The Quantum Pagan an Introduction

Posted on October 20, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Last week, because I don’t have enough to write, I started work on a project that has been kicking about for a few years. While it may never see the light of day, as it is in part a personal project, I have been encouraged through conversations with a few people to write a book on pagan mysticism, faith and quantum physics…

With that in mind, as I needed a distraction, I wrote an introduction piece for the book, which was going to be short and intended to be humorous, it got a tad out of hand and required some additional research as these things are bound to do… but it inspired me to keep on with the project and I went on to write a couple of chapters as well and got to just shy of 10000 words last week, as well as sketching out in note form the rest of the book. There is a lot of work to do and there will be much revision, and exactly when if ever the book will see the light of day is another matter. But I thought i would put the introduction here, as some of you may enjoy it. In any regard, I present the introduction (in its present 1st draft form, please bare that in mind) to the book on paganism I am sort of writing that has no firm title as yet

The Quantum Pagan an Introduction

50,000 years ago, amidst a great plain that would one day be called the Serengeti, a man sits cross-legged before at a smouldering fire pit. He is not paying attention to the fire as it splutters down. Instead, he is staring up at the lights in the sky.

His people, the people of the south and the east call him Hura’tuoi, which means he who wonderers.  The people of the north and the west snigger at this and call him Hura’tuoa, which means he who wanderers. It will be fifty millennia until this terrible play on words is funny once more. In another time and another language. Humanity will have learned a great deal in those intervening years, but will not have gotten any better at puns…

It is a clear night, the vista of the stars moves slowing through the heavens as Hura’tuoi watches and tries to ascribe meaning to the lights he sees. He has left his people and walked out into the bush alone, here to camp and contemplate. His people think him strange, and in truth he has always been a little strange. He thinks too much and feels too little, they say of him, but this is not true. He feels everything and when he stares at the sky he is seeking connection. He is seeking to understand what he sees and in doing so understand, perhaps even define, his place in the cosmos.

Hura’tuoi believes there is a connection between the heavens and earth. He perceives patterns within the stars, patterns that he does not understand but longs to. In the millennia to come his peoples descendants will give those patterns names and tell stories of them. But that is in the time to come, Hura’tuoi like his kin, of necessity lives in the now. His stories are the stories of the hunt and hunger. His stories are the ones that tell the people where to find the fruits and edible roots as the season turn. Where the antelope will be, come the days of rains. Where water will flow in the days of drought. Hura’tuoi and his people are connected to the world in the most direct of all possible ways. Most of his people are locked in a daily struggle for existence, He is the exception, the shaman.  He is one who finds time to wonder about the universe, rather than just where the next meal is coming from. He is the foreshadowing of the humanity to come. A humanity that will seek to understand the cosmos in ways he could not comprehend, on the African plains fifty millennia ago.

He is among the first of his kind, a human who stares up at the stars, wonders what they are and wonders about his place in the universe. Hura’tuoi stares up at the stars, as his untended fire dwindles to ash. He wonders at the majestic turning of the heavens. He wonders at the cosmos he seeks to connect with.

Right up to the moment he is mauled to death by the pride of lions that has been stalking him.

It would be close on to forty thousand years until people like Hura’tuoi could stare into the night sky, wonder about the cosmos, and be able to be reasonably safe in the knowledge that large predators were unable to stalk them. Sometime between 10000 and 9000 BCE by our best estimates, around 11000 years ago, in the fertile crescent of Mesopotamian, small neolithic farming settlements began to appear as humankind figured out how to plant and harvest grains. In the years between Hura’tuoi and the birth of civilization, many humans must have looked up at the heavens, wondered about our place in the universe and told stories. Some of them may also have been mauled to death by lions… It wasn’t until we achieved a level of civilization that allowed for the next meal to be more of a certainty than a mere possibility that humanity was truly in a position to wonder about those strange lights in the sky, but by then we had already learned to use them, both as reference points for navigation and as measure of the passage of time.

Gobekli Tepe, situated in the southeast of modern turkey, is one of the oldest sites of human habitation. The earliest parts of the complex are thought to have been built by nomadic peoples as a place for mysticism and ritual. Just why they chose this site is a matter of speculation but what we do know is they were a people amidst a transformation from a society of hunter gatherers to one of farming and animal husbandry. The site which probably began as a ceremonial hub was occupied to one extent or another between 9500 and 8000 BCE. That’s one and a half thousand years. To put that expanse of time into some form of context one and a half thousand years ago from today a newly fragmented Europe was emerging after the final collapse of the roman empire, the Sui dynasty was reunifying China and the Mayans were building ziggurats.

Fifteen hundred years is a very long time, at least in human terms. Longer still when you consider in modernity a generation, the period of time it takes for a person to be born, raised to adult hood and have children of their own is around thirty to thirty-five years or so, in the developed world. In the neolithic world the average generation would have been between only fifteen to twenty years. It is not a stretch to say Gobekli Tepe was inhabited for something around eighty-five generations. Again, to put that in perspective, going back eighty-five modern generations would put us somewhere in the middle of bronze age Greece…  

To be succinct humans lived at Gobeki Tepe, for a very long time

However, they also left it a very long time ago. Arguably, the most famous neolithic monument in the world is Stonehenge. The Circle of stones in the plains of Wiltshire that was constructed around 3000 BCE or 5000 years ago. This was around the same time period as the construction of the megalithic temples of Malta. Both those temples and Stonehenge are aligned with the stars and the equinox’s, as indeed are some aspects of the Gobeki Tepe complex. But for a little more perspective, as we sit her in modernity we are closer in time to the forgotten builders of Stonehenge and Malta’s temples, than the builders of those wonders were to the builders of Gobekli Tepe, and we know very little about any of them. What we do know is Gobekli Tepe was not alone. There are many other sites around the world where humans have come together to build sites of mysticism and spirituality that align with the stars, and the turning of the seasons. Gobeki Tepe is merely one of the oldest that has not been removed by the ravages of time.  

What Gobeki Tepe, Stonehenge, the temples of Malta and all the rest are is proof, if ever it was needed, that our most common trait as humans is a desire to understand our place in the cosmos and to connect to it. A desire that predates Gobekli Tepe, that predates even my poor unfortunate Hura’tuoi. Humanity has had a concept of the spiritual for a very long time. While religion and religious practices almost certainly developed as far back as 50,000 years ago in the Upper Paleolithic in the form of shamanic rituals. There is sporadic and disputable evidence of such things stemming from even further back. The simple truth is we have no idea how far back in time humans have been staring out at the universe seeking something more than themselves. Prehistoric cultures are by their very nature, before history, but we have been seeking the divine for a long time.

Modern paganism, as practiced by myself and others, does not look so far back in time. The deepest back in time we look in any real sense is probably back to the Minoans and Crete a thousand years before the Greece of Plato and Aristotle. Modern druidism, which is but one branch of paganisum, has no real roots with the builders of Stonehenge but is based on 19th century romanticism. Modern pagans look back on ritualism from the Greek, Roman, and latterly the dark age societies of northern Europe for answers. Others look to the native religions of the America’s and other cultures that have been subsumed into western religion. We have little connection with the builders of Gobekli Tepe, or indeed the builders of Malta’s temples, or Stonehenge. Except in one very important way. Modern pagans, like their ancestors before them, right down to Hura’tuoi and beyond, are still seeking a connection to the universe. Seeking a spiritual link to the cosmos. Seeking to find their place, and in doing so to find that which is divine…

Modern paganisms many branches are all reaching outwards, while looking back to the past. There is nothing wrong with this, but while this form of paganism brings a sense of belonging, connection and fulfillment to many, it has never felt entirely right for me… While I feel that same desire to find and connect with something of the divine, to be part of a greater spirituality, part of the world and the universe, I also worship at another altar. For while paganism calls to me, I am and always have been, fascinated by science and more importantly physics. On the face of it, it may seem difficult to conciliate the philosophy of quantum physics with any form of Pagan mysticism. Certainly, it has taken me more than a few years to find my own way, my truth, if you will. This book is, however, an expression of that truth, and my search for it.

I am not looking for converts, I am not going to presume to teach anyone how to be. I will however tell you whom I am, the path I have chosen and perhaps cast some light upon the journey it took me to get here.

Now, importantly, while I have my back to the fire, I can feel its warmth, and I have checked for lions.

 So, I think it’s time to stare at the stars again, for a while…   

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Feline Economics

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Mark Hayes

A pre-warning, this is not really a post about cats, it does feature a cat, and some cat related jeopardy, so to put your mind at ease, Tommy the cat, who is the cat in question, is fine now. You don’t need to go worrying about the cat. Okay, moving on.

On Friday in the wee hours of the morning I got a text about my sons cat Tommy. Tommy was ill, and my son was in a bit of a panic. Mid morning on Friday I got a phone call from my son saying eh had taken Tommy to the vets first thing and things were not looking good. The early prognosis was that Tommy’s kidneys were shutting down due to infection and he was likely to need an operation. My son was justifiably worried about this. There was every chance the cat would not survive with the operation and a near certainly he would not survive without it.

My son loves his cat. As many people love their cats. In much the same way that some people love their dogs… But my son is a barman, going through a messy break up, who has no money. Vets are not free. there is no such thing as a NHS for pets. And while he had pet insurance he wasn’t sure how it worked and if it was going to be covered.

Luckily, he also has a dad who just got paid to write a book on H.P. Lovecraft*. For all of old tentacle huggers many flaws did love cats, and even without the Lovecraft book money I am lucky enough to have the resources to cover the vets bills so it was not the issue it could have been. I told my son not to worry about money I could cover the bills, and he could worry about the insurance afterwards

*I will talk of this in another blog at some point i am sure…

So I drove down to Leeds and did what any vaguely adequate parent would do in the circumstances and was there for my son, and only made the obvious joke about how much cheaper it would be to just get a new cat once. Friday was a long day, a day that left my wallet a couple of grand lighter. Because vets are not cheap, and stays in pet hospitals comes at a premium.

Luckily as I said my son has pet insurance, the costs should be reclaimable, though nothing is guaranteed, insurance companies are buggers for finding loopholes… But my son been reunited with his now healthy cat (all be it requiring a special diet from now on) is worth more to me than money ever is. As was the below Instagram post from my son earlier today…

So all’s well that ends well…

There are certain right wing politicians in this country, politicians who have well documented connections to private medical companies, who express the opinion that the National Health Service should go down the route of funding via medical insurance. Basically, changing to the American model.

Now, I am aware that this blog has a fair number of American readers, and I am aware some Americans are adamant that a free at the point of use, state funded, universal health care system is a symptom of a socialist hell scape. I have long suspected this is because American politicians have gone on record saying this is the case for decades, while pocketing the campaign contributions form insurance companies. Stating the American system has produced the best hospitals and standards of care in the world… This is not entirely incorrect either. But only if you can afford the medical bills…

Yes, you may say, but Americans have the choice to buy medical insurance, while we have to contribute through taxation whether we use the medical facilities or not… Which is true… But I will take the latter rather than the former any day of the week. I would also point out that on average what a tax payer in the UK pays towards the NHS is significantly less than the average Americans medical insurance, for those who can afford it.. But back to cats…

All cat owners love their cats. My son, a cat owner, has just enough money and just enough sense to have pet insurance. Not all pet owners do however, usually because it is an expense they can not afford on the off chance they need it. What happens then if a cat owner with no insurance goes to the vet because their cat is ill.

Well, they could just pay out what they need to pay, but if they could not afford/justify the cost of, insurance then it is doubtful they can cover the bill out right. Most vets will offer easy term repayments, or ‘pet loans’ to cover the cost, but again if you could not afford the insurance, then can you afford the pet loan? Some might say if you could not afford the insurance you should not have had the pet, but people love their pets… For some a pet might be all they have at times.

How is this circle to be squared, well there are other options, take the pet home and do what you can to stop them dying in pain alone. Or ask the vet to do what I imagine is the worst part of a vets job, while knowing an animal could be saved, but that the owner can not afford to save them…

That their is feline economics. The cat lives if you can afford the cost of keeping it alive, otherwise, good night fluffy, and this nice woman in the lab coat is going to help you go to sleep.

Humans are more expensive to keep alive than cats. Medical insurance isn’t cheap, and the older you are the more it costs , because the older you are the more likely you are to need it… In America right now the Trump administration is in the process of removing Medicaid from up to 15 million of its citizens in order to give the richest 1% more tax cuts. Average medical insurance premiums are likely to double. More people will be unable to afford medical insurance and will roll the dice on staying healthy. From beyond the shores of America this seems insane. Here, in the rest of the civilized world where we have universal health care and no one going into bankruptcy due to medical debt the whole American health care system has always seemed insane, but this is new levels of madness.

The American system, it seems to me, is the same system we use for cats. With the same kind of feline economics…

Meanwhile at this side of the pond, the NHS has many flaws, and yes there are waiting lists , and doctors appointments are not always easy to get. But it is free at the point of use and no one has ever had to decide if they can afford the bill. I would suggest people keep that in mind when next this visit the ballot box when snake oil salesmen are trying to suggest you would be better off without it…

Anyway that enough politics, normal service will resume shortly with some Poe stuff , a book review or two and the usual withering on.

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3 Turns Widdleshin’s: For she is Devine

Posted on October 9, 2025 by Mark Hayes

There is a forth verse, I shall not repeat it here… To do so would seem unwise…

‘For She is Devine’ is the last story in the new Harvey Duckman Urban/Dark Fantasy Anthology. You do not need to read the other seventeen stories by seventeen other writers before you read that one, but you should. Its the only way to be sure…

Whom ‘She’ is, is a matter for your conjecture. She could be ‘The Sibel’ of ancient Rome. She could just be a woman who claims that is the case to add mystic to her illegal den of vice and corrupted youth. A dark forbidding goth club named for an ancient standing stone.

This is in no way draw from the authors experiences and he has shed no blood on these pages…

No more than usual anyway

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Dear Edgar 43 ~ Diddling

Posted on October 3, 2025 by Mark Hayes

“Man was made to mourn,” says the poet. But not so:—he was made to diddle. This is his aim—his object—his end. And for this reason when a man’s diddled we say he’s “done.”

‘Diddling’, or to give it it’s original title ‘Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences’ is by way of a humorous essay pretending to be an academic work, rather than a story. It is certainly a fun little read, as long as one accepts this central conceit.

The text exhorts the virtues of the diddler, by going through a series of short cons, or diddles. These are all the kinds of cons you see in movies and TV shows when they are introducing a likable rogue or conman. You know the kind of thing, a man pretending to be a store keeper, to pocket your deposit on goods that aren’t his to sell. Another selling a fake ring to a credulous pair.

When I was a child, in the early 80’s the A Team would come on, and everyone love BA Baracus, played by the indomitable Mr T , but I preferred ‘Face’ the quick witted conman of the team. One of my favorite movies growing up was ‘The Sting’, fast talking con artists are fun folk heroes as long as they are stealing from the credulous greedy folk who are as bent as the conmen involved.

That is always the line by which we are sold a story about conmen, the victims of the con have to be greedy criminal types themselves. In the sting its a mob boss they are trying to con, in the A-Team it was always the ‘bad guy’ or those who worked for them. Grifters grift those who deserve to be grifted…

Of course in reality the people who get conned are the weakest and most venerable and conmen are not people to be put on pedestals, but criminals making off with pensioners life savings…

Poe’s essay on the art of the diddle is a fun read, but little more than that. It also make no effort to make the victims deserve to be conned. Its clever, quick and moves form one short con to another in rapid first succession but its not a story and if anyone but Poe had written it it would be a long forgotten piece in the Philadelphia Saturday Courier that filled half a page with nonsense for a quick pay day for the writer…

You could almost say it was a con… and the editor got diddled…

TWO RAVENS, ONE HOLDING YOUR ATTENTION WHILE THE OTHER PICKS YOUR POCKET…

Should you read it: I had to, you can chose to pass

Bluffers fact: Lord Gorden Gorden, who had nothing to do with Poe, and was really active 20 years after Poe wrote this story, was a diddler of the old school. He claimed to be descended from the ancient kings of the Scottish highlands. His real name was John Crowningsfield the bastard son of a Lancashire clergyman and not even Scottish.

He was a conman who was so successful when he finally fled America with ill-gotten gains form swindling a railroad tycoon it almost lead to a war as thousands of Minnesotans volunteered for military service to invade Canada after three future members of congress were arrested in Canada when they tried to abduct him.

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Monsters in the to-read pile

Posted on October 2, 2025 by Mark Hayes

The to-read pile on my bedside table is out of hand, it has taken on a life of its own, it sneers at me in the night and bides its time. I fear it has achieved sentience, or been processed by some forgotten old gods spirit* and one night soon it will take its moment and collapse upon me. Braining me with a copy of the complete works of Poe, two dozen paperbacks I have promised myself I will get read, several more hardbacks including one about pre-teen cannibalism, a history of dragon infestations in the modern era, and at least one book I had forgotten I even owed involving sheep.

*the to-read piles has over the years held many a volume on myths, paganism, and Lovecraftian horrors… it was bound to happen

I have little doubt one day the police will break in my house after i have been ‘missing’ for several weeks to discover my body, under this pile of books. There are worse ways to go.

Among the Lovecraftian horror of the to-read pile are a couple of books by friends and fellow Harvey authors Kate Baucherel and Ben Sawyer. Books I have been planning to read for well over a year, books in a series that both authors have new books coming out for this month.

Yes, they have managed to write entirely novels while their previous ones sat on my to-read pile, gathering sentience and planning my demise…

Yes I feel guilty about this…

Monster at the Gate, A Holly Trinity novel by Ben Sawyer.

I read my first Holly Trinity story in a early Harvey Duckman anthology (the original series), which I believe was the Christmas edition. It was one of the stories that really stood out. Ben had submitted it to Harvey after he met Gillie and the crew at Scarborough SciFi earlier that year. I was delighted when Ben followed the short story up with the novel he had been working on about his supernatural protector of York.

The pages of Harvey have been filled with many a Holly short story since (as well as other stories by Ben who is an annoying good writer) I read and reviewed the first Holly book, Holly Trinity and the Ghost of York, way back in 2021 and said at the time I was looking forward to the sequel. I see Ben at events and occasionally share a table with him, and say how much I am looking forward to reading the sequel, and it has sat in my to-read pile for over two years staring at me….

So anyway, with his next book due out this month, and in order to placate the forgotten old god of the to-read pile, I made myself pick up Monsters at the Gate, and of course when I started to read it, this turned out to be no chore at all. It was instead a joy…

With the ever present back drop of ancient haunted city of York, which is a character in its own right, its sleeping protector is awake once more, and her past is coming back to haunt her… I know, irony…

Holly Trinity is awake, the arch-bishop has turned to the strong stuff, because she fears what it might mean, the Gjallarhorn has sounded, via text alert, the horned man is running amok in the city streets. Luckily Holy has a new umbrella, with a zip line and The Hounds of Love on mp3 on her phone.

Mira has her own problems. Which is to say she has to keep lying to Sam about what she gets up to on her galivants with Holly. However exactly do you tell your significant other you off saving the world from monsters with the King under the mountain, when you are supposed to be working in a bookshop… And what is he doing with that Delia girl from the archeological dig?

Then there is Treasury House, the most haunted house in York , which is like saying the most chocolatey chocolate in a Rowntree’s chocolate box… Bad thing happened there in the eighties, and for Holly the memories are fresh…

Someone wants to bring about the Ragnarök, They have been planning for this a long time. Luckily while Holly doesn’t have a plan, no one has realized she is making it up as she geos along, she hopes…

Monsters at the Gate is a wonderful ride through the streets and history of York. there is Mystery, horror, and humour, which is a tricky mix, Ben pulls off perfectly. As before I can not wait for the next one… So it will probably end up on my to read pile and become and old god before consuming me in a deadly book-slide, which is like a landslide with books… Or I may just read it straight away, which seems wiser.

Bens new book The Masque of the Mummers a Holly Trinity Novel , is out later this month but not yet available on pre-order so I can not link it here, I have not even see the full cover yet as Ben seems to want to keep that to himself, Though this is some of the art work… And isn’t that a thing….

Monster at the gate and the original Holly Trinity novel are well worth a read while you wait.

Now I am off to lite some incense and offer blood sacrifices to the forgotten old god in the to-read pile. Hopefully that will placate it a while longer…

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Dear Edgar 42 ~ The Black Cat

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Mark Hayes

The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

If, as I posited, The Tell-tale Heart is much beloved of English Lit teachers the world over for its use of a corrupt narrator, this tale is its companion piece. Buoyed by the critical success of ‘The Tell-tale Heart’ which had been published in January 1843, in the spring of that year he put pen to paper on a second such tale and wrote ‘The Black Cat’. The similarities between the two stories are easily drawn*…

*hence its popularity with English teachers who like a lesson plan that writes itself…

Both stories have narrators that make claims as to their sanity, and in both cases that sanity is clearly questionable. The central theme in both cases is guilt, and in both their increasingly irrational behavior leads to murder, and there eventual arrest as the guilt drives them over the edge. They are in effect quintessential phycological thrillers, a genre that owes much to these stories.

There are however a few issues with The Black cat when you compare it to Tell-tale heart, one of which is the very nature of a story written to a formular. The success of the first story influenced the structure and telling of the second which leaves it reading a little forced in places. It does not quite have the flow of tell-tale. There is also an added element in which Poe preaches from the pulpit of abstinence. The narrators deteriorating mental state is attributed to his alcoholism.

Edgar’s brother Henry had died some twelve years earlier from complications brought on by alcoholism. Poe had witnessed this decline and had his own problems with the demon drink, he had lost jobs because of it and was at periods in his life a drunk, then tee total, then fell off the wagon. the Black Cat was written due in a period of sobriety and written with all the virtue of an ex-smoker coughing loudly as he passes the smoking shelter. This is to say he was a reborn abstainer and evangelical in his condemnation of those who drink…*

*Till the wagon hit a bump and he bounced off again…

In any regard, The Black Cat is a story told to us by a condemned man awaiting the noose. A man who first makes claim of his sanity before professing a loves of animals. All animals. A man never happier than in the company of a faithful dog, or cuddling a rabbit. A man who marries young to a woman of similar disposition. All is joy in the house hold of many pets, sand would have continued so had not the man found another love, that of the bottle. In his cups he has a temper, in his cups he might kick out at a hound or throw something at a rabbit. The animal come to fear him in his drunken states, as does his wife who he admits to rising a hand to when he is worse for drink.

All this is very candidly told, as is his treatment of the couples large black cat, Pluto. Pluto who unlike the other animals has not becomes afraid of him , but one drunken night, when the cat scratches him, he takes out his pocket knife and blinds his pet cat in one eye. He then becomes oddly resentful that the cat then becomes scared of him. Imagine… developing a fear of the thing that took one of your eyes…

As an aside, as a former cat owner before Boomer died a couple of years back, anyone who has ever owned a cat will tell you getting scratched is something that happens with even the most even tempered of cats. Play with a cat and eventually it will claw you in its own playful way. Gauging out their eyes for doing so is something of an over reaction one feels … But back to the story.

Resentment builds and the narrator end sup hanging Pluto from a tree in another drunken rage. I must admit sympathy for what happens to the cat murdering drunk after this is somewhat lacking in myself and I expect in the average reader… Also, no one seems to spare a thought for the poor tree in all this though. Did the tree ask to have a feline nailed to it? You just know all the other trees are going to mock her now and call her ‘cat-tree’.

“Oh look at her, acorns are good enough, oh no, she was poor defenseless animals hanging form her boughs.”

The woods can be very catty at times…

Having killed one cat, and given a poor oak tree a complex, the narrator comes to won a new cat. One which looks almost exactly like the other cat. He could have bought a ginger tom, or a nice little tabby, but no he obtains another black one, a black cat entirely like the Pluto, even to the extent of only having one eye, except for a white patch on its belly, a white patch that comes to resemble a gallows.

Drunk once more and incensed by that patch of white fur that seems to taught him with his cat murdering crimes he tries to kill the new cat with a hatchet. And when his wife tries to stop him, he kills her instead, and without a great deal of remorse he walls up her body…

The feline has the last laugh though, as when the police come they discover the body because the cat has been walled up with it and is still very much alive, and its howls cause the police to discover the wife’s body. Hence the narrator is now a condemned man

There is a lot going on it this story, and sympathy for the drunkard is minimal all considered. The tale grows ever wilder, and aspects of the supernatural are ascribed to the black cat who the narrator almost in passing remarks are known in folklore to be witches in disguise. The supernatural nature of the second cat is heavily hinted at and guilt plays a part, as does the occult reputation of Black cats.

Where the story falls down however is it is trying to be The Tell-tale Heart, but the narrator is not as obviously insane. A drunk is not as interesting as a mad-man, and though the narrators actions are horrifying, he knows this in his sober state, and does not try to justify them. It is all a little too twee, and a little too preachy. But the biggest problem is perhaps that I was reading The Tell-tale Heart only a couple of blogs ago, had there been more stories between them the unfavorable comparison would be less presented I suspect.

English Literature teachers should take note of this…

FOUR RAVENS, NONE OF HUME ARE HAPPY ABOUT BEEN AROUND A CAT…

Should you read it: Well yes, but perhaps not too soon after The Tell-=Tale Heart

Should you avoid it: Trigger warning abound, domestic violence, animal cruelty etc…

Bluffers fact: Pluto the cat was not named for Pluto the planet. Pluto the planet was not discovered until 1930 (though one suspects it was always there…) which was almost ninety years after this story was written. Instead he was mostly named for the Roman god of the underworld… Pluto was also the Latin root verb for wealthy, hence a plutocracy is governance of a society by the wealthy… As if there has ever been any other form of government.

Unrelated, but worth a mention, I have a story in the Harvey Duckman Anthology, Justice for Pluto. A book which does not take its name from the cat in this Poe story

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Eventing

Posted on October 1, 2025 by Mark Hayes

It is eventing season…

No not prancing about on horses, which I do not do having no wish to inflict a poor horse with my riding skills, the other kind of eventing season… This October I will be at out there meeting reader and trying to seem like a rational normal human. While talking to a man in a Deadpool costume, a girl carrying a large foam sword and arguing with a dalek..

So you can find me, in the company of a couple of other writers , kite Baucheral and C.G Hatton at a number of events in the North.

I will be the one in the bowler hat, kilt and Newrocks….

If you are near any of these, pop along we would love to see you. I’ll be happy to talk nonsense about books, the blog, Lovecraft, Poe, and anything else…

(there are also other things happening at each of them clearly)

there is another event in November as well but i am buggered if I can put my fingers on the details right now

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Turning Widdershins

Posted on September 29, 2025 by Mark Hayes

The naming of individual Harvey Duckman anthologies is a long and complicated process. The first of the new anthologies, for a long time as we put it together referred to only as ‘the steampunk one’ eventually became Folly and Madness after much discussion in the bar at the irregular Thursday night meeting of authors…

A sober affair that definably doesn’t take place most Thursdays in Connections Bar on Norton High Street.

A similar discussion lead to ‘the post-apocalypse one’ being named Death +70. A name that stems from the idea that after an apocalyptic crashing of civilization it would take the world no more than 70 years for the world to recover and for the last survivors to die off. I honestly am not sure who suggested that one, but once suggested there was no other name it could be.

This brought us to the first ‘Urban/Dark Fantasy’ anthology, and Gillie named that one ‘Rum and Rosemary’ based on what she was drinking at the time. We all assumed this was based on the other use of the word Rum, (uncanny and strange), and Rosemary being a herb associated with folk magic. We also assumed that Gillie’s professed surprise when was all assumed it was this other meaning of the word rum was put on and in no way genuine…

The ‘Science Fiction’ one was one of those pub sessions as well. We bounced names around, before Anna mentioned Pluto, some one said it was good it was a planet again and someone else said it had been a injustice when it was down graded. ‘Justice for Pluto’ became the collective cry.

We then faced a discussion over the next book, the original plan was to do ‘a second steampunk book’ but I, the steampunk author of the collective, suggested that this would be a mistake. That steampunk was a tad narrow and we should expand it to be an alterative history book. the inevitable what should we call it conversation was derailed quickly by me saying ‘ A different Tuesday’.

Occasionally inspiration strikes, Tuesday is always the weirdest day, and the title just felt right. Once spoken the title was never going to be anything else…*

*Except it is, Gillie added an ‘On’, making it ‘On a different Tuesday’ because it looked better on the cover…. Breaking the three word pattern… But still inspiration alone picked that one.

The next Harvey, due out in a few days, is ‘the second Urban/Dark fantasy one.’ Of course a long discussion was required over drinks to come up with the right name. I absolutely did not just type Three Turns Widdershins into the Facebook chat, without any thought…

For those unaware, Widdershins is an old Scottish word, adopted into English in the 1500’s. It means to circle something in the opposite direction to which the sun travels. That is to say anti-clockwise. To turn widdershins is considered to bring on bad luck, or to involve evil. It is ‘the wrong way’ around the maypole. In folk magic if a circle of witches were to move around widdershins they would be invoking the devil, or some other spirit of the dark.

To make three revolutions (or turns) around something, say a standing stone, is to invoke the darkness three times, and three is a powerful number in witchcraft… Which is the reason behind this delightful old folk rhyme

Three turns windleshin’s

Around the Lochfa’ston

Three turns windleshin’s

an’ call the other’s names

_

Three turns windleshin’s

a’fore the moon does rise

Three turns windleshin’s

And fear not the dark

Now if you have heard that rhyme before, which you may have done as a child, you may have never known its dark connotations… You almost certainly, and thankfully, have never heard the third stanza, it is seldom repeated and only recorded in some old books and a few scattered modern volumes on witchcraft. I will not record it here either. The third stanza of a folk rhyme,. A rhyme known to be spoken as a circle of witches goes around a stone three times , one stanza for each rotation… Well..

The third stanza holds the power after all, until the third stanza is spoken, and that third turn taken, this is just an old folk rhyme. Just words. Nothing more….

So no, I will not record the third stanza here…

That would be unwise…

The next Harvey is due out on the 10th of October…

I really don’t remember just why ‘Three Turns Widdershins’ came to mind as a fully formed idea for the name we should give this book. Nor why everyone agreed so readily. I am not sure if they know why either…

Luckily there is no way Gillie would have let all the words of an ancient summoning ritual be put into the last story in a book… She would never let me do that, obviously… Not knowingly.

Any more than I would do that, though now I think on it…

Why did I put that in…

Posted in amreading, amwriting, books, fiction, Harvey Duckman, indie writers, pagan, reads, sci-fi, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The spirit of 76

Posted on September 19, 2025 by Mark Hayes

With apologies for the title of this piece to those pillars of post-punk The Alarm, 1976 was a long hot summer full of discontent, and a musical revolution that changed everything. A year in which Pete saw his dreams come true, though that didn’t make him a hero, just one of the lucky few…

Oh sorry that’s The Alarm again…

Strange as it may seem that song, about the spirit of 76, the summer of Punk, of The Damned’s New Rose, Of the Sex Pistols sing God Saves the Queen, of safety pins, bondage trousers and mohawks… Refences decidedly unpunk Beetles and the Cavern club. The song was however part of the sound track of my youth, and one of the first singles I ever bought when it came out in 1985 a decade after the birth of punk. I am, you see, too young to have been a punk. In the summer of 1976 I was 6 years old, playing on a beach, and had no idea for the turmoil been created in the emerging Punk scene in London and elsewhere. Which considering it was laying the seeds for much of the music of my own rebellious youth is something of a shame.

Over the decades since I got to see a lot of the bands of the punk era first hand, Stiff Little Fingers playing Alterative Ulster at Leeds Poly in the late 80’s, The Damned, having morphed into their Goth pomp at St Georges Hall in Bradford, The Stranglers several times, Siouxie Sioux no where near enough times. And even a Sex Pistol…

The sex pistol in question was why I started out talking about the punk by mentioning The Alarm, because the only time I have ever met a sex pistol was at the bar after a gig at a relatively small venue in Leeds where ‘Dead Men Walking’ had been playing, A band that consisted in its first incarnation of The Alarms Mike Peters, Kirk Brandon of Spear of destiny, Pete Wylie of the Might Wah (no I don’t know why either, neither did he really), and The Sex Pistol, the legend that is Glen Matlock.

In the least spirit of punk way, I thanked Glen for a great gig, then I struggled back to the table we had grabbed at the back of the pub with three pints of lager and a packet of crisps (actually two pints of Guinness and a glass of coke for my cousin who was driving, and no crisps… but what are you gonna do..)

Glenn smiled, gave a nod of the head in response and took his own pint back to the table by the stage where the roadie was stripping down the PA, Peters was laughing with a bloke in an Alarm T-shirt and Kirk Brandon was talking loudly with the ever annoying ‘Spear’ fans. I have no recollection of where Pete Wylie was, I am not sure he did either.

Anyway that is that, the entirely of my ‘I met a Sex Pistol’ story… Thrilling wasn’t it..

The next time I saw dead men walking there were a still a four piece but the void left by the departure of Pete Wylie had been filled by a guitarist wearing trademarked plastic sunglasses, another 76 legend, the Captain himself… But moving on from this rather niche music journalism… To the reason you are reading all this… Which is the fault of a somewhat more accomplished Music journalist, who probably owns even more guitars than I do, and can undoubtedly play them better than I. Stephen Palmer, who has written A History of Punk: Punk and Pistolry, a book all about the heady days of 76 and 77, the birth and death of first wave Punk.

As an aside, the last time I talked about one of Stephen’s books it was a book about the constellation of taurus and the spiritual associations of Bulls through out human pre-history and beyond. Before that it was a trilogy of ‘steampunk adject’, novels. He has range, that’s all I am saying…

I was too young to have been a punk when it was rebellious to be so, my musical awakening consisted of Big hair, eyeliner and the merciful release label. But goth, new wave, post punk, industrial and new rock wearing splendor only happened because Punk turned the world upside down in 76-77 and reinvented music. Just how much they changed the music world. All my heroes started out on indie labels, all my heroes were influenced by ‘the spirit of 76’ not the Alarm song but the spirit of punk.

I know the music, As I said earlier I have seen many of the bands over the years, or at least later incarnations of them, but I don’t doubt that while the later versions were probably more polished musically, and the audience as enthused as ever, an audience of middle aged, balding men, trying to pogo like they did in their teens to bands that are no longer rebelling but remembering when they did, is not really the same as being at the 101 club when a pre-pistols Sid Vicious drummed for Susie before she was Siouxie…

Stephens book is a window into the heady days of punk, set against the politics and life in Britain at the time. Not just the music but the fashion and anger that surrounded it. The attitude, venom and the characters that made it such a unique moment in British Musical culture. Stephen knows his music, and clearly loves the music of the era. His passion for the subject is obvious throughout, making this an insightful joy to read.

The insight is to a world long passed, almost half a century passed in fact since the opening barrage of John Lydon sneering out ‘God Save the Queen’ with all the revile and venom he could muster caused outrage. But for all the outrage, for all the establishments anger, the musical world was never going to be the same afterwards. The pistols were inspired by the Ramones, the pistols in turn inspire pretty much everyone else to one extent or another.

This book is a window on an era, a moment in musical history, a moment of social change and upheaval. The beginning of the end of post war establishment Britain. Punk had arrived…

Its a great read for anyone, even those born too late to have been there …

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A Hint of Scarlet

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Mark Hayes

Last night I had an idea… Well, more than one, which was a bit of a problem. The last thing I did before turning out the light was scrawl in a notebook the out line for a book I have been considering for a long while. This outline consisted of nothing more than a bunch of chapter names and briefs outlays, but from small acorns…

The book I outlined before the light went out doesn’t currently have a title . Not even a working title. It exists purely as a concept though one I have been delving into for a long time now, and that has been touched upon in a few blog posts over the last few years. It is a book about Pagan spiritual identity, and quantum physics. Two subjects seldom spoke of in the same breath but two subjects that I believe are intertwined. The latter can inform the former, and the former give depth to the latter.

It is in essence a book about Quantum-Paganism*. This is not the smallest possible form of paganism, and yes I am making that joke before anyone else does. Though in fairness to that joke, the temple of the quantum pagan does have a congregation one, so maybe it is… But speaking as that congregation, it is not quite as unlikely as it sounds. Paganism is for many at heart a connection to the natural world as well as the spiritual. The two entwined in many respects. Quantum Physics teaches us that everything is connected, indeed connected in stranger more wonderful ways that we might imagine. This is a very personal belief system to me, as it helps me explain, well, me. Many pagan belief systems are deeply personal. This is to be a book about mine…

Whether anyone would want to read it is anther matter, but I seldom worry about such details.

*you can read more about this here…

With the lights out I lay in bed and my mind drifted over the ideas as I gently slipped into a peaceful sleep… In exactly the same way a force nine gale is peaceful… My mind is ever a busy place, and the howling was most unquiet and woke me again at five, which given I went to bed at two was not ideal…

Once I awoke I had other ideas… One of which was that I really should try and get back to sleep (this did not happen though I lay there trying to do so for some time.) It was then , as I lay there, my mind annoying abuzz with what may pass for ideas if you don’t look too closely, that I tried to make myself forces on one chain of thought. Its an old trick that sometimes works. Quiet the storm of voices by focusing on one…

Which brought me to another book idea, one I have done more than outline in a notebook but also less than outline. Indeed, the lack of an outline is the biggest problem I have with this one. None of the outlines I have previously played with have felt right. I have a few thousand words of bits and bats written but no real direction. I know what the book is about, who the book is about, and what it needs to be, but it hasn’t felt right, and I have been wrestling with one for about a decade.

Then last night, or rather this morning while I was trying to make it back into last night, I had something of a break through. Scarlet started speaking to me, as she has previously only whispered. So perhaps, just perhaps, it is time.

Time to return to Esqwiths Passing Place, someone unexpected just didn’t walk in passed Sonny the doorman. Yet somehow, he notices, is stood by the bar. A young girl, way too young to be in a bar, even this bar… Scarlet is here, though she isn’t Scarlet yet, she is going to be. Scarlet Sometimes, who is not quite living her life in order, and is not quite what she appears to be.

Last night I had an idea… This may be the one.

Or of course sleep deprivation

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