Gift to myself. I’ve been wanting to read this for so long! Thomas Waters 📚

'It is strange that, material as most of us are, our spirituality still will assert itself, though perhaps somewhat foolishly, in the little superstitions with which many will prop and hedge their lives'.

Astute words from the Aberdeen Journal, 5 August 1886.

Thomas Waters just spotted in the wilds of the National Theatre bookshop 🙂

Released today, so I can have it fed directly into my lugholes on long journeys, and in the wee, small hours when my eyes are too tired to read. Thank you, Audible UK 🎧 and Thomas Waters!

It's taken 4 years, but...

Cursed Britain, my history of the wicked type of witchcraft 1800-present, is now an audiobook.

Read by horror narrator Jake Ruddle.

9 Chapters inc:

Tough superstitions
Secret beliefs
Healing black magic

Thanks witches!
amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CMKCGP4V

Today I’m in heaven, aka Ireland’s National Folklore Collection.

Researching the magical history of silence: forbidden words, unmentionable powers, secret spells & whispered charms.

The archive’s quality, quantity, organisation & staff are amazing.

Link: ⁦National Folklore Collection UCD⁩

One scholar even decried the practice of baking hot-cross buns on Good Friday for good luck, writing that it was “undoubtedly a relic of superstition and ought to be abolished.” (post based on work by Thomas Waters)
daily.jstor.org/class-and-supe…

People are starting to receive advanced copies of my new book, 'Troubled by Faith'. Hope you enjoy!

If you want to get a taste of its contents, then check out this free The Folklore Society article, 'Finding the Folklore in the Annals of Psychiatry' tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Interested in the history of magic?

You might enjoy my evening class 'Spellbound: A History of Witchcraft and Magic'.

Witches, fairies, ghosts & much more, in a wide ranging 20-week course.

Online, Weds 7-9pm GMT. From 18th Oct. Friendly tutor!

imperial.ac.uk/evening-classe…

Literary source analysis has special challenges, in the history of magic.

Words aren't just representational, communicative & polemical: utterances were supernatural acts.

It's one reason why people 'told witch stories with bated breath'. Speak of the Devil, and he'll appear.