Episode 161: Scene of the Crime: On Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell’s ’From Hell’

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