Welcome to Terrible Imaginations, a blog dedicated to supernatural beliefs throughout the centuries.
A note on content warnings
My doctoral research is primarily focused on representations of suicide and self-harm in early modern supernatural narratives. Where I discuss these subjects in my posts, I will include content/trigger warnings.
A lot of the material I write about will be heavily associated with the horror genre. While gore is not really my thing, again, where this, and other potentially triggering topics are involved, I will include warnings at the top of each post.
I am keen to get content/trigger warnings right, so if you have any suggestions about how they could be improved, please do get in touch with me on Twitter.
Latest from the Blog
‘The Devil made me do it’: blame and responsibility in early modern Britain
CW: discussion of suicide, attempted suicide, murder, child murder Anyone who keeps up with horror will be aware of the most recent addition to The Conjuring franchise, The Devil Made Me Do It. I’m not going to talk about the film much (and we won’t get into my various issues with the franchise), but instead…
Class anxieties and superstition in The Blood on Satan’s Claw
The 1971 film The Blood on Satan’s Claw tells the story of an eighteenth-century English village beset with demonic forces. Blood is one of folk-horror’s ‘unholy trinity’, categorised by Mark Gatiss in his 2010 BBC series, A History of Horror. The term ‘folk horror’ may even originate with the director of Blood, Piers Haggard, who…
Coven of Sisters and the reality of witchcraft
The concept of the reality in relation to witchcraft is one I’m deeply interested in (if you haven’t gathered that already from my previous blog posts, and appearance on Wide Atlantic Weird). It’s a theme that TI posts will likely return to again and again, but since I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently,…
Terrible Imaginations is a blog dedicated to all things supernatural throughout the centuries, from the early modern period to the present day. It’s primarily dedicated to the intersection of early modern popular belief and modern day horror, but expect to see other topics related to the supernatural throughout time.
Terrible Imaginations 