechapel district, in the fall of 1888. In Alan Moore's occult imagination, the Ripper murders were more than another instance of human depravity: they constituted a magical operation intended to alter the course of history. The nature of this operation, and whether or not it was successful, is the focus of this episode, in which JF and Phil also explore the imaginal actuality of Victorian London and the strange nature of history and time.

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REFERENCES

Daniel Silver, Terry Nichols Clark, and Clemente Jesus Navarro Yanez, “Scenes: Social Context in an Age of Contingency”

Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, From Hell

Floating World, Edo Japanese concept

Phil Ford, Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture

John Clellon Holmes recordings

Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes Collection

Yacht Rock, web series

Stephen Knight, Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution

Colin Wilson, Jack the Ripper: Summing Up and Verdict

Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages

Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor

Weird Studies, Episode 89 on “Mumbo Jumbo”

Charles Howard Hinton, mathematician

J. G. Ballard, Preface to Crash

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, The Difference Engine