Archives: Digital Events

Creatures of Consequence: Why We Create Monsters – Lindsay Pickett – Zoom

Creatures of Consequence: Why We Create Monsters

Why have hybrid creatures haunted our imagination for thousands of years? From the fantastical beings of Hieronymus Bosch to the unsettling creations of contemporary artists, monsters have long reflected our deepest fears, desires and anxieties.

In this richly illustrated talk, artist Lindsay Pickett explores the enduring fascination with hybrid beings in art, mythology and the human imagination. Drawing on the work of artists including Bosch, Salvador Dalí, Francis Bacon, Patricia Piccinini and his own series of dark surreal paintings, Creatures of Consequence, he examines how imagined creatures can become powerful symbols of identity, transformation, environmental change and the subconscious.

Blending art history, psychology, mythology and contemporary painting, this talk asks why we continue to invent monsters—and what these extraordinary beings reveal about ourselves.

The lecture will be followed by an audience Q&A.

3. A question for the audience:

“If every age creates the monsters it needs, what kinds of creatures are we creating today—and what do they say about us?”

Image: Stay Away, Medium: Oil on linen, Size: 80x45cm

Speaker Bio:

Lindsay Pickett is a London-based painter, educator and founder of Dreamscapes, a collective celebrating contemporary surrealism. He completed an MA in Fine Art (Painting) at City & Guilds of London Art School in 2021 and has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. His paintings explore psychological and ecological themes through dark surreal hybrid creatures, drawing inspiration from artists including Hieronymus Bosch, Salvador Dalí and Francis Bacon. Alongside his studio practice, he teaches drawing and painting at several London adult education institutions. Through his work and public talks, Lindsay explores the enduring fascination with hybrid beings, mythology, the subconscious and humanity’s relationship with the natural world

Hosted & Curated by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

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

Why Ghost Stories Matter: Paranormal Experiences and the Stories We Tell – Steph Lay – Zoom

Why Ghost Stories Matter: Paranormal Experiences and the Stories We Tell

A ghost story is rarely only about a ghost.

It may also be about grief, fear, memory, identity, family, belief or a moment when the familiar world suddenly became impossible. Many people who experience something they cannot explain keep it secret for years, fearing ridicule or dismissal. When they finally speak, they are not simply recounting an entertaining tale. They are entrusting someone else with an event that may have permanently changed how they understand reality.

Since beginning her project to document paranormal experiences across Milton Keynes, psychologist and writer Dr Steph Lay has spoken with witnesses in cafés and pubs, through video calls, emails, voice messages and chance encounters. Some have recalled brief glimpses of apparitions; others have lived through years of disturbing activity.

In this talk, Steph explores the psychology and ethics of listening to extraordinary experiences, and the transformation that occurs when a private memory becomes a public ghost story.

Why do some experiences remain vivid for decades? Why do people choose one listener and not another? How can a collector respect a witness’s uncertainty without either dismissing their experience or claiming to prove the paranormal? And what is created, or lost, when memory is shaped into narrative, published online and absorbed into the folklore of a place?

Drawing together psychology, parapsychology, oral history and her own experience as a collector and storyteller, this talk considers ghost stories not merely as evidence to be proved or disproved, but as deeply human acts of communication.

We tell ghost stories because something happened.

But we also tell them because we need someone else to hear.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Steph Lay is a writer, researcher and cognitive psychologist based in Milton Keynes. Her doctoral research explored the uncanny valley and why certain near-human faces can feel so unsettling.

She is the creator of City of Secrets and its ongoing Revenants on the Redway project, gathering local stories of the unexplained and exploring the hidden histories, folklore and uncanny possibilities of Milton Keynes.

Behind the scenes, Steph also works with Peter Laws on the YouTube channel Into the Fog. She curates first-hand paranormal accounts submitted by viewers and creates atmospheric artwork and visual storytelling to help bring those stories to life.

Across her work, she brings together psychology, place, folklore and the paranormal, exploring not only why strange experiences unsettle us, but why they matter to the people who live through them.

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

 

Ritual Transference and Plant Spirits in Islamic Occultism – Amal Al-Suwaidi – Zoom

Ritual Transference and Plant Spirits in Islamic Occultism

Step into the hidden domain of ‘ālam al-ghayb to discover a world where plants are far more than passive greenery, operating instead as potent dynamic anchors for plant spirits and celestial forces. Thislecture unravels the mysterious mechanics of ritual transference within Islamic occultism, tracing a journey from the grand libraries of medieval Baghdad to the esoteric Mamluk grimoires of Ibn al-Ḥājj al-Tilimsānī and the practical magical manuals of al-Dayrabī. You will uncover glowing alchemical herbs that mandate absolute silence and ritual purity to lock away their spirit agency, witness palm branches bound by divine oaths to act as living proxies that absorb human disease and wither away in abandoned graves, and encounter legendary marvels like the haunting, human-bearing Wāqwāq tree. Prepare for a captivating exploration of how ancient scholars commanded the secret intelligence of the botanical kingdom, weaving plant spirits into extraordinary acts of magical and medicinal transformation entirely within a single, sovereign cosmos.

Speaker Bio:

Amal Al-Suwaidi the occult scientist, is a researcher currently studying magic and occult sciences at a UK university, with a focus on Islamic occultism. Of Arab background, Amal’s interests include jinn (jinnology), karamāt (spiritual gifts), and esoteric Islamic traditions. She also runs the Instagram channel @magicandoccult, the Youtube @theOccultScientist and founded the Occultists, a space for dialogue among magical and spiritual communities.

Hosted & Curated By:

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

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

Rings and Whips: the secret architecture of Pauline Réage’s Histoire d’O – Rosemary Thorne – Zoom

Rings and Whips: the secret architecture of Pauline Réage’s Histoire d’O

This talk looks at Histoire d’O, both the novel and the film, as a carefully built symbolic system centered on ritual submission, secrecy, and personal transformation. Briefly reviewing Reage’s biography and scandal, it also explores the repeated use of rings, whips, masks, and thresholds as parts of a shared initiatory language. By placing the book and the film within the cultural context of the 1950s and 1960s, the talk sheds light on why the work was so shocking in its time—and what deeper structures and secrets it was revealing.

Speaker Bio:

Rosemary Thorne (she/her) is a bilingual Spanish writer, translator, and researcher specializing in horror and the occult, based in Madrid, Spain. Born in 1968, she became a member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA) in 2019 and soon thereafter began serving as Co-Chair of the HWA International Chapter, a role she continues to hold. She also served as a juror for the prestigious 2023 HWA Lifetime Achievement Award.

She writes her horror fiction primarily in English, which she regards as the most welcoming language for the genre. Her first novel, El pacto de las 12 uvas, was published in December 2021. She has also translated Edward Lee’s The Bighead into Spanish for Dimensiones Ocultas Press.

An active essayist, her recent work focuses on the analysis of literature, cinema, and visual art through an occult and esoteric lens.

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Arsenic and Asphyxiation: Deadly Victorian Fashion – Dr Jay Sullivan – Zoom

Arsenic and Asphyxiation: Deadly Victorian Fashion

​The Victorians had a lot of dangerous habits, but their obsession with lethal fashion trends might just be the most terrifying one.

​From catching pneumonia in freezing, sheer Roman-style gowns to romanticising the pale, wasting aesthetic of “tuberculous chic,” the nineteenth century’s blend of strict beauty standards and unchecked chemical innovation produced a wardrobe that was to die for.

​In this online talk, the first of a new six-part lecture series, Dr Jay Sullivan will take you through the history of deadly Victorian dress, from the breathless reality of extreme corseting to the toxic allure of arsenic-laced green ballgowns and matching wallpaper. Meet the socialites who literally suffered for beauty, discover the perilous reality of the gaslit stage, and uncover the tragic truth behind highly flammable ballet gowns. Along the way, we’ll answer some of the strangest questions of the era: Why did women deliberately use makeup to look like they were dying of consumption? How did a trendy shade of green become a silent killer in the drawing room? And just how many ballerinas spontaneously combusted in the name of art?

Victorian Manias! is a six-part lecture series covering the Victorians strange and occasionally deadly obsessions. From ferns to freakshows, across ghosts and the gothics and covering curses, collecting and circuses, Dr Jay Sullivan will take you through a century of curious crazes.

Speaker Bio

Dr Jay Sullivan is a writer and researcher based in South London. She holds a PhD from the University of Roehampton and an MA in Victorian Studies from Birkbeck College. Her research blends museum, sensory, and gothic studies with a focus on the Victorian Egyptianised Gothic genre. Egyptian Gothic 1884-1920, published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2025, is her first book.

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

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

German Black Books, Faust and Forbidden Knowledge – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

THE BOOKS OF MAGIC

2. A Global History of Grimoires, Charms and Forbidden Knowledge

For the past several years, we have been researching and translating magical books from across the world, including manuscripts and printed works that circulated for centuries under a cloud of suspicion. The Books of Magic explores these texts not as quaint curiosities, but as evidence of the human desire to find knowledge beyond the limits of ordinary religion, medicine and reason.

The German-speaking world produced one of Europe’s richest traditions of so-called black books. Georg Conrad Horst’s vast Zauber-Bibliothek gathered together writings on magic, spirits, apparitions and occult belief, while The Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses claimed to preserve secret Mosaic wisdom in the form of divine names, seals and magical diagrams. Alongside these works stands the extraordinary Compendium Rarissimum Totius Artis Magicae, a manuscript filled with demonic imagery and the unforgettable warning Noli me tangere, “Touch me not”.

Hovering over the entire tradition is the figure of Faust, the scholar who wanted knowledge no human being was meant to possess. This lecture explores magical circles, spirit conjuration, treasure hunting, divine names, strange alphabets and the peculiar power of the forbidden book itself. In many cases, the reputation of a manuscript became as potent as its contents. A book did not have to contain a terrifying ritual to become feared. Sometimes it was enough that people believed it should never be opened.

Speaker 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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

It Must Be Love: Magic and Divination to Find (and Keep) Romance – Icy Sedgwick – Zoom

It Must Be Love: Magic and Divination to Find (and Keep) Romance

February might be associated with all things love thanks to St Valentine’s Day on the 14th, but if we look throughout folklore, there are plenty of opportunities to divine who a potential partner might be, how to increase your chances to meet someone, and how to hang onto love if you do manage to find it. As it turns out, it’s a year-round effort!

This talk will explore a few notable practices for seeing visions of future partners, how to use plants to boost your odds, and why ordinary items you have around your house can be really helpful when it comes to love magic.

Speaker Bio:

Dr Icy Sedgwick is the host of the Fabulous Folklore podcast, investigating the fascinating world of European folklore with a focus on the British Isles, and the author of Rebel Folklore, Ghostlore, Bring Me Love, and Fate or Fortune. She is fascinated by plant lore, ghost stories, lost gods, and divination. Former ghost hunter Icy also holds a PhD in Film Studies after examining the representation of haunted houses in contemporary Hollywood cinema. https://www.icysedgwick.com

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

Paranormal Poe: Edgar Allan Poe’s Haunting Afterlife – Chris Semtner – Zoom

Paranormal Poe: Edgar Allan Poe’s Haunting Afterlife

Nineteenth-century writer Edgar Allan Poe has had quite a busy afterlife. Since his death in 1849, his spirit has supposedly been spotted in seven cities and is a regular in three different bars (one of which reserves a stool for him). Join Poe Museum curator (and author of Haunting Poe) Chris Semtner on the hunt for Poe’s ghost.

Speaker Bio

The curator of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum, Chris Semtner is an award-winning, internationally exhibited visual artist whose work can be found in numerous private and public collections. The Webster Award-winning author has written several articles and chapters in addition to eight books about Poe, visual art, horror, pop culture, and cryptography. Semtner has written for Biography.com, Crime Writers’ Chronicle, Resources for American Literary Study, and other publications. He has been featured in publications including the New York Times, Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, SyFy Wire, and Rue Morgue Magazine, in addition to appearing in documentaries in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Venezuela, and Japan. He regularly speaks about strange and macabre subjects at various venues from the Steampunk World’s Fair and GalaxyCon to the U.S. Library of Congress and as far away as Paris, Madrid, and Kyoto.

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The Devils Library: French Grimoires, Demonology and Forbidden Magic – Lena Heide Brennand – Zoom

THE BOOKS OF MAGIC

A Global History of Grimoires, Charms and Forbidden Knowledge

1. The Devils Library: French Grimoires, Demonology and Forbidden Magic

For the past several years, we have been researching, translating and reconstructing magical books from around the world, following their trails through forgotten libraries, digitised archives, private collections and historical editions. In 2027, The Books of Magic brings that work together in twelve lectures, each devoted to a different magical culture and to the books that preserved its spells, fears, rituals and forbidden knowledge.

We begin in France, home to some of the most notorious occult books ever printed. Le Petit Albert became one of Europe’s best-known practical grimoires, offering charms, magical curiosities and methods for influencing the world through secret knowledge. La Poule Noire, or The Black Pullet, promised enchanted rings, talismans, protection, treasure and extraordinary powers. Jules Garinet’s History of Magic in France carries us through witchcraft, possession, werewolves, demonology and centuries of superstition, while Paul Lacroix’s Infernal Curiosities, first published in 1886, opens an even stranger cabinet of devils, incubi, succubi, fairies, ghosts, vampires, magical rings, pacts and supernatural disasters.

These books existed in the uneasy territory between entertainment, folklore, belief and genuine occult practice. Some were read secretly, some were condemned, and some were believed to possess a dangerous reputation simply because of the knowledge they contained. This opening lecture enters that shadowy French library and asks why supposedly rational modern Europe remained so fascinated by devils, magic and books that respectable people insisted nobody should read.

Speaker 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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day

The Kabbalist’s Recipe Book: Magic, Medicine, and Curious Amulets in Premodern Europe – Agata Paluch – Zoom

The Kabbalist’s Recipe Book: Magic, Medicine, and Curious Amulets in Premodern Europe

What might a premodern Jewish recipe book contain? Alongside household cures, cosmetics, herbal preparations, and alchemical experiments, these handwritten collections preserved instructions for producing amulets, invoking divine names, and protecting people from illness, demons, misfortune, and the evil eye. Drawing on Hebrew and Yiddish manuscripts from Central and Eastern Europe, this lecture explores a world in which magic, medicine, religion, and practical craft were closely intertwined. It follows the makers and users of these books—from physicians and practical kabbalists to household practitioners—and asks what their extraordinary recipes reveal about everyday Jewish life, encounters with surrounding Christian cultures, and the enduring human desire to make uncertain worlds more manageable.

Image: The Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, Ms. 9380. Courtesy of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

Speaker Bio:

Agata Paluch is Professor of Premodern Jewish Studies at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on Jewish esotericism, magic, and Kabbalah, as well as the history of the Jewish book and material text cultures. She earned a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Jewish Studies from University College London in 2013. Before joining the University of Cologne, she led the DFG-funded research group “Patterns of Knowledge Circulation” at Freie Universität Berlin (2019–2025) and held fellowships from the Gerda Henkel Foundation, the Herbert D. Katz Institute for Advanced Judaic Studies, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. She has also worked as a cataloger for the British Library’s collection of Hebrew manuscripts

Curated & Hosted by

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, Lena’s New Book – Mythical Creatures in Scandinavian Folklore is now available on Amazon

Don’t worry if you can’t make the talk live on the night – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day