Preternatural Investigations Sharron Kraus

In which the concept of the preternatural is introduced and the importance of a preternatural realm lying between the natural and the supernatural is argued for.





Music by Sharron Kraus, with James Street, Neal Heppleston, Nick Jonah Davis and Oliver Parfitt







REFERENCES Phillip Pullman, ‘Why We Believe in Magic’ William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience Richard Dawkins, The Magic of Reality: How we know what’s really true Lorraine Daston & Katharine Park, Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750

In which a return to Mid Wales triggers a kind of charged and magical experience that feels like a portal onto a more intense world. What’s going on here?





Music from Pilgrim Chants and Pastoral Trails by Sharron KrausWith Harriet Earis, Mark Wilden & Simon Lewis







REFERENCES Sioned Davies, tr., The Mabinogion Alan Garner, The Owl Service Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising Diarmuid Johnson, Pen and Plough – 20th Century Poets and Bards of Ceredigion Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces

In which the idea that the sense of wonder we are born with automatically diminishes as we mature is brought into question. The factors that erode our sense of wonder are examined and the possibility of reaching adulthood with a sense of wonder intact is argued for.





In which the idea that the sense of wonder we are born with automatically diminishes as we mature is brought into question. The factors that erode our sense of wonder are examined and the possibility of reaching adulthood with a sense of wonder intact is argued for.







Music by Sharron Kraus, with Guy Whittaker, James Green, Aby Vulliamy, Harriet Earis, Oliver Parfitt and Nick Jonah Davis





Clips from Jefferson Airplane’s ‘Lather’ and Rupert Holmes’ ‘Escape (The Piña Colada Song)’





REFERENCES

Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of the Morals René Descartes, The Passions of the Soul John Ruskin, The Elements of Drawing Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice

In which the enchanting music of The Pied Piper, the natural magic of The Secret Garden, and other fictional portrayals of magic are examined and some are shown to convey aspects of the preternatural magic we can find in the world.





Music by Sharron Kraus, with Harriet Earis, Tara Burke, Helena Espvall, Norman Fetter and Howard Wuelfing





REFERENCES Susan Cooper, The Dark is RisingKenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia    Of Other Worlds: Essays & Stories

John Masefield, The Midnight Follk    The Box of Delights

Penelope Lively, The Wild Hunt of HagworthyThe Wicker Man

Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror

Mark Gatiss, A History of Horror

Burnt Offering: The Cult of The Wicker Man

In which an examination of M.R. James’ approach to writing ghost stories leads to a distinction between two ways of thinking about the past, the first being a parallel to Edward Said’s Orientalism – a way of treating the past as an exotic and mysterious ‘Other’ – the second, viewing the past as continuous with and persisting into the present, the present as containing palimpsests or time capsules that allow us access to the past.







Music by Sharron Kraus, with Harriet Earis and Guy Whittaker







REFERENCES

Mark Fisher, The Weird and the Eerie

M.R. James, Collected Ghost Stories

    ‘Ghosts – Treat Them Gently’

The League of Gentlemen

Edward Said, Orientalism

Penelope Lively, The House at Norham Gardens

    The Ghost of Thomas Kempe

    The Presence of the Past

Charles Butler, Four British Fantasists

Rob Young, Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music

    ‘The Pattern Under the Plough’

Detectorists

In which an old, traditional ceremony – The Ancient Castleton Garland Ceremony – is compared with a new, invented one – the burning of the hare at Sin-Eater Festival and the differences between them that make one spellbinding and the other less so are drawn out.







Music by Sharron Kraus

Sin Eater Festival recorded by John Still







REFERENCES

Dan Jones, ‘Dark Rites’ in New Scientist, 17 January 2015

Alan Dundes, Interpreting Folklore

Joseph Campbell & Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth

Alan Garner, The Voice That Thunders

Hans-Georg Gadamer, The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays

Ronald Hutton, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain