It was great to be back at a weekend-long in-person conference on the weird. Seriously Strange celebrated 40 years of ASSAP - the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomolous Phenomena. There were talks on the paranormal community itself, UFOs, demonic possession, Gothic literature, criptids and ghosts, among other things. Actually, there were a lot of talks on ghosts of all kinds, from how to study them to famous cases of hauntings to a machine that gave people a ghostly experience.
Before Covid, Assap ran two-day conferences and a series of one-day events on specific subjects, including Seriously Bewitched on witchcraft and Seriously Enchanted on fairies. Over the past two years there have been weekly online talks on a huge variety of subjects via Zoom. They've all been great, but it was particularly enjoyable to socialise with real people inbetween talks, in the bar and at the gala dinner on the Saturday evening.
Seriously Strange took place at the University of Bath on September 3 and 4. The picture at the top shows the panel discussion, where people could but questions to the speakers. The one lower down shows the gala dinner at the Huntsman pub in the town centre.
Assap's Zoom talks take place on Thursday evenings at 7pm and are free for members with a link emailed out each week. To find out more or join ASSAP for £5 per year visit http://www.assap.ac.uk/.
Links to write-ups of previous Assap events
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/09/highlights-of-assaps-seriously-strange.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2017/05/seriously-monstrous-dragons-more-than.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/03/witches-and-faeries-assaps-seriously.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2016/11/seriously-suspicious-conspiracies-helen.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2015/11/seriously-bewitched-joan-wytte-and.html
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