Paranormal Magazine

A former Ugandan witch doctor has been charged with lying about carrying out child sacrifices in a BBC report.

Polino Angela told the BBC Newsnight programme he had killed about 70 people, including his son, before becoming an anti-sacrifice campaigner.

He allegedly repeated his claims to a Ugandan police officer and has been charged with “giving false information to a public officer”.

He reportedly denied the charges and was remanded in custody.

Moses Binoga, head of the Anti-Human Sacrifice and Trafficking Task Force, said the police had spoken to relatives and neighbours of Polino Angela’s son, who all say he died of malaria and was not sacrificed.

“The boy died a natural death,” he said.

“Seventy people [killed] was just fantasy to make the story look interesting.”

Mr Binoga said that Mr Angela had admitted lying, saying he hoped the international publicity would lead to a flow of donations to his organisation.

Mr Angela said he carried out the killings in the 1980s.

He says he stopped in 1990 and now tries to persuade other witch doctors to stop carrying out child sacrifices.

Mr Binoga said he had not yet decided whether he would ask to formally question BBC correspondent Tim Whewell.

The task force does, however, fear that child sacrifice is a growing problem, with 29 suspected cases last year.

Many Ugandans believe in the powers of witch doctors and traditional healers.

Some say that potions made with human body parts are more powerful.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

A RIBBLE Valley businessman is bidding to buy a huge castle to open Britain’s first ‘psychic school of excellence’.

Clitheroe-based Kevin Horkin has put in an offer of £850,000 to buy the derelict Grade I-listed Gwrych Castle in Abergele, North Wales.

Mr Horkin, who owns psychic management company Parallel, wants to spend ’several millions’ renovating the 19th century castle, installing a hotel and facilities for psychics to connect with the spiritual world.

He said: “It has always been one of my ambitions to open a psychic retreat somewhere and this would work on several fronts.

“It will be somewhere where psychics can go to meet like-minded people, to further their interests and develop their psychic senses.

“There will be some psychic workshops because I think there is a desire and a need for that.

“That’s why we have gone for North Wales. It is a fantastic place and this is a dream of mine.”

During an 18-month search for a base of psychic school of excellence, Mr Horkin and his staff at Parallel, based in Waddington Road, Clitheroe, visited around 20 houses and castles before deciding on Gwrych.

It even included an ultimately fruitless search for a suitable location in Lancashire.

However, he believes the psychic retreat in North Wales, which would include a tie-up with a hotel operator, will appeal to ‘ordinary’ people.

Mr Horkin added: “It is something different. There’s a risk with opening it but I just feel strongly about it.

“I love the place and I feel that people will love it too. There’s just something about it.”

Earlier this week, Mr Horkin revealed how a ghostly image had shown up on mobile phone photographs he took at Gwrych Castle.

If all goes to plan, he hopes to open his psychic school of excellence in late 2012.

[via: lancashiretelegraph.co.uk by Chris Hopper]

BUCHAREST, Romania – In the latest bizarre claim to come out of Romania’s presidential race last year, the loser and his wife have claimed he was subject to attacks of negative energy by aides of President Traian Basescu during a crucial debate.

Former Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana who lost the Dec. 6 runoff, claimed Basescu ordered the attacks against him, Mediafax news agency reported Monday.

“During the Dec. 3 debate … people who were working for Basescu in this domain were present to the right of the camera. … I saw them and I know who they are,” Geoana told Antena 3 television. Geoana fared badly in parts of the debate.

His wife Mihaela Geoana said Saturday her husband “was very badly attacked, he couldn’t concentrate.”

Former President Ion Iliescu dismissed the allegations as “discussions for naive people, for uneducated people,” according to Monday’s edition of the daily Gandul.

Geoana aide Viorel Hrebenciuc has previously alleged there was a “violet flame” conspiracy during the campaign. He said Basescu dressed in purple on Thursdays to increase his chance of victory.

Asked about the violet connection, Basescu joked earlier this month that “it was the colour of the year” in 2009.

Basescu narrowly won the election. Geoana’s Social Democracy Party claimed the ballot was marred by fraud.

[via: cbc.ca]

A Brazilian toddler has been found with some 40 needles inside him, which police say his stepfather inserted during a possible “black magic” ritual.

Police said Roberto Carlos Magalhaes had confessed to sticking the sewing needles into the two-year-old boy, and had been arrested.

Mr Magalhaes said his mistress had told him ritually to kill the child to take revenge on his wife.

Doctors are set to begin operating on Thursday to remove some of the needles.

The toddler was taken to hospital in the north-eastern Bahia state by his mother, complaining of stomach pains and vomiting.

X-rays showed scores of sewing needles inside his neck, torso and legs. At least one had punctured a lung, another his liver.

Police said Mr Magalhaes had broken down and confessed after being arrested.

“He did that for revenge, to get back at his wife,” the police chief in the town of Ibotirama, Helder Fernandes Santana, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

“His mistress told him to kill the child through a macabre ritual,” Mr Santana said.

The boy’s mother told police she suspected the child had been the victim of a black magic ritual after she found suspicious objects in the home she shared with Mr Magalhaes – her husband of six months – and her six children.

Doctors said most of the needles would be removed, but not the ones inside organs as their removal could cause more damage.

They said there were no signs of wounds on the boy.

Reports say the boy is in a serious condition, but that he has shown some improvement since being admitted to hospital on Sunday.

[via: news.bbc.co.uk]

Russian police say hypnotism is not an uncommon criminal technique.

MOSCOW, Russia — Bank robbers have threatened tellers with knives, shot their way into banks and tunnelled up into vaults. But one woman in southern Russia chose a more peaceful method: Police say Galina Korzhova hypnotised a bank teller into handing over tens of thousands of dollars in what is believed to be just one in a series of daring, if non-violent, bank robberies.

Galina Korzhova was arrested, said Anton Kornoukhov, a spokesman for police in the southern city of Volgograd, on suspicion of hypnotising a bank teller in the nearby town of Volzhky into giving her more than $80,000. She is suspected of having robbed up to 30 additional banks in what Russian media have called a “grand tour” around the country.

“She met the woman on the street, saying that she would remove curses and help cure sick relatives,” said Kornoukhov in a telephone interview.

Korzhova is accused of telling the bank employee, whose name has not been released, to put the money into a plastic bag and meet her outside the state bank Sberbank, on Communist Street in the small town. There, the case goes, the teller gave Korzhova the money.

The robber took off with 30,000 euros, $20,000 and the rest in rubles for a total of 2.6 million rubles or $81,000, police said.

The teller only realised what she had done a couple of hours later and told her bosses at the bank what had happened.

Strangely enough there is a well-known tale of a Sberbank teller being hypnotised on longtime Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s orders. Wolfgang Messing was a German Jew who escaped to the Soviet Union from the Nazi Germany after he predicted Adolf Hitler’s regime would collapse. Messing was said to be Stalin’s personal psychic and claimed that he hypnotised a teller to hand over 100,000 rubles as an experiment on Stalin’s orders. The Soviet secret police later gave the money back — the teller had a heart attack when he heard how he had been tricked.

Police say that Korzhova is a “tsiganka,” or Roma. Police, who are often criticized for racial profiling, say this type of crime is most often perpetrated by Roma who are traditionally involved in fortune telling and are often seen begging in Russia.

The Roma, or Gypsies, are nomadic people who live throughout Europe. Human rights groups say they are severely discriminated against in Russia and that police routinely assume their guilt and harass them.

[via: globalpost.com - Kevin O'Flynn]

A man has been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia for witchcraft because he makes predictions on television.

Ali Sibat is not even a Saudi national. The Lebanese citizen was only visiting Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage when he was arrested in Medina last year.

A court in the city condemned him as a witch on November 9.

The only evidence presented in court was reportedly the claim he appeared regularly on Lebanese satellite issuing general advice on life and making predictions about the future.

The case is causing outrage among human rights campaigners but has made little news elsewhere despite the ludicrous nature of the charges and the extraordinary severity of Sibat’s sentence.

“Saudi courts are sanctioning a literal witch hunt by the religious police,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

“The crime of witchcraft is being used against all sorts of behavior, with the cruel threat of state sanctioned executions.”

Ali Sibat’s supporters say he was denied a lawyer at his trial and was tricked into making a confession.

He is not the only victim of Saudi Arabia’s literal witch hunt. Human Rights Watch says two other people have been arrested on similar charges in the last month alone.

It claims a lower court in Jeddah started the trial of a Saudi this month who was arrested by the religious police and said to have smuggled a book of witchcraft into the kingdom.

In another case the religious police are said to have arrested for “sorcery” and “charlatanry” an Asian man accusing him of using supernatural powers to solve marital disputes and induce others to fall in love.

In 2006 a Jeddah court convicted an Eritrean national Muhammad Burhan for “charlatanry” because he possessed a phone book that contained writings in the Tigrinya alphabet used in Eritrea.

Human rights campaigners claim prosecutors classified the booklet as a “talisman” and the court accepted that as evidence, sentencing him to 20 months in prison and 300 lashes.

[via: news.sky.com]

A British Army translator accused of spying for Iran was a voodoo priest who used black magic to protect the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Taliban, a court heard.

Iranian-born Daniel James, 45, who was the personal interpreter to General David Richards, told the Old Bailey that he used pictures, dust, candles and seashells to cast spells protect his boss.

He also said he did Tarot card readings for other personnel at the Allied HQ in Kabul to predict the future.

James is alleged to have passed on secret information about Allied troop movements to the Iranians – who then passed it on to the Taliban.

Giving evidence, James swore on the Bible but said he embraced all religions before telling the court how he converted to Voodoo while on his yearly trips to Cuba to research salsa in 2003.

He claimed to be a priest who had recorded 10 Voodoo DVDs.

James said: “I actually did black magic for General Richards praying to God to protect him from the Taliban.

He explained: “Yoruba is the name of the religion. It is voodoo and black magic. I became the equivalent of a priest in the Church of England.”

Corporal James told the court he ran salsa dance lessons from his Brighton club “Capital of Salsa” and dubbed himself “King of Salsa” before selling his businesses in 2005 just as he was called up to Afghanistan as a volunteer in the Territorial Army.

As a dancer he regularly appeared on 1980s TV show ‘Solid Soul’ after an invitation by Jonathan Ross, who was then a television researcher, and he was a kick-boxing body builder who was one of Britain’s top three power lifters, the court heard.

It is alleged James was a ‘Walter Mitty’ character who had “grandiose ideas about himself and his own self-importance”.

He told the jury he agreed with allegations that when he translated for General Richards as he addressed a crowd of Afghan dignitaries he would sometimes act like a general.

He said: “Well I think the audience did not understand General Richards. They were watching me and I thought I should act as a general because they are watching me. I was acting good and the public respected me.”

Earlier the court heard from General Richards that often, as an quiet aside while on stage in front of an audience, he had to remind his corporal who in fact was the senior officer.

James also told the court while out in Afghanistan he called himself General James after being promised promotion because his predecessor had the rank of acting Major.

Before he had “could not have cared less” about his rank but was promised promotion to sergeant because it was thought to be more appropriate to his role as the general’s translator – although the promotion never materialised.

It is alleged James “turned his back ” on his colleagues because he was “disenchanted” and “bitter” about the British Army because he thought it was racist for not promoting him and was a fantasist “Walter Mitty” character who revelled in the idea of being a spy.

But a British Army Colonel known as ‘M’ who was Chief of Combined Intelligence told the court the implications of James’s betrayal was “extremely serious”.

Assessing the alleged contact between James and an military assistant at the Iranian embassy in Kabul, he said the relationship was in its infancy but the potential damage was “immense” that could have driven a wedge between the British and its NATO allies.

He said: “Information passed over time could help and assist a hostile state in its effort to conduct a tactical deployment that posed a threat to the lives of UK and NATO service personnel in Afghanistan and pose a similar threat to the interior national security of the UK.”

James, of Cliff Road, Brighton, denies two breaches of the Official Secrets Act by collecting and passing on military secrets to a foreign power and wilful misconduct in public office.

He was caught with two secret reports on NATO troop numbers and movements on a memory stick as he prepared to board an RAF plane back to Afghanistan along with pictures of RAF spy drones and a NATO aircraft manual, it was said.

The trial continues.

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

A police force has consulted a “warlock” in an attempt to unravel a spate of mysterious incidents of horses having their manes plaited.

Owners in west Dorset and the surrounding counties had believed that thieves plaited the manes of the beasts to identify which ones to steal when they returned at night.

But police officers investigating the incidents said there had been no thefts, and instead their enquiries led to the world of pagan ritual.

It is now believed that the practice is a part of white witch “knot magick” that is used when a spell is cast.

It seems those responsible to go extreme lengths at night to carry out their plaiting as horses have had their manes knotted on nights of high wind and rain.

And some of those targeted have been in fields surrounded by electric fences, miles from anywhere.

It is not known exactly how many horses have been targeted but at least a dozen are known to have had the treatment.

Horse owner Harriet Laurie from Bridport in Dorset, a member of the Shipton Riding Club, said: “I’m not really sure what is going on.

“Among horsey folk there is divided opinion. Some people believe it is just the wind that blows the mane into sort of plaits.

“But when one of my horse’s manes was plaited it took me some time to unpick and the wind had whipped it into a sort of dreadlock, but underneath was a three strands neatly plaited.

“It is most bizarre and one horse that was done is very hard to catch and very flighty and was wearing a full rug. The plait was down by the withers so it’s hard to see how the wind could have done it.

“It is most confusing and it is worrying horse owners. I am web mistress for the riding club’s website and I’ve had a lot of people ask what’s going on.

“Some have mentioned satanic ritual and others that this is what gypsies do to identify horses they later want to come back a steal.

“What ever it is there is a lot of fear and anxiety. I know of about 12 horses that have had it done.

“There doesn’t seem to be any pattern, but we’d love to get to the bottom of it.”

PC Tim Poole, who has investigated the incidents, 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.

“But we have some very good information from a warlock that 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.

“The fact that this rash of plaiting coincides with one of their ceremonial times of year adds weight to the theory.

“This warlock said it is a benign activity, albeit maybe a bit distressing for the horse owner.”

However, pagan witch Phil Robinson said pagans could not be involved.

He said: “Some people play at Satanism and this may be related to people messing about, but it is worrying if people think it is related to paganism – we have a bad enough press as it is.”

[via: telegraph.co.uk]

Tweance, the online attempt to contact Michael Jackson beyond the grave, is being billed as the world’s first Twitter séance.

The move is a paranormal publicity stunt by a fancy dress shop in central London ahead of Hallowe’en.

Jackson – booked for his first posthumous appearance on 30 October, the day before Hallowe’en – is only one of the dead celebrities the Tweancers hope to contact.

The organisers, including “psychic” Jayne Wallace, also have their spectral sights set on Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett, both of whom died this year.

Twitterers can also make suggestions of other big late names they would like to contact. One, @andywartrol said they would like to speak to “The Beatles…..oh yeah, I forgot Ringo is still alive (everyone knows Paul is dead).”

@AlanPIMPChung said, controversially: “I’d like to see you talk to Adolf Hitler.”

Benjamin Webb, a spokesman for the Angels Fancy Dress shop where the event is taking place, said: “I’d love to hear what Elvis Presley would have to say”.

This is not Mrs Wallace’s first beyond-the-veil star-spotting. She claims that she “spoke” to Jade Goody, the Big Brother star who died of cervical cancer in March.

Apparently the late mother of two said she wanted to apologise to her mother, Jackiey Budden, for not listening to her about marrying Jack Tweed, saying it was “the biggest mistake she ever made”.

Not all Twitterers are impressed, though, claiming that it is exploitative and wrong. @Brian_Rossiter spoke for many when he dismissed it as “a load of garbage”.

[via: telegraph.co.uk by Tom Chivers]

Professional medium Patricia Putt was last week subjected to a rigorous scientific test of her powers as the first stage of her bid to claim a $1m prize from the James Randi Educational Foundation

The young female volunteer in front of me could not suppress an embarrassed giggle as she sat there wearing a ski mask, wraparound sunglasses, an oversized graduation gown and a pair of white socks, a large laminated sheet hung around her neck displaying her participant number.

Then things got even weirder. Professor Richard Wiseman knocked on the door to collect our volunteer. He accompanied her into a large room where she was instructed to sit in a chair facing the wall and do nothing for 15 minutes or so. Professional medium Mrs Patricia Putt was then brought into the room and sat down at a small table around 12 feet away. Sometimes Mrs Putt would request that a volunteer read a pre-specified short passage, as she had found from past experience that often “the Spirit enters and makes contact through the sound of the sitter’s voice”. After that, no talking was allowed whatsoever as our medium wrote down a “reading” describing the volunteer using her alleged paranormal abilities. At the end of the reading, Mrs Putt left the room and the volunteer was allowed to change back into somewhat more conventional garb and given a reminder to return later in the day for the all-important judging phase.

[sourced from: guardian.co.uk, Chris French]

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