London Fortean Society

What do we see when we watch a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat or read a person’s mind? We are captivated by an illusion; we applaud the fact that we have been fooled. Why do we enjoy experiencing what seems clearly impossible, or at least beyond our powers of explanation?  7.15pm Monday 10 June 2019 £5 ( Advance tickets ) Conway Hall , 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn Directions Facebook event page In this talk Dr Gustav Kuhn examines the psychological processes that underpin our experience of magic. Kuhn, a psychologist and a magician, reveals the intriguing—and often unsettling—insights into the human mind that the scientific study of magic provides. Gustav will perform magic and then discuss how magician and magic creates a cognitive conflict between what we believe to be true (for example, a rabbit could not be in that hat) and what we experience (a rabbit has just come out of that hat!).  Drawing on the latest psychological, neurologic...

7.45pm Wednesday 29 May 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell, 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Aldgate, Aldgate East Facebook Page John Michell’s seminal works from the late 1960s allowed a whole generation to find a unique engagement with the English landscape. His books lyrically describe his rediscovery of leys, earth energies and traditional ways of thinking. He saw sites like stone circles and holy wells not only interconnected by a web of straight lines, but infused with an energy emanating from the earth.  London folklorist Rob Stephenson shows how Michell postulated a delightful piece of ancient technology that, through the study of ancient measure and other arcane subjects, could unlock a code that brings enlightenment. 7.45pm Wednesday 29 May 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell,  50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Al...

7.15pm Wednesday 22 May 2019 £6 This event has now sold out! Thank you to all who have booked. We shall endeavour to book Kirsty and Syd again!  Conway Hall , 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn Directions Facebook event page Harmful practices due to belief in witchcraft have seen a huge increase in the past six years both globally and in the UK and Kirsty Brimelow QC and author and campaigner Syd Moore have joined forces to expose this phenomenon. They will contextualise the current climate, Syd will present dark chapters of the grim past of Essex witch hunts that have inspired her writing. They will move on to witchcraft belief in the present and the techniques used to 'discover' witches in use today. Kirsty will talk about the contemporary landscape of witchcraft belief and abuse, the legal perspective on this and some of the cases she has been involved with. Raising awareness about these issues is something that both Kirsty and Syd are committed...

7.45pm Tuesday 14 May 2019 8pm (doors 7.45pm) £5 / £2 concessions   We have taken advance tickets off sale for we do still have tickets on the door. Come along! The Miller , 96 Snowsfields, London Bridge, London SE1 3SS Tube and Rail: London Bridge Facebook page We all know what a mermaid looks like: a woman with a fish’s tail. But tracing her family tree from ancient myth and image, through medieval symbol and Renaissance legend, romantic folktale and suggestive art, we find a shape-shifter whose cousins are birds, monkeys, seals and serpents, as well as fish; whose greatest significance may be simply her gender, showing in her mirror a reflection of how men, through history, have seen women. Sophia Kingshill  is the author of  Mermaids  (Little Toller, 2015), a cultural history of sirens, selkies and other sea women. She is co-author of  The Fabled Coast  (Random House, 2012) and  The Lore of Scotland  (Random House, 2009), with...

7.45pm Thursday 25 April 2019 This event has completely sold out. We shall attempt to book a new date.  The Bell , 50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street.  Tube: Aldgate, Aldgate East Facebook Page Many today wish to see a fairy; many in the Middle Ages wished that they had not. To encounter a spirit was to be drawn out of the warm world of human solidarity into solitude, wasting, grief and madness. Fairies brought mental illness in their train, and even the healing power of saints found it hard to stitch up a broken mind.  The fairy mythology provided ready-made narratives for understanding and containing mental disturbance, stories continuing in Irish and Scandinavian culture. Fairies – with their caprice, their deceptions, their insubstantial grandeur – were like the shadows cast by a disordered mind.  Folklorist Jeremy Harte reveals how mental illness was often ascribed to fairies – and how a troubled person, led astra...