London Fortean Society

7.15pm Wednesday 11 September 2019 Sold out 7.15pm Wednesday 23 October 2019 £6 ( Advance tickets ) Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL Tube: Holborn Directions Facebook event page This is the definitive history of how evil magic has survived into the present day from the largely rural world of Georgian Britain and the time of the British Empire to the multicultural present. In our age of technology and information, it is easy to imagine that black magic in Britain is dead. On the contrary, over recent centuries it has persisted, changed and returned. Spanning across the largely rural world of Georgian Britain and the time of the British Empire to the multicultural present, and drawing on an unprecedented range of sources, including, diaries, folklore reports and oral interviews, Thomas Waters explores the enduring power of ancient fears and desires. Through fascinating individual stories, he shows in his book how witchcraft is as diverse as modern Brita

7.45pm Wednesday 28 August 2019 Sold Out 7.45 Tuesday 15 October 2019 £5 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Miller, 96 Snowsfields, London Bridge, London SE1 3SS Tube and Rail: London Bridge Facebook Page Most 20th and 21st-century researchers who consider that poltergeist activity has a paranormal cause have attributed manifestations to instances of psychokinesis emanating from the minds of living people. Only a minority of researchers have thought that poltergeist activity is caused by ghosts or other entities. In three British poltergeist cases (the Battersea poltergeist 1956-68, the Enfield poltergeist 1977-79 and the South Shields poltergeist 2006) researchers were driven to the conclusion that external entities or forces were involved, capable of possessing the minds and bodies of the living.  Claims of possession in Western society have a long history and today are generally ascribed to psychiatric causes or the impact of wider societal beliefs. Alan Murdie ,

7.45pm Wednesday 25 September 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 Historian Lee Jackson , author of Palaces of Pleasure , recounts the history of London’s 19th-century pleasure gardens, from the faltering last days of Vauxhall to Chelsea’s infamous Cremorne Gardens, Highbury Barn and the Eagle Tavern (of “Pop Goes the Weasel” fame). The rise and fall of the Victorian pleasure garden tells us a good deal about the growth of commercial mass entertainment in the industrial age. It’s a story packed with dramatic spectacle, from fake icebergs to burning men, tightrope walkers and human frogs, prostitution and the Polka, parachuting monkeys, and the power of money. 7.45pm Wednesday 25 September 2019 £4 / £2 Concessions ( Advance tickets ) The Bell,  50 Middlesex Street, London E1 7EX. Train and Tube: Liverpool Street. Tube: Aldgate, Aldgat