Digital Event Type: Zoom Lecture

More Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore – Lena Heide-Brennand

A follow-up lecture on more of the magical, mysterious and scary creatures we meet in Scandinavian folklore that we did not have time to introduce you to in the first lecture. This time we will get to know the legendary Kraken, the good and evil little Vette, the dangerous Draugen and the eerie Mare, in addition to a the more famous Icelandic elves (Álfafólk). We will take a close look at the origin of these characters that have haunted and scared the Scandinavian people through centuries, and there will be spine chills guarantees when myths meet tales claiming to be based on true stories re-told by those very few individuals who were lucky enough to survive an encountering. Welcome to another evening in the company of the most fascinating legends Scandinavian folklore has to offer.

Bio

Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

Draugen

Illustration by Joakim Skovgaard (1889 el. 1890). ‘The Werewolf”.

Icelandic elves

Ancient Witches & The Goddess Hecate – Prof Marguerite Johnson

Ancient Witches

Magic and witchcraft were integral parts of the lives of ancient Greeks and Romans. Real practitioners existed – usually men when it came to so-called ‘high’ magic or ‘learned’ magic – with women, we can assume, practising more informal folk magic, which has left a less permanent trace. However, the chief deity of magic and witchcraft was the goddess, Hecate and ancient literature is full of female practitioners, often exhibiting outlandish and unbelievable talents. This lecture discusses Hecate as the preeminent god of witches and the witches of Greek and Roman literature. From Homer’s Circe to Euripides’ Medea, to the terrifying necromancer, Erictho from Lucan’s Pharsalia, we consider how and why the ancients insisted on representing their literary practitioners as female, when evidence points to men as the main source of all things magical. We end by tracing the ancient origins of the wicked witch of the west back to the terrifying figures of the ancient imagination.

Bio:

Marguerite Johnson is Professor of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Newcastle, Australia. Her research expertise is predominantly in ancient Mediterranean cultural studies, particularly in representations of gender, sexualities, and the body. She also researches Classical Reception Studies, and ancient magic. Marguerite has published on magic, particularly the portrayal of witches, in Greek and Latin literature and was dramaturg on professional productions of Theocritus’ Idyll 2 (‘The Sorceress’) in 2019 and Euripides’ Medea in 2021. She also researches and publishes on the Australian witch, Rosaleen Norton, with whom she has held a fascination since childhood. Marguerite delivers one of the few undergraduate courses on ancient occultism (AHIS2370: Magic and Witchcraft in Greece and Rome) and supervises several PhD students working on aspects of historical and literary magic.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon www.patreon.com/theviktorwyndmuseum

How the Freemasons Made the Modern World – Prof. John Dickie

To the rest of us, Freemasonry is mysterious and suspect. Yet its story is peopled by some of the most distinguished men of the last three centuries: Winston Churchill and Walt Disney; Wolfgang Mozart and Shaquille O’Neal; Benjamin Franklin and Buzz Aldrin; Rudyard Kipling and ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody; Duke Ellington and the Duke of Wellington.

Founded in London in 1717 as a set of character-forming ideals and a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.

The Masons were as feared as they were influential. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a den of devil-worshippers. For Hitler, Mussolini and Franco the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism and Jewish influence, so had to be crushed.

Professor Dickie will talk about his book – The Craft, translated into ten languages – which is a surprising and enthralling exploration of a movement that not only helped to forge modern society, but still has substantial contemporary influence. With 400,000 members in Britain, over a million in the USA, and around six million across the world, understanding the role of Freemasonry is as important now as it has ever been.

Bio

John Dickie is Professor of Italian Studies at University College London. Hodder & Stoughton published his Cosa Nostra: A History of the Sicilian Mafia in 2004, to ecstatic reviews. It became an international bestseller, with over 20 translations, and won the CWA Dagger Award for Non-fiction that year. Since then he has published Delizia!: The Epic History of the Italians and their Food (2007) – now a six-part TV series for HIstory Channel Italia and other networks worldwide. His most recent books are Mafia Brotherhoods (2011) and Mafia Republic: Italy’s Criminal Curse (2013).

In 2005 the President of the Italian Republic appointed him a Commendatore dell’Ordine della Stella della Solidarieta Italiana.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon

The Museum of Drugs: Under the Influence – a history of drug use from early evolution to criminalisation – Ben Curran

Under the Influence – a history of drug use from early evolution to criminalisation.

Archaeological and social anthropological evidence suggests that drug use played an important role in our early evolution as Homo sapiens; affording us the means of deeper introspection and wider connection within social groups and structures. Drugs have played an important role in the economic development of our civilisations, as valuable commodities to be traded across land and sea. They have been vital in our creative development, influencing art, literature, music, dance, and ritual.

Yet in modern times, drugs have become synonymous with crime and disorder; vilified in the media as the root cause of many of our social ills, and lambasted by politicians who are keen to demonstrate they are tough and uncompromising. Since 1971, we have been engaged in a War on Drugs, a war that has seen trillions of dollars of investment with little sign of it reaching an imminent conclusion, despite mounting calls for a paradigm shift.

How did we arrive at this point in our history?

Using a unique collection of antiques and artefacts, Under the Influence explores the historical events, the myths and moral panics, that have resulted in the criminalisation of the production, supply, and possession of drugs throughout the world.

The collection includes some artefacts that are of a challenging nature, including items depicting racial stereotypes. They are presented as part of the lecture for the purpose of adopting an anti-discriminatory position.

Bio

Ben Curran, (He/ Him), has worked in supported housing, drug rehabilitation, outreach services, and senior leadership positions, throughout the last 25 years. He has been a guest lecturer at the University of East Anglia and the University of Delaware, as well as a trainer in the field of drug use, legislation and policy. Ben Curran is the founder, CEO, and Curator of the Museum of Drugs, www.museumofdrugs.com, a charity established to provide public exhibitions and lectures on the history of drugs with the aim of challenging discrimination.

don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Nature, Shamanism and Psychoactive Drugs in Greek Bronze Age Religion by Dr Caroline Tully

Nature, Shamanism and Psychoactive Drugs in Greek Bronze Age Religion

What kind of religious activities were practised in the Greek Bronze Age? Through examination of ancient visual art, objects and texts, this lecture will explain how aspects of Aegean religion can be considered shamanic. The lecture will primarily focus on “glyptic art” (miniature images engraved on gold signet rings and stone seals) which is the most extensive body of Aegean Bronze Age representational art. It will look at ritual scenes depicted in glyptic art for evidence of shamanism including consumption of psychoactive drugs, adoption of special body postures, trance, spirit possession, communication with supernatural beings, metamorphosis and the journey to other worlds. The lecture will also look at the presence of nature in ritual scenes, particularly sacred trees. In the majority of these scenes human figures approach the trees in a calm and reverential manner, but in seven examples the ritual participant clasps and vigorously shakes the tree. The reasons for interpreting this activity as indicating a shamanic-style altered state of consciousness and prophetic consultation of the tree through the sound of its rustling leaves will then be explained. Comparative examples of prophetic trees from Near Eastern and Greek literature such as the Hebrew Bible, the Ugaritic Epic of Baal and Hesiod’s Theogony will be discussed, and later Greek tree oracles such as that of Zeus at Dodona will be compared with the glyptic images.

Bio:

Dr. Caroline Tully is a lecturer and tutor at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Caroline’s research interests include religion and ritual in the Bronze Age Aegean and East Mediterranean, Reception of the Ancient World, and Contemporary Paganisms. She is the author of The Cultic Life of Trees in the Prehistoric Aegean, Levant, Egypt and Cyprus (Peeters: Leuven, 2018), many other articles and book chapters, and is associate editor of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies. Caroline is also a professional tapestry weaver at the Australian Tapestry Workshop and a tarot reader and workshop facilitator at Muses of Mystery.

See her Academia page here: https://unimelb.academia.edu/CarolineTully

See her blog, Necropolis Now, here: http://necropolisnow.blogspot.com/

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley by Phil Baker

“I dreamed I was paying a visit to London,” Aleister Crowley wrote in Italy, continuing, “It was a vivid, long, coherent, detailed affair of several days, with so much incident that it would make a good-sized volume.” Crowley had a love-hate relationship with London, but the city was where he spent much of his adult life, and it was the capital of the culture that created him: Crowley was a post-decadent with deviant Victorian roots in the cultural ferment of the 1890s and the magical revival of the Golden Dawn.

Not a walking guide, although many routes could be pieced together from its pages, this is a biography by sites. A fusion of life-writing with psychogeography, steeped in London’s social history from Victoria to the Blitz, it draws extensively on unpublished material and offers an exceptionally intimate picture of the Great Beast. We follow Crowley as he searches for prostitutes in Hyde Park and Pimlico, drinks absinthe and eats Chinese food in Soho, and finds himself down on his luck in Paddington Green–and yet never quite losing sight of the illumination that drove him: the abiding rapture, he wrote in his diary, which makes a ‘bus in the street sound like an angel choir!

Bio

Phil Baker’s previous books include the definitive biography of Austin Osman Spare, London: City of Cities, a critical study of Samuel Beckett and a cultural history of absinthe. He lives in London and walks everywhere.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

The Story of a Cornish Witch: Joan Wytte (Fighting Fairy Woman of Bodmin), the Archives and the Imagination by Helen Cornish

The remains of Joan Wytte, alleged witch of Bodmin, were displayed for over 30 years in the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall. Buried in the woods behind the town in 1998 her memorial stone has become a pilgrimage destination for those keen to ensure she is not forgotten. While there is no archive evidence to support the claims made about her life and death, she remains an important figure. This talk looks at how the life and death of Joan Wytte has become a foundational stone for modern witches in search of practical ancestors and considers how this story reveals how we think about historical witchcraft accusations and their relevance to us today.

Notice: this talk will include images of human remains.

Bio:

Dr Helen Cornish (Anthropologist, Goldsmiths): I have carried out anthropological fieldwork with British witches and Pagans on histories of modern witchcraft since 2000. Much of my research has been in Sussex and at the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

The Witch’s Feast : A History of Kitchen Witchcraft by Melissa Madara

Join Melissa Madara, author of the magical cookbook “The Witch’s Feast,” in taking a look at the meandering and curious history of kitchen magic in European witchcraft. This lecture will trace a lineage of culinary craft from the ancient world to the present, seeking out the tools and techniques of kitchen witchcraft as we go. Come learn about the earliest of recorded recipes, the bread feasts of ancient Rome, blessed pastries of the Renaissance, planetary magic with ingredients, and much, much, more!

Bio

Melissa Madara is a witch, chef, and co-owner at Catland Books. Their work deals with the healing power of myth, divination, and immersion in the natural world. They are a teacher at Catland Books and numerous other metaphysical spaces in NYC, and are available for herbal consultations, tarot, and magical coaching by appointment. Find their interviews in the New York Times, Vice, Broadly, Teen Vogue, or Refinery 29, or see Melissa’s published works in Fiddler’s Green, Venefica Magazine, or their premiere book, The Witch’s Feast. Follow Melissa’s work and adventures on IG : @saint.jayne

Tarot Noir: William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley by K A Laity

It’s no surprise that Guillermo del Toro sought for years to make his own neo-noir version of Gresham’s novel. The heady combination of the occult, tarot, the carnival and grifters in the ‘spook racket’ made the original novel a bestseller and led matinee idol Tyrone Power to risk his own career and fame to film it in 1947. At the heart of the novel is the tarot, something Gresham took very seriously. His preface to Charles Williams’ tarot novel The Greater Trumps serves as a primer to the ‘wicked pack of cards’ and demonstrates his skill in reading the deck. Gresham uses the Major Arcana to structure his own novel — with some interesting changes.

Gresham understood the appeal of reading the tarot to find answers to our deepest questions. He realised, too, how that desire to know could be exploited by those who master the tools of the trade only to swindle the vulnerable. Stan Carlisle learns to use the power the cards show him, but fails to see that cards also reveal the downward spiral that awaits him as he gets deeper and deeper into the world of fake spiritualism, looking for the big payoff that has eluded him.

Bio

K. A. Laity is an award-winning author, scholar, filmmaker, critic, editor, and arcane artist. Her film A Fire Ritual for the Heart was featured in the Silent Fire exhibition co-curated by the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Nasty Women Connecticut. Her fiction includes Chastity Flame, The Mangrove Legacy, Lush Situation, Love is a Grift, Satan’s Sorority, How to Be Dull, White Rabbit, Dream Book, A Cut-Throat Business, Owl Stretching, and Pelzmantel. She has edited My Wandering Uterus, Respectable Horror, Weird Noir, Noir Carnival and Drag Noir, plus written many short stories, scholarly essays, songs, and more. Laity has served as History Witch for Witches & Pagans. Her 2011-2 Fulbright Fellowship at the National University of Ireland, Galway, focused on Digital Humanities. Her work has been translated into Italian, Polish, Slovene, German, and Portuguese. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook. Her podcast Is It Funny? can be found here. Her radio programme Surreal Noir can be found here.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon 

The Edible Dormouse with Dr Pat Morris

The Edible Dormouse, also known by its scientific name Glis glis, was introduced to England in 1902 by Lord Walter Rothschild. He released an unknown number of them near his home at Tring in the Chilterns, obtained from an unknown source in Central Europe. They cause damage to plantation forestry and nesting birds. They are also a significant nuisance in people’s houses, with dozens sometimes living in the same house. They gnaw stored fruit, defecate in the laundry cupboard (after feeding on blackberries!) and even nibble at lead pipes or trigger burglar alarms. Over the past 120 years they have multiplied and spread, partly aided by householders catching the animals and releasing them far away. This is illegal, but so is killing them, so what can they do? Edible Dormice are a protected pest! They have now been found in places ranging from Hampshire to Essex The talk will review these issues and report on Europe’s longest population study of these animals which has revealed some important and unique features of this animal’s ecology. It’s a species that few have heard of, but those who have wish they would go away. There is now every prospect of them becoming widespread- maybe even where you live!

Bio

Dr Pat Morris was Senior Lecturer in Zoology at Royal Holloway, University of London, and retired (early) in 2002 to spend more time with his taxidermy. He taught many students who now work in wildlife conservation, and also taught evening classes for adults for 20 years. He is well known for his studies on mammals, especially hedgehogs, dormice, water voles and red squirrels. He is a past Chairman of the Mammal Society and holder of its Silver Medal. He was a Council Member of the National Trust for 15 years and Chairman of its Nature Conservation Advisory Panel. He is President of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, a former Vice President of the London Wildlife Trust. He served on a Government Enquiry into aspects of the badgers and TB problem and for 3 years was co-Director of the International Summer School on the Breeding and Conservation of Endangered species, based at Durrell Zoo in Jersey.

He has published over 70 scientific papers, mostly on mammals and written about 20 books on bats, dormice, ecology of lakes and general natural history, with total sales of around 250,000. His popular book on hedgehogs has remained in print since 1983, his New Naturalist monograph on the hedgehog was published in 2018. He was a consultant to major publishers and the BBC Natural History Unit, for whom he also contributed radio and TV programmes for 20 years. He has travelled to more than 30 countries, including five expeditions to Ethiopia and 19 visits to the USA covering 47 of the States.

In his spare time he has pursued a longstanding interest in the history of taxidermy and was appointed the first Honorary Life Member of the Guild of Taxidermists. He published papers and 8 books on this topic and serves as one of the Government’s taxidermy inspectors for assessing age and authenticity of antique taxidermy in connection with CITES controls. The Society for the History of Natural History awarded him its Founder’s Medal and he was made MBE by the Queen in the 2015 New Year’s Honours List and has a devoted (biologist) wife, married in 1978.

He speaks in a purely personal capacity and not on behalf of any of the organisations with which he is involved, past or present.

Watch a recording of This Lecture, & 100s of others, for free when you join our Patreon