Open Graves, Open Minds Research Project. Emphasising that sense of Gothic as enchantment. Also tweeting as @DrSamGeorge1 @BillBloodyHughe

Hertfordshire, UK
Joined April 2016
Open Graves & Minds retweeted
THE PARASITE An 1894 novella by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a psychic #VAMPIRE Miss Penelosa, a small pale creature who practices mesmerism & the evil eye & transforms into a monstrous parasite who creeps into her victim’s form #31daysofHalloween
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
NOSFERATU 1922 When the #vampire enters the room, the arch of the door fits him exactly like a coffin; each threshold is a passage towards death at sunrise when an innocent being will hold him in her power until the first crow of the cock #31daysofhalloween
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
"Witch on a Broomstick" by Mervyn Peake (1949)
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A THIN #GHOST Is one of my favourite book titles. The original decorative cloth cover with spider's web design published by Edward Arnold in 1919 is as ghoulishly good as M. R. James's writing. A #gothic gem of a book! #31daysofHalloween
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"We weren't simply passive victims of racism and colonialism. We organised against it." The book is being published at a time when conversations about racism, migration and belonging remain highly relevant. Why do these histories matter now? In this clip, @Taj_Ali1 reflects on growing up in Luton, learning about earlier generations of anti-racist activists, and why understanding those struggles remains vital in the face of contemporary racism. Explore 'Come what may, we're here to stay' alongside other featured titles examining race, empire and resistance: manchesteruniversitypress.co…
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Just popping on here to promote my weird cat book. It's purrrrrfect for Halloween!🐈‍⬛🎃 🎃🐈‍⬛ @BL_Publishing @BirkbeckC19 @VPFA1 @BAVS_PGs @TheBSLS @Gothica_UoB @SheffieldGothic @OGOMProject @cats_lore @weirdlilguys @PostsOfCats @CatWorkers @cats_lore #HalloweenCountdown 🙀👻🧙
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.” —Oscar Wilde, “The Canterville Ghost” Today is Wilde’s birthday
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
WITCHY CAT NAMES PYEWACKET is the name of a witch's familiar found by witchfinder general Matthew Hopkins, 1644. GRIMALKIN another witchy name derives from 'grim' grey, 'malkin', a hare or spinster; Graymalkin is the witches' familiar in Shakespeare's Macbeth #FolkloreSunday #31daysofHalloween
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Nine weeks to go until The Haunted Landscape 2026 In London and Online 120 tickets sold Join us for a day of ghosts, fairies, magic and the Great God Pan. #TheHauntedLandscape
The Haunted Landscape 2026: Magic, Fairies and Old Gods Saturday 21 November 2026 10 am - 5 pm @ConwayHall and online Line up below, books, coffee and more on the day. Details and tickets: forteanlondon.blogspot.com/2… 1/9
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
⚡️IT’S HERE!⚡️ Thank you everyone for your pre-orders. Shipping for The Mystery Issue begins now. 🔮 Get yours on helleborezine.com
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
Count Jaggula by Cecil Beaton, 1970. #Gothtober
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Next week: in our next online talk, Ann Schmiesing will speak about her book 'The Brothers Grimm: A Biography', winner of our Katharine Briggs Award 2025! Tuesday 20 October, 19:00-20:30 BST on Zoom. Tickets £6.00 (£4 for members with promo code) eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-broth…
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
Egger's film shows a debt to the terrifying Norse raiders known as the Berserkers who wore animal skins into battle. Baring-Gould's Book of #Werewolves 1865 speculated that superstition invested them with supernatural powers and they were supposed to assume the form of the beasts in whose skin they were disguised.
WULF, MY WULF a new book inspired by Robert Eggers & Sjón’s WERWULF script releases this month. Eggers wrote the forward: “Yet, when confronted by a living wolf, as I was at the Wolf Watch sanctuary, it's impossible not to be in absolute awe of the raw power of an apex predator.”
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
I will be speaking on the dark history of butterfly-winged fairies and exploring this within gothic realms in my keynote at the Dark Enchantments conference in Sheffield at the end of October! Hope to see some of you there!
Butterflies move between this world and The Otherworld carrying both messages and warnings. They are old souls waiting to be reborn, or are Fairies in disguise. 🖼 Asako Eguchi #mythologymonday
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
IRISH MYTH of FALLEN FAIRIES 'FAIRIES are the FALLEN angels who were cast down by the Lord God out of heaven for their sinful pride. Some fell into the sea & some on dry land & the devil gives these knowledge & power ' Lady Wilde, 187I #MythologyMonday #31daysofHalloween
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
LILITH 1895 #Vampire novella by George MacDonald who inspired Tolkien & the Inklings. Mr Vane ventures through a mirror into another world where he encounters the immoral desires of #vampire Lilith and the satanic shadow that manipulates her #31daysofHalloween
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
IGNIS FATUUS or Will o’ the Wisp. A corpse candle that haunts pathways with a flickering light. This phenomenon is used by Bram Stoker; a flickering blue flame is seen by Harker on his carriage journey through the wolf-infested forest to Castle Dracula #31daysofHalloween #Spooktober
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
That's nice! The mighty @forteantimes has republished my 'Phone Calls from the Dead' article in their 'More Ghosts and Hauntings' anthology. I am honoured! For those of you who missed it the first time around, now's your ghostly chance!
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Open Graves & Minds retweeted
VAMPIRES & SUNLIGHT 🧵#31DaysofHalloween There is no precedence in folklore for the idea that #vampires are destroyed by sunlight, this trait comes to us via film arriving as an iconic moment in F. W. Murnau's 'Nosferatu' in 1922. 🎨 Vampire Burning at Dawn, Hernan Conde de Boeck; Orlok, Nosferatu
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