Lucky Charms in the First World War

Leo Ruickbie’s chapter ‘Lucky Charms in the First World War – Industrialized Magic’ is published in Katharina Rein’s anthology Magic: A Companion (Peter Lang, 2022).

Secrets of the Raven Master

Following the disapearance of Merlina, Dr Leo Ruickbie interviewed Yeoman Warder Chris Skaife, the Tower of London’s Raven Master.

The Witchcraft Trial of Jean Grenier

I Was A Real Teenage Werewolf: The Seventeenth Century Witchcraft Trial of Jean Grenier In 1603, the French teenager Jean Grenier was tried for assault, murder, cannibalism and witchcraft by the Parlement of Bordeaux. Despite the loss of the trial records, the case is known through the writing of Pierre de Lancre (1553?–1631), but was…

Leicester Through the Looking Glass

The 43rd Annual International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research, Leicester, 2019 Eyes closed, I held the folded piece of paper to my forehead. Nothing. A dried sheet of bleached wood pulp at room temperature. Then close to my ear, as if it might speak to me. Now, I began to get something: it…

The Catacombs of Paris

In the Empire of the Dead: A Journey Through the Catacombs of Paris There is a queue, there is always a queue. It curls round an unexpectedly uninteresting eighteenth-century building surrounded by busy roads in the Montparnasse district of Paris. And as we stand there in the summer sunshine, high spirits fade into boredom, tempered…

Psi Theories

For the Love of Theory: A Report on the Paris Workshop on Psi Theories With funding from the Society for Psychical Research and other organisations, a special meeting held before the 2019 Parapsychological Association Convention sought to bring together twenty-nine invited speakers and participants from a diverse range of the sciences to address the problem…

Psi on the Tyne

The 42nd Annual International Conference of the Society for Psychical Research, Newcastle upon Tyne, 2018 Newcastle made a singular impression on me as I stepped off the train. The familiar Victorian station led out into a strange landscape. The Lady Boys of Bangkok had encamped before the rearing block of Jury’s Inn, the venue for…

The SPR at War

The Society for Psychical Research and the First World War On the evening of 6 August 1914, two days after Britain had declared war on Germany, Miss Ann Jones (a pseudonym)1 was sitting in her room, waiting for some friends to call, when she was overcome by what she described as ‘a feeling of great…

The Society for Psychical Research at Horsley Towers

The Society for Psychical Research’s 41st International Annual Conference Of course Horsley Towers is haunted. Dating from 1558, but rebuilt in a neo-Gothic style in the nineteenth century, the building has connections with Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, mathematician and only daughter of Romantic poet Lord Byron, Sir T.O.M. Sopwith, the man responsible for…

A Night with the Black Monk

Inside 30 East Drive, Home of the Black Monk of Pontefract At 2 a.m. the ghost hunters left. I was alone in the haunted house. After the demise of Borley Rectory, this was quite possibly the best contender for ‘The Most Haunted House in England’, at least according to the house’s website. And I was…

Lucid in Leeds

The SPR’s 40th International Annual Conference at the University of Leeds, 2016 The intense white light suddenly changed to blue, orange, yellow, then back to white. ‘Are you sure this is just white light?’ I asked. ‘Yes, just white light,’ replied a calm voice with the hint of an Austrian accent. When the change came…

Black Magic Code

“It began with a letter to a dead man…” My article ‘The Black Magic Code’ on Trithemius, cryptography and nigromancy published in Abraxas Journal. For more details see http://fulgur.co.uk/shop/abraxas/abraxas-journal-issue-6/

Britain’s Spookiest Places

Just had my first article published in the Daily Express: THE UK is blessed – or cursed – with the greatest number of haunted places imaginable. From the crumbling battlements of ruined castles and grand royal palaces to cosy country pubs and individual houses, ghosts have been sighted, heard, felt and sometimes smelt the length…

Vampire Autopsies

The True Story of the Eighteenth Century Vampire Epidemic What happens when you cut open a vampire? Read Dr Leo Ruickbie’s analysis of the eighteenth-century vampire epidemic and the medical experts who examined the undead corpses in the Fortean Times, issue 288 (Special, 2012). Visit: Fortean Times For back issues of Fortean Times call +44…

Christmas or Yule? Pagan secrets of the festive season

It’s that time of year again. Behind display windows sprayed with fake snow, stores play all our Christmas favorites, endlessly, and bearded men in red suits loiter in grottoes. But as you order your tree and hang up mistletoe, have you ever wondered what any of this has got to do with Christmas? Read my…

Harry Potter and Witchcraft

Satanist to some, saint to others, why have the religious reactions to Harry Potter been so contradictory? Plus, just how do you make a Horcrux? New pages on the website exploring my recent work on Harry Potter from fundamentalism to the concept of the external soul. Read it all here http://www.witchology.com/contents/harrypotter/articles.php