FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

Erik Davis returns to Morbid Anatomy with a richly-illustrated discussion of his new book, Blotter: the Untold Story of an Acid Medium, a visually rich volume that explores the history, aesthetics, and media art dimensions of LSD blotter from its criminal origins to its current status as an "un-dipped" collectible. Davis argues that LSD blotter should be considered a unique medium, or meta-medium, one with links to countercultural print traditions (like underground comix), black market branding, subcultural signalling, and occult traditions of spiritual communication.

$35 - Tickets and more info HERE

This walking tour, released in conjunction with the book Mortimer and the Witches, will guide us through the bustling and elegant historically-rich streets of Union Square, Stuyvesant Square, and Gramercy Park. Mortimer Thomson—the journalist who wrote under the pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B.—went undercover in 1857 to investigate and report on the fortune tellers of New York City’s tenements and slums. On this tour, we will examine the lives of some of the marginalized fortune tellers, learn of the fascinating relatives and friends who surrounded him (including the Prince of Wales) and explore Thomson's peculiar and complicated biography.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

David Gill has spent the last twenty five years obsessed with the famed sci fi writer Philip K. Dick. Progressing from a fan, to a scholar, to an expert writing a biography, David's engagement with the notoriously strange and brilliant science fiction writer has shaped almost every aspect of his life for the past two decades, from becoming a creative writing major, to a graduate student in literature, to a teacher at San Francisco State University for the last eighteen years. On a deeper level, David's engagement with novels like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (later filmed as Blade Runner) and The Man in the High Castle (in which the Axis powers win World War II) has taught him everything from ethics to psychology to how to be a good person. Tonight, David will share the story of his journey as well as a bit of the wisdom gained. 

$35 - Tickets and more info HERE

Join Morbid Anatomy in the gorgeous and historic city of Naples, Italy for a day-long leap into the intersections of anatomy, art and embodiment at the magnificent MUSA Anatomy Museum of the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli” and the Ospedale della Pace, a former 16th century hospital for incurables, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Attendees will get to know the collections—and beyond!—via a symposium with illustrated lectures by international curators, scholars, and makers followed by guided tours of the museum, which presents over 3,000 items in Memento Mori-themed wooden showcases. Its most famous artifact is a humerus bone prepared by the revolutionary anatomist Vesalius, author of De humani corporis. It also features spectacular wax anatomical models from the 18th and 19th century, and a collection of human skulls stretching back to 1st Century BCE, some from excavations at Pompeii and Herculaneum.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

The Pakur Murder Case of 1933, in which a member of colonial India’s rural aristocracy killed his brother with an injection of plague germs, was a global sensation that exposed a more complex side of pre-Independence India than the Gandhi-centered narrative many Western readers may be familiar with. The murder took place against a backdrop of political assassinations, violently-suppressed protest, technological and consumer advances – and heaps of elite gaiety. To mark the release of his book The Prince and the Poisoner: The Murder that Rocked the British Raj, Dan Morrison will talk about a collision of murder, medicine and the movies that scandalized and titillated Jazz Age India, and explore the history of murder by microbe and the age-old practice of royal fratricide, with cameos from figures including Jawaharlal Nehru, Satyajit Ray, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. 

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members of Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above. Eligible members will receive a Zoom invitation in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member HERE.

Join us for a live video interview and Q and A, hosted by Morbid Anatomy founder and creative director Joanna Ebenstein, where we welcome special guest Taylor Manuel of Moth+MoonCommunity, a multidisciplinary artist and grief worker who is currently living in Portland, Maine. She is the creator of Grief Deck, a handmade oracle card deck drawing on Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ stages of grieving, and combining them with bold images and planetary energies to employ creativity in supporting the grieving process. She volunteers as a grief group facilitator for adults and children and offers practical, organizational, and emotional support for people who are in transitions such as childbirth, moving, loss of job, illness, and death. Attendees are encouraged to ask questions and engage in discussion with the speaker!

POSTPONED; NEW DATE TO COME

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

The false teeth of a female serial killer from 1908, the cut-and-paste confession of the Black Dahlia killer, the shotgun used in the Clutter family murders, which were made famous by Truman Capote's true crime classic In Cold Blood—these are more than simple artifacts that once belonged to notorious murderers. They are objets of fascination to a legion of true crime obsessives around the world. And not merely for fleeting dark thrills, but because they represent a way to better understand those who we typically label monsters in lieu of learning how they actually became one. Join us to celebrate the release of Murderabilia, by veteran true crime writer Harold Schechter, which presents 100 murder-related artifacts spanning two centuries.

The Morbid Anatomy Library houses hundreds of books and artifacts for your edification and pleasure. The giftshop features signed books, used and antique books, t-shirts, tote bags, and sundry artifacts from around the world.

We are part of the Industry City complex, which is just 20 minutes from Manhattan, located on the Brooklyn waterfront. The main entrance is located at 220 36th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For entry, meet our volunteer docents every half hour (on the half hour) in front of the elevator next to Ends Meat Butcher Shop.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

In the 19th century, humor writer Mortimer Thomson went undercover to investigate and report on the fortune tellers of New York City’s tenements and slums. When his articles were published, they catalyzed a series of arrests that both scandalized and delighted the public. But Mortimer was guarding some secrets of his own, and in many ways, his own life paralleled the lives of the women he both visited and vilified. In Mortimer and the Witches, author Marie Carter examines the lives of these marginalized fortune tellers while also detailing Mortimer Thomson’s peculiar and complicated biography. Tonight, join author and Boroughs of the Dead tour guide Marie Carter will give a talk about the inspiration for the book, some of the characters who inspired the story, as well as some of the New York City locations for the book.

We are very sorry to announce that today – Saturday, Feb 17 – the Morbid Anatomy library will be closed due to unforeseen circumstances. Please accept our sincere apologies, especially for the last-minute notice. We hope to see you next week!

The Morbid Anatomy Library houses hundreds of books and artifacts for your edification and pleasure. The giftshop features signed books, used and antique books, t-shirts, tote bags, and sundry artifacts from around the world.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

What can paranormal events, magical conversations, and nonordinary realities teach us about transformation–on both individual and collective levels? What new forms of social justice, new types of research, and new ways of living emerge when we take seriously spirit-informed investigations and other forms of esoteric knowledge production? In short, how do we cultivate and enact that which conventional wisdom has labeled and dismissed as “impossible”? Drawing on the work of Gloria Anzaldúa—a key figure in the creation of Border Studies and queer theory—as well as her own oracular research, Dr. AnaLouise Keating explores these and related questions.

$8 - Tickets and more info HERE

Researcher Katrina Makkouk will investigate modernist poet Ezra Pound’s Pisan Cantos, written in incarceration right after WW2, in the context of the occult inspiration from his early mentor, W.B. Yeats, and the uses of practices of magic. Carl Abrahamsson explores the symbiotic friendship between Pound and James Laughlin, highlighting how the author’s fame and influence intertwined with the publisher’s dedication to championing radical modernist literature and poetry, and illuminates the profound impact these two figures had on each other and the literary landscape of their time.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon Members at the $10/above levels; eligible members will get an invitation in their Patreon inbox. Become a member HERE.

We hope you’ll join us for a Morbid Anatomy Show and Tell cocktail party! Get a rare peek at the private collections of Founder and Creative Director Joanna Ebenstein and Marketing Director Cristina Marcelo. We also invite you to share an object or artifact of your own, while meeting and enjoying a virtual cocktail with others in the Morbid Anatomy Community.

The Morbid Anatomy Library houses hundreds of books and artifacts for your edification and pleasure. The giftshop features signed books, used and antique books, t-shirts, tote bags, and sundry artifacts from around the world.

We are part of the Industry City complex, which is just 20 minutes from Manhattan, located on the Brooklyn waterfront. The main entrance is located at 220 36th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For entry, meet our volunteer docents every half hour (on the half hour) in front of the elevator next to Ends Meat Butcher Shop.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

Join us tonight as we welcome author and photographer Andrew Garn for a celebration of Brooklyn’s historic Green-Wood Cemetery. Through Garn’s stunning and somber photographs, as well as rarely seen archival ephemera, this New York City treasure will be brought to life as a garden in the city, a repository for memory, and a place for repose, inspiration, and delight. 

$8 - Tickets and more info HERE

Perfume doesn’t always have to be sweetness and light—in fact, it’s often more interesting when it has a shadowy side. The same goes for perfume advertising. In this presentation, we’ll take a closer look at a selection of mysterious and macabre perfume ads. How does each image bring out the sinister or magical side of scent—through language, visual strategies, cultural references, or other tactics? Is the scare-factor sincere or humorous? And why does the evocation of an eerie aroma hold such a strange power over us? Tonight, Join art historian and fragrance writer Jessica Murphy for a close look at perfume advertising with a sinister edge.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members of Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above. Eligible members will receive a Zoom invitation in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member HERE.

Hope to see you at this free, informal, online monthly meetup devoted to open and non-judgemental conversations about death with likeminded people from around the world. Any related topic is welcome. This week's suggested watching James Rowe’s recent talk “Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital,” a recording of which you can watch here.

$8 - Tickets and more info HERE

The Sola-Busca tarocchi is a 15th-century Italian deck of gaming cards. It is the earliest complete deck of tarot cards in existence, and to this day remains one of the most artistically accomplished, beautiful and unusual artifacts to have emerged from Renaissance elite circles. This lecture will demonstrate how to interpret the deck’s various layers of meaning, and the methods of encryption and decryption employed.

The Morbid Anatomy Library houses hundreds of books and artifacts for your edification and pleasure. The giftshop features signed books, used and antique books, t-shirts, tote bags, and sundry artifacts from around the world.

We are part of the Industry City complex, which is just 20 minutes from Manhattan, located on the Brooklyn waterfront. The main entrance is located at 220 36th Street, Brooklyn, NY 11232.

IMPORTANT NOTE: For entry, meet our volunteer docents every half hour (on the half hour) in front of the elevator next to Ends Meat Butcher Shop.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members of Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above. Eligible members will receive a Zoom invitation in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member HERE.

In eastern esoteric spiritual traditions, life is ultimately seen as an occasion to practice and prepare one for death. Death Meditation is an ongoing guided meditation practice familiarizing participants, regardless of religious or spiritual background, with a feeling-based awareness of themselves. This awareness will be strengthened through mindfulness and guided meditation with the aim of awakening one’s inner-guide to assist us as we pass between life and death.

$8 - Tickets and more info HERE

An underground stream runs throughout the history of esotericism and counterculture in the West that receives little attention but greatly influenced Plato, the troubadours, Dante, the Italian Renaissance, opera, Agrippa, Shakespeare, the English Romantic poets, the Parisian magus Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley, Jean Cocteau, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jack Kerouac, Jim Morrison, and the current Broadway hit musical Hadestown, to name only a few. This talk will explore the mysterious world of Orpheus and the so-called Orphic death passports—passwords written on gold leaf intended to remind the dead of what to say when reaching the afterlife

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members of Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above. Eligible members will receive a Zoom invitation in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member HERE.

In eastern esoteric spiritual traditions, life is ultimately seen as an occasion to practice and prepare one for death. Death Meditation is an ongoing guided meditation practice familiarizing participants, regardless of religious or spiritual background, with a feeling-based awareness of themselves. This awareness will be strengthened through mindfulness and guided meditation with the aim of awakening one’s inner-guide to assist us as we pass between life and death. Image: Corpse Meditation Murals at Wat Um Long (in Thoen, Lampang province, Thailand).

FREE at Brooklyn, New York’s Industry City; Learn more and RSVP HERE

Tonight, join us as we raise a glass to our beloved friend Mel Gordon (1947-2018) in celebration of his posthumous book Cabarets of Death: Dance and Dining in Early Twentieth-Century Paris. Editor Joanna Ebenstein will video in to share a few words about Mel and the book, director Ronni Thomas will screen a short film about Mel, copies of Cabarets of Death will be available for sale, and the Morbid Anatomy Library will be open with a special mini-exhibit of our Mel Gordon holdings.

$20 - Tickets and more info HERE (Free with purchase of Cabarets of Death deluxe package)

Mel Gordon was a beloved member of the Morbid Anatomy community; he also served as a mentor to our founder Joanna Ebenstein. When he died in 2018, the two were collaborating on a book about the Parisian fin-de-siècle nightclubs called “The Cabarets of Death. Tonight, we will celebrate Mel Gordon’s legacy, focusing on the posthumous publication of his Cabarets of Death with the book’s editor, Morbid Anatomy founder Joanna Ebenstein, the screening of a short film by Ronni Thomas, a feature-length illustrated lecture by Morbid Anatomy European Attaché Eleanor Crook exploring the dark history of morbid popular rites and entertainments, and special guests.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

Join James Rowe of the University of Victoria as he introduces his new book Radical Mindfulness: Why Transforming Fear of Death is Politically Vital, which examines the root causes of injustice, asking why inequalities along the lines of race, class, gender, and species continue to exist. Rowe examines fear of death as a root cause of systemic inequalities and proposes a more embodied approach to social change as a solution, drawing on powerful thinkers across multiple traditions—including Black radicals, Indigenous resurgence theorists, terror management theorists, and Buddhist feminists.

FREE - RSVP and more info HERE

God proposes the challenge of the millennium: if Satan sorts out the ever growing human mess on Earth, God will lovingly take him back to Heaven as his favorite Archangel. Satan accepts, and sets out on a massive operation to balance out over-population, pollution, corruption, and other severely Satanic headaches – many of which he originally helped create… Easier said than done! Join author Carl Abrahamsson as he takes the audience on a cosmic journey based on his swashbuckling apocalyptic novel. Beginning with a tale as old as time, Abrahamsson brings God, Lucifer, Galatea, and the Archangels to life as they run into characters such as Ambrose Bierce, Niccolo Machiavelli, and some carefree Russian oligarchs. ”It’s not easy being Evil in a world that’s gone to Hell!”

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

In ancient Greece the Muses were goddesses of inspiration for artists and musicians and have remained powerful metaphors of the creative process in the contemporary world. This presentation, by Dr. Diana Walsh Pasulka, Religious Studies Professor at University of North Carolina and author of American Cosmic, will go beyond the metaphoric interpretation and explores instances when these goddesses were perceived as real, exploring even contemporary research into extreme creativity that reveals that the human brain believes it is being used by “external agents” to create culture-changing products and creations.

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

For decades, extraterrestrial life and UFOs have captured our imaginations, sparking a wealth of conspiracy theories, sci-fi blockbusters, scientific studies, and even a series of recent congressional hearings! Historian Marc Hartzman separates fact from fiction in his new book We Are Not Alone: The Extraordinary History of UFOs and Aliens Invading Our Hopes, Fears, and Fantasies. In this illustrated talk, Hartzman will offer a brief history of the modern UFO phenomenon and how we’ve gotten to where we are today, discuss various perspectives from experiencers and scientists on extraterrestrial possibilities, and share his experiences in creating We Are Not Alone.

Image by Dan Zetterström

FREE! Learn more and RSVP HERE

We hope you’ll join us in London to celebrate to launch our new book Cabarets of Death, authored by Mel Gordon and edited by Joanna Ebenstein. An enchanting evening awaits! You will have a chance to contribute to London’s Largest Tear Catcher and indulge in an array of delicious, deathly-inspired cocktails crafted exclusively for Cry January by Bompas & Parr and The Last Tuesday Society. Join us for an unforgettable celebration! Please RSVP with your chosen exit funeral song to hear on our curated final curtain playlist.