Samuel Pepys

[EssexSpook]

Does anyone have any info on the supposed involvement of Samuel Pepys in black magic, or some secret lost diary? I've been looking into it for a while, but can't find anything, so I'm sure it's nothing, but still...

 

[wembley8]

This sounds a little confused. Sam's diaries are very extensive and very well-known, including his religious and scientific interests. The day-by-day Pepys blog is highly recomended -

http://www.pepysdiary.com/

- lots of fascinating historical detail...and he does occasionally touch on matters Fortean.
Some of the rude bits of the diary were written in 'code', and some of the Royal Society's work was considered to be occult (those were unsophisticated days) but I don't think he's the sort to be takn in by black magic.

 

[EssexSpook]

Yea, I'm not too sure on the source or where I heard it, it was just along the lines that he had some 'missing' or 'secret' diary (apart from the vast collection of ones known), that had some occult element. Sure it's nothing though.

 

[Sifaka317]

...it was just along the lines that he had some 'missing' or 'secret' diary (apart from the vast collection of ones known), that had some occult element.

Not come across this myself. Sure it was Pepys? You couldn't have been thinking of Sir Isaac Newton by any chance? I believe his diaries evinced a profound interest and belief in matters alcehemical and cabbalistic...

 

[EssexSpook]

Na, it was definately Pepys I was told.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if this will help but have found on:
Link

Champion, Justin "The Occult Laboratory: Magic, Science and Second Sight in Late 17th Century Scotland (review)"
Journal of the History of Philosophy - Volume 40, Number 4, October 2002, pp. 545-546
The Johns Hopkins University Press


Excerpt

This is a superb collection of original materials (including a range of private correspondence, scribal works, and printed texts) related to the "strange reports" of incidence of "second sight" in Scotland from the 1680s to the 1700s. The material includes literary exchanges between powerful figures in the Anglo-Scottish intellectual community like Robert Boyle, John Aubrey, Robert Kirk, John Frazer, and Samuel Pepys. All of these texts are edited with immaculate care and informative annotation. The lengthy introduction provides both intellectual context and a detailed bibliographical account. Collectively the texts reproduced here provide a comprehensive resource for the examination of attitudes to magic and the supernatural in the late seventeenth century. From these texts one can reconstruct the battle between "orthodox" Anglican defenders of a "spirit world" and the sceptical assault on its authenticity"


I tried using combinations of pepys, secret, diary, magic, occult etc. But I didn't find anything (10 min search) that actually pointed towards a secret diary or magic per se - though lots to do with Pepys' shorthand technique. Good hunting.

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]

 

[EssexSpook]

Cheers, can't actually access the link because it requires you to log in at a university that subscribes to the journal, but I'll def check it out!

 

[rynner2]

Not black magic, but still interesting...

Mystery of Pepys' affair solved

The fate of famous diarist Samuel Pepys's young mistress has been unearthed by new research.
A lecturer at Leicester University has revealed Pepys and his mistress Deb Willet kept in contact after she was banished from his household.

His affair with the 17-year-old servant was recorded in one of the best-known episodes of his 17th Century journal.

Oxford University's main research library revealed that she later asked her former lover for help.

University of Leicester lecturer Kate Loveman said Deb's new husband asked Pepys, a naval officer, for help in finding a job and he found the man some work on a ship.

"Given Pepys's past obsession with Deb, his continued contact with her family raises suspicions about the nature of their relationship," Mrs Loveman said.

"He may have assisted Deb and her husband out of simple benevolence.

"However Pepys's wife was now dead, Deb was living close by, and Pepys knew she was without her husband - indeed he had helped send her husband elsewhere.

"The situation is particularly suspicious because Pepys's diary reveals that his affairs with women had more than once led to him helping their husbands to a position on board ship," she said.

Deb Willet died in 1678 when still a young woman.

The lecturer says her research, which involved trawling through the archives of Bodleian library, Oxford, sheds new light on the writer.

"Pepys describes in vivid terms his infatuation with 17-year-old Deb, his wife Elizabeth's discovery of the affair, and the strife which followed, including an episode when the jealous Elizabeth threatened him with hot tongs.

"After tracking Deb obsessively around London, Pepys eventually lost contact with her and, in his last diary entry in May 1669, regrets that 'my amours to Deb are past'."

Mrs Loveman's findings are published in the latest edition of The Historical Journal.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leic ... 051128.stm

...regrets that 'my amours to Deb are past'

Ah, I know the feeling!

 

[ramonmercado]

Pepys' history beyond the diary




Research carried out by a lecturer at the University of Leicester has uncovered a new twist in the tale of noted seventeenth century diarist, Samuel Pepys. Dr Kate Loveman, from the University’s Department of English, discovered new evidence relating to Pepys’ affair with his seventeen year old mistress, Deb Willet. Details of their sexual relationship have been recorded for posterity in Pepys’s famous journal but little was known of what happened to Deb once their affair had ended. Pepys records his infatuation wit his wife’s companion as well as the discovery of their affair, which resulted in him being threatened with hot tongs by his enraged spouse.

Then, in an entry from May 1669, he notes regretfully that ‘my amours to Deb are past. However Dr Loveman’s research, published in The Historical Journal seems to reveal that the two lovers in fact remained in close contact, long after Deb left Pepys’ household. Using records from the London archives and from Pepys’s papers in the Bodleian library, Dr Loveman traced a history showing that Deb Married a young Clergyman, Jeremiah Wells, eight months after leaving Pepys but that her husband later contacted her former lover asking for help in seeking employment.

As a navy official, Pepys was able to help Wells by getting him a job as a navy chaplain and Pepys continued to act as Wells’s patron throughout the 1670s. This generosity on the part of Pepys raises questions as to his true motives in helping his former lover and whether indeed the affair was ever terminated. “He may have assisted Deb and her husband out of simple benevolence.

However Pepys’s wife was now dead, Deb was living close by, and Pepys knew she was without her husband – indeed he had helped send her husband elsewhere.” Commented Dr Loveman. As well as being of interest to Pepys enthusiasts, Dr Loveman’s research sheds new light on the complex relationships of seventeenth century life; “Small case-studies like this allow us to build up a better picture of how individuals could rise in Restoration society through a combination of merit, diligence, and patronage.” (October 16th)

Charlie Cottrell

Pepys

 

[Timble2]

Yea, I'm not too sure on the source or where I heard it, it was just along the lines that he had some 'missing' or 'secret' diary (apart from the vast collection of ones known), that had some occult element. Sure it's nothing though.

It's in a game Nightmare Creatures, it's fiction.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

Sure it was Pepys? You couldn't have been thinking of Sir Isaac Newton by any chance? I believe his diaries evinced a profound interest and belief in matters alcehemical and cabbalistic...

I found myself wondering if Essex might not have been thinking of the diary of a certain Dr. John Dee.

 

[OldTimeRadio]

...and he does occasionally touch on matters Fortean.

Wasn't Pepys chummy with that notable proto-Fortean, the splendidly "idle fellow" John Aubrey?

 

[escargot]

Have a listen to a dramatised extract on R4 - The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Sam writes a letter to the Duke of York laying out his suggestions for reform of the Navy Board; the Duke is delighted and signs the letter as his own. Elizabeth is upset to hear that Sam has been gadding about while she's been away but that's nothing compared to what happens when she walks in on him in the act of fondling Debs, the maid.

A bit racy! :shock:

 

[Heckler]

I visited the Pepys library at Magdalene college in Cambridge in the summer, essentially his book collection (over 3000 volumes) arranged in locked glass fronted cupboards. Whilst perusing the titles on the spines I noticed he had a copy of a True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, which is the transcript of the conversations (often in Enochian) between Dee's medium Edward Kelley and Angels.

So in answer to the original poster it appears Pepys, who was a voracious bibliophile, was certainly interested in the Occult, what he made of the Dee volume obviously we don't know and as to whether this sparked a wider interest or was simple curiosity we also don't know.

 

[Timble2]

Have a listen to a dramatised extract on R4 - The Diary of Samuel Pepys

Sam writes a letter to the Duke of York laying out his suggestions for reform of the Navy Board; the Duke is delighted and signs the letter as his own. Elizabeth is upset to hear that Sam has been gadding about while she's been away but that's nothing compared to what happens when she walks in on him in the act of fondling Debs, the maid.

A bit racy! :shock:

They actually used the line "I was with my hand in her cunny." I suppose such rudeness is OK if the work is a Classic.

 

[escargot]

:lol: Well, I'm far too much of a lady to mention that.

 

[Anome]

I visited the Pepys library at Magdalene college in Cambridge in the summer, essentially his book collection (over 3000 volumes) arranged in locked glass fronted cupboards. Whilst perusing the titles on the spines I noticed he had a copy of a True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee and Some Spirits, which is the transcript of the conversations (often in Enochian) between Dee's medium Edward Kelley and Angels.

So in answer to the original poster it appears Pepys, who was a voracious bibliophile, was certainly interested in the Occult, what he made of the Dee volume obviously we don't know and as to whether this sparked a wider interest or was simple curiosity we also don't know.

This fascination, not just of Pepys but of other Enlightenment figures, has led to the curious bit of cataloguing in the British Museum. Dee's scrying ball, mirror, and other bits and pieces are in a cabinet as part of the Enlightenment Collection, rather than being with other Elizabethan relics. This doesn't make sense to me, as surely they should be in their own period, but the excuse given is that people in the Enlightenment were fascinated with this stuff.

I suspect they just didn't want to move the exhibit when they reorganised the cabinets, but I could be wrong.

 

[ramonmercado]

And now a coin.

A new £2 coin released to mark 350 years since Samuel Pepys' final diary entry could set collectors back £845.

The 17th Century diarist, famed for accounts of events such as the Great Fire of London and the Great Plague, features on the coin which will not enter general circulation. The coin is inscribed with words from Pepys' last diary entry on 31 May 1669.

Standard uncirculated coins are on sale for £10, while gold-proof versions are priced at £845, the Royal Mint said.

The coin's inscription - "The good God prepare me" - refers to Pepys' concern that writing in low light was causing him to go blind, Royal Mint researchers said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-47811547

 

[escargot]

They actually used the line "I was with my hand in her cunny." I suppose such rudeness is OK if the work is a Classic.

A bloke I work with has a surname which can be abbreviated to 'Cunny', which I do every single time I mention or address him.

 

[MrRING]

This may be of interest:

https://www.spookyisles.com/2017/08/samuel-pepys-paranormal/

 

[Mythopoeika]

A bloke I work with has a surname which can be abbreviated to 'Cunny', which I do every single time I mention or address him.

Is he a linguist?

 

[escargot]

Is he a linguist?

Not in my experience.

 

[Frideswide]

@MrRING great find there!

 

[Ringo]

This may be of interest:

https://www.spookyisles.com/2017/08/samuel-pepys-paranormal/

I stumbled upon some info yesterday regarding Pepys and the game "Light as a feather, Stiff as a board" but I see it's already mentioned in MrRING's post above. The variation he was told about (although did not observe) was changed later when it was published in a book called The Magicians Own Book.

 

[Frideswide]

the game "Light as a feather, Stiff as a board" but I see it's already mentioned in MrRING's post above.

Are you talking about the children playing example?

 

[blessmycottonsocks]

As in all things, we should bow to the wisdom of Benny Hill:

 

[Ringo]

Are you talking about the children playing example?

Yeah. It's now a fun/spooky party game that kids do at sleep overs where 4 of you try to lift a person using only two fingers. We do it sitting down now but it was originally done with a person lying down and pretending to be a dead body. (We still don't know how it works but it's probably a mixture of expectation and self-fulfilling prophecy). A friend of Pepys saw quite a small person being lifted so he called for his rather large and heavy cook to be lifted. And they (allegedly) lifted him.

 

[ramonmercado]

Sam's Plague Diary.

Viral News
Blogging the Great Plague of 1665.
By Samuel Pepys

FRIDAY, MARCH 27, 2020

It’s likely that nearly a hundred thousand people—a quarter of London—died during the Great Plague of 1665. Transmitted by flea-covered rats, the bubonic plague started with a fever, and its victims then erupted in boils on their groins, their armpits, seemingly anywhere uncomfortable for an abscess to appear. People usually died within a week of contracting the bacterial infection, vomiting up bile and blood until they expired. Thirty-two-year-old Samuel Pepys watched the plague ravage London, dutifully recording how the city emptied as he continued to work, socialize, and dream of assignations.

June 7, 1665

This day, much against my will, I did in Drury Lane see two or three houses marked with a red cross upon the doors, and “Lord have mercy upon us” writ there; which was a sad sight to me, being the first of the kind that, to my remembrance, I ever saw. It put me into an ill conception of myself and my smell, so that I was forced to buy some roll tobacco to smell and to chaw, which took away the apprehension.

June 10

Lay long in bed, and then up and at the office all the morning. At noon dined at home, and then to the office busy all the afternoon. In the evening home to supper; and there, to my great trouble, hear that the plague is come into the City (though it hath these three or four weeks since its beginning been wholly out of the City); but where should it begin but in my good friend and neighbor Dr. Burnett, in Fanchurch Street: which in both points troubles me mightily. To the office to finish my letters and then home to bed, being troubled at the sickness, and my head filled also with other business enough, and particularly how to put my things and estate in order, in case it should please God to call me away, which God dispose of to his glory!

https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/viral-news

 

[ramonmercado]

Sam was a Dude.

Engravings reveal Pepys' lifelong love of fashion​

Getty Images
Samuel Pepys' diary (1660 to 1669) and later collections of fashion plates show that fashion trends were as important to men as women in the 17th Century

A series of French fashion engravings reveal how Samuel Pepys remained fascinated by the power of fashion throughout his long life, according to a researcher.

Best known for his diaries, the tailor's son was also a bibliophile who bequeathed his large library to the University of Cambridge's Magdalene College. It included one of the largest bound collections of late 17th Century fashion prints in the world, eight of which are being published online for the first time.

Marlo Avidon's research suggests Pepys never shook off his "sense of anxiety" about dressing inappropriately for his station in life, despite his subsequent success.

"The need to be fashionable was very directed towards women, but in lots of ways men were just as susceptible, if not more," said Miss Avidon. She studied the collection as part of her PhD research into the role of fashion in identity construction of elite late 17th Century women.

"What is unique about Pepys is we have documentary evidence in his diary of an interest in fashion and also a sense of anxiety at a time when people could climb quite quickly into civil service and into court life," she said. "You need to dress the part to assert your place in society."

Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

Some of the prints Habit Noir (above) "were clearly not professionally coloured, they look amateurish", said Miss Avidon

Samuel Pepys' diary (1660 to 1669) shone a spotlight on Restoration London, covering the ups and downs of his marriage, as well as events such as Charles II's coronation and the Great Fire of London.

It included an episode in which Pepys was "afeared to be seen" in a summer suit he had just bought "because it was too fine with the gold lace at the hands".

He finally plucked up the courage to do so, only to be told by a socially superior colleague that the sleeves were above his station. He decided "never to appear in Court" with the sleeves and made a tailor cut them off.

Towards the end of his diary, the naval clerk (civil servant) was on the cusp of professional success. In the next decades he helped establish the Royal Navy, became an MP, was locked up in the Tower of London, elected the President of the Royal Society and died a prosperous man in 1703.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxe2xzxl5evo

 

[catseye]

Sam was a Dude.

Engravings reveal Pepys' lifelong love of fashion​

Getty Images
Samuel Pepys' diary (1660 to 1669) and later collections of fashion plates show that fashion trends were as important to men as women in the 17th Century

A series of French fashion engravings reveal how Samuel Pepys remained fascinated by the power of fashion throughout his long life, according to a researcher.

Best known for his diaries, the tailor's son was also a bibliophile who bequeathed his large library to the University of Cambridge's Magdalene College. It included one of the largest bound collections of late 17th Century fashion prints in the world, eight of which are being published online for the first time.

Marlo Avidon's research suggests Pepys never shook off his "sense of anxiety" about dressing inappropriately for his station in life, despite his subsequent success.

"The need to be fashionable was very directed towards women, but in lots of ways men were just as susceptible, if not more," said Miss Avidon. She studied the collection as part of her PhD research into the role of fashion in identity construction of elite late 17th Century women.

"What is unique about Pepys is we have documentary evidence in his diary of an interest in fashion and also a sense of anxiety at a time when people could climb quite quickly into civil service and into court life," she said. "You need to dress the part to assert your place in society."

Magdalene College, University of Cambridge

Some of the prints Habit Noir (above) "were clearly not professionally coloured, they look amateurish", said Miss Avidon

Samuel Pepys' diary (1660 to 1669) shone a spotlight on Restoration London, covering the ups and downs of his marriage, as well as events such as Charles II's coronation and the Great Fire of London.

It included an episode in which Pepys was "afeared to be seen" in a summer suit he had just bought "because it was too fine with the gold lace at the hands".

He finally plucked up the courage to do so, only to be told by a socially superior colleague that the sleeves were above his station. He decided "never to appear in Court" with the sleeves and made a tailor cut them off.

Towards the end of his diary, the naval clerk (civil servant) was on the cusp of professional success. In the next decades he helped establish the Royal Navy, became an MP, was locked up in the Tower of London, elected the President of the Royal Society and died a prosperous man in 1703.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxe2xzxl5evo

I think I remember something in his diaries about wigs as well - Pepys bought one and was a bit shy of wearing it?