We're delighted that our mystical spell for a wishing well (which debuted in Fiddler's Green magazine, no.4) inspired a magical presentation by renowned mentalist Mark Edward for his book of mysterious séance magic, Total Darkness.

From the rare (over $900 on Amazon) Ghosts and Spirits of Many Lands by Freya Littledale and illustrated by Stefan Martin.

"Apple pie!"  From Fisher Junior's 1966 yearbook.

If we were to quibble about Drunk: The Definitive Drinker's Dictionary ("O ascetic, go, and don’t quibble with those who drink the dregs," Hafez said), it would be over the fact that the book is in fact a glossary and not a dictionary, though author Paul Dickson, as a consulting editor for Merriam-Webster, would already know that.  Having compiled glossaries ourselves, we get the predicament: if every entry has the same definition (in this case, "drunk"), the entries might as well stand unadorned.  The illustrations by Brian Rea make the impressive glossary even more charming.  Can you guess the entry for this illustration?

From Kansas State's 1935 yearbook.

From Iuvenal, 1906.

From Lustige Blätter, 1903.

From No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club, by Virginia Ironside:

From Ye Sundial Booke by T. Geoffrey Henslow, 1914.

Though yarn hair, not mop hair, is most appropriate for a Raggedy Ann & Andy look, we're going to let this transgression pass.  From Mount Wachusett's 1972 yearbook.

The Marx Bros. as puppets pulling an ink volcano.  From The Film Daily, 1932.

Surprisingly, this page from a religious college's yearbook revises the Bible, changing "through a glass, darkly" (1 Corinthians 13) to "brightly," a revision used by anti-religionists.  (There's even a book with this revision as its title: Through a Glass Brightly: Using Science to See Our Species as We Really Are.)  Unable to control themselves, the yearbook editors ran with the revisionism and brought coffee into it: "Through a glass warmly."  From Mount Olive's 1963 yearbook.

Here's a precursor to How to Believe in Your Elf.  From Sandman Twilight Stories by Abbie Phillips Walker and illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase, 1918.

People turn into numbers in the endpapers of Northeastern's 1984 yearbook.

From Photoplay Magazine, 1920.

Finally, an explanation we can understand -- "Math a world of numbers."  From Charleston Southern's 1972 yearbook.  See Presumptive Conundrums: Rhetorical Math Questions + Answers.

It's true that "somebody has to write the headlines," but if only it could be somebody else.  From The Gateway, 1976.

There are zero Google Books results for "writing with spilled ink."  Yet it's how we compose all of our own books.  From Purdue's 1907 yearbook.

From Puss In Boots, Jr. In New Mother Goose Land by David Cory, 1920.

This is fighting talk.  From Amazing Stories, 1932.

"Not every mask is easily shed, and the last masks to come off are the ones that are terror-driven" (Steven Carter).  From Susquehanna's 1979 yearbook.

"Arnott biscuits are holding hands and dancing around a fairy that is playing a violin.  A parrot is on a perch watching the proceedings."  Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.

Memories of college.  From Brevard's 1980 yearbook.

From Motion Picture Magazine, 1922.

This ad is factual -- unlike computer keyboards, typewriters gave typists the soaring ability of winged horses.  Later generations wouldn't know what they were missing.  From Cine-Mundial, 1929.

Mermaids tend to test out of swimming class.  From Western State Normal School's 1920 yearbook.

She asked a bear for a penny.  From A Book of Fairy-Tale Bears by Clifton Johnson and illustrated by Frank A. Nankivell, 1913.

Here's a good exit line, from Dark Shadows episode 801.  "Perhaps I'll be back in a little while; then I'll undo some of the mischief I shall be blamed for."

The most unlikely pairings of photos to college departments that we've encountered to date.  Or are they the most perfect pairings?  From Missouri Southern's 1971 yearbook.

To this day, this phrase is a Googlewhack: "Love moves among the symbols with the wand of awakening."  From The Martlet, 1970.

"Spires whose 'silent finger points to heaven' —Wordsworth."  From Wake Forest's 1953 yearbook.

From A Portion For Foxes by Jane McIlvaine McClary.

Today's card tricking oboe who improvises nonsense phrases is from The Martlet, 1974.  (Magicians, especially, will have noticed the extra joke embedded in this: how the oboe has cheated in his card trick.)  That last panel, with the nonsense phrases, touches upon an occult secret that modern stage magicians have now forgotten, to the detriment of their careers.  Nonsense phrases, like the babbled syllables of the Ancient Egyptian wizards, the priestesses of the Delphic oracle, and the stage magicians of old (when "abracadabra" wasn't a cliché) profoundly affect the brain by instilling an altered state of consciousness.  Dr. Raymond Moody recently published his findings on the influence of nonsense and further explained why he has clients read a page of a Dr. Seuss book as preparation for a mind-bending experience within a Psychomanteum (Moody's version of the Necromanteion of Acheron).  Yes, a magician (whether on stage or in an occult setting) who utters hocus pocus gives those present a more extraordinary experience, from within their own brains.  Though the oboe magician in the comic panel cheats at its own card tricks, it knows how to perform genuine magic.  See Magic Words: A Dictionary.

"Not according to Dante."  From Unknown, 1941.

From Lumières Dans la Nuit, 1969.

"Science discovers a creator."  From Awake magazine, 1958.

The water-lily's lover.  From Sandman Twilight Stories by Abbie Phillips Walker and illustrated by Rhoda C. Chase, 1918.

A cleverly-designed hourglass / graduate.  From St. Joseph's 1988 yearbook.

Ann Forrest, in Motion Picture Magazine, 1922.

It has been foreseen -- "there will be a meeting."  From Kansas State's 1948 yearbook.

Today they are derided, but here's a tin-foil hat as part of a fashion ensemble.  From "The Daze of Ancient Rome" by Paul Sillivan, in Duquesne Monthly, 1922.

Our custom widget that checks for duplicated images suggested this unlikely pairing.  Click each image for its source.

"New visions appear, some haunting … into the night."  From Palm Beach's 1970 yearbook.

From Lustige Blätter, 1906.

From Pfeiffer's 1973 yearbook.  See Of Feeding & Caring For Sheet Ghosts.

From Making Up with Mr. Dog by Albert Bigelow Paine and illustrated by J. M. Paine, 1901.

Last we checked, this book is going for over a thousand dollars on Amazon.  From In City and Country by Nila Banton Smith, 1938.

What did I expect the front page story to be, when it's from the home of mesh bags?  A rather fetishistic tribute to the fascinating gleaming silken texture of mesh bags.  From Wadco News, 1922.

From Hollins College's 1920 yearbook.  See How to Hoodoo Hack a Yearbook.

Yeah, we've had that meal ... only they never did bring any of those little moist finger towels, and we were like, WTF?  From The Unicorn Window by Lynette Muir and illustrated by Pauline Baynes.

"Our lives are one long continuous crisis."  From Dark Shadows episode 789.

Temporal anomaly investigator Andrew Gustar spotted this clock tower in Ambleside, England, where it's simultaneously 7:20 and 2:25.  Without more context, we can't diagnose the issue, but not everything needs a tidy explanation.  

Is the skull saying that Hamlet should combine being and nothingness?  From Wid's Daily, 1919.

Those things surprise me every time, too.  From Amazing Stories, 1932.

"Got Weed" is actually "Go Tweed," at least officially.  From Mary Washington's 1961 yearbook.

"Portrait of Rhonda Kelly [Miss Australia] by artist Caroline Barker, 1945."  Courtesy of the State Library of Queensland.

From Costumes and Scenery for Amateurs by Constance D'Archy Mackay, 1915.

Boxing wasn't always brutish.  From Cine-Mundial, 1926.

From Lustige Blätter, 1916.

A ray emanates from the third eye chakra.  From Evansville's 1983 yearbook (top).  Lest one think this was a fluke, we noticed an eerily similar phenomenon in the Francis Marion yearbook of 1979 (bottom).

In another yearbook, we spotted a drawing of the same phenomenon.

From Ye Sundial Booke by T. Geoffrey Henslow, 1914.