From 26th October to the 12th November I’m back in Scotland for a ‘Halloween tour‘ of lectures, talks and events. I’ll have books on sale at each event.
1. SATURDAY & SUNDAY 26TH & 27TH OCTOBER, SCONE PALACE, PERTH.
TALK: ‘THE BODYSNATCHERS OF SCONE (plus the puma, the witch and the severed head)’
Join Geoff as he delves into the dark world of the Resurrectionists, the strange collaboration of hardened criminals and respectable medical men who broke into coffins and stole bodies for the dissecting tables of the anatomists.
Bodysnatching ahoy!
Time: 1pm
Tickets: £10 (include grounds admission) – 01738 552300 or visits@scone-palace.co.uk or www.scone-palace.co.uk
SPECIAL: On the Saturday the talk (and the subsequent visit to the Palace graveyard) will be filmed by TF1 (the
French equivalent of BBC1) for a ‘Halloween in Scotland’ special to be broadcast in France on 2 November. Come
along and be on television!
2. THURSDAY 31ST OCTOBER – SKEPTICS IN THE PUB, EDINBURGH.
TALK: ‘SCOTTISH WITCHCRAFT’
Scottish witchcraft has by now developed its own mythology, a set of ideas that ‘everybody knows’. Geoff’s talk
will attempt to separate fantasy from historical reality, which is both stranger and more sordid than most people
suspect. By way of illustration he will detail his own groundbreaking investigations into the famous Maggie Wall
Witchcraft Monument in Perthshire, a B-listed historical monument (and favourite trysting spot for the Moors
Murderers) that, as the painted inscription states, supposedly commemorates “Maggie Wall burned here as a
Witch 1657”. The key word, boys and girls, is “supposedly”.
Venue: The Banshee Labyrinth 29-35 Niddry Street Edinburgh EH1 1LG
Time: 7.30PM
Free – More details at http://edinburgh.skepticsinthepub.org/Event.aspx/1768/Witches-in-Scotland
3. SATURDAY 9TH NOVEMBER, GLASGOW – SCOTTISH SOCIETY OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCH ANNUAL
CONFERENCE.
TALK: ‘SEX, LIES AND PARANORMAL GLASGOW’
Venue: Hilton Glasgow Grosvener Hotel, Grosvener Terrace, Great Western Road / Byres Road, Glasgow
Time: from 10 am to 4.40 pm
Tickets: £35: http://www.sspr.co.uk/index.html
4. TUESDAY 12TH NOVEMBER: THE EDINBURGH FORTEAN SOCIETY.
TALK: ‘ZOMBIES FROM HISTORY’
Zombie culture didn’t start with George Romero. Here be medieval chroniclers’ sworn-to-be-true tales of the
plague-spreading undead; the pugilistic zombie of Paisley; archeological evidence of Anglo-Saxon and Romano-
British fear of the walking dead; several ‘Ladies with the Ring’, all supposedly revived in the grave by jewel-stealing
gravediggers; the man who was hanged and buried – and then revived; the Cumbrian Crusader whose corpse was still bleeding 800 years after his death; and the bog body that solved a modern murder mystery.
Warning: contains corpses.
Venue: The Counting House, 38 West Nicolson Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DD
Time: 7.30pm
Cost: £1 – http://www.edinburghforteansociety.org.uk/index.html
