The Archive – International Ghost Society

The International Ghost Appreciation Society maintains a comprehensive archive of materials relating to the Society and its (admittedly short) history. Here’s a selection.

If you have something that you think belongs in the archive – be that a cursed painting or a ghosty bit of artwork – get in touch!

2022

The International Ghost Appreciation Society was formed in November 2022, and quickly became the biggest (and coincidentally only) ghost appreciation society in Edinburgh.

Prior to its formation, the non-existent IGAS carried out a pilot event in the Niddry Street Vaults in March 2022.

We didn’t find any ghosts, but it was extremely spooky. We also didn’t get much footage, as our GoPros were off when we thought they were on, and on when we thought they were off. Whoops.

2023

At the beginning of 2023 we held our launch event. It was a huge success. Someone told us about Bloody Mackenzie, and someone else said we should do a Fringe show.

Here are some artfully decorated stickers name badges that were left over after the event.

We were also very lucky to have our own ghostly mascot Spooky Steve on site for the launch. He was looking buoyant as ever.

We also got to unveil our first two Ghostly Commissions – specially curated spooky artworks that will form part of the Society’s collection going forward.

Here we have a full set of Ghostlife products by Alfie Sellers. In his own words:

“Ghostlife is an infallible life style brand and inflatable incident agency. Over the last decade Ghostlife has grown into The Afterlife’s leading vender of life liquid & couture counterfeits. With offices as far and wide as Stevenage and Dactyl, Ghostlife is like a smell that won’t go away…”

And Mark Brereton designed us a movie-style posted to with which to advertise the Society. It’s worth taking a close look at, as there are dozens of hidden words lurking (a little like ghosts) in the background, ready to jump out at you when you least expect it…

Eventually, after much lingering about, we got our lives in order and started a YouTube channel. We made some great videos, including this one about Greyfriars Kirkyard and the Mackenzie Poltergeist, and this one about East Fortune Sanitorium.

We also went ghost hunting at Inverary Jail – an old jail in the west of Scotland that used to house some infamous criminals, and now is home to some seriously creepy mannequins.

Within no time at all, we’d hit 100 subscribers on our YouTube channel.

Someone at our launch event said that we should do a Fringe show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. So we did two.

One was called What a Sad Little Life Jane, and was all about that episode of Come Dine With Me where a contestant absolutely loses it after placing last and calls his fellow host a “dump truck with no tyres on”. To avoid copyright infringement, we used state-of-the-art sock puppet technology to recreate key moments from the episode.

Our mascot, Spooky Steve, was so excited that he literally exploded.

The other show as called International Ghost Appreciation Academy and was an introduction to both the Society and the art of ghost hunting. Promising, observant or just well-dressed attendees were rewarded with ghost points, and the five participants with the most ghost points at the end became lifetime members of the Society.

2024

We started 2024 by returning to the Outhouse to celebrate one full year of ghost appreciation. We were joined by our pair of radio-controlled ghost mascots, which worked flawlessly:

We were also able, through a game of “pin the tail on the ghost” to firmly establish the average location where people think a tail belongs on a ghost.

We also changed our name from the slightly flatulent-sounding IGAS to the much more svelte and postmodern IGS, as demonstrated by this handcrafted balloon display.

Finally, we also announced the results of our 2024 Ghostly Commission. The winner was Kirsty Logan with her short story “Domestic Magic, or Things My Wife And I Found Hidden in Our House”. Keep an eye out for it on our YouTube channel in the near future.

We had a lot of great entries, though, so we heartily encourage you to also check out the work of our runners-up:

All in all, it was an excellent first birthday!

Now

That’s it. That’s everything that’s happened. If you want to find out what we’re going to do next, join our mailing list!