So good morning, everyone. Firstly, I'm proud of this event.
Thanks to our guests for the invitation.
And since around 1999, I've been conducting research into the archaeology of counts of witchcraft, often referred to as objects and symbols.
My research into this began through looking at early modern examples in the UK.
But it quickly became evident that the same or similar practises occur all over the world and in virtually every era in this discussion there.
I'm keeping objects typically to those in Kansas from the 70s, the 19th century in England.
So amongst the conclusions I've reached over the years is that people perceive magic and religious forces as happening mostly on an invisible level.
There are several ways that humans could manipulate or interact with those magical forces.
So, for example, someone who is seen as a witch was thought to have some innate control over these horses.
Someone with knowledge of magic can access these horses through rituals or symbols.
Of course, we do get combinations of those as well and things which can be killed or were killed or we can sit dead
girls are active on this level and there is also some overlap with the other guests and family law as well.
So those ideas dealing with the non-religious end of the spectrum,
but the clergy and religious rights can also insurance and be effective on that level.
So if you could imagine being a lay person,
living in a basic home at a time when fear of witchcraft was high and there could be other fears around the dead,
the fairy or other humans cause any real harm,
you would need to take action to ensure that the people living in your home was safe and that you animals to say that your property was secure.
And I would argue that the majority of people during this period, the 17th to 19th centuries,
belief in the supernatural will say that it wouldn't even be described as a belief, as everyone was so immersed in it to various degrees.
And at some point since then, and with very different experiences with different people in different parts of society,
we've transformed this enormous state into a state where our heads are largely above the waters of the supernatural.
The majority of us consider it very differently now.
So security in the home against perceived dangers, whether supernatural or physical, was to people who were immersed in this world.
Just security at some point since then. Excuse me.
I'm just repeating, as I've said. Yes.
That is why in some churches we have companies that don't just carry enormous iron locks on them, but they also carry marks on them.
Yeah. Saying basically people were considering security as one whole thing.
Not just physical, not just supernatural. So an example here is from Koffler in Speciale and Worcestershire.
So this one has you may be able to see many attempts at inscribes circles on the front of the coffer because it's basically an axe cut plank.
It's very difficult to inscribe several light, but there's been numerous steps being sacrificed.
And also on the top, we also have these various things, what we call a Marine lock and which is actually visible through reaching light.
So we get these symbols like circles like Marion Moss, but we also get Daisy wheels.
Explain what that is.
So a daisy wheel is formed by drawing a circle and putting the tip of the compass on the circle and drawing another circle where they intersect.
You then draw another circle and shape all the way around the original circle.
And you end up with the same passive design. Now, this symbol in particular appears to have been used for security a lot in the UK.
Now, when you look at that symbol, try to whorls like in Romania, the USA, Germany and even in Russia.
And what we find is that this symbol actually thinks back to least six hundred,
sixteen hundred B.C. and it's usually considered to be an ancient solar symbol.
So they are two days away as it is providing protection through the sun.
Items or veggies, Daisy will, because oxygen was in use, such as on searching about 20 years ago,
but it is also known as slow resent and the new age community's intervention with the flower of life.
And we can find the simple, integrated and normal. And later, mediaeval decorative schemes.
But it is also applied as Social Security. So this particular example is tough century.
No one around us, it's important. And you can see the bottom of the slab.
There is data. We are protecting porcelain.
But then much later here in 18th century past, their absence in this church was there, which is Wilding's and work at the moment.
We've got another one inscribed in a studio window.
And what we've got here is four rotating theta wheels, one together, protecting its origin intimately in the mediaeval town.
But it's an 18th century Plassnik, so circles are also protected.
So resembles my simple Olusola symbols. And we often find those as well, singly overlapping on buildings around entrances.
So, for example, Speciale church membership, a function of your own? There are many overlapping circles around the main entrance to that church.
And when he talks about Marian Marks, what we're really talking about is indications the Virgin Mary music,
Amazon, the beans, which can be scratched on two surfaces. And it seems that she was being used to protect these places.
So a really famous example apart from the church coffees earlier on.
This is inside prince of its territory and most major.
And he would think having a charity shop going to Cathedral was enough security for your mortal remains.
But now someone else has gotten married, marks in it as well. Not with this one.
The animal. She can see that the the arms of the arm take her away.
And this is exactly as the M for Maria would appear on the palm of your hand if you look at the palm of your hand to see exactly the same.
And what it is on my hand anyway. And the arms take away in exactly the same fashion that we often find Bismarck and as Maureen.
Indeed, it exists on the head of an effigy stick, Biggio, amongst many others.
But then we will see by the opposite, just like an Upside-Down pair of these,
a bit like we saw on the coffin in Speciale, which could be Virgin of virgins, or basically it's the Virgin Mary.
But either way, up or down and it's V and which is the monogram to the Virgin Mary.
So the reason I'm talking about these marks I'm upset about that's just yet is that I think that some people think the where these marks were made,
there was actually a sort of ritual scraping away or killing a part of the surface, which could be I'm on the other side as well.
So this idea of security in an age where magical forces are normal is why, for example, many buildings in this period can be found to contain,
for example, a joint account wedged into a patch will step between two laughing plastic panels.
Well, why broken? Most planes can be found stuck to the window or double encel or either a deep burn marks on the chimney.
And so I would choose that contraventions of the chimney or which puzzle inverts it beneath the house containing ritually killed Pihl pins or nails.
So joint accounts. This particular example is from Hiking's, and it was the show,
I'm just going to examples of amendments and then very well it's thought to be from 17th century.
And it was found in between. And there is a faction or cottage in that village.
Then they come and finds in his dark buildings in England, ranging in date from the 16th century to the 20th.
They could, in fact, predate the 16th century.
But the fact that they're often inserted into buildings later than the construction dates makes them difficult to date tonight.
Expensive radiocarbon dating and remains can be in various stages of decay.
This particular camp has been the tenants to that match and the owner was very insistent on that, minus a few flakes and she couldn't salvage it.
Right. So I'm saying there is have ranged from them in scarers to the foundation sacrifices maybe as the rats quickly, Nansook,
know things like this and foundations that normally happen when work commences on the site at the ground level.
And one other theory reiterates it's made less.
And Terry Pratchett was that I giving a life to the house and then won't take a life nature on somebody else but falling down.
And if that was the case, we would expect all to be exempt and started building his life, which is not case.
And also, we find many of these counts, for example, concealed in the ceilings at two entrances,
the buildings, and that implies they are Heise thousand more will protect them.
And this is what leads me to think my cats were killed in the positive so that they lacked
as little spirit guardians protecting in death as they did in life without humans.
That perhaps being affected against the evils. So if you imagine the idea of someone you cast a spell on, you maybe the cat is there helping ward off.
That's what you've mentioned, the building.
So we also, if I was one, would choose or don't choose, which appear to have been used as decoys and buildings.
And there one the two thousand examples of consumer change being discovered in buildings.
And she's used to be considerably more expensive than they are now.
And we repeat over again, eventually being discarded. When people did conceal them, it was usually a single shoe and usually very well worn.
Well, as I said, dead and the discarded. She would be unique to the wearer split and thereby contains the essence of the owner.
And the idea is that any harmful forces entering the building to attack that person could be fooled into attacking the shoe instead of the person.
There is also coupled with that, this idea of a 14th century legend, an unofficial English saint who John Shawn,
who is from Buckinghamshire, and he was reputed to be constant evidence of the pilgrimage to his shrine, was incredibly popular.
That second only to Thomas of Becket, prepared of time.
And so Pilgrim badges with images him and ask about him existed in many churches throughout the country
and sort of popularised this idea that shoes or footwear could be associated with trapping evil.
So you can see here in this token bash, as you mentioned him, the devil trumps your boots.
So we think that the combination of this idea, you can you to shoot the decoy,
coupled with this idea that you could charm evil in a in footwear that's the popular popularisation, this practise.
So what are those type of objectified as which muscle these are possibly the most famous type.
And they were usually created inside that amines or stoneware, which.
Usually buried and the pins and needles found within have usually been deliberately bent specifically for the purpose of inclusion of the muscle.
So you have this kind of ritual killing of objects.
So in this image, you can see the contents of the fossil that was found in Greenwich in London and is now on display in the mountain museum then.
And then it would appear to be the case that the idea was that any harmful forces could
be Daniel and could be fooled by this anthropomorphic fossil filled with your own urine,
toenails, you know, with basically the essence of the victim that they would attack match instead of you.
And thereby we can impale them, chop them against the nails then.
So there was another type of a year in Bussell, which was to remove witchcraft at the time.
This was renovated several pamphlets in the late 17th century.
And later the differences between this practise of boiling bottles and the ones that were BERRIDGE, which we find in documents contexts.
So we also find whole skulls. Many of these have been found in proxy's in England.
And we find them. A lot of them in Wales and Ireland as well.
There's a late 19th century count from East Anglia,
which clearly shows a whole skull being needed for a foundation ritual where it is placed on a snake.
And I'm being a before cutting off the ground could commence the building of a chapel.
And whole skulls have also been found with instructions, screams on the sort of floors.
Sometimes it's in the house.
And when the D flashed his skull as a face and looking at things used to make fake dances in England and Wales, such as the Murray.
And I feel a whole skull as we seem to have a hybrid role as both foundations that face the fearsome creature warding off massive evil,
combined with the sensitivity and alertness, which of course, and they can sleep.
They can sleep with the eyes open. And so people associated them with being very vigilant.
There is also some debate about the accused to grow until skulls and some of the early in the future studying them.
But this is William Vasko. I'm a musician, and I'm just would like to declare that Michael Steele has not improved the quality of my guitar playing.
That's all so slightly to speak about there. And we also get a lot of burn marks when we're looking at marks.
This particular example is from Lovely, our school, Hy-Tech Flower in Wens, which is not far from the Citadel.
And this particular reef trust in the window directly above the entrance, and they run hundreds to put their marks on it.
There are no fixing holes associated with any of these marks to indicate that they were used as lumps or anything.
These are deliberately applied burn marks on the timbers. And we know we've always known that these were deliberately done.
But in 2016, some experiments like yours done the vernacular oxygen, shall we say.
It takes up to 20 minutes to make. One of these marks is where you burn the words.
The carbon that forms quickly prevents any further burning. You then have to scrape by Carbonaro away and then the venting can commence.
And then a new carbon atoms and European prices. And so you end up with quite a deep tsd, teardrop shaped or flame shaped moth.
Now, what I think is going on with these is that essentially we're ending up with kind of a mirror image of the candle flame on the other side.
And this magical pagan existence we're talking about earlier on, there's now a candle flame.
This was a candelabra on this rich truss would be my opinion.
And this is preventing darkness from that human area. On the other side.
Exactly. All right. So here's another example from cockroaches, which isn't happening.
It was then and again, once you play iron with these, then you start seeing them everywhere.
And so when I see the presence of marks and objects like this and you start properties can enhance existing businesses experience by giving
them a feeling of connexion with magical forces past and possibly also giving them a healthy dose of what I would call the heebie jeebies.
So most has energy, find these objects in their own homes,
become considerably more paranoid and fearful and supernatural, and often don't want the objects to leave the house.
I already mentioned Contact Hiren, South Wales. I'd say that's a really good example of a building which makes use of its magical past.
And the people who still at that house are happy to show people the marks in that house as well as the objects, just like when you first arrived.
And so often how people interpret discoveries in the historic buildings, they say, I'm religious.
We'll be happy to help anyone who would make examples. And that's that's me dominants, my talk things.
Are you listening?