This Halloween I’m giving a series of talks on spooky subjects at various places in Scotland. Zombies, poltergeists, vampires, witchcraft – there’s something for everyone.
1. SUBJECT: SUPERNATURAL SCOTLAND
WHEN: Tuesday 28th October, 7pm
WHERE: ABERFELDY – Breadalbane Campus, Aberfeldy, Perth & Kinross PH15 2DU
DETAILS: A medieval monk describes an outbreak of zombies in the Scottish Borders. A poltergeist case in
Edinburgh ends up in court. The Maggie Wall Witchcraft Monument in Perthshire is a complex fake. A ghost
sighting in Dundee provokes a mini-riot. And hundreds of Glasgow schoolchildren invade a graveyard hunting a
vampire with iron teeth. Based on meticulous original research, prolific author (and highly entertaining speaker) in
this Halloween special Geoff Holder reveals some of the historical and modern mysteries of the Scottish
paranormal experience. Welcome to Supernatural Scotland. It’s stranger than you can imagine.
COST: £5
MORE INFO: http://www.pkc.gov.uk/article/9844/Supernatural-Scotland-with-Geoff-Holder
2. SUBJECT: ZOMBIES FROM HISTORY
WHEN: Thursday 30th October, 7.30pm
WHERE: EDINBURGH – Skeptics in the Pub, Banshee Labyrinth, 29-35 Niddry Street, EH1 1LG (just off the Royal Mile).
DETAILS: It’s the night of the living dead… Zombie culture didn’t start with George Romero. Here be medieval
chroniclers’ sworn-to-be-true tales of the plague-spreading undead, including the pugilistic zombie of Paisley and
the zombie monk of the Scottish Borders; archeological evidence from graveyards 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 men who were hanged and buried – and then revived; the Cumbrian Crusader whose corpse
was still bleeding 800 years after his death; and the ancient bog body that accidentally solved a modern murder
mystery.
Warning: contains corpses.
COST: FREE
MORE INFO: here
3. SUBJECT: SEX, LIES AND POLTERGEISTS! at the FIRST EVER SCOTTISH PARANORMAL FESTIVAL
WHEN: FRIDAY 31ST OCTOBER, 3.30PM
WHERE: Albert Halls, Albert Place, Dumbarton Road, Stirling FK9 4LA
DETAILS: Activity which has baffled paranormal investigators for centuries. Focusing on Scotland, Geoff will
discuss the earliest recorded Scottish poltergeist, a witchcraft episode from Stirling, and an Aberdeenshire
example kickstarted by young lust.
A canvas of commonsense-defying mysteries that stretches from the year 1635 to the present day.
COST: £5
MORE INFO: http://www.paranormalscotland.com/presentations/geoff-holder-sex-lies-and-poltergeists/
That splendid website The Spooky Isles is currently carrying an interview with the humble author, conducted by MJ Steel Collins. Amidst the waffling, poltergeists, vampires, dinosaurs and the Maggie
Wall Witchcraft Monument all get a look-in, as do H.P. Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley and the late great John Peel.
Have a gander here: http://www.spookyisles.com/2013/07/geoff-holder-paranormal-author-interview/
There is a podcast.
It is on Into the Dark Radio, www.intothedarkradio.net/apps/podcast/311740.
It is about poltergeists. Some of them from Scotland.
There is also wittering about poltergeists from the USA, Canada, France and other locations.
Vampires, demons, witches, fairies, thoughtforms and psychokinesis get a look-in.
Occasionally, jokes are made. One or two of them may even pass for being funny.
Into the Dark Radio is based in Ohio, yet can be heard and downloaded across the known world thanks to the miracle of the thing that all the cool kids are calling ‘the internet’.
Ta to Steve Rogers and Shawn McMahon for allowing me to maunder on. Follow them on that there Twitter, @IntoTheDrkRadio.
My new book, Haunted St Andrews, is published today (29 June). The list of contents should give you an idea what to expect:
Chapter 1 – The White Lady and The Haunted Tower
Chapter 2 – A Haunted Cluster – the Ghosts of The Pends, St Leonard’s School and Queen Mary’s House
Chapter 3 – Ghosts of Castle and Cloister
Chapter 4 – Ghosts of Town and Gown
Chapter 5 – Pitmilly House – Poltergeist Manor!
Chapter 6 – A Pair of Poltergeists
Chapter 7 – Death Warnings, Dead Air and Ghost Villages
I will be doing a book signing at the esteemed bookshop of J & G Innes, St Andrews on Saturday 21 July. Meanwhile, there will be articles on Haunted St Andrews in the Scottish Daily Mail (Saturday 30th June) and the Glasgow Herald (Sunday 8 July). There was going to be a televised interview on BBC’s Reporting Scotland, but they cancelled at the last minute (and there was me having ironed a clean shirt and shaved my manly stubble – honestly, the sacrifices I make for my public…)
Haunted St Andrews is published by The History Press at £9.99, and is available from your local high street bookshop or from Amazon.
This week we officially release the feature length presentation by Geoff Holder on ‘Haunted St. Andrews’. Filmed on in February 2012, in front of a live audience, Geoff covers topics from the philosophy of belief to mummies and apparitions, to poltergeists and timeslips.
If you’d like to see Geoff in action, make sure and keep up to date with the events calendar on the site, and come along to a talk near you. Alternatively if you’d like to book Geoff for an event, or invite him to speak for a group of society in which you are involved, head over to our ‘Get in Touch’ page!