Digital Event Type: Zoom Lecture

The Ravenmaster – The Corvids of The Tower of London – Chris Skaife – Zoom

For centuries, the Tower of London has been home to a group of famous avian residents: the ravens. Each year they are seen by millions of visitors, and they have become as integral a part of the Tower as its ancient stones themselves. But their role is even more important than that – legend has it that if the ravens should ever leave, the Tower will crumble into dust, and great harm will befall the kingdom.

One man is personally responsible for ensuring that such a disaster never comes to pass – the Ravenmaster. Yeoman Warder Christopher Skaife,

His book The Ravenmaster is a fascinating, entertaining and touching look at life behind the Tower’s ancient walls. It memorably describes the ravens’ formidable intelligence, their idiosyncrasies and their occasionally wicked sense of humour.

Over the years in which he has cared for the physical and mental well-being of these remarkable birds, Christopher Skaife has come to know them like no one else. They are not the easiest of charges – as he reveals, they are much given to mischief, and their escapades have often led him into unlikely, and sometimes even undignified, situations.

Now, in the first intimate behind-the-scenes account of life with the ravens of the Tower, the Ravenmaster himself shares the folklore, history and superstitions surrounding both the birds and their home. The result is a compelling, inspiring and irreverent story that will delight and surprise anyone with an interest in British history or animal behaviour

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

M.r. James Fireside Ghost Stories with Robert Lloyd Parry, Live on Zoom

“If any of my stories succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained…”

Montague Rhodes James (1862 – 1936) more than succeeded in this modest ambition. Over a century after their first publication, his Ghost Stories of an Antiquary remain the most admired supernatural tales in the English language. James first performed them to friends at Christmas in King’s College, Cambridge in the year up to WW1. Since 2005 Robert Lloyd Parry has sought to bring this tradition back to life.

In A View from a Hill a pair of old binoculars reveal the grisly history of an idyllic stretch of English landscape. The story lasts about 40 mins. Afterwards, if you are good, this will be followed up by a reading of a bonus shorter work by M R James.

Storyteller: Robert Lloyd Parry has travelled widely in the UK and USA with his candlelit M R James performances, which have been covered by The New Yorker, The Fortean Times, The Spectator, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Morning Star. In 2014 he appeared as the author in Mark Gatiss’s BBC2 Documentary ‘M R James: Ghost Writer.’ For more details see www.nunkie.co.uk

M.r. James Fireside Ghost Stories with Robert Lloyd Parry, Live on Zoom

“If any of my stories succeed in causing their readers to feel pleasantly uncomfortable when walking along a solitary road at nightfall, or sitting over a dying fire in the small hours, my purpose in writing them will have been attained…”

Montague Rhodes James (1862 – 1936) more than succeeded in this modest ambition. Over a century after their first publication, his Ghost Stories of an Antiquary remain the most admired supernatural tales in the English language. James first performed them to friends at Christmas in King’s College, Cambridge in the year up to WW1. Since 2005 Robert Lloyd Parry has sought to bring this tradition back to life.

In A View from a Hill a pair of old binoculars reveal the grisly history of an idyllic stretch of English landscape. The story lasts about 40 mins. Afterwards, if you are good, this will be followed up by a reading of a bonus shorter work by M R James.

Storyteller: Robert Lloyd Parry has travelled widely in the UK and USA with his candlelit M R James performances, which have been covered by The New Yorker, The Fortean Times, The Spectator, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, The Guardian and The Morning Star. In 2014 he appeared as the author in Mark Gatiss’s BBC2 Documentary ‘M R James: Ghost Writer.’ For more details see www.nunkie.co.uk

Summoning the Spirits – Online Seance with Medium Patti Negri

Spirits are all around us. You do not have to be a psychic, medium or witch to communicate with the other side. But, there are some definite rules and guidelines you need to follow for safe, effective and powerful communication with spirits.

This intimate online seance will be limited to 24 people, giving everyone the opportunity to request summoning a specific spirit. Patti cannot guarantee every spirit will be willing to communicate, but they most always do, due to her gentle and respectful technique and amazing ability to “lift the veil” between the two worlds. Lasting around two hours, Patti will give an explanation and lesson in her proven techniques for safely and respectfully doing seances. Then, she will conduct a full séance, lift the veil and give everyone who wants one an opportunity to speak with their beloved deceased.

Since March 2020, Patti Negri has been regularly conducting on-line seances. Since spirits exist outside time and place, she has found that the internet turns out to be the perfect medium!

Patti Negri has been communicating with spirits since she could talk. She did her first séance when she was just seven or eight years old. She sat cross legged on the floor and I started asking the spirits to enter the room. She created her first chant – and low and behold – the room filled with orbs of bright light. They started in the corner and quickly began filling the room. It was amazing. She ran screaming out of the house… but had never been so excited. She had actually and consciously contacted the other side – and was able to control it. Her journey had begun. Since then she has studied religion, metaphysics, science, occult sciences and cosmologies and belief systems of all kinds and combined the truths within to create surefire and safe techniques to raise the veil between the worlds.

Patti Negri is a Psychic-Medium and “Good Witch” best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel’s #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES. She is the international best-selling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti’s body of work includes appearances on such shows as MASTER CHEF, AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, WIPE OUT! and A LITTLE LATE WITH LILLY SINGH. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called THE WITCHING HOUR and can also be heard on nationally syndicated radio with Adam Corolla, Jason Ellis, Mancow Muller and Coast to Coast with George Noory. Patti was voted number one psychic, medium, trance medium, tarot reader, witch / magical practitioner in the world in an Internationally competition by Times Square Press. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Martin Sheen and Gregory Hines.

Summoning the Spirits – Online Seance with Medium Patti Negri

Spirits are all around us. You do not have to be a psychic, medium or witch to communicate with the other side. But, there are some definite rules and guidelines you need to follow for safe, effective and powerful communication with spirits.

This intimate online seance will be limited to 24 people, giving everyone the opportunity to request summoning a specific spirit. Patti cannot guarantee every spirit will be willing to communicate, but they most always do, due to her gentle and respectful technique and amazing ability to “lift the veil” between the two worlds. Lasting around two hours, Patti will give an explanation and lesson in her proven techniques for safely and respectfully doing seances. Then, she will conduct a full séance, lift the veil and give everyone who wants one an opportunity to speak with their beloved deceased.

Since March 2020, Patti Negri has been regularly conducting on-line seances. Since spirits exist outside time and place, she has found that the internet turns out to be the perfect medium!

Patti Negri has been communicating with spirits since she could talk. She did her first séance when she was just seven or eight years old. She sat cross legged on the floor and I started asking the spirits to enter the room. She created her first chant – and low and behold – the room filled with orbs of bright light. They started in the corner and quickly began filling the room. It was amazing. She ran screaming out of the house… but had never been so excited. She had actually and consciously contacted the other side – and was able to control it. Her journey had begun. Since then she has studied religion, metaphysics, science, occult sciences and cosmologies and belief systems of all kinds and combined the truths within to create surefire and safe techniques to raise the veil between the worlds.

Patti Negri is a Psychic-Medium and “Good Witch” best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel’s #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES. She is the international best-selling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti’s body of work includes appearances on such shows as MASTER CHEF, AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, WIPE OUT! and A LITTLE LATE WITH LILLY SINGH. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called THE WITCHING HOUR and can also be heard on nationally syndicated radio with Adam Corolla, Jason Ellis, Mancow Muller and Coast to Coast with George Noory. Patti was voted number one psychic, medium, trance medium, tarot reader, witch / magical practitioner in the world in an Internationally competition by Times Square Press. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Martin Sheen and Gregory Hines.

Summoning the Spirits – Online Seance with Medium Patti Negri

Spirits are all around us. You do not have to be a psychic, medium or witch to communicate with the other side. But, there are some definite rules and guidelines you need to follow for safe, effective and powerful communication with spirits.

This intimate online seance will be limited to 24 people, giving everyone the opportunity to request summoning a specific spirit. Patti cannot guarantee every spirit will be willing to communicate, but they most always do, due to her gentle and respectful technique and amazing ability to “lift the veil” between the two worlds. Lasting around two hours, Patti will give an explanation and lesson in her proven techniques for safely and respectfully doing seances. Then, she will conduct a full séance, lift the veil and give everyone who wants one an opportunity to speak with their beloved deceased.

Since March 2020, Patti Negri has been regularly conducting on-line seances. Since spirits exist outside time and place, she has found that the internet turns out to be the perfect medium!

Patti Negri has been communicating with spirits since she could talk. She did her first séance when she was just seven or eight years old. She sat cross legged on the floor and I started asking the spirits to enter the room. She created her first chant – and low and behold – the room filled with orbs of bright light. They started in the corner and quickly began filling the room. It was amazing. She ran screaming out of the house… but had never been so excited. She had actually and consciously contacted the other side – and was able to control it. Her journey had begun. Since then she has studied religion, metaphysics, science, occult sciences and cosmologies and belief systems of all kinds and combined the truths within to create surefire and safe techniques to raise the veil between the worlds.

Patti Negri is a Psychic-Medium and “Good Witch” best known for her recurring role on the Travel Channel’s #1 show GHOST ADVENTURES. She is the international best-selling author of OLD WORLD MAGICK FOR THE MODERN WORLD: TIPS, TRICKS, & TECHNIQUES TO BALANCE, EMPOWER, & CREATE A LIFE YOU LOVE. Patti’s body of work includes appearances on such shows as MASTER CHEF, AMERICA’S GOT TALENT, WIPE OUT! and A LITTLE LATE WITH LILLY SINGH. Patti has a popular weekly podcast called THE WITCHING HOUR and can also be heard on nationally syndicated radio with Adam Corolla, Jason Ellis, Mancow Muller and Coast to Coast with George Noory. Patti was voted number one psychic, medium, trance medium, tarot reader, witch / magical practitioner in the world in an Internationally competition by Times Square Press. She has graced numerous magazine covers, contributed to over 20 books and conducted seances on radio, film, and TV working with such legends as Emma Stone, Jon Voight, Josh Duhamel, Martin Sheen and Gregory Hines.

Marina Warner – Mary Magdalene and her Jar: Fragrant Oils, Luxury and Sin

Early Bird Tickets by Donation – £10 would be very much appreciated, but in these difficult times anything is very welcome

While Marina Warner DBE was writing her new book, Inventory of a Life Mislaid (to be published this March) about her childhood in Egypt, she came across an old map of Cairo, which marked the very spot where ’the real balm’ grows. This set her off on a fascinating quest: she uncovered legends about the Flight into Egypt, Mary Magdalene, embalming oils and perfumes. In a new, fully illustrated lecture, she will uncover the long associations of balm with the pleasures and solace of the East, which her parents were seeking when they moved to Cairo after the war.

From gifts and love tokens, objects and mementoes, letters and journals read only after the couple’ s deaths, from negatives found coiled in a film canister, this ‘unreliable memoir’ pieces together the reckonings and discoveries her Italian mother and English father made during the first years of their marriage. Evocative and imaginative, at once historical and speculative, the book powerfully resurrects the fraught union and unrequited hopes of Warner’s parents. Memory intertwines richly with myth, the river Lethe feeling as real as the Nile. Vivid recollections of Cairo swirl with ever-present dreams of a city where, for the author, her parents, friends and associates are still restlessly wandering.

Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of art, myths, symbols and fairytales.

Village Witchcraft & Magic – Professor Ronald Hutton

Ronald Hutton’s topic this evening consists of beliefs in witchcraft and magic held by ordinary British people in the period between 1740 and 1940, that often lost, neglected and mysterious time between the end of the witch hunts and the appearance of modern Pagan witchcraft. These years have in fact left a huge treasure trove of evidence for the subject, which has recently at last become a focus for sustained study. Those studies reveal a complex and fascinating world rich in magical tradition, in which cunning folk and charmers flourished in every part of the land, overlapping with learned ceremonial magicians, and the fear of malevolent witchcraft still lay heavily over most communities. Ronald Hutton offers a tour of it, proposing answers to the questions of what sort of people became magicians and why; what practical techniques they used; whether they were pagans; how they took up their skills; whether they worked in groups; how much they were persecuted; and what eventually became of their traditions.

Leonora Carrington, My Mother – Gaby Weisz – Zoom Lecture

Since her death in 2011, the legendary Surrealist Leonora Carrington has been reconstructed and reinvented many times over. In his new book, Gabriel Weisz Carrington draws on remembered conversations and events to demythologise his mother, revealing the woman and the artist behind the iconic persona. He travels between Leonora’s native England and adopted homeland of Mexico, making stops in New York and Paris and meeting some of the remarkable figures she associated with, from Max Ernst and André Breton to Remedios Varo and Alejandro Jodorowsky. At the same time, he strives to depict a complex and very real Surrealist creator, exploring Leonora not simply in relation to her romantic partners or social milieus but as the artist she always was. A textured portrait emerges from conversations, memories, stories and Leonora’s engagement with the books that she read. Using the act of writing to process and understand the death of his mother, the author has produced a moving and fascinating account of life, art, love and loss.

Leonora Carrington is one of Viktor Wynd’s most enduring obsessions, her work is in his museum and surrounds him at home.

These are extraordinary times and the plague has hit some harder than others, tickets are by donation – if you possibly can £10 is much appreciated, but £2 is also much appreciated. Thank you for your support.

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

Satanic Feminism – Lucifer, Women’s Liberator in the C19 – Per Faxneld

Please note this lecture will not be recorded

Join Per Faxneld, author of the award-winning book “Satanic Feminism” (Oxford University Press, 2017), to learn about how feminists around the year 1900 used satanic symbolism as a strategic tool. Discover how these women weaponized and inverted misogynistic notions of Eve as the Devil’s chosen one, making a heroine of her, Lilith, and witches to combat conservative Christian oppressors. The talk explores various forms of Satanic feminism appearing at the crossroads of feminism, art, occultism, and progressive politics. We will see colourful examples from literature, painting, occult texts, feminist tracts, and even jewellery design. The cast of spectacular characters include occult-inspired suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her guru the theosophist H.P. Blavatsky, Luciferian lesbian poet Renée Vivien, and Mary MacLane of Butte, Montana, who wanted to marry the Devil to become free of all societal regulation of women.

Per Faxneld is Associate Professor in History of Religions at Södertörn University (Stockholm), and a devotee of weird antiques, ominous music, and sinister sartorialism. He is the author of three monographs, two edited volumes, and numerous articles on Satanism, occultism, and esoteric art. In 2020, Faxneld made his literary debut with “Offerträdet” (“The Tree of Sacrifice”), an illustrated collection of folk horror tales set in 19th-century northern Sweden.