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The Shakespeare Furore

  Tuesday 29 April 2025 The Shakespeare Furore   The Shakespeare authorship question first burst into public consciousness 170 years ago. Early questioners included many prominent figures of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the last two decades, while those defending the orthodox narrative have increasingly characterised the authorship question as a conspiracy theory, over 50 peer-reviewed articles challenging the traditional narrative have been published in academic journals. Now award-winning journalist Elizabeth Winkler’s book Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature is making waves. A London Library event featuring Winkler in discussion provoked a furious attack by a Times journalist, who depicts authorship questioners as “conspiratorial fantasists” aligned with the far right, a threat to “a liberal society” and the question as “a contagion of superstition and ignorance”. Dr Ros Barber explores what is r...
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Art / Magic / Lore: Wild Talents

Art / Magic / Lore returns to Conway Hall this summer to explore the lesser-trodden paths of wild folklore and myth. From pagan counterculture, rebel folk, and roadside magic, we will discover the activism and resistance threading through occult history. Saturday, 26 April 2025 1.30 pm doors, 2 pm start.  £15/ £11 Concessions / Advance Booking Conway Hall , 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn London Fortean Email List   Phil Hine – Delinquent Elementals A fascinating glimpse into the pagan counterculture, from the ‘Satanic Panic’ to ‘occulture.’ In Delinquent Elementals: The Very Best of Pagan News, Phil collects some of the finest articles, news reports, interviews, and humour that appeared in this singular publication, providing a fascinating glimpse into the pagan counterculture. He charts the historical timeline of the Satanic Panic scandal of the late 1980s, documents previously uncollected information, and provides a wide selection of practical knowledge a...

Holy Men of the Electromagnetic Age: A Forgotten History of the Occult

The tale of two forgotten mystics: Tahra Bey, who took 1920s Paris by storm as an ‘Oriental’ missionary, and Dr Dahesh, who harnessed Western science to create a pan-religious faith in Lebanon. Travelling the world, they reflected the desires and anxieties of a troubled age. Tuesday, 15 April 2025 6.30 pm doors. 7 pm start.  £10 / £7 Concessions / £7 Livestream  Advance Booking Conway Hall , 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn London Fortean Email List The interwar period was a golden age of the uncanny. Clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind-readers, miracle-workers and jinn-summoners—all assured the masses that, just like the newly discovered invisible forces of electricity, radiation and magnetism, unseen spiritual powers commanded a realm of hidden human potential. This was a transnational movement of eccentrics, gurus and prophets, with East and West interacting in unexpected ways. Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic as well as European records, Raphael...

Women of the Golden Dawn

  Tuesday 25 March 2025 Women of the Golden Dawn The Golden Dawn is the most talked about and accidentally well documented magical Order of the last 150 years. It was set up with women and men working together as equals, and that created a harmony and a “roundedness” to their rituals even when the ink was barely dry on them. Respectable, disreputable, sociable and dedicated, quite a few of the members made names for themselves outside the Lodges. Geraldine Beskin , co-owner of the Atlantis Bookshop, talks about Moina Mathers, Florence Farr, Annie Horniman and other women who were not in supporting roles – they were great achievers both within the Golden Dawn and in the wider world.  Date: Tuesday 25 March 2025 Time: 8pm (Doors 7.30) Venue: The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street E1 7EX (Tubes: Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Aldgate East) Tickets: £5/£3   https://wegottickets.com/event/652812/

Paracoustics – Sound and the Paranormal

  Paracoustics – Sound and the Paranormal Tuesday 25 February 2025 From the chain-rattling ghost of Pliny’s first-century Athens to things that go bump in the night and 21st-century electronic voice phenomena (EVP), sound has always fascinated paranormal researchers. Dr Callum Cooper , co-editor of Paracoustics – Sound and the Paranormal , examines that fascination and presents a selection of the leading research in paranormal acoustics. He explores the physics and the psychology of sound and its association with the paranormal, including infrasound, EVP, séance tapping and other ghostly sounds. Venue: The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street E1 7EX ( Tubes: Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Aldgate East) Date: Tuesday 25 February 2025 Time: 8pm (Doors 7.30) Tickets: £5/£3 https://wegottickets.com/event/648638/

Mavericks: Lessons from History’s Most Extraordinary Misfits

J Draper digs out unusual stories of individuals who have shaped the world, uncovering the lessons their unique experiences can teach us.  With Reweirding: Monday 10 February 2025 6.30 pm doors. 7 pm start.  £10 / £7 Concessions / £6 online   Advance Booking Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn London Fortean Email List Witty and engaging TikTok historian J Draper digs out unusual stories of individuals who have shaped the world, uncovering the lessons their unique experiences can teach us. Breaking away from history told through the lens of kings, queens, and nobles, this book instead lifts the lid on 24 fascinating stories of little-known underdogs, mavericks, trailblazers, and oddballs. Through these stories, you will meet characters such as Sabrina Sidney, an orphan kidnapped into a bizarre child-raising experiment; Eleanor Rykener, a gender-bending sex worker from medieval England who spilled juicy gossip about her clients in the cler...

Vampires: from Monster to Mister

  Tuesday 28 January 2025 Vampires: from Monster to Mister Some people seem to think that a good vampire novel is a story in which the vampire marries the heroine at the end. Vampires have always had a connection with sex, as either Demon Lover or Rapist Monster, but it’s difficult to find anything in folklore or literature which characterises them as likely to make good husbands – until, of course, the arrival of Twilight . How did it happen? Why did it happen? Was it inevitable? Will it go away – should it go away? The lure of the vampire has been summed up as being Sex, Death and Fancy Costumes. Must we now add: faithful, patient, kind, hard-working and good with the children? Vampire specialist Dr Tina Rath answers these and many other questions about the dark seducer. Venue: The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street E1 7EX (Tubes: Liverpool Street, Aldgate, Aldgate East) Date: Tuesday 28 January 2025 Time: 8pm (Doors 7.30) Tickets: £5/£3 https://wegottickets.com/event/642844/