The Secret City: London's Hidden History of Magic, Mystery, and the Occult.

  Buy Now (Book Link) In the grand and terrible alchemical working that was 17th-century London, the Great Plague of 1665 was the Nigredo . This was the blackening, the putrefaction, the stage of dissolution where the old, corrupt matter is broken down into its primal, chaotic state. Before the city could be reborn in fire, it first had to die, to be reduced to a state of utter despair and decay. The plague was not just a random biological disaster; it was a necessary and terrifying stage in a massive magical operation. The City of the Dead The plague, when it came, was swift and merciless. It transformed the bustling, vibrant metropolis of London into a ghost city, a vast, open-air tomb. The rich fled, leaving the poor to their fate. The streets, once teeming with life, fell silent, punctuated only by the mournful cry of the bellman, "Bring out your dead!" and the rumble of the dead-cart on its nightly rounds. This was a city in the grip of a profound spiritual and psycholog...