Author: James Clark

Ectoplasm used to appear a lot, extruding from the various orifices of spirit mediums during séances in the 19th and early 20th centuries. It’s not something you hear too much about in the 21st century though, so I was startled to read recent claims that a German group photographed this controversial substance just last year. Given its...

The little people are big news this summer, and they’re more frightening than you might expect. Forget the romanticized fairies of Victorian paintings and Disney films. I’m not talking about pretty little silver-voiced beings flitting around on butterfly wings and sprinkling magic dust. The current trend draws on older legends of sinister, shape-shifting entities inhabiting...

With True Blood back for a fourth season, fans of the hit TV show will know that not every vampire is content with synthetic blood substitute. Some insist on the real deal, freshly decanted from a mortal vessel, and so it’s important to know how to protect yourself. Fortunately centuries of vampire mythology have described...

Supernatural romance comes to the London stage this week when Ghost: The Musical – adapted from the Oscar®-winning Paramount Pictures film Ghost – starts its West End run at the Piccadilly Theatre. As the show will no doubt put you in the mood for a spot of ghost-hunting, here are some handy hints for what...

Don’t tell anyone but I think I may be on to something. I have a sneaking suspicion that Prince William and Kate Middleton are secretly hunting ghosts on behalf of the British Monarchy. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (as they are now officially known) are to move into refurbished apartments inside Kensington Palace and...

With Captain Jack Sparrow entertaining cinema audiences in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, I thought I’d take a trip to east London on the trail of another pirate – this one of the supernatural variety. The waterfront neighbourhood of Wapping, to the east of the City of London, has changed enormously over the...

Heads up, folks! If she keeps to her supernatural schedule then now’s a great time to look out for Britain’s most famous phantom. When Anne Boleyn (or Bullen) married King Henry VIII she wasn’t his first wife. That dubious privilege had fallen to Catherine of Aragon, who had previously been married to Henry’s brother Arthur...