H.P.P. Potcraft.

There are, it would appear. There are, it would appear, certain wholly unremarkable persons with none of the characteristics

that invite adventure who yet once or twice in the course of their smooth lives undergo an

experience so strange that the world catches its breath and looks the other way.

And it was cases of this kind, perhaps more than any other, that fell into the widespread net of John Silence, the psychic doctor, and appealing to his

deep humanity, to his patients, and to his great qualities of spiritual sympathy, led often to the revelation of problems of the strangest complexity

and of the profoundest possible human interest.

That is from the opening of ancient sorceress by Algernon Blackwood.

One of the many stories about famed psychic doctor, John Silence.

That's right.

John Silence is back, although uncharacteristically silent in this story.

We've covered Dr Silence before.

This particular story was first published in John Silence,

Physician Extraordinary in 1908, and it is such a popular story that it is now

often the title track in Blackwood anthologies as in the Penguin Classics's edition

ancient sorceress and other weird stories edited by St. Joshi.

Yeah, it's got a really cool name, ancient sorcery.

It does, yeah.

And that ancient sorcery and other weird stories I think also includes the willows and

the wendigo, which we've discussed on the show before.

Our reader this week is none other than our famed and beloved voice performer Greg Johnson.

Greg, thanks for coming back. I thought a John's silent story would be good for the creative quiet and bold.

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