THE METHOD FILES · JOURNAL
Stories worth a second look.
PERCEPTION · CULTURE · SYMBOLS
Mystery and perception
A silhouette may look like someone before we know what produces it. Four investigations help to separate form, expectation and explanation, without turning a possibility into a verdict.
Mystery and perception
A patented game, a child's conversation and a staged séance: two films show how an object becomes a threat.
Mystery and perception
A sheet of glass can place a figure where no one stands. The illusion made famous in Victorian London offers a different perspective on shows now called holograms.
Mystery and perception
A photograph can faithfully record a staged scene. Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths’s images reveal how a small construction came to be treated as extraordinary evidence.
Mystery and perception
The famous chess player moved pieces before an audience while concealing whoever chose the moves. Its history helps distinguish a convincing display from an adequate test.
Mystery and perception
A visitor tries to test Abe no Seimei. His shikigami open a history of invisible servants, rivalry and characters that change as they move onto the screen.
Mystery and perception
In 1853, Michael Faraday placed an indicator between some hands and a table. The question seemed small: which had moved first? The answer changed how the whole room could be understood.
Mystery and perception
William Mumler sold photographs in which the living appeared accompanied by figures attributed to the dead. His images allow us to follow a dispute over technique, recognition and comfort that is not resolved by looking only at the paper.
Mystery and perception
Florence Cook, a figure dressed in white and the chemist William Crookes. During the 1874 séances, the question concerned not only what appeared, but who could see it, from where and under what conditions.
Mystery and perception
A vanished rectory, a file of press cuttings and an enduring dispute. Borley’s history reveals how a building becomes a ghost story and what we need to read it without confusing evidence with reputation.
Mystery and perception
A recorded noise can resemble a voice; a voice can resemble a phrase. Between sound and its supposed speaker lie several steps that the history of electronic voice phenomena and two experiments let us examine separately.
Art and counterculture
First an unauthorised intervention, then an authorised mural: the history of Keith Haring’s work on a New York handball court requires distinctions between message, version and preservation.
Art and counterculture
A typewriter, a felt-tip pen and an editorial decision were enough to begin in 1976. The short history of Mark Perry's fanzine shows what limited resources make possible and what they cannot solve.
Art and counterculture
A Renaissance deck, usually dated to 1491, reveals how playing-card images become repositories of history, interpretation and mystery.
Art and counterculture
In a printed version of Punch and Judy, the demon comes to the end and also fails to impose order. The scene makes the little theater a place far less innocent than it seems.
History and symbols
A small shoe from Edinburgh traces the passage from everyday clothing to a possible protective object. The key lies in what is known about its discovery and what cannot yet be claimed.
History and symbols
In 1843 she began a book made with light, specimens and names. Its blue pages invite a question: how does a botanical image become a document while remaining a constructed representation?
History and symbols
The War of the Worlds sounded like news in 1938. Understanding its construction is easier than measuring the fear it caused: broadcast, testimony and headlines require different questions.
History and symbols
A small painting dedicated to Saint James preserves thanks for a recovery. Its strength lies in how it organises experience; its limit lies in what an image alone cannot prove.
History and symbols
In 1835, The Sun published an alleged exploration of lunar life. The episode shows how news can borrow the name of a scientist, the form of a report and the authority of an illustration.
History and symbols
The obsidian associated with John Dee preserves a Mexican history, an English attribution and several ways of imagining what might appear on a dark surface.
History and symbols
A spiral of writing surrounds a demonic figure. British Museum bowl 139524 brings Mesopotamian incantations down to a specific scale: people seeking to protect their health.
History and symbols
A sealed seventeenth-century vessel preserved bodily traces and small metal objects. Its contents place the 'witch bottle' between fear of a curse, the search for a cure and imagined violence against whoever supposedly caused it.
History and symbols
The Paintings for the Temple emerged from a spiritual practice and developed into a project of images, notebooks and spaces. Their history reveals an abstraction that aspired to show more than forms.
History and symbols
In a 1513 engraving, Death raises an hourglass and the Devil accompanies a rider who scarcely seems to notice them. The scene’s tension has sustained differing interpretations for centuries.
History and symbols
A mask, bells, and a date on the calendar: Krampus lets you observe how a tradition changes hands while still recognizing itself.
History and symbols
Court calendars, ritual steps and a theatrical fox mother: the celebrated onmyōji changes age, occupation and setting across these accounts.
History and symbols
A small thirteenth-century shrine preserves two images of the Buddhist universe. Opening it changes our understanding of a mandala: an image also has a scale, a material support and a way of being presented.
History and symbols
In Dewa Sanzan, ascetic practice makes the route through Haguro, Gassan and Yudono a journey between the present, death and rebirth. The mountain contributes distance, seasons, food and effort to the rite.
History and symbols
At Himeji Jinja, ofuda and omamori extend a relationship with the kami in different ways. One is received for veneration at home; the other accompanies the person. The distinction involves space, care and local memory.
History and symbols
A Yoshitsuya print captures Shuten-dōji's final attack. From this scene, oni reveal different roles: heroic enemy, misfortune expelled in a rite and a creature capable of prompting a smile.
History and symbols
Messengers from Inari, New Year's lights and a mother who writes with a brush: three scenes to approach the kitsune without turning them into a single creature.
History and symbols
In Naritasan Shinshōji, a Buddhist rite gathers flames, prayers, and daily worries. Its meaning appears when looking also at what happens before and after the fire.
History and symbols
Between the 1610 process, printed stories and a museum dedicated to victims, a place learns to tell a story that has also become attractive to tourists.
History and symbols
The amulet belt of the Sorolla Museum gathers claw, glass, bell and devotion. Its abundance allows to enter the Iberian history of the evil eye from the care that was placed around a vulnerable body.
History and symbols
The Museo del Traje's higa, CE010092, turns a finger gesture into carved jet. Its history combines craftsmanship, attributed protection and a Compostela provenance that the catalogue itself asks us to qualify.
History and symbols
In Moinho da Devesa 1, in northern Portugal, stone jambs retain a repertoire of signs. Protective marks share a building with dates, initials and traces of the trade: work and belief did not occupy separate worlds.
History and symbols
A Maucci edition traces the legendary book through business addresses, catalogues and libraries, where the saint's name brings together objects that do not always contain the same text.
History and symbols
The descent with falles brings mountain, village and memory together. Its documented history reveals a local festival without treating every Iberian bonfire as a remnant of one origin.
History and symbols
In Lisbon, a small precious-metal Nativity brings a recognisable scene together with venerated fragments. Its history shows how a reliquary could preserve, display and make a sacred past present.
History and symbols
Two small canvases painted for the Dukes of Osuna allow us to enter an uncomfortable area: satire can mock credulity and preserve, at the same time, the strength of a nightmare.
History and symbols
A brooch dedicated to Charles T. Evans preserves hair, a date and news of a death at sea. Mourning jewellery shows how a keepsake could be worn on the body even when its full history can no longer be recovered.
History and symbols
La Luz del Porvenir circulated beliefs, controversies and women's voices. Following Amalia Domingo Soler reveals Spanish Spiritism through its pages and associations, as well as around the séance table.