Paranormal Magazine

[featured in Paranormal magazine issue 44, February 2010]

Horses’ manes across southern England and Wales have been found plaited in a mysterious manner. The incidents have been variously blamed on pagans, gypsies and rocking horse manufacturers. RICHARD HOLLAND is intrigued.

An odd phenomenon has been causing concern among dozens of British horse owners. Several regional papers have reported that horses have been found to have obtained plaits in their manes, which have appeared overnight. Many breeders are convinced it’s the work of thieves.

Harriet Laurie, from Bridport, Dorset, who runs a horse owners’ website, says that many owners in west Dorset and the neighbouring counties have found these plaits in their horses’ manes. She has found them herself.

‘When one of my horse’s manes was plaited it took me some time to unpick as the wind had whipped it into a sort of dreadlock,’ she said. ‘But underneath were three strands neatly plaited. It is most bizarre.

‘Whatever it is there is a lot of fear and anxiety. I know of about 12 horses that have had it done.’

In Wiltshire, there was no doubt in the minds of owners that the tiny plaits were the work of would-be thieves. The idea is that the most valuable horses are marked in this way so that they are easy to identify under cover of darkness. Of course, it doesn’t explain how the thieves are able to view the horses and then plait them in daylight without being spotted.

The owner of a grey Arab mare in East Grimstead told the Salisbury Journal: ‘My horse’s mane was plaited last night. I asked a neighbour to keep an eye on her … and they saw somebody walking up their track at about six o’clock.’

It transpired that the woman only examined her horse’s mane for plaits when she heard of a similar case nearby. ‘Sure enough’, as she put it herself, she found one.

Similar cases have been reported from Hampshire, Gloucestershire and Mid Wales. In Hampshire two horses have suffered the rather more serious indignity of having their tails lopped off. It was suggested that the hair might be used to help make expensive rocking horses.

Theories as to horse thieves are not being with any serious concern by police. No thefts have been reported from any of the areas affected.

PC Tim Poole, who has investigated the incidents in Dorset, said: ‘We can’t completely rule out the possibility of theft. We did have intelligence from Avon and Somerset police that it is a gypsy trick, which it may or may not have been.’

However, PC Poole is convinced the plaiting is carried out as rituals in white witchcraft. He quoted an unnamed ‘warlock’, who told him: ‘This is part of a white magic ritual and is to do with knot magick. It would appear that for people of this belief, knot magick is used when they want to cast a spell. Some of the gods they worship have a strong connection to horses so if they have a particular request, plaiting this knot in a horse’s mane lends strength to the request.’

He added: ‘The fact that this rash of plaiting coincides with one of their ceremonial times of year [the winter solstice] adds weight to the theory.’

However, several prominent Wiccans denied even hearing of such a practice. Catherine Hosen, of the Pagan Federation of Wessex, for example, responded: ‘It’s certainly not any ritual that I’m aware of. Pagans have a strong respect for anything to do with nature. They would ask permission before removing a branch from a tree, let alone do anything to a horse.’

She added: ‘Any day in the year you could say it’s close to some pagan ritual because the calendar is pretty full of them.’

Compounding the mystery is the fact that several of the targeted horses have been kept secure, in one case behind high electric fences. Other plaits were found after stormy nights, suggesting a real dedication to the task, and at least one affected horse was described as ‘very hard to catch’.

Only the Dorset incidents made the national press, the others were found thanks to the magic of Google. Something tells me this is going to run and run, as word spreads and more owners check their horses for plaits, most of which might indeed have been made by the wind.

What intrigues me most, though, is the clear parallel these incidents have with folklore. Centuries ago horses found with such manes would have been considered ‘hag ridden’, that is to say, ridden overnight by witches (no offence to modern practitioners!), or similarly used and abused by the fairies.

I reprinted several examples in my book Bye-gones (1992), extracts from a journal of the same name. Here is just one, reported by a farmer on the Welsh border in 1893:

‘Not long ago I caught a young colt for the purpose of breaking it in. A servant who was assisting observed, “They have been riding this one right enough.” I asked, “Who?” “Well, the fairies.” “How do you know?” I asked him again. “Don’t you see how they have plaited the mane?” he replied; “they always do that when they have a ride.”

‘Oddly enough the mane was plaited in a wonderfully artistic manner.’

(This feature can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 42 by Brad Steiger)

Yes, they are, claims veteran researcher BRAD STEIGER.After decades of study, Brad has developed an astonishing – and alarming– theory about the origin and reality of these most enduring of monsters.

The vampire legend has always been with us, from the shadows of the ancient Egyptian pyramids to the bright lights of New York City. Every culture has its own name for the night stalker. The word with which most of us are familiar rises from the Slavonic Magyar vam, meaning blood and Tpir, meaning monster.

The traditional physical appearance of a vampire in European folklore is grotesque, a nightmarish creature with twisted fangs and grasping talons. The cinematic depiction of the vampire in F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu (1922) presented moviegoers with an accurate depiction of the traditional vampire. In this film, which was Murnau’s unauthorized version of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, we see actor Max Schreck’s loathsome bloodsucker, Count Orlock, skittering about in the shadows with dark-ringed, hollowed eyes, pointed devil ears, and hideous fangs. With his long, blood-stained talons, his egg-shaped head and pasty white complexion, Schreck’s Nosferatu captures the classic appearance of the undead as seen in the collective nightmares of humankind.

After Stoker’s novel became a popular stage play in 1927 and, in 1931, a classic horror film with Bela Lugosi portraying the Count as a sophisticated aristocrat, the image of the vampire as a hideous demon began to become transformed in the popular consciousness into that of an attractive stranger who possesses a bite that, while fatal, also promises eternal life.

In the decades that have followed Lugosi’s iconic appearance, the demonic vampire of legend gradually became replaced by beguilingly romantic figures – figures which have proved the inspiration for a thriving Vampire Community existing today.

THE VAMPIRE COMMUNITY

Merticus is the administrator for Voices of the Vampire Community, a high profile member of ‘a visible and vibrant community of people who are using the label [vampire] to describe themselves’.

Merticus explains: ‘When a serious member of the vampire community describes themselves as a vampire, they are not trying to tell you that

they think they’re a fictional character with supernatural powers or that they hope you’re gullible enough to believe they’re hundreds of years old and live in a castle. They’re not even claiming kinship with the folkloric monster that frightened the people of Central Europe and has them performing vampire-banishing rituals to this day.’

The unifying factor is that members of the community really believe themselves to be vampires, an attitude supported by the fact that, as Merticus puts it, ‘there is no functioning definition of a real vampire’.

He continues: ‘This is primarily because no one knows what the cause of the phenomenon actually is, and the community has coalesced around a set of loosely shared perceptions and symptoms rather than a central organizing principle.

‘Therefore, we can describe some common experiences involved in being a vampire, but these shouldn’t be taken as a definitive vampire checklist. There are no known necessary and sufficient conditions to be met before you can be a vampire. Likewise, there’s no single definitive sign that someone is not a real vampire.’

Merticus adds that the most common experience vampires share is the need to take in life energy or blood, from sources outside themselves, to maintain spiritual, psychic, and physical health.

‘Blood-drinking, or sanguinarian, vampires have to consume small, polite amounts of human blood from willing donors,’ Merticus said. ‘The majority of sanguiniarians report taking only an ounce or less at a time; usually no more than once a week. Feeding is absolutely a health necessity: vampires have reported many negative physical symptoms when trying to ignore this need to feed.

‘Psychic vampires, or psivamps, feed on psychic energy. Some psivamps enter into relationships with donors in the same way that sanguinarian vampires do, while others cultivate techniques for absorbing ambient energy from crowds and public places, so as not to take from any one source.’

Of course, not everyone who considers themselves a vampire prove so civilized in their behaviour.

THE VAMPIRE OF SACRAMENTO

From the time of his birth on May 23, 1950, it seemed that Richard Trenton Chase of Sacramento, California, had been born under an unlucky star. As a child he was a bedwetter, a firestarter, and a killer of small animals.

When he started high school, Chase became convinced that a Nazi crime syndicate had targeted him and was paying his mother to poison him with a chemical that was turning his blood into powder. As an antidote to keep his heart beating, Chase began killing and disemboweling small animals, mixing their organs with Coca-Cola in a blender, and drinking the potion.

In 1975, after he injected rabbit’s blood into his veins and developed blood poisoning, Chase was committed to a mental asylum. Even here he found a way to continue his obsession, by capturing birds that landed on his window sill and eating them.

In 1976 Chase was released to his mother with a prescription for an antipsychotic medicine. In mid-1977, he was found wandering nude in the Lake Tahoe area. A bucket containing blood and a liver was later found in his Ford Ranchero. In this case the vital fluid did not belong to a human.He killed his first person in December 29, 1977, in a drive-by shooting. About a month later, Chase shot 22-year-old Teresa Wallin three times. He dragged her body

into the bedroom of her home, where he stabbed her repeatedly, smeared her blood over his hands and face, and used a yogurt cup to catch some of her blood to drink.

Two days later, Chase bought two puppies from a neighbor, killed them and drank their blood. However, he decided animal blood did not give him the satisfaction he gained from drinking human blood.

On January 27, Chase committed his most appalling crime. He murdered four people within minutes of each other: Evelyn Miroth, her six-year-old son, her friend Danny Meredith and her 22-month-old nephew, whom she was baby-sitting. Chase removed several organs from the bodies of Miroth and her son and drank his victims’ blood from a cup. He left behind him several perfect bloody handprints which swiftly led to his arrest.

DRACULA AND BATHORY

Vlad Tepes – known as the Impaler because of his habit of staking his enemies on sharpened wooden posts – was a 15th century king of Wallcahia (present day Romania) and has often been cited as an inspiration for Dracula. He was also known as Vlad Dracul (meaning ‘Son of the Dragon’), so lending his name to Stoker’s character.

However, there is no evidence to suggest Vlad was a vampire. Cruel he certainly was but in his homeland he is regarded as a national hero, responsible for halting the apparently unstoppable encroaches of the Ottoman Turks. Indeed Vlad could reasonably be regarded as a saviour of the Western world. To call him a creature of darkness in Romania would be comparable in the United States to calling George Washington a vampire.

However, there does exist a historical connection between Vlad Dracul and a real vampire. Erzsebet (Elisabeth) Bathory belonged to the same family as one of Vlad’s right-hand men. The teenage Elisabeth, known for her beauty and her flawless complexion, married Ferenc Nasady in 1575. Nasady was another family name with a sinister reputation, and the young Count Ferenc had a streak of sadism running through him.

It is likely that Elisabeth would have remained just another depraved aristocrat if her husband had stayed at home to keep her happy but Ferenc was often engaged in warfare with the Turks for long periods. While he was away the castle guests began taking on a strange appearance, as Elisabeth’s personal serving maid Iloona Joo and two lesbian witches named Darvula and Dorka summoned bizarre acquaint ances from all over the countryside to amuse their lonely mis tress. Some of the visitors claimed to be vampires or werewolves. Others were witches, wizards, and alchemists.

Many hideous and gruesome experiments were performed by these disciples of Satan, and they often featured the torturing of servant girls to enliven a dull afternoon. Jonas Ujvary, the castle’s chief torturer, would select girls from the staff on whom to practice his skills with branding irons and executions.

When Ferenc died in battle in 1604, Elisabeth found herself a single woman in her forties, concerned that she was no longer young and beautiful. One night a serving maid spilled a small portion of the wine she had been pouring for her mistress. The Countess struck the girl in the face and sent a splattering of blood on her hand. When she brushed the drops of blood away, it seemed to her that the skin beneath appeared softer and younger.

Quickly the Countess summoned Iloona Joo and told her that she had just discovered a vital element to the secret of eternal youth. While the burly guards held the terrifi ed serving girl, the Countess drew a pan of blood from her veins and began bathing her body with the blood she had stolen. In her eyes, her complexion improved immediately.

With a desperate passion for retaining her allure, the fiery-eyed Elisabeth Bathory of Hun gary set out to keep a regular supply of maidens in stock to bleed for her bath. She would also take sips of their blood in the belief it would keep her young. For 11 terrible years the horrible acts of torture and murder were allowed to continue. At last, her deeds were brought to the attention of the court in Vienna and King Matthias of Hungary was compelled to act. Bathory’s castle was raided on New Year’s Eve, 1610.

They found dead and dying bodies of young women strewn about the fl oor, some of them horribly mutilated. From the sounds upstairs they knew that a huge, drunken revelry was taking place. The raiders quietly sealed off the exits from the castle and arrested everyone inside. The exact number of young women murdered by Elisabeth Bathory may never be known, but the most accepted total of her victims is about 650.

A year later Dorka, Ilona Joo, Janos Ujvary, and a number of other witches were put to death and their bodies burned. Because of her influential name, Countess Bathory was imprisoned under house arrest and placed in a walled-up set of rooms. Her body was found on August 21, 1614. Nearly 50 when she died, the Countess of Blood was still a remarkably beautiful woman.

Officers later said the putrid odour of Chase’s residence was overwhelming. Nearly everything in his home was stained with blood and the refrigerator was filled with body parts. An electric blender on the kitchen counter was stained and clogged with decaying flesh. There were numerous dog collars scattered around various rooms, but no sign of any living dogs.

Chase was subsequently examined by a dozen psychiatrists. He only once admitted he was disturbed about killing his victims, but only because he was concerned that their spirits might return to haunt him. He seemed to experience no real guilt for what he had done. He said he needed human blood to combat his many afflictions, that blood drinking was therapeutic.

Convicted of six counts of first degree murder, Chase cheated the gas chamber by taking his own life in his cell at San Quentin Penitentiary.

THE DEVIL’S CHILD

When he was 13, Sean Sellers, a self-proclaimed ‘Devil Child’, made a pact with the devil and sealed it by drinking his own blood. From that time on, he kept a jar of his blood in the refrigerator, hidden behind the eggs. He later told the authorities he drank a lot of blood, just like a vampire.

The teenage Sean began holding nightly rituals in his Oklahoma home and inviting demons to possess his body. Soon the demons had renamed him ‘Ezurate’ and told him his power would grow if he were to kill someone. On Sunday, September 8, 1985, sometime after midnight, Sean/Ezurate killed his first victim, an Oklahoma City night clerk called Robert Bower.

Just a few minutes before midnight on March 14, 1986, Sean stripped down to his black underwear and conducted a demonic ritual while his parents slept one bedroom away. Then, he later told police investigators, the temperature in his room suddenly dropped 10 degrees. Sharp, clawed fingers touched his flesh, and he was surrounded by demons flying all around him in a strange kind of mist.

In the next few moments, Sean entered his parents’ bedroom and shot them both in the head. He truly loved his parents, he insisted, but he laughed at the blood that poured from their wounds.

On October 2, 1986, Sean Sellers was convicted of first-degree murder. At the age of 15, he became the youngest prisoner on Oklahoma’s death row.

WHO ARE THE REAL VAMPIRES?

In the example of the demon ‘Ezurate’, who took possession of young Sean Sellers, I believe we have an example of a real vampire. Real Vampires are not the undead, returning from crypt or cemetery plot to steal blood, the vital fluid of existence from the living. Real vampires are parasitic, shape-shifting entities that feed upon the energy, the life force, and the souls of humans. From whatever dimension of time and space they have come, real vampires may be compared to an ancient, insidious virus that first infects, then controls its host body, causing it to in turn possess other victims.

Real vampires are the spawn of timeless entities such as Lilith, the seductive fallen angel, or of other paraphysical beings who have traversed the boundaries of time and space to prey upon humankind.

Lilith is most often depicted as a beautiful woman with long, unkempt hair and large bat-like wings. Lilith quite likely was first feared in ancient Babylon as Lilitu, who, together with Ekimmu, wandered the night world in search of victims for their insatiable blood lust. In Hebrew folklore, Lilith was Father Adam’s wife before the creation of Eve, the true chosen mother of humankind. The terrible night creatures known as the incubi and the succubi were the children of Adam and Lilith.

Venerable traditions state that such entities as Lilith and her spawn first manifested on earth at a time when the gods were said to walk freely among evolving humankind. To these godlike creatures of darkness, the primitive humans who regarded them with such awe and reverence were property, chattel from which to gain energy and sustenance.

The apocryphal book of Enoch tells of the order of angels called ‘Watchers’, or ‘The Sleepless Ones’. The leader of the Watchers was called Semjaza or Shemhazai (in other places, Azazel, the name of one of the Hebrews’ principal demons), who led 200 Watchers down to Earth to take wives from among the daughters of men. It was from such a union that the Nephilim were born.

The Nephilim are said in the Old Testament to have been the progeny of the ‘sons of god’, whose union with earth women produced ‘giants…men of great renown’. Although often translated as ‘giants’, the word Nephilim actually means ‘the fallen ones’.

Since the Watchers manifested on Earth as angels, the Watchers were beings of spirit essence, rather than flesh and blood. What these fallen ones invading Earth needed from the sons and daughters of humans was their blood and their flesh so that they might become corporeal beings. The Watchers and the Nephilim were the first real vampires to exploit humankind, and they continue today to feed on the life force of humans – both their blood and their spirit.

It is interesting to note that all of the world’s major religions speak of a duality of the gods or demigods that came to Earth – some to exploit; others to teach; some to enslave; others to free. In Muslim traditions, the Jinn are demons who possess a wide variety of supernatural powers. Some scholars declare the Jinn a bit lower than the angels, because they were created of smoke and fire. Their leader is Iblis, once hailed as Azazel, the Islamic counterpart of the Devil.

The Jinn are mentioned frequently in the Qur’an, but the entities were known before the Prophet Muhammed wrote of their existence. In pre-Islamic Arabia, the Jinn were revered as godlike beings who inhabited a world parallel to that of humans.

Many scholars of mysticism and the esoteric declare one type of Rakshasas – the unrighteous spirits of Hindu belief – to be the Hindu equivalent of the Nephilim. The evil Rakshasas most often appear as beautiful women who drink the blood and feed off the flesh of men and women. The Rakshasas also possess shape-shifting abilities, and they take great delight in possessing vulnerable human hosts and causing them to commit acts of violence until they are driven insane.

The ancient Persians and Chaldeans named those angels who fell to Earth the Cacodaemons. Cast out of heaven (another world, another universe) for rebelling against the prevailing order, their leader, Ahrimanes, was determined to rule Earth and the primitive humans who resided there. However, the Agathodaemons, the representatives of universal law, prevented Ahrimanes from exploiting or interfering with the natural evolution of humans.

According to the Persians, the Cacodaemons were rejected from Earth and took refuge in the space between Earth and the fixed stars, a domain which is known as Ahriman-abad. It is from this dimension that Ahrimanes, resentful and revengeful, takes his pleasure in directing his daemons to afflict and torment human beings.

Throughout all of history, these paraphysical beings, mimicking our human forms, have walked among us unnoticed, sowing discord wherever they wander, sapping our soul energy, invading host bodies whenever possible, causing vulnerable humans to seek the blood of their fellow beings.

(This feature can be found in Paranormal Magazine issue 42)

My meeting with an Filipino sorcerer.

OWEN ELIAS has a strong interest in the people and culture of the Philippines. In Cebu City he tracked down a venerable witchdoctor and faith healer who allowed him to view his ‘ritual room’.

Consisting of 7,000 islands, with diverse peoples cultures and languages, the Phillipines is rich in superstition and myths.

The beautiful island of Cebu lies in the central region of the Philippines known as the Visayas. Cebu City, called the Queen City of the South, is the oldest city in the Philippines, tracing is roots back to Spanish colonial times.

It was the gateway for the Spanish to conquer the Philippines: in 1521 Ferdinand Magellan landed and planted the cross in Cebu in the name of the King of Spain and the Roman Catholic Church.

Cebu City is a mix of modern shopping malls, centres of information technology, and call centres, but desperate poverty is the way of life for many who live there.

The people have deeply held religious beliefs. The majority are Roman Catholic but their Christian faith sits comfortably alongside a strong following in Kulam (magic/spells), witches/ sorcerers, and healers.

In Cebu City I met Guillermo Sanchez, who is both a Mangkukulam (sorcerer) and an Albularyo (folk medicine healer). 78-year-old Guillermo has a firm belief in his power and healing abilities. His reputation is well known throughout a suburb of Cebu, called Mandaue. People travel from all over the island to seek Guillermo’s powers of healing and witchcraft and he claims he can treat conditions ranging from broken bones to cancer, referring to those that seek his help as ‘patients’.

Guillermo described to me how he got his power. He said he was 27 years old when he dreamt about a book he must read. When he woke up from his sleep a book had appeared beside him and a light was glowing from it.

The light then started to move out of the book and he followed,

it around the Philippines for a year. During this journey six other books appeared to him which he collected. It was then that he started to heal people.

Guillermo said these seven books contain Latin prayers and spells to treat every type of illness. The books form a large part of his knowledge and power – although their exact contents are known only to him – which he uses in his healing rituals. He said these prayers and spells originate from ‘God the Father’, who Guillermo says is the source of his ultimate power. He claims to be a channel for God. He holds his healing sessions on a Tuesday and Friday, which he says are the optimum days for ‘God the Father’ to work through him and heal the sick.

Inside his front door is a room where he has two statues of Santo Nino – the black child Christ – the icon of Cebu and famous throughout the Philippines. He claimed to have had a third statue of Santo Nino many years ago but it came to life and walked out of his house one day, as witnessed by all of his neighbours. These statues represented his faith in Roman Catholicism: Santo Nino holds a firm place in his home and life and ultimately his healings.

Guillermo led me to a little room on the side of his house. The letters S.T.T.T.S were clearly marked on the door. Guilllermo explained these letters were a spell to protect his property and work: there would be with fatal consequences for anyone who tried to steal from him. He said he allows people who believe in him to use these letters on their property for protection but

does not allow anyone to know the exact meaning of the spell, as it was devised by him. He was very confident in the power of its protection and even invited me to use it on my own front door.

The inside of his ritual room was truly of ‘voodoo’ character. It contained an altar, which is made up of large church candles with photos of ‘patients’ attached to them. In front of the altar was a wooden bed where his patients sit while he performs the healing. On a sideboard stand glass bottles filled with oil. Guillermo said the bottles are refilled every week by God the Father as he is too old to crush coconuts to extract the oil himself.

Guillermo lights the candles every evening at 8pm to invoke the spirits. He pointed to a photo attached to one candle and told me that this patient is the wife of a governor from another island in the Philippines who came to seek his healing power. He added that families of famous Filipino politicians have recently sought his help to cure them of illnesses. He claimed that many years ago the former dictator Ferdinand Marcos had come to his home to seek help in lifting a curse that had been put on him by another Mangkukulam.

Guillermo then produced a ‘habak’ – a belt with pouches that he wears during his rituals. He said each pocket contained either

a stone or bottle of oil/herbs, and these were another source of his power to heal.

I asked Guillermo to explain the carrier bags hanging above the altar. He replied they are the spells he had used to bring cheating husbands back to their wives.

He also spoke about how he uses Kulam to draw out insects causing sickness from patients’ bodies. This reminded me of a story I was told by a believer of Guillermo Sanchez. The witness said he saw worms or maggots come out of the mouth, ears and nose of a sick person.

Guillermo claimed that his power caused the infamous Mananngal (a humanoid bat-like monster) to crash onto the roof of his house. He also said that he had chopped down trees around his house to clear away the Kapre, monsters that live in the trees.

By this time I was curious to know about Guillermo’s involvement in the darker side of Kulam, so I asked him if he places curses on people. He admitted that he had done so, claiming to have cursed many people to death. This was done, he said, by exacerbating a person’s existing health complaint, such as using high blood pressure to induce a heart attack.

He claimed that for a fee he can curse someone to death within seven consecutive Fridays, and it is even possible to speed things up to be done within three consecutive Fridays – but that costs more.

I asked Guillermo how he feels about doing such things to a person he has probably never met. He replied that he had stopped cursing people when he was 60 years old as he doesn’t want such things on his conscience any more. He also said he used to go to the grave of the victim he cursed and beg for forgiveness. In addition he claims to have helped the souls of victims of crime seek revenge by cursing the offender to death. These were the only instances Guillermo said he converses with the dead.

He also spoke about how he has had numerous Mangkukulam enemies over the years and some have attempted to poison him. But he has been able to save himself using his powers of healing.

It was made clear to me by Guillermo that he does not take money for his healings; he said his patients can place an offering of any amount on the altar if they want to as a thanks to God the Father for his healing power.

Guillermo is a lively character and is clearly well known in the suburbs of Cebu. Many people I spoke to are convinced of his powers. For me Guillermo Sanchez represents the blend of Catholicism and Filipino folk healing that underlies Filipino society, and also the darker side of Kulam that is deeply rooted in the islands.

Nick Redfern explores one of the most intriguing of all paranormal phenomena, incidents in which people apparently become immersed in another period of history.

Within the specific genre of science fiction, fantastic tales of time-travel to the far-flung future or to the distant pasta re ten-a-penny. From H.G. Wells seminal novel of 1895, The Time Machine, through the classic 1984 movie The Philadelphia Experiment, about an alleged time travel experiment in 1943, to today’s revamped Doctor Who, there is one thing such flights of fancy have in common: the journeys through time are all achieved through the use of highly advanced technology.

However, there are many reports on record of people who seem to have crossed the time-barrier entirely at random, and without the means of Sci-fi style technology.

One of the most famous examples of what some researchers think may have been a definitive Time Slip involved two British women: Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain, who firmly believed they had traveled through time while visiting the gardens of the Petit Trianon at Versailles, France.

It was August 10, 1901, when the pair paid a trip to the Palace of Versailles. While walking through the grounds, both Moberly and Jourdain were overcome by distinctly oppressive feelings of gloom and uneasiness. They would later claim to have met a wide variety of individuals, all garbed in 18th century clothing, and who they came to believe had been members of the court of none other than Marie Antoinette.

More controversially, the women said they saw a figure who may very well have been Marie Antoinette herself. Did Moberly and Jourdain really cross the time-barrier into centuries past? To this day, the story has as many believers as it does detractors. But there is one important factor of which to take careful note: their amazing story does not stand alone.

You can read the rest of this feature in Paranormal Magazine issue 38

The ancient Egyptians were highly superstitious regarding death and burial. Carrying out the elaborate rituals incorrectly could result in a haunting or possession by very angry spirits. Egyptologist Bridget McDermott explores the afterlife beliefs of this fascinating civilization.

In ancient Egypt, the death of an individual was met with ritual and superstition. While public mourning was fashionable, the corpse was removed from view. It is rarely referred to in Egyptian iconography. Crafted by the gods from clay or tears, the Egyptians understood the perishable nature of the human body. They abhorred the thought of decomposition, and after death, the body was quickly distanced from living.

In view of the heat, a corpse required immediate treatment or burial, although there were a few exceptions. Embalmers were known to take liberties with their clients, so young women were left to decompose a little. Executed criminals were deprived of an afterlife: they were left above ground where their remains were devoured by animals and birds.

You can read the rest of this feature in Paranormal Magazine issue 38

Sexual hauntings are among the most disturbing and mysterious of paranormal phenomena. Assaults and seductions by inhuman entities have been recorded for thousands of years. Veteran researcher BRAD STEIGER discusses several of the many such cases that have come under his notice.

The email was not a request.  It was an urgent plea: ‘You must help my sister!’
In the body of the email, a woman stated that her sister – an adult female living in her own apartment – had suffered a number of nocturnal attacks by an invisible being.  These terrible night visits by the molester were described as violent and sexual in nature.

One night, she said, admitting to me that a seed of doubt persisted in her mind, my correspondent left her children home with her husband and went to spend a night watching over her sister.

After her sister had fallen asleep and she herself was beginning to nod in the rocking chair beside the bed, she witnessed for herself the unbelievable onslaught on her defenceless sister.  The covers were torn from the bed by an invisible force, and a nightmarish struggle between her sister and her determined and increasingly aggressive assailant began.

(Full article in Paranormal issue 35, available now. CLICK HERE to buy the issue and for subscription information, or CLICK HERE to download the digital issue from www.zinio.com)

Need to beat the credit crunch? Expert on the mystic arts Dr SNAKE reveals some easy to do at home magic intended to bring in the readies.

There’s no doubt about it, these are grim times. But if you’re suffering from the effects of the credit crunch, don’t despair. I’m going to show you how to use sorcery to get ahead of the competition and bring money – even wealth – your way.

(Learn more in Paranormal issue 35, available now. CLICK HERE to buy the issue and for subscription information, or CLICK HERE to download the digital issue from www.zinio.com)

Paranormal editor RICHARD HOLLAND explores the eerie aspect of the crossways in British folklore.

In Britain, crossroads, bridges and stiles were all once considered eerie after dark. Because they connect places rather than being actual places themselves, they were considered shadowy, otherworldly, what is technically known as ‘liminal’.

These liminal sites suggested places where the boundaries between the physical world and the spiritual world might be less defined. There was a symbolic aspect, too, to the concept of passing over a style or a bridge or choosing the correct path at a crossway.

In ancient Europe crossroads were associated with Hecate, a minor goddess of the ancient Greeks who was adopted by the Romans and who has links with the winter goddess, the ‘crone’ of Celtic mythology. Hecate was considered ‘queen of the ghosts, and therefore of all manner of magic, the blacker the better’ (H J Rose, in A Handbook of Greek Mythology). She was known as triodos or trioditis, meaning ‘the goddess of parting ways’ and her image was often placed at crossroads. ‘Hecate’s suppers’ were left at crossroads to feed the malevolent spirits which followed the goddess and to dissuade them to go in search of human prey. The offerings sometimes included cakes set with candles like our modern birthday cakes.

Similar beliefs may well be universal: in India, for example, offerings were made at crossroads to Rudra, the god who rules ghosts and evil powers. In Japan, phallic symbols used to be set up at road junctions to protect passersby.

This Feature can be found in Paranormal issue 30 still available for purchase. For subscription information simply click here.

[Sources: The Lore of the Land by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson; Glimpses in the Twilight by F G Lee; Haunted England by Christina Hole; Folklore of Wets and Mid Wales by J C Davies; A Handbook of Greek Mythology by H J Rose; E D Philips writing in Man, Myth & Magic; Wales of the Unexpected by Richard Holland.]

The power to curse isn’t limited to witches or magicians – anyone can do it, given extreme circumstances. At least, that’s what many people once believed, as these old stories gathered together by RICHARD HOLLAND show.

‘Through God we shall do valiantly,
For He it is that shall tread down our enemies.’

So ends Psalm 108, the so-called ‘cursing psalm’. Centuries ago it was believed that when read backwards, this Psalm – which calls upon God to vanquish a foe – would bring doom to one’s enemy. However, one had to be careful. When a wicked woman, Quendrida of Mercia, attempted to use the cursing psalm in the 8^th century, ‘her eyes burst from her head, her blood drenched the psalter and she died in agony’.

Belief in the power to curse dates back as far back as the belief in witchcraft – perhaps, therefore, for as long as mankind has existed. But it was not just witches who were believed to have the power to curse: ordinary people could do it too, in extreme circumstances. Stories are told throughout the British Isles of ‘dooms’ announced against wicked landowners or grasping relatives.

Even holy men could pronounce a curse. When Henry II and his Archbishop, Thomas Becket, were at loggerheads, the men of Strood in Kent cut off the tail of the priest’s horse to teach him a lesson. In response, Beckett pronounced that their children should all be born with tails, which, so legend has it, came to pass. In a similar story, when the 8^th century Bishop of Worcester was jeered at after telling off the men of Alcester, in Warwickshire, for working on a Sunday, he cursed them – and tails immediately sprouted out of their backsides.

When King Henry VIII deprived the Church of a grand house, Marwell Hall in Gloucestershire, presenting it as a gift it to the Seymour family, the local priest cursed them, saying they would not hold Marwell long. Henry was furious and had the priest put to death. Nevertheless, his curse held: the Seymours only survived for two generations at the house. One of the victims of the curse was Jane Seymour, who died a year after marrying the king.

You can read the rest of this feature in issue 27 of Paranormal magazine

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