Christmas Ghost Story Collection: The Wind From Outside

Here is the print edition of my Christmas ghost story collection, released in 2020. It has been expanded with two additional stories written after the original release. This print edition is $12.00.

If you would like the pdf, free of charge, just email me and I will send it to you. Merry Christmas and Happy Yule!

Email for pdf: headofmimirblog @ g m a i l . c o m

The present collection is a series of supernatural stories written by Gregory E. Williams conceived with the long history of the Christmas ghost story as backdrop (the tradition predates Victorian authors like Dickens and perhaps even Christianity). The tales center around the strangeness of memory and the passage of time, intersected by queer history and identity. They circle around themes related to the last decades of the 20th Century, for example, the dawning of the millennium as a cultural event. Obsolete technologies like tape recorders and archived internet posts reappear and impinge weirdly upon the lives of characters.

As I wrote these pieces, I was struck by how alien the markers of the recent past can seem. On the other hand, the year 2000 really was a long time ago, and we are as if in an aftertime where past coordinates are increasingly obsolete, albeit hauntingly present. As I prepare this text for publication, we are in midst of a pandemic. The present also feels radically alien, and the future unimaginable. Researchers are looking into ways that the coronavirus ordeal is warping our experience of time. Duke University psychologist and neuroscientist, Kevin LaBar noted to Discover magazine, “I’ve experienced it myself. As this drags on, and as your day becomes very constrained by your limited environment, the days kind of blend together.” This is as good a time as any to indulge in some ghost stories for Christmas, that is, to give some regard to the looming, primeval night.

For more about the Christmas ghost story tradition, check out this link: https://weirdchristmas.com/2018/12/04/wc-podcast-12-victorian-xmas-ghost-stories/

Christmas Resources, Pt. 3

 Kindly see parts 1 and 2. 

This will be a quick post, as I have a new find here on the first of December, and it's a bit time-sensitive. 

Here we have the Hypnogoria Oldtime Yuletide Advent Calendar. This calendar is interactive, with each date on the calendar being a "door" leading to a bit of lore, available as text or short podcast. 

The calendar appears to be just the tip of the iceberg. The site is extensive and I have not yet had time to explore it. But beyond holiday content and the charm of the calendar format, the site's style evokes the old internet -- what one might have seen on Geocities or Angelfire. That may be enough to interest some explorers of the hauntological. 

Christmas Resources Pt. 2, Historical Farm Series

 

 

 

From Victorian Farm, left to right: archaeologists Peter Ginn and Alex Langlands and historian Ruth Goodman 

Kindly see Christmas Resources Pt. 1.

As I continue to compile my Yuletide resource list, I found it necessary to dedicate an entire post to BBC Two's historical farm series. 

There are five of these series, strictly speaking, plus the related series Victorian Pharmacy and Secrets of the Castle; all were produced by David Upshal.

I have included links to all of the relevant December/Christmas episodes below. 

Now, to my mind, these series together constitute an extraordinary achievement in the history of television. 

Each series features a team of historians and archaeologists meticulously carrying out period activities, sometimes using techniques not seen in the British Isles for hundreds of years, with principal figures like Ruth Goodman, Peter Ginn, and Alex Langlands appearing in all series; historian Ronald Hutton is a recurring guest, who comes to impart holiday lore. 

In Tales from the Green Valley, for instance, the team recreate a Welsh farm of the Stuart era "for a full calendar year." (This phrase is a memorable feature of the opening.) To that end they bring in many experts in order to plow fields, thatch roofs, prepare food, and more. Each episode documents one month's work.

Naturally, the Christmas episodes are my favorites. In preparation for the coming season, I have re-watched these particular episodes in order. Among other things, these recreations go a long way towards dispelling the notion that there is a modern "Christmas creep" (an ever-expanding holiday season). The episodes show that, on the contrary, there was historically a long feasting season based on the patterns of rural life, and these traditions were dealt a blow by capitalist modernity — namely with the industrial revolution and Protestant Reformation. 

If the Victorians revived Christmas, and consolidated the holiday as we know it, the revival itself speaks to the depth of the traditions, to their seeming irrepressibility. 

In any case, the episodes:  

1. Tales from the Green Valley (2005) Period explored: 1620	Christmas Episode
2. Victorian Farm (2009) Period explored: 1837-1901	Christmas Episode
3. Victorian Pharmacy (2010) Period explored: 1837-1901	N/A
4. Edwardian Farm (2011) Period explored: 1901-1910	Christmas Episode
5. Wartime Farm (2012) Period explored: 1938-1946	Christmas Episode
6. Tudor Monastery Farm (2013) Period explored: 1457–1509	Christmas Episode
7. Secrets of the Castle (2014) Period explored: 13th century	N/A

Christmas Resources, Pt. 1

 

Since we are sinking deeper into the Christmas season, I wanted to compile links to miscellaneous Yuletide things that I have found interesting or useful over the past several years. Included are YouTube playlists, books, podcasts, and more.

Note that although the present blog is dedicated to esotericism in the broadest possible sense—it is an occult blog—matters treated in the linked materials may be more-or-less exoteric in their respective cultural contexts. For contemporary U.S. Americans, the likes of Krampus may have dark and even counter-cultural connotations, and result in a frisson of the strange and the eerie; though, Krampus has become more mainstream. 

Your mileage may vary, as the saying goes. But I suspect that any of these things could be interesting those looking to plumb the depths of the season in various ways. 

1. Magic and Legends of Old Christmas

Media Type: YouTube series

A couple years back, a certain Benito Cereno produced a 12-part YouTube series covering huge swaths of Christmas lore and practices. His style is humorous and the approach encyclopedic. Cereno takes us from Russia to the North American lands of the Pennsylvania Dutch. Occasionally, his cats make their presence known.