Halloween Book Special

Halloween Book Special
Rooted in the medieval Celtic Samhain festival, Halloween marked the end of the old and the beginning of the new year, when it was believed that evil spirits were passing through. To avoid being recognized and caught by the ghosts, the people masked and costumed themselves.

Consumerism drowned the once magical and mystical tradition of Halloween. With our Halloween Book Special we go back in the history of books to bring the most scary and spooky ones back to the surface. LN-CC's book curator Conor Donlon selected a set of scary books and vinyl records, frightful images of faces of patients awaiting death, death masks or stories about the cruel murders of the Manson Family will give you goosebumps and might inspire you to the creation of extraordinary Halloween costumes.

To view the whole book collection click here or click next to view the full feature.
A MORNING'S WORK: MEDICAL PHOTOGRAPHS FROM THE BURNS ARCHIVE & COLLECTION 1843-1939

Stanley Burns, Twin Palms Publishers, 1997, 164 pages, Hardcover

A Morning's Work reproduces over one hundred masterpieces of early medical photography along with descriptive texts by Dr. Stanley Burns, detailing the medical, sociological, and historical significance of the photographs. More than a few gruesome images are included, though the warm tones of the printing and the antique dress have an anesthetizing effect on the viewer. Definitely not for the fainthearted!

Buy the book Here.
FACIES DOLOROSA by Hans Killian

Dustri Verlag, 1967, 3rd Edition, Hardcover

Originally published in 1935, Dr. Hans Killian created this photographic study of the faces of patients awaiting death for doctors and physicians. This powerful and disturbing document sensitively captures the beauty and fragility of the human condition. The 64 full page black and white photographic plates depict the subjects countenance with added annotation of their condition. Despite the difficult subject matter, each plate provokingly captures these moments with empathy. Facies Dolorosa holds an important place in the history of photography, cited by many as a photographic masterpiece.

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DAS EWIGE ANTLITZ by Ernst Benkard

Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, 1926, Text in German, Hardcover

Published in 1926, Das Ewige Antlitz is a book of 123 death masks published by Ernst Benkard. A death mask may be mementos of the dead, or be used for creation of portraits. It was common for death masks to be used as part of the effigy of the deceased, displayed at state funerals. They were also used to permanently record the features of unknown corpses for purposes of identification. This function was later replaced by photography. A sampling of the plates include the death masks of Isaac Newton, Richard Wagner, the only female Charlotte Wolter, Nietzsche, Tolstoi, Shakespeare, Washington and Goethe.

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ANATOMICA BAROCCA by Akira Sato

100 pages, Hardcover

An extraordinary collection of photographs of anatomical wax models housed by the Museo Zoologica "La Specola" in Florence. The figures, sculpted by numerous 17th century artists, depict human beings in various states of dissection, revealing a bizarre and truly baroque European fascination with the advancement of anatomical understanding. The unbelievably intricate sculptures call into question what the real motivations of their creators were: are they art, are they science, or are they minutely detailed meditations on death attempting to unlock the secret of life? Somehow, the sculptures transcend the grotesque, and Akira Sato's exquisite colour photographs of them enable the viewer to observe what is usually considered taboo.

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THE HARLEM BOOK OF THE DEAD by James Van Der Zee

Morgan & Morgan, 1978, 1st edition, 85 pages, Hardcover

A haunting and astonishing book of photographs, poems and text on mourning rites in Harlem, Van Der Zee's book reveals the history of a time, now passed, when society cared for both the living and the dead, the belief that we must preserve a standard of pride representing order high in spiritual and temporal values.

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THE PERFECT MEDIUM: PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE OCCULT

Yale University Press, 2005, 288 pages, Hardcover

A fascinating book assembling more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960's, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published. The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.

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A WITCH IS BORN by Alex Sanders

A&M Records, 1970

A Witch is Born was recorded live at recording studios in London. Alex Sanders was considered at the time to be "the most powerful witch in Britain" and referred to by many as the "King of the Witches". This much publicized recording gave a rare opportunity for non-witches to witness a Witchcraft initiation. The record was released by major label A&M, which in itself is an indication of the level of interest in the occult at this time.

Buy the record Here.
THE FAMILY - THE STORY OF CHARLES MANSON'S DUNE BUGGY ATTACK BATTALION by Ed Sanders

Dutton, 1971, Hardcover

For two years, working day and night, Ed Sanders descended into a nether world. In seeking the answers as to how a Charles Manson can exist, Sanders gained access to every material witness, including Manson, to the Tate/LaBianca murders, journeyed many times to the family's quarters at the Spahn Ranch, camped out in Inyo County and Death Valley, the desert hideaways of Manson and his associates, investigated occult societies in Los Angeles who conducted various forms of sacrificial rituals in the mountains and beaches of California, interviewed members of motorcycle gangs whose paths crossed Manson's and members of his family. Brilliantly recreating the climate and imagination of Manson and his family, Ed Sanders demonstrates that their extraordinary adventures are not the isolated phenomenon that received so much attention in the media but bear strong and definite connections to the culture of the 1960's and 1970's, a culture of Hollywood, drugs, rock music and the occult.

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THE MANSON FAMILY SINGS THE SONGS OF CHARLES MANSON

1986, limited edition, white vinyl, 999 copies

Taken from original recordings made in or around 1970 at the Spahn Ranch Saloon, featuring members of the Charles Manson "family". Although Charles Manson himself does not appear on any of the tracks, as it was recorded while the trial was ongoing, however he is given written credit for all of the songs. The song "Get on Home" contains the eerie line referring to the killers carving x's into their foreheads.

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MAGICK LANTERN CYCLE: A SPECIAL PRESENTATION IN CELEBRATION OF THE EQUINOX, SPRING 1966 by Kenneth Anger

New York Film-Makers' Cinematheque, 1966

This very rare program booklet was produced for the 1966 Spring Equinox showing of the "Magick Lantern Cycle", consisting of six films by Kenneth Anger. Anger's experimental films combined occult themes with surreal and homoerotic elements. He's probably best known as the author of the books "Hollywood Babylon". This booklet consists of six movie still photographs (frame enlargements) printed on heavy card stock, three sheets of information printed on thin coloured paper, and two covers printed on coated heavy card stock.

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SATAN'S POWER - A DEVIANT PSYCHOTHERAPY CULT by William Sims Bainbridge

University of California Press, 1992, Hardcover

For three years, Process Church of the Final Judgement wandered across Europe and North America begging on the streets and frightening respectable citizens with their sinister appearance and apocalyptic visions. After planting communes in six American cities, the cult became a centre for psychic experimentation and stunning ritual performances. Organized as a hierarchical secret society, the process lead new comers through a series of occult therapies called Telepathy Developing Circles, Progresses, Mediumistic, Enactments, P-Scope sessions. In the end, the cults worship of Satan brought schism and disaster. Satan's Power acts as an expose of the process. The author studied them as a participant observer, experiencing life within the cult whilst engaged in sociological research. Fearing potential dangerous repercussions the author William Brainbridge, changed the name of the Process church to the Powerites for the purpose of the book. Satan's Power gives a rare view inside a deviant secret society.

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PROCESS CHURCH PAMPHLET: PREDICTIONS FOR THE END - A PROCESS ANTHOLOGY

Date unknown, 84 pages, Softcover

Very rare publication produced by the Process Church predicting the impending apocalypse, date unknown, published to attract people to church.

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DIVINE HORSEMEN: THE VOODOO GODS OF HAITI LP by Maya Deren

Vinyl record, 1981

Originally recorded in 1956 by underground filmmaker Maya Deren, Divine Horsemen documents dance and possession in Haitian Voodoo culture. Deren had studied dance as well as photography and filmmaking. She originally went to Haiti with the funding from a Guggenheim fellowship and the stated intention of filming the dancing that forms a crucial part of the voodoo ceremony. From this trip Deren also created the film Divine Horsemen: The Living Gods of Haiti.

Buy the record Here.
THE MESSAGE - ART AND OCCULTISM

Walter K"onig, 2007, Hardcover

The Message details the fascinating history of the influence of the occult on art with paranormal influenced paintings, drawings and 'thought photographs' - a term for the phenomenon of imprinting an image from one's mind directly onto a photographic medium. By the early eighteenth century, the occult had found a home in the arts and, with the advent of surrealism, Andr'e Breton discussed these inexplicable phenomena in his text The Automatic Message. The book features work by Hilma Af Klint, Paul Laffoley and Enrico Imoda amongst others.

Buy the book Here.
HALLOWEEN by Ken Werner

Octavia, 1981, Hardcover, 100 pages

Ken Werner's Halloween is a photo study of the Halloween celebrations in the Castro Street district of San Francisco, featuring sexually grotesque costumes and decadent shenanigans.

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DIANE ARBUS: UNTITLED by Diane Arbus

Aperture, 2011, 112 pages, Hardcover

Between 1969 and 1971, in the last years of her life, Diane Arbus focused her lens on the residents of homes for the mentally disabled. Although she considered doing a book on the subject, the vast majority of these pictures remained unpublished prior to this volume, which was released after her suicide in 1971. Photographed in and around Halloween, the 51 black and white pictures of women and girls mostly in homemade fancy dress costume are haunting yet mesmerising in their purity and beauty.

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KATAN DOLL: RETROSPECTIVE by Katan Amano

Editions Treville, 2007, Hardcover

The definitive edition compiles the dolls by Yoshida Ryo who opened, with the late Katan Amano, a fantastic and radical horizon of dolls with spherical joints. This established the contemporary practice of surrealistic doll making after Hans Bellmer. Often disturbing, sometimes disturbingly erotic, portraits of dolls posed and photographed as if they were human subjects.

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DR. LAKRA - HEALTH AND EFFICIENCY

Editorial RM, 2009, Hardcover

The art of embellishing popular reproduction usually entails irreverence, whether it be Duchamp's famous additions to a postcard of the Mona Lisa or the kinds of tweaking seen on subway advertisements. The Mexican artist known as Dr. Lakra embellishes 1950's pin-up-magazine reproductions to introduce a content not only irreverent but uncomfortable and certainly contrary to the intentions of his soft-porn source material - mortality. The series of works that comprise this velvet-bound volume began with a collection of vintage magazines about nudist camps that Lakra bought at the Sunday market on Brick Lane in London. He set to work despoiling the hygienically upbeat sensuality of these nude models with a morbid parade of skeletons and ghouls, who paw and loom at their prey with crude, lascivious glee, dragging both sex and death down to the level of earthy fact. Lakra's ghouls are not mere doodles; in their visual character, these creatures draw on the Day of the Dead repertoire of demonic forces, surrealist dream fantasy, Goya, Bosch, medieval illumination and other such traditions, updated with the contemporary edge of tattoo art. Health and Efficiency is an illuminated book of mortality for the age of the centrefold.

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LORDS OF CHAOS by Didrik S"oderlind & Michael Moynihan

Feral House, 2003, 400 pages, Paperback

Lords Of Chaos brilliantly details outbreaks of Black Metal crime in Finland, Germany and the United States; and includes the secret history of Occult Rock, This award-winning expos'e features hundreds of rare photos and exclusive interrogations with priests, police officers, Satanists, and leaders of demonic bands who believe the greater evil spawns the greatest glory.

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HAUNTED AIR by Ossian Brown

Random House, 2010, 216 pages, Hardcover

A collection of anonymous Halloween photographs from America, taken between 1875 and 1955. The photographs in Haunted Air provide an extraordinary glimpse into the traditions of this macabre festival from ages past, and form an important document of photographic history. These are the pictures of the dead: family portraits, mementoes of the treasured, now unrecognisable, other. Torn from album pages, sold piecemeal for pennies and scattered, abandoned to melancholy chance and the hands of strangers.

Text by Conor Donlon
Photography by Ben Benoliel

Buy the book Here.