Join us at The Morbid Anatomy Library to read some or our many books, marvel at our collection of curiosities, and peruse our gift shop. Today, we also invite you to take part in an informal tarot salon during opening hours, in which we’ll share, enjoy, and discuss readings and interpretations in a friendly and non-competitive atmosphere. This free event is for curious fans, enthusiasts, dedicated scholars, and for those who just want to learn more about tarot from other tarot enthusiasts. Bring your own deck or use the display decks from our tarot shop.

Insects surround us. They fuel life on Earth through their roles as pollinators, decomposers, predators, and prey, but rarely do we consider the outsize influence they have had on our culture and civilization. Their anatomy and habits inform how we live, work, create art, and innovate. Our world would look very different without insects, not just because they are crucial to our ecosystems, but because they have shaped and inspired so many aspects of what makes us human. IIn this image-filled presentation by entomologist Barrett Klein, we will explore the overt and hidden ways in which our insect neighbors augment and shape our lives.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Danse Macabre and above levels; eligible members will receive a Zoom invitation in their Patreon inbox. Become a member HERE.

Grab a drink and join us to share your own (or listen to others’) mysterious encounters—be they ghost stories, uncanny synchronicities, or unusual happenings—with other members of the Morbid Anatomy community around the world.

Reiki is most often translated as universal energy, the essential quality that makes something alive. When this vital energy is amplified, it creates conditions for healing and nourishment, and allows us to engage with questions surrounding life, death, and what lies beyond. This online monthly group provides a therapeutic application of Reiki for moving through grief and loss. Mikella draws upon her 15+ years of grief counseling experience to introduce a theme for each group related to various tasks or stages of the grieving process.

The Morbid Anatomy Library houses an extensive collection of image-heavy books exploring death in art and culture, anatomical art, Latin American art and culture, collectors and collecting, sexology, the uncanny, decadence, horror and atrocity, the gothic, circus and sideshow, and the occult. You will also find an idiosyncratic collection of art, artifacts and curiosities from around the world and a gift shop filled with strange, rare and wonderful objects including signed and vintage books, obscure tarot decks, antique Mexican retablos, and magical and devotional objects from around the world.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member here.

Join Elisabeth Brander—Director of the Center for the History of Medicine and Head of Rare Books Bernard Becker Library at Washington University—for a exclusive peek into the hidden treasure of her institute’s collection.

Free to members of the Morbid Anatomy Patreon at Joanna’s Psychopomp level, Oracle Level and above. Become a member here.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

Join us at The Morbid Anatomy Library to read some or our many books, marvel at our collection of curiosities, and peruse our gift shop. Today, we also invite you to take part in an informal tarot salon during opening hours, in which we’ll share, enjoy, and discuss readings and interpretations in a friendly and non-competitive atmosphere. This free event is for curious fans, enthusiasts, dedicated scholars, and for those who just want to learn more about tarot from other tarot enthusiasts. Bring your own deck or use the display decks from our tarot shop.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link 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.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon Members at the Memento Mori ($5/month) and above levels. Eligible members will get an invitation in their Patreon inbox. Become a member here.

Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide to the Dead by Morbid Anatomy Medium in Residence Tiffany Hopkins is the culmination of seven years exploring the mysterious, culturally ambivalent practice of mediumship. Drawing on her own journey, which began after inheriting a cottage in Lily Dale—the world-famous Spiritualist community—Hopkins blends personal experience with practical guidance for connecting with the dead. The book offers both intellectual foundations and heart-centered tools, inviting readers to explore the liminal space between life and death. Today, join author and Morbid Anatomy Medium in Residence Tiffany Hopkins for a discussion of the book.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member here.

Join our founder Joanna Ebenstein for a special viewing of Bowery at Midnight with Bela Lugosi (1942), a cult classic crime-horror film starring Bela Lugosi that blends elements of suspense, horror, and noir. Lugosi stars as Dr. Karl Wagner (also known as Professor Brenner), a respected psychology professor by day who operates a Bowery soup kitchen by night. Wagner also leads a criminal gang, using the kitchen to recruit desperate men for robberies and then disposing of them once they’ve served their purpose. The film’s horror twist comes as Wagner’s accomplice (an unhinged doctor) revives these murdered henchmen as zombie-like minions, culminating in a tense and macabre finale.

Winter Solstice, around December 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, is the shortest day of the year — the moment when the sun’s daily arc in the sky is at its lowest. After the solstice, the daylight begins to increase. Because it’s the deepest point of night, many traditions view the Winter Solstice as a time of stillness, introspection, gestation, and mystery. It is also a turning point — the sun’s “rebirth” after the longest, darkest night. Join mythologist and ritualist Dr. Selena Madden for this free, communal ritual — which will involve writing, releasing, candle-lighting, and mythic invocation —to celebrate this special day.

The Gothic is all around us. Isolated mansions, trauma-ridden specters, macabre love, and entrapped women are pervasive archetypes that tune into our hidden fears, cultural anxieties, and forbidden desires. Though primarily associated with fiction, literature, and film, these archetypes also appear in "true" stories in American ghost lore. America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger Than Fiction by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes is a tour through the uncanny tales of real people and settings that exude that elusive Gothic vibe. Dim the lights, curl up with a mug of something warming, and discover the history that truly is stranger than fiction in this illustrated talk that's perfect for a dark winter evening. 

As early as the 12th century, European artists imagined the entrance to Hell as a monstrous mouth devouring the damned. In this vividly illustrated talk with art historian Brenda Edgar, we’ll explore how gluttony—one of the seven deadly sins—was visualized from the Middle Ages through the Baroque, with overeaters condemned to eternal digestion by beasts like Cerberus or Satan himself. From force-feeding to infernal feasting, join us for a deep dive into the dark, digestive symbolism of Hell in European art.

Pilfering bodies from graveyards to study human anatomy has long presented a moral conundrum. This presentation, based on the speaker's forthcoming book The Doctors’ Riot of 1788: Body Snatching, Bloodletting, and Anatomy in America explores a deadly riot in NYC in which the public attacked doctors and anatomy students for stealing bodies from the Trinity Church cemetery. This talk will focus on body snatching in earlier centuries as well as what the speaker calls modernized body snatching in the United States. Participants will be challenged to address the central question: After all this time, why haven’t we found a way to ensure our own dignity after death?

Join Lauren Seeley—death care worker and death literacy advocate, as well as the facilitator for the Silent Book Club Of Death NYC Chapter—at Brooklyn’s Morbid Anatomy Library for a night in which we read silently about death/grief/mortality followed by a game of The Death Deck. Following, there will be an open discussion and reflection where guests will have the opportunity to share their findings and feelings about mortality. Refreshments will be included.

In this talk, we will trace how Jean Erdman explored mythology itself as an embodied creative practice that could encompass dance, live performance, literary adaptation, and visual art, simultaneously. Utilizing archival materials related to the creation and performance of "The Coach," we will look at the work's genesis and consider its deeper thematic resonances, and see how the production offers us a new window into how death, grief, and the soul's journey through the underworld via the embodied mythological language of movement and choreography.

Reiki is most often translated as universal energy, the essential quality that makes something alive. When this vital energy is amplified, it creates conditions for healing and nourishment, and allows us to engage with questions surrounding life, death, and what lies beyond. This online monthly group provides a therapeutic application of Reiki for moving through grief and loss. Mikella draws upon her 15+ years of grief counseling experience to introduce a theme for each group related to various tasks or stages of the grieving process.

In January 1906, a Swedish artist named Hilma af Klint began to receive requests from spirits during séances to create a series of paintings which would depict the spiritual plane. These spirits—named Amaliel, Gregor, and Ananda—were conveying messages to her from the ‘High Ones’. Af Klint wrote in her notebooks “I am so small, I am so insignificant but the force that flows through me is so powerful that I must go forward.” And in another passage: “The experiments I have undertaken…will astound humanity.” Hilma saw this series of paintings as the most important work of her life. But the nonrepresentational and abstract style of the works was decades ahead of its time. What is the spiritual message of Hilma’s Paintings for the Temple series? And how do we understand the intersection between spirituality and art? That is the ambitious purpose of this presentation.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with the goddess of love herself—Aphrodite. Though famed in myth for her beauty, it wasn’t until the sculptor Praxiteles broke tradition that the female nude was fully embraced in Greek art. In this vividly illustrated talk, art historian Brenda Edgar explores the cultural, artistic, and gender revolutions sparked by the Aphrodite of Knidos—the first life-size nude of a woman in ancient Greece and the ancient world’s most famous divine sex symbol. Come for the art history, stay for the goddess’s legendary backside.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

The fear of our bodies as mutating, monstrous death traps is a cultural obsession with a lineage stretching back far further than Cronenberg. Plato called the body a tomb and a prison, Medieval Christians likened it to a sack of worms; while the Buddha is said to have urged his followers to scorn it as a diseased mass of wounds. Simultaneously, women have been categorized as the corporeal class, more fleshly – and more deathly – than the male. Why has the horrific body been women's burden to bear, and how has the charge of female bodiliness been used to justify social inequality, exploitation, and violence? This talk will offer a radical feminist dissection of the body horror that plagues manmade culture, of men's immortal dreams of disincarnation and their bloodyminded nightmares of carnal womanhood. 

The alter ego is a gateway to the glittering, rebellious world of underground nightlife, where drag artists, club kids, and cabaret misfits transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. This tradition of radical self-invention—seen in icons like Klaus Nomi, Divine, and the Club Kids—celebrates the bizarre and the beautiful, turning nightlife into a stage for personal and artistic liberation. With wild costumes, bold personas, and a spirit of defiance, these scenes invite us to break free from convention and embrace our most creative selves. Join artist Le Pustra for a lively discussion on the transformative power of alter egos in nightlife and cabaret, and hear about his own evolution from outsider to living work of art.

Reiki is most often translated as universal energy, the essential quality that makes something alive. When this vital energy is amplified, it creates conditions for healing and nourishment, and allows us to engage with questions surrounding life, death, and what lies beyond. This online monthly group provides a therapeutic application of Reiki for moving through grief and loss. Mikella draws upon her 15+ years of grief counseling experience to introduce a theme for each group related to various tasks or stages of the grieving process.

The Book of Revelation—St. John’s mystic vision from the island of Patmos—has inspired some of the most awe-inspiring and terrifying works in European Medieval and Renaissance art. From jewel-studded visions of the Heavenly Jerusalem to the monstrous maws of Hell, artists brought the Apocalypse to life with astonishing detail. Join art historian Brenda Edgar for a lavishly illustrated talk exploring how painters and sculptors visualized divine judgment, celestial glory, and demonic chaos. You’ll never see locusts the same way again.

Losing a beloved pet or person is incredibly difficult. We can keep them close through veneration, in which we tell their stories, listen to their favorite songs, or create art in their honor. We can also create memorial dioramas—small altars or shrines to memorialize our beloveds and their lives, so that they can be gone but not forgotten. In this daylong workshop, we will—with guidance and support from death doula Lauren Seeley—create our own memorial dioramas for a dead loved one. We will also learn about the importance of memorializing, honoring those who have gone, and creating in our grief, as well as the history of altars, shrines, and preservation both in public and private spaces.

Free to members of the Morbid Anatomy Patreon at Joanna’s Psychopomp level, Oracle Level and above. Become a member here.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

This Spring Equinox, join us for a special event designed to cultivate community and plant the seeds of intention through meditations, poetry, and a creative project. Using the myth of Persephone and her return from the underworld as our guide, we will begin with a grounding meditation exploring the relationship between death and new growth. We will meet Hecate—the goddess of magic, witchcraft, and crossroads—who guides Persephone between the realms of the dead and the living. We will be introduced to Persephone’s mother Demeter and her jovial guest Baubo, whose jokes will usher in the springtime’s flowering. Finally, we will learn along with Triptolemus—patron of agriculture—to plant seeds and prepare for the seasons.  

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link 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.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member here.

The Psychopomp Salon is a thematic presentation/meetup that will explore—via images, words, and group discussion—areas of our founder Joanna Ebenstein's research and travels. This month, we’ll focus on El Tío, a folk deity found in the mines of Bolivia who can either grant you unimaginable wealth or destroy you. Ebenstein will share never before shown photos form her travels, and introduce you to the rich and violent history behind these figure, revolving around a mountain that produced enough silver to form a bridge between Bolivia and Seville, and killed enough men to to create the same bridge in bones.

Before the printing press, every book was made by hand—often on parchment crafted from animal skin. In this richly illustrated talk with art historian Brenda Edgar, we’ll explore medieval illuminated manuscripts as both sacred texts and physical objects, tracing how quirks of flesh, hair, and even belly buttons shaped the page itself. From shimmering decoration to theological meaning, join us for a journey into the luminous, otherworldly beauty of the handmade book.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon Members at the Danse Macabre ($10/mo) and 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. 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.

In the 1920s, archaeologists uncovered over 1,000 ancient Sumerian graves in Ur, southern Iraq—including royal tombs filled with gold, musical instruments, and the remains of attendants who died in ritual sacrifice. In this richly illustrated lecture with art historian Brenda Edgar, we’ll explore what these grave goods and burial practices reveal about the beliefs of the world’s first civilizations. From the deadly rites of Sumer to the jewel-filled tombs of Assyrian queens, join us for a journey into the ancient rituals of death, royalty, and the afterlife.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

FREE to Morbid Anatomy Patreon members at Oracle & Joanna’s Psychopomp Salon ($15/mo) and above levels. Eligible members will receive a viewing link in their Patreon inbox on the day of the event. Become a member here.

The Psychopomp Salon is a thematic presentation/meetup that will explore—via images, words, and group discussion—areas of our founder Joanna Ebenstein's research and travels. This month, we’ll focus on Ebenstein and her husband Bryan Melillo’s recent trip to India, and especially her month spent in Varanasi—one of the oldest cities on earth and the center for death rituals in that country.

Only about 25 works survive by the late Flemish master Hieronymus Bosch, but their surreal visions have captivated viewers for centuries. In this enchantingly illustrated talk with art historian Brenda Edgar, we’ll explore Bosch’s fantastical depictions of Earth, Heaven, and Hell—where giant strawberries, pearl-laying bodies, and dreamlike landscapes collide. We’ll also trace his influence on later artists, from the Renaissance to the Surrealists, including Magritte and Dalí, who saw in Bosch a visionary ahead of his time.

Free to members of the Morbid Anatomy Patreon at Joanna’s Psychopomp level, Oracle Level and above. Become a member here.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

Free to members of the Morbid Anatomy Patreon at Joanna’s Psychopomp level, Oracle Level and above. Become a member here.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.

For centuries, artists and makers have sought to reach beyond the everyday in order to create in communion with the depths of the unconscious, the divine, and the dead. Join Tiffany Hopkins, author of Beyond: A Living Person’s Guide To The Dead, for a seasonal art-making circle that begins with meditation to shift us into a receptive state. We’ll then create in our chosen mediums, and close each session with the opportunity for participants to share outcomes, experiences, and observations.