Profs and Pints Meetup-Metro DC

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Washington’s Spookiest Days,” on local seances and other efforts to communicate with the beyond during the early 20th century, with Mark Benbow, lecturer in American history at George Washington University and former historian at the Woodrow Wilson House Museum.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-spooky-washington .]

What do Harry Houdini, Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Conan Doyle, the famous Washington brewmaster Christian Heurich, and the spirit of a Native-American “Princess” named Monotowah have in common?

They’re all part of an eerie chapter of Washington history, the 1910s and 1920s, when seances were the focus of both harmless parlor games and serious religious practices, and when skeptics of the occult clashed with its believers in the halls of Congress.

Learn about this fascinating time with Mark Benbow, a historian who wrote two books on Wilson and one on Heurich, and who has earned great reviews in giving this talk in the past.

He’ll discuss how a Spiritualist movement that had arisen in the nineteenth century, combined with a spike in interest in contacting the dead following the First World War, left many Washingtonians trying to reach those on “the other side.”

Among the fascinating figures he’ll summon up: Madame Marcia Champney, a popular Washington D.C. medium, who claimed to have visited Edith Wilson and other First Ladies in the White House. She bragged of having fatally cursed debunker Harry Houdini during a Congressional hearing in which he testified in favor of legislation banning seances.

Edith Wilson, Woodrow’s second wife, was not the only believer in his circle. Her brother Randolph hosted seances in their S Street home using a Ouija board and color-coded lights and music, to contact wise spirits including a Native American maiden and a “Hindoo” mystic.

Benbow will share a few ghost stories from his time as the Woodrow Wilson House Historian and even let you know where the house’s “haunted” bathroom is. He’ll leave you with a better sense of where to look for ghosts when Halloween arrives. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. Talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image by Canva.

Profs and Pints Northern Virginia presents: “Ancient Terrors of the Night,” an introduction to what terrified the Greeks and Romans of antiquity, with Barbette Stanley Spaeth, professor emerita of classical studies at William and Mary and scholar of magic and the supernatural in the ancient world.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/northern-virginia-ancient-terrors .]

Literature, papyrus scrolls used for magic, and archaeological finds show that ancient Greeks and Romans believed in demons, ghosts, vampiric beings, reanimated dead, shape‑shifters, and night‑hags.

Get to know what might have spooked Nero or Sophocles with the help of Barbette Stanley Spaeth, who has spent 25 years researching, teaching, and publishing on the supernatural of antiquity.

Dr. Spaeth, who previously has given several excellent Profs and Pints talks, will make clear that ancient Greek and Roman tales of the “terror that comes in the night” were not relegated to folklore but woven into religion, law, medicine, and the sincere practice of magic. These stories explained the unexplained, enforced social norms, and supplied tools for protection or attack such as amulets, curse tablets, exorcisms, and other various spells.

You’ll learn how belief in daimones (demons) went from regarding them as ambiguous, semi‑divine beings to assigning them malign character and making them the targets of exorcism. People thought the dead returned as incorporeal spirits or ghosts as a result of improper burials or in response to unresolved business with the living, and that they also could be exorcised with the proper rituals. Necromancy typically summoned such shades to ask them for information, yet texts also describe how animated corpses were harnessed to harm others, becoming ancient analogues of vampiric or zombie threats.

We’ll discuss how witches and magicians were believed to shape-shift into a variety of creatures—including wolves, owls, and weasels—to carry out their dark deeds.

The most frightful of all, however, may have been the night hags, who were blamed for sleep assaults, drained vitality, sexual violence, and the kidnapping and torture of children to derive ingredients for magic.

You’ll emerge from the talk with an understanding of how our modern terrors of the night are drawn from a long, complex classical heritage as refracted through centuries of reinterpretation as well as various local traditions. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: An 1898 painting by Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl depicts souls on the banks of the Acheron, a river, associated with Hades, where necromancy was practiced.

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Witches of Antiquity,” on the sorceresses of ancient Greece and Rome, with Barbette Stanley Spaeth, professor emerita of classical studies at William & Mary and scholar of magic and the supernatural in the ancient world.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-witches-of-antiquity .]

Seductive enchantress. Murderous sorceress. Corpse-mangling hag. The witches of the ancient world were among antiquity’s most vivid and disturbing characters.

Get to know some of antiquity’s most unforgettable women with the help of Barbette Stanley Spaeth, who last year gave fantastic Profs and Pints talks on ancient magic and ancient terrors of the night.

We’ll spend time with Homer’s beautiful Circe, Euripides’ passionate Medea, and Horace’s sinister Canidia. You’ll encounter Lucan’s terrifying Erictho, a witch so powerful she could raise the dead and force even the gods to obey her.

Along the way, we’ll ask why the image of the witch changed so dramatically as it traveled from Greece to Rome. Greek writers often imagined witches as beautiful, alluring, and sometimes even helpful. Roman authors, on the other hand, increasingly portrayed them as ugly, lustful, dangerous old women. What can these frightening figures tell us about ancient attitudes toward magic, women, sexuality, and power?

The answers take us beyond spells and potions into some of the deepest anxieties of the ancient world, about women who possessed power, men who feared losing it, and what might happen when accepted boundaries—between male and female, human and divine, living and dead, and even order and chaos—began to break down.

For over thirty years at William & Mary and Tulane University, Dr. Spaeth taught courses on ancient magic and the supernatural. She has published several studies of ancient witchcraft and is currently working on a book on the subject. Her talk is sure to leave you spellbound. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: From “Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus,” an 1891 painting by John William Waterhouse (Gallery Oldham / Public Domain).

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Horror in the East,” a look at truly frightening Buddhist beliefs and rituals, with Justin McDaniel, professor of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, founder of the Penn Ghost Project, and former Buddhist monk.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/profsandpints/dc-horror-in-the-east .]

Profs and Pints is bringing to Penn Social one of its most fascinating speakers, Professor Justin McDaniel, a former Buddhist monk whose teachings about macabre Eastern beliefs and practices are sure to expand your horizons when it comes to horror.

Westerners often regard Buddhism as a religion of peace, meditation, and compassion. While this is often true, it ignores the horrific and phantasmagoric side of many Buddhist rituals and beliefs. Those include practices such as meditating on corpses, strolling through giant “Hell Gardens” filled with terrifying images, and telling stories about haunting and highly sexualized ghosts. It’s no wonder that Buddhist countries produce some of the most violent horror films in the world.

Professor McDaniel will give an entertaining and highly visual talk looking at the ways in which Buddhists in Japan, Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Singapore, and other places embrace the macabre. You’ll leave with a much richer understanding of Buddhism and the cultures and worldviews that gave rise to horror movies that can scare the wits out of you.

Dr. McDaniel has lived a life that gives him distinct expertise on this subject matter. He has published award-winning books on meditation, ghosts, and Buddhist literature, and he studies Buddhist art and translates Buddhist manuscripts. He lived for many years in Southeast Asia, where he conducted research as a Fulbright Fellow, taught and translated, and became a Buddhist monk. He also has regularly given cemetery tours and founded the Penn Ghost Project, an interdisciplinary effort to study beliefs in spirits from the beyond.

His talk will give you a much richer perspective on horror as a worldwide phenomenon. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Punishment depicted in the hell garden at Aluvihara Rock Cave Temple in Sri Lanka (Photo by istolethetv/ Creative Commons).