HauntedDaniel
@haunteddaniel.bsky.social
PhD Religious Studies, University of Virginia. Wrote a dissertation on ghost hunters. Now I am writing a book about America's obsession with Halloween.
danielswise.com
danielswise.com
Barnes and Noble (at least the one I was at in a suburb of Austin, TX) is now calling its New Age/metaphysical section "self-transformation" (not to be confused with the "self help" section).
November 2, 2025 at 1:12 AM
Barnes and Noble (at least the one I was at in a suburb of Austin, TX) is now calling its New Age/metaphysical section "self-transformation" (not to be confused with the "self help" section).
Was in the Ithaca, NY region for a wedding. Is the northeast or maybe just Upstate NY more into Halloween than the South? So many pumpkins on porches, more Halloween events advertised, and a Holiday Inn Express decked out for the holiday by the manager.
October 27, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Was in the Ithaca, NY region for a wedding. Is the northeast or maybe just Upstate NY more into Halloween than the South? So many pumpkins on porches, more Halloween events advertised, and a Holiday Inn Express decked out for the holiday by the manager.
Just sent off my entry on "contemporary paranormal beliefs" for Oxford University Press's online research encyclopedia of religion. Now awaiting editing and peer review.
October 21, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Just sent off my entry on "contemporary paranormal beliefs" for Oxford University Press's online research encyclopedia of religion. Now awaiting editing and peer review.
Can anyone tell me how and why intense gore and body horror went from being dismissed as lowbrow and lazy by critics and horror snobs to widely embraced and praised by the same audience? I would say that this sort of acclaim for gore in horror media probably didn't begin before the 20 years.
October 7, 2025 at 9:44 PM
Can anyone tell me how and why intense gore and body horror went from being dismissed as lowbrow and lazy by critics and horror snobs to widely embraced and praised by the same audience? I would say that this sort of acclaim for gore in horror media probably didn't begin before the 20 years.
Reposted by HauntedDaniel
Putting out a call for Halloween enthusiasts: I need to conduct more interviews for my book in progress. If you love Halloween and are willing to be interviewed via phone, video call, or email, please send me a message.
September 23, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Putting out a call for Halloween enthusiasts: I need to conduct more interviews for my book in progress. If you love Halloween and are willing to be interviewed via phone, video call, or email, please send me a message.
Putting out a call for Halloween enthusiasts: I need to conduct more interviews for my book in progress. If you love Halloween and are willing to be interviewed via phone, video call, or email, please send me a message.
September 23, 2025 at 1:54 AM
Putting out a call for Halloween enthusiasts: I need to conduct more interviews for my book in progress. If you love Halloween and are willing to be interviewed via phone, video call, or email, please send me a message.
I hear there is a great piece on Halloween in this one.
The fall edition of The Austin Séance Quarterly Journal is now out for delivery and can be found at many of your favorite metaphysical retailers. Interested in carrying the journal at your place of business? We offer affordable wholesale rates for delivery anywhere in the continental United States.
September 14, 2025 at 7:51 PM
I hear there is a great piece on Halloween in this one.
Another horror trope we can take a break from for a while: humanity is the real monster. It's an important idea to explore, but we've explored it so much that's it's hard to think of recent horror films that haven't explored it.
August 28, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Another horror trope we can take a break from for a while: humanity is the real monster. It's an important idea to explore, but we've explored it so much that's it's hard to think of recent horror films that haven't explored it.
I saw that some people I respect are still on X and I saw other people saying they get better engagement there. So I thought maybe things have chilled out over there and I decided to go make an account again. Immediately my feed was flooded with nutty rightwing garbage as the default. Nvm, I guess.
August 23, 2025 at 11:55 PM
I saw that some people I respect are still on X and I saw other people saying they get better engagement there. So I thought maybe things have chilled out over there and I decided to go make an account again. Immediately my feed was flooded with nutty rightwing garbage as the default. Nvm, I guess.
Reposted by HauntedDaniel
The reason historians don’t now use the term ‘witch hunts’ as a generalised term for the prosecution of people for witchcraft is that it implies witchcraft was always prosecuted in a different way compared to other crimes - it wasn’t
The witch hunts of 1400-1780 and today's misinformation crisis have striking parallels.
Both were fueled by new media technologies that allowed false information to spread rapidly and widely. buff.ly/6RFALyJ By Julie Walsh @wellesley.edu
Both were fueled by new media technologies that allowed false information to spread rapidly and widely. buff.ly/6RFALyJ By Julie Walsh @wellesley.edu
From printing presses to Facebook feeds: What yesterday’s witch hunts have in common with today’s misinformation crisis
Who bears responsibility when false information leads to real harm?
buff.ly
August 2, 2025 at 10:48 AM
The reason historians don’t now use the term ‘witch hunts’ as a generalised term for the prosecution of people for witchcraft is that it implies witchcraft was always prosecuted in a different way compared to other crimes - it wasn’t
Just saw Frankenstein (1931) for the first time. Amazing work by Karlov in the central role. But how the heck did a monster who seems to not have enough dexterity to use his hands much at all manage to hang Fritz?
July 9, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Just saw Frankenstein (1931) for the first time. Amazing work by Karlov in the central role. But how the heck did a monster who seems to not have enough dexterity to use his hands much at all manage to hang Fritz?
With Summerween-specific merchandise on big box store shelves this summer, it is definitely a good time for my book (which will have a chapter on consumerist Halloween celebration).
www.businessinsider.com/summerween-h...
www.businessinsider.com/summerween-h...
'Summerween' is an excuse to sell more junk at Marshalls, Home Goods, and Walmart — sure! But let's get into it.
Is "Summerween" just an excuse to sell more junk? Well, sure! But so what? It's also fun. I'm into pink ghosts and watermelon jack-o-lanterns.
www.businessinsider.com
July 7, 2025 at 2:50 PM
With Summerween-specific merchandise on big box store shelves this summer, it is definitely a good time for my book (which will have a chapter on consumerist Halloween celebration).
www.businessinsider.com/summerween-h...
www.businessinsider.com/summerween-h...
Does anyone else find the beginning section of John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies pretty condescending toward southern Appalachians? "These country bumpkins were so backwards that if a man IN A SUIT with a BEARD came to their door after his car broke down, they would assume he was the devil!"
June 24, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Does anyone else find the beginning section of John Keel's The Mothman Prophecies pretty condescending toward southern Appalachians? "These country bumpkins were so backwards that if a man IN A SUIT with a BEARD came to their door after his car broke down, they would assume he was the devil!"
Just read the first issue of Seance in the Asylum from @darkhorse.com , and it is clear writer @claymcleod.bsky.social has done their research on Spiritualism (and asylums). Almost avoided it because of the (for me) distractingly inaccurate tropes horror often rolls out on these topics.
June 23, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Just read the first issue of Seance in the Asylum from @darkhorse.com , and it is clear writer @claymcleod.bsky.social has done their research on Spiritualism (and asylums). Almost avoided it because of the (for me) distractingly inaccurate tropes horror often rolls out on these topics.
Is anyone else observing a mainstreaming of liberal/progressive conspiracism since Trump 1 and especially since Nov 2024? If the observation holds up, I wonder what can it tell us about political feeling and the attraction to conspiracy.
The Alt National Park Service account calls itself the official "resistance" team of the US National Park Service. With 887k followers, is one of the biggest accounts on Bluesky. It is the 11 most followed account according to some trackers.
This thread will dive into its activity.
🧵 1/x.
This thread will dive into its activity.
🧵 1/x.
June 17, 2025 at 11:57 PM
Is anyone else observing a mainstreaming of liberal/progressive conspiracism since Trump 1 and especially since Nov 2024? If the observation holds up, I wonder what can it tell us about political feeling and the attraction to conspiracy.
Mike Flanagan is our culture's ultimate saccharine secular fableist of death. He uses horror and supernatural elements to ultimately communicate that there is probably no heaven or hell, no real afterlife, but we should all feel warm and fuzzy about that.
June 16, 2025 at 1:38 PM
Mike Flanagan is our culture's ultimate saccharine secular fableist of death. He uses horror and supernatural elements to ultimately communicate that there is probably no heaven or hell, no real afterlife, but we should all feel warm and fuzzy about that.
Is Bigfoot having a cultural moment? At least when it comes to merchandizing? This is one example of the many Bigfoot-themed products/knickknacks I have seen recently. In the souvenir shop at Luray Caverns in Virginia:
June 14, 2025 at 8:35 PM
Is Bigfoot having a cultural moment? At least when it comes to merchandizing? This is one example of the many Bigfoot-themed products/knickknacks I have seen recently. In the souvenir shop at Luray Caverns in Virginia:
I had a great time chatting with Tim
This week on BoA: The Revival, Dr. Daniel S. Wise joins us for an enlightening conversation about his dissertation 'Twenty-First Century American Ghost Hunting: A Late Modern Enchantment.' We get into ghost hunting, paranormal TV, religion, scientism, and tons more. open.spotify.com/episode/6ZOl...
BoA Revival - Ep 76 - Dr. Daniel S. Wise
Binnall of America · Episode
open.spotify.com
June 14, 2025 at 4:53 AM
I had a great time chatting with Tim
The question of whether people in the past were "literal believers" is already weighted with more modern, generally post-Enlightenment Protestant, assumptions about what belief entails. Which is absolutely not to say that the past was full of Xians who assumed the biblical accounts were all metaphor
🚨 New post on my Substack! 🚨
“All our ancestors were literal believers, all of the time”?
Most people have never been conventionally religious
religionoffthebeatentrack.substack.com/p/all-our-an...
“All our ancestors were literal believers, all of the time”?
Most people have never been conventionally religious
religionoffthebeatentrack.substack.com/p/all-our-an...
“All our ancestors were literal believers, all of the time”?
Most people have never been conventionally religious
religionoffthebeatentrack.substack.com
June 14, 2025 at 12:53 AM
The question of whether people in the past were "literal believers" is already weighted with more modern, generally post-Enlightenment Protestant, assumptions about what belief entails. Which is absolutely not to say that the past was full of Xians who assumed the biblical accounts were all metaphor
Excited to dig into this book by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social soon. It is especially important for a scholar who is critically aware of the power of pagan survival myths to have written it.
www.cambridge.org/us/universit...
www.cambridge.org/us/universit...
Silence of the Gods | Cambridge University Press & Assessment
www.cambridge.org
June 12, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Excited to dig into this book by @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social soon. It is especially important for a scholar who is critically aware of the power of pagan survival myths to have written it.
www.cambridge.org/us/universit...
www.cambridge.org/us/universit...
One factor that hinders discussions/debate about paranormal experiences is the way people generally underestimate the likelihood of intelligent, reliable people misperceiving, misinterpreting, and even hallucinating.
June 3, 2025 at 9:00 PM
One factor that hinders discussions/debate about paranormal experiences is the way people generally underestimate the likelihood of intelligent, reliable people misperceiving, misinterpreting, and even hallucinating.
In many Floridians' minds, gators mainly only attack small children of negligent parents or crackheads wading in fresh water (something no sober person would do). We could be pretty cold about this. Anyway, this news story from my home town is typical:
www.wfla.com/news/polk-co...
www.wfla.com/news/polk-co...
Man survives alligator attack before being fatally shot by Polk County deputies: sheriff
A man armed with garden shears was fatally shot by Polk County deputies on Monday, minutes after surviving an apparent alligator attack.
www.wfla.com
May 28, 2025 at 3:55 PM
In many Floridians' minds, gators mainly only attack small children of negligent parents or crackheads wading in fresh water (something no sober person would do). We could be pretty cold about this. Anyway, this news story from my home town is typical:
www.wfla.com/news/polk-co...
www.wfla.com/news/polk-co...
Fiction writers are generally really bad at writing religion or religious people, especially for film and TV. This is a glaring problem in historical fiction. (1/5)
May 24, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Fiction writers are generally really bad at writing religion or religious people, especially for film and TV. This is a glaring problem in historical fiction. (1/5)
I'm not sure if it is widely known in the paranormal community that a concise and pretty definitive account of the career of Ed and Lorraine Warren was recently published: chapter 4 of The Exorcist Effect by Joseph Laycock and Eric Harrelson.
May 20, 2025 at 3:10 AM
I'm not sure if it is widely known in the paranormal community that a concise and pretty definitive account of the career of Ed and Lorraine Warren was recently published: chapter 4 of The Exorcist Effect by Joseph Laycock and Eric Harrelson.
For my cryptid people: speculation in my neck of the woods that recent big cat sightings involve a jaguarundi, a species that hasn't been spotted in TX since the 1980s www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/a...
San Antonio-area sighting reignites talk of ‘extinct’ big cat
Residents in Seguin have reported sightings of a large cat that many believe could be a jaguarundi, a relative of the jaguar, last seen in Texas in 1986.
www.mysanantonio.com
May 18, 2025 at 3:57 AM
For my cryptid people: speculation in my neck of the woods that recent big cat sightings involve a jaguarundi, a species that hasn't been spotted in TX since the 1980s www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/a...