Haunted 32 - The Great American Ghost Trip by Dead Good Publishing Ltd

CONTENTS

EDITORIAL SCEPTICS TO THE LEFT OF ME, BELIEVERS TO THE RIGHT, HERE I AM STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU… Hello and welcome to issue 32 of Haunted Magazine. If you’re reading this for the first time, may I say a) welcome to the party and b) where have you been, what kept you? Although to be fair we are more visible than ever before; in new locations, new stockists, new newsagents, new bookstores and new territories, so it’s understandable that more people are going to see us for the first time and, fingers crossed, be intrigued & interested in knowing what we are about.

The paranormal comes in many shapes, many sizes, many forms and guises. Imagine a dinner party with 13 randomly picked people and I guarantee not one of them will have the same perspective on all things paranormal as you. Yes, they will all have an opinion on this, that and the other, trust me you’ll be debating, disagreeing, debunking and discussing someone’s version of the paranormal before you’ve finished your egg mayonnaise starter.

AND that is the beauty of the paranormal, no matter what you believe in, or how much you believe there is always someone with a differing, and maybe leftfield approach to make you think, question and dissect your take on the paranormal. I can remember someone responding to a tweet showing an orb saying, “orbs are 99.9% dust particles picked up on digital photography”, the best reply back was “yes, more than likely, but what about the 0.1%?”. It’s a good and valid point. WHAT ABOUT THE 0.1%? The paranormal can be (at times) very tribal, die-hard sceptics to the left versus 100% believers to the right, with the sat on the fence types, splinters in their backsides in the middle, deviating to the left then shuffling back to the right. Throw into the mix, science, philosophy and the unsystematic randomness of the paranormal and your mind will be thrown around like a sterling silver cutlery set that’s in the hands of a poltergeist.

Haunted Magazine is a mixed bag full of features to question, to challenge, to be believed, to be dismissed, to make you shuffle to the left or deviate to your right, to make you think about the 0.1%, to make you question the 99.9%, and to surprise you with a flying spoon from time to time. Everyone at #teamHaunted brings their own paranormal ideas & writings to Haunted Magazine, it is a real pleasure to be part of people’s supernatural journey. Enjoy the magazine, that’s what it is there for.

Paul

WOOF JUSTICE: Morgan Knudsen asks if the Western Dogmen get a fair account of their potential existence.

SENSES WORKING OVERTIME: Jane Rowley asks if spirituality & technology can work together to improve paranormal communication.

SALVATION BARMY: Nicky Alan uses her spirit Sat-Nav to find the best route to seek solace in the afterlife.

PIZZAS OF HISTORY: Penny GriffithsMorgan slices through the lore and legend of the good King, yes that one.

PACK MENTALITY: What’s the deal with Zener Cards? Our Wizardess of Oz, Sarah Chumacero investigates.

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FLAWED & FRAUD: Kate Cherrell ponders whether Colin Evans was one of the worst mediums of all time.

THE FRIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS: L.J.Willgress tell us that it’s not just Santa Claus with ‘presence’ on a certain day of the year.

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WHAT THE DICKENS: Spook-Eats and the case for the traditions of a Victorian Christmas.

CHILD’S PLAY: Did Jack the Ripper travel to a Scottish fishing village with murder on his mind? Leonard Low investigates. THE HAUNTING OF…: Lorien Jones visits Sacrewell Farm. Is there more behind the charm of this farm & the chill of the mill than meets the eye?

RIVALS OF THE RIPPER: Dr. Jan Bondeson writes about an unsolved murder in late Victorian London.

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THE VANISHING ISLAND NEAR IRELAND: Due to reappear in 2027, Katie Waller looks into the legend of Hy-Brasil.

A FAERY TALE: Just who is Erwin Saunders? Kate Ray tells us more about the legendary hunter of Pixies.

A BIRD’S EYE VIEW: Is there more to our feathered friends? Sam Bennetts explains what they might symbolise.

THE STAFFORDSHIRE VAMPIRES: Eli Lycett and some folk from Stoke and the folklore of the undead.

COVELL’S CURIOUS CASES: The ghost stories, myths, and legends of Richmond Castle. Is it the resting place of King Arthur?

THE BLACK NUN: Charlie Hall investigates Bonamargy Friary, with 500 years of history, mystery, weird gravestone & so much more.

SEEING IS BELIEVING: Brian Baker chats to the paranormal you-tubers bringing scary videos to a whole new audience. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

THE LEGACY OF NANNY MORGAN: There’s much more to the town of Much Wenlock than meets the eye. Amy Boucher investigates.

CARRY ON CAMPING: Ryleigh Black experiences, first-hand, the ghostly Legend of Camp St. Andrew.

ALEXANDRA’S HOLZER FILES: Like her father before, Alexandra Holzer connects the past to the future via the present. CAUSE AND EFFECT: Mark Gallagher combines his passion for the paranormal with raising funds for charity. Jayne Mortimore finds out why.

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WHO YA GONNA CALL: Higgypop and the science, parapsychology & beliefs behind the original Ghostbusters (1984).

THE HUNTS OF HOBUX: Hubert goes ghost seeking in a 1,000-year-old city in the Northeast of England.

FREE 16 PAGE PARANORMAL PULL OUT: The Great American Ghost Trip The Haunted Hinsdale House Uncanny Danny 3

Is there a strong case for the Western Dogmen or are we barking up the wrong tree?

he night I got the phone call from my panicked clients here in Alberta, Canada, their story was not what I was expected. Usually, when I get this kind of call, it’s in regard to some kind of poltergeist or perceived haunting phenomenon occurring on their property. Common calls include apparitions, objects suddenly taking flight, frightening noises, and things of that ilk. Never do they consist of two of the most stable, level-headed, unshakable people I know reporting seeing a seven-foot werewolf crouching in the back of their pickup… until this call.

By Morgan Knudsen Entityseeker Paranormal Research & Teachings

‘John’ got up early, got dressed, had a shower, ate his breakfast, and prepared his coffee. Putting on his jacket, he explained, John left the house on their Nisku acreage while it was still dark. Their house is far from a main road and a winding dirt driveway separates their property from the neighbours a good distance away, coupled with a thick wood with horse trails surrounding the huge yard. The air was still crisp and the light from the garage shone onto their driveway, highlighting the pickup truck against the deep woods surrounding their property. There, in the back of his truck, he claimed, was a large muscled-up, bear-like animal with a wolf’s head. It was crouching with human-type knees and supporting itself with long arms which had elbows, features not seen on the average prairie coyote or wolf. It immediately looked up; its attention drawn to him defensively. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

“It looked me dead in the eye,” ‘John’ had said, “It was not afraid at all. It snarled at me, and I took off back to the house.” “He was white as a ghost,” ‘Mary’, his Social Worker wife, described, “I’ve never seen him like that. John used to be a non-believer. Not anymore.” This was one of three separate occasions with separate witnesses, in which the dogman has been seen in their yard. Later, the family saw the same creature standing on the top of their workshop next to the house. It was then seen again by their son-in-law as it climbed the house and looked into the second-floor bedroom window. They assumed, and logically so, that the morning ‘John’ had seen it in the back of the pickup, it may have been attempting to climb the house again, using the truck bed as a stepping-stone up to the roof. The consistencies were undeniable and, in every sighting, the monster was described as bi-pedal, returning to all fours only to crouch or kneel. In every encounter, it showed no fear of onlookers and snarled defiantly. Neither John nor Mary had reported or described the creature to the other witnesses prior to their own sightings, so each one stood on their own quite sufficiently, and not one of these individuals were interested in fame or attention. In fact, reporting it to me was as far as they intended it to go at first, simply because of the bizarre nature of what they were describing. Who, in their right mind, believes in dogmen? Right?

“It looked me dead in the eye,” ‘John’ had said, “It was not afraid at all. It snarled at me, and I took off back to the house.”

It was the same conversation Lori Endrizzi had years earlier in the state of Wisconsin, in a tiny Walworth County town called Elkhorn. In 1989, Lori was a single mom working as a bartender, and one night, on her drive home, she saw what she described as a werewolf. On a two mile stretch of the now-infamous Bray Road, Lori stopped her car for a hungry animal kneeling on the side of the old farm road. It was bent over, chewing on roadkill, holding the food in its “hands” and kneeling like a human. When it saw Lori’s headlights, it reacted instantly. Growling at the car and showing no signs of backing away, Lori sped away in the dark to her mom’s house in complete terror. The young bartender’s story eventually became the basis for a very famous article by Linda Godfrey in the local paper and, with piles of reports later, the Beast of Bray Road became national news. North of Wisconsin, yet another series of reports have drifted in to bring fame to a creature now known as the Michigan Dogman. One such report came from a burly repo-man from Holly, sent to fetch a Cadillac after the owner lapsed on payments. Finding the marked house and car in a wooded area of Michigan, both empty and abandoned, Jeff Cornelius was far more nervous about running into an angry owner with a loaded shotgun than any animal. Leaving his truck door open for safety, he left the vehicle with his flashlight to take a look around the property. With his nerves slightly on edge, he got the distinct feeling he was less than alone. As he came around the side of the house, he found himself face to face with an upright canine, around six feet tall which seemed to growl from the bottom of its guts.

“We both froze,” he recalled clearly, “And that’s when I knew it was time to go.” Racing back to his truck, he left the dogman and the car behind, and dropped the Cadillac account the next day, vowing never to go back to the property again. Accounts of these bi-pedal wolf-like creatures did not start in recent years and are not limited to the United States and Canada, although more sightings seem to be occurring in these countries than others in the last forty years. These are also not cases of the classic Hollywood werewolf either. Accounts of individuals who believe they could turn into a wolf or werewolves are quite different than the encounters people continue to describe to this day involving dogmen. One of the most notable, the Beast of Bedburg in Germany during the 1500’s, involved a man named Peter Stubbe (one of many aliases), who claimed he transformed himself into a fierce wolf by donning wolf pelts and murdering (and eating) his victims. He claimed that the Devil had given him a magical belt or girdle, which enabled him to metamorphose into ”the likeness of a greedy, devouring wolf, strong and mighty, with eyes great and large, which in the night sparkled like fire, a mouth great and wide, with most sharp and cruel teeth, a huge body, and mighty paws.” Removing the belt, he said, made him transform back to his human form. No such belt was ever found after his arrest. In any of the current accounts of dogmen, very few attacks are ever documented, and no evidence of a human transformation exists at all. In fact, Lee Hampel, a farmer who took up residence along Bray Road in Wisconsin, has been posting trail cams and bait in the form of roadkill for the beast for years. Not only does he now have some excellent paw print casts of tracks, but the footage has shown something unexpected: a strange HAUNTED MAGAZINE

mist triggering the cameras, removing the roadkill, and disappearing. So not only does it seem that the beast is not human, but many have also speculated that it may not be a physical being at all. This idea of a spiritual being can be traced back to ancient Egypt with the jackal-headed god Anubis, the deity who presided over the embalming process and accompanied dead kings in the afterworld.

One social media user wrote: “That could very well be what’s being called Dogman. They’re spotted each day and the government quells any and all reports. “Several people report being strong armed into keeping quiet about their reports by men wearing black suits. These are just facts. Look into if you don’t believe it.” In fact, these fascinating creatures are often strongly associated with effigy or burial mounds created by the First Nations people of various areas and have even been seen digging them up on multiple occasions. The Beast of Bray Road was caught twice digging up an Elkhorn effigy mound and proceeded to flee the scene when discovered. In the case of my clients, John and Mary, six specialized search/cadaver dogs which were brought to the property in July 2021, indicated multiple hits during a search of the land and the owners were told that there were, indeed, human remains buried across the property in the woods where the dogmen had been reported. Linda Godfrey stated that a common trait amongst many dogmen sightings is the presence of a graveyard or military installation. Areas such as the alleged Battle Creek sightings in Michigan have both; in the Fort Custer Training Center as well as the nearby Harmonia Cemetery, a burial ground for a former religious community.

“I don’t pretend to know or tell people I know what it is,” Godfrey said to the Battle Creek Enquirer. “We have never had somebody see one and catch it and put it in a safe place and study it, that we know of... I can say it is a consistent phenomenon occurring not only over the Western Hemisphere, but there are connections with werewolves in almost every culture.” Godfrey has been pressed with similar questions in regard to why bones or skeletal remains have never been found, and while she doesn’t pretend to know what these creatures actually are, she has toyed with the theory they may not be from this realm at all. This is a belief shared with many First Nations people, and that these creatures are from the Spirit World, placed in certain locations to protect sacred land or even curse it, depending on the culture. As I continue to investigate the Nisku property, I have come no closer to really understanding what the dogmen could be, though Mary and I have felt often that these creatures, whether they be spirit or animal, seem to be protecting the space. Whether they are drawn there, born there, or placed there, these dogmen rarely cause physical harm despite the chase that can sometimes

ensue. Encounters with humans often seem accidental. One such incident was reported on “Monsters & Mysteries in America” when two school children, playing the in the snow near a pond, saw a dog lapping water. When they approached to pet the dog, it turned and stood on two legs. It pursued them over a short distance and broke off the chase quickly, leaving both children terrified but unharmed. Animals and pets, however, do not seem to escape their line of fire. The Beast of Bray Road has been seen on many occasions killing dogs or prowling the area with pet cats in its mouth. So, while humans aren’t on the menu, these beasts seem to be fond of smaller prey, and have even been seen pursuing deer and livestock. In the case of my clients, their large mountain dog who is normally unbearably lazy and easy-going, becomes notably agitated and aggressive after the creatures are seen lurking in the woods surrounding the house. Their dogs, thankfully, have not been approached directly as far as they know. In my opinion, there would be no dog left if they had of been confronted. The nature of these beings, for now, can only be guessed. For the people who have seen them face to face, however, they are

unforgettable and terrifying. They leave an indelible mark on the individuals who have stood within feet of these stunning, massive, and imposing creatures, and if we know one thing for sure, they leave us with two very important lessons. The first is that the nature of our world, the fabrics of what we think we know, is still being tested. And the second is that lore, whether it be the stories of old or the magic of Hollywood, can have its roots in fragments of truth. Sometimes, the creatures of our nightmares hold a greater purpose and, as horrifying as we think them to be, they have a reason to be here. Part of our journey as humans, I believe, is to replace fear with curiosity and listen to their story. In each encounter, environment, burial ground, tale, and sighting, perhaps we can take a step into the paws of these fascinating beasts and begin to glimpse a bit of our part in the story. The human may not be in the werewolf at all, but I have a hard time believing we have no part to play in their world, nor do I believe their story is entirely separate from our own. How we discover that connection will be up to us.

Morgan

Photo Credit: Connor Randall using the ‘Estes Method’ taken from ‘Hellier’

SCHOOLED IN TECH OR BACK TO BASICS? Jane Rowley explores

SENSE & SENSE ABILITY “I am inclined to believe that our personality hereafter will be able to affect matter. If this reasoning be correct, then, if we can evolve an instrument so delicate as to be affected, moved, or manipulated by our personality as it survives in the next life, such an instrument, when made available, ought to record something..” Thomas Edison, from an interview with Scientific American Magazine, 1920

have heard and seen many debates on the popular topic of ‘Tech or Old School’ and they are always fun and interesting to listen to. The ongoing conversations of whether people prefer to use the latest gadgets and technical equipment during their investigations or whether they prefer to investigate what has become known as ‘old school’ always seems to have plenty of mileage in it. ‘Old School’ is the terminology now used when we go back to basics and just use our own senses and the simplest items like just pen, paper and a torch. As experienced investigators, we are well aware of the importance of having our technical kit and equipment working as best it can and many of us have that pre-investigation routine of charging/replacing batteries, making sure everything is in working order, and having everything we need to make the investigation go as planned and ultimately, capturing that piece of evidence that makes it all worthwhile. So, with all our gadgets and technical equipment, the preparation, the maintenance and time and effort that goes into ensuring they all work as well as they can is considerable. But, if we go HAUNTED MAGAZINE

‘Old School’, and we choose to just use our own senses and our own body as an ‘instrument’ to investigate, how much time and effort do we put into making this ‘instrument’ the best it can be so it can deliver great results and enhance our paranormal experience? The ability to achieve sensitive perception is already within us. It is within ALL of us. Many choose not to use it, but those of us who do - the same as the technical equipment, we have to switch it on, activate it and maintain it. We are already wired with our own ‘antenna’ to the Spirit World, this being that very small part of our brain called the Pineal Gland. It is a small cone like gland in the centre of our brain, measuring approximately 6mm by 4mm and takes its name as it looks like a pine cone. It is visible in embryos from the 36th day and is fully developed at birth. It is my understanding that the human soul goes into the foetus as the heart starts to beat at about 5-6 weeks (35-42 days) so we are equipped very early on to use our ‘antenna’. This is one of the most important ‘tools’ we have within our bodies so we need to understand it, as it is the key to our intuition.

The importance of this gland has been known for many centuries across many cultures. The Greeks and Romans were aware of it, and it was recognised that there was a connection between the body and the soul. A Greek doctor called Galen (129AD – 201AD) described this gland as ‘the entry portal of thoughts’.

For hundreds of years, in Indian traditions and texts, the pineal gland has been recognised as being the ‘eye of intuition’ and the ‘third eye’ and it is very much linked with our various states of consciousness. The spiritual function of our little ‘antenna’ is very important if we are investigating ‘Old School’. Whilst our eyes see the material world around us, our ‘third eye’ (our pineal gland) links in and sees the spirit world, with this we can interact and communicate with it. In order for it to do this effectively it must be able to function smoothly and without restriction. So, what sort of things can restrict our Pineal Gland working so well? With our modern day living there are a few factors that can debilitate and calcify our pineal gland, resulting in our third eye closing and our link to the spirit world very much being weakened. Fluoride is the biggest threat to our little antenna; it causes calcification and loss of productivity. We are faced with it in our everyday lives as it is in toothpaste, mouthwashes, table salt and depending on where you live, in the water we drink. In researching this article, I checked out my local water supplier and it turns out that Severn Trent water do add Fluoride to the water supply, although it did not say how much. A study by Dr Jennifer Luke (University of Surry) concluded that fluoride does collect and strongly affects the pineal gland. Is this a contributing factor as to why children openly see spirit in their early years as their pineal gland has not yet been affected by the ‘additional extras’ that are added to the everyday products/fluids etc that we intake? Other toxins which are present in our daily lives can also affect the pineal gland. The obvious ones are tobacco, alcohol and sugar, but the less obvious ones like aluminium (found in deodorants) and parabens (found in cosmetics) and glutamates (found in food

flavourings and other food products) can also have an effect. Finding some alternatives and minimising the intake of some of these things will help the connection with the spirit world when on investigations. Electronic ‘fall out’ can also impede the abilities of connecting with spirit. Electromagnetic radiation caused by computers, WIFI, laptops, telephones, routers and televisions in the spaces where we live can all have an effect, and outside there is more… powerlines and transmitters etc., can also have an impact. Early paranormal investigators would not have had this problem of course, but our world is flooded with electronics. Obviously, these things play a big part in our lives and it is very difficult to function in today’s world without them. Keeping the bedroom free of any of these devices whilst sleeping can help to minimise any effects they may have. Lack of sleep and lack of sunlight can also affect the function of our bodies making it harder to get that connection with Spirit. As an ‘instrument’ it cannot work effectively if it is worn out and depleted of energy. Working your body as an affective piece of equipment does take time. Opening up your consciousness too quickly and working with it can cause headaches as working the pineal gland can leave it with a type of muscle pain after intense activity. Work slowly and do not force the process. It takes time, patience and practice and try to work with out expectations. As our bodies become more ‘sensitive’ we can focus more on communication. Mediation also helps to positively focus your energy and to decalcify the pineal gland, this will then enhance and strengthen the links with the Spirit World. Do not force the process, everything will happen when it is meant to and when you are ready.

THE ROAD * To HELL

*TU R N LE F T AT PU RG ATO RY

By N ic k y Al a n

uring my many years on this mortal coil I have been asked two questions more than any other; Is there a heaven? That one is exceptionally simple, YES! The other, is there a hell? The answer to this is yes and no. I was first introduced to the concept of hell for the baddies in our life when I was doing a reading for a young girl. Her Nan came through and usually there are lovely memories, cakes being baked, nanny cuddles and fluffy kittens but this one took a turn that quite frankly shocked the life out of me. As her darling nan came through all I saw was blood, mayhem and a suicide. The girl was so excited because that’s exactly what she had come for, to see what had happened to her Nan’s children. It turned out that her nan’s brother had taken her nan’s twins out for the day. By the end of the day both children had been murdered by her brother that ended in him committing suicide. Turns out that the brother was exposed to mustard gas during the war and had lost his mind.

Other things that will help the body are detoxifying the system on a regular basis, also avoid toxins in cosmetics and drink plenty of water to flush out the system (especially just prior to an investigation). Try and eat good nutritional food and minimise processed sugar. Go for regular walks in nature and learn new things. Be creative and try to reduce emotional conditions like stress and guilt. It may seem a lot to take in, but if you are going ‘Old School’ when out investigating, does your ‘best piece of equipment’ – your body - not deserve the best chance possible to capture that all important piece of evidence and give you a fantastic paranormal experience? …. But as always, be careful what you wish for…

Jane x

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I took some time out to talk to this nan and asked her if her brother was now in hell for his deeds. She smiled and stated that no, he was in another dimension healing and learning how to redeem his actions in that lifetime. She went on to explain that he had no malicious intent and so needed to heal from the trauma he had created. She stated that he would rejoin their family soul cluster once he had healed from this incident. She also said that her babies were there with her happy and well.

This struck a chord with me and made me want to delve deeper into the nasties in this world and what happens to them. The first thing that I was told when meditating with my spirit dad is that the hell really is down here. Most people who have done bad deeds pay for their previous life sins in their following incarnation. They are the people who are living out their karma, no doubt receiving in the physical life what they dealt out in the last. So that covered the karma question.

Interestingly I was then shown by one of my guides, Julianus, what happens to the real evil people of this world. He stated there was no hell and that we ‘judge’ ourselves. So, there is no wrath of God, there is no devil pulling you down to a fiery existence. I was then taken to what is known by me as the Cherubim Chamber. I have visited this layer of consciousness many times. It has also been experienced by my many students when I take them up to heaven’s frequency. It is a milky pool that is located in a room that has gilded Cherubim on the walls and ceilings. It looks like an indoor swimming pool in a posh mansion! I stood in the room watching a soul go into the pool that had done very bad things. The soul floated in the milky depths as the Cherubim came to life and surrounded the pool looking over the soul. I then saw what I can only describe

as bright fluorescent tadpoles (Julianus called them sentients) start to swim around and through the soul of the being. They were extricating the intent and energy of the soul. The milky pool started to bubble like a jacuzzi and I saw the sweet Cherubim turn from cuddly babies to something quite ferocious. Their heads turned 360 degrees and when they were back in situ, they either had Oxon or lion heads! It was quite unsettling to see. They continued to look upon the soul, the milky waves then started to darken. Eventually the sentients had deemed the soul evil and not worthy of any future incarnation. They were literally reflecting the thoughts, feelings and deeds of that soul back to its owner. The pain, misery and darkness that they had brought on others writhed through their soul a hundred-fold. The soul was feeling and knowing everything that they had dealt out whilst on the earth plain. I watched the pool turn black and dissipate the soul until there was nothing left of it. It was like a boiling mess of tar and filth. The pool then lightened and resumed its mill pond appearance, bright white after such a dramatic display. The Cherubim then rotated their heads back to their infantile chubby cheeked visages and floated back to the walls and the ceiling. As ever after witnessing such a powerful and spectacular event I wondered if it HAUNTED MAGAZINE

was all in my head, so I hit the Google button after the meditation. Amazingly on researching what I had witnessed, in the Old Testament there is reference to the Cherubim who are the right hand of God and judge souls in their chamber. My spine tingled as I read, ‘and they shalt look upon with head of Oxon and Lion’. My findings were that souls that have done unspeakable acts against humankind are taken to the pool where they are faced with their evil which is delivered by the sentients. They then ‘cook’ in their sin until they no longer exist. It did not look like a pleasant process to go through! However, if the soul was innocent or as I had discovered with the Nan’s brother, a victim themselves, they would receive healing in the pool and the Cherubim would remain in their babylike state devoid of their judgement masks. So, it is plain to see, our actions and deeds are our judge and jury in that pool of judgement.

Intrigued I then went up in meditation and asked Julianus about purgatory. I wished I hadn’t. He took me to a layer of consciousness where souls that were ‘caught in the middle’ resided. It was dark, dank, hopeless and bereft of any light. I can still remember the cold chills I experienced for about an hour after coming round from this one. This was the layer of consciousness where the evil doers hung out, too afraid to go to Heaven and be judged.

Unfortunately, it was also a place where people feared going to the light and also remained. I felt sorry for those souls. There were religious people that had committed suicide and feared God’s wrath, addicts, prostitutes, or souls that feared meeting up with abusers in the afterlife. It was a place of discord, fear and darkness. There was also no other place to go but down. This I mean is possibly where we get our rare negative entities that come back and remain on the earth plain plaguing the innocent. This is also where souls with their inner demons come back and wreak havoc on the earth as they have nowhere else to go. That is what I believe a demon is. A soul that has spent eons stuck in a purgatory with their own darkness where they eventually lose all concepts of humanity and are nothing but evil. The hardest thing to get your head around in all of this is that it isn’t a physical place, it is a ‘state of being’ a layer of energy that holds souls by their pain, inner shadows and conscience. I assume either mediums help them up to that light, they decide to eventually face their destiny or remain there forever tortured by their deeds. That I would assume is some sort of hell right there. I always work in the light and have no passion at all for the darkness but this period of time that I dedicated to evil gave me much enlightenment. It also brought me comfort that the wrong doers on the earth plain will always pay for their sins in the afterlife. So many people who are victims of dark souls may not see justice on the earth plain but I want them to know that these souls will never escape the ramification of their deeds.

NOT SO ‘ORRIBLE ‘ISTORIES*

DEEP PAN, CRISP & EVEN… Penny Griffiths-Morgan pizzas together the history of Good King Wenceslaus

very so often you hear a story of a myth or curse which you fervently hope is true, this information that I am going to recount to you is one of such tales.

Most of us can probably remember singing the Christmas carol all about King Wenceslaus, it’s one of those that you have an “a-ha” moment when you realise the lyrics are “good king Wenceslaus looked out” and not “good king Wences last looked out” but I digress. The eponymous King was indeed a real person and although only elevated to monarch (and sainthood) after his death, he is very prevalent in Czech history for he was a Duke of Bohemia and part of their ruling dynasty in the 10th century AD.

The circumstances of his death are harsh however, and perhaps with the prevailing sense of murder and violence that seems to permeate eastern European history, that in itself is not surprising. When his father had died in 921AD, Wenceslaus was below the age of majority and his grandmother, Ludmilla, took on the regency role. As with all good dynastical stories, his actual mother Drahomira became jealous of the influence that Ludmilla had over her teenage son and plotted her mother in laws assassination. With Drahomira now taking on the role of regent, she initiated some very anti Christian measures, so much so, that when her son reached the age of 18, the remaining Christian dukes and nobles took part in an uprising which resulted in her exile.

Nicky x

Psychic Medium, Tutor & Magazine Columnist Author of M.E Myself & I: Diary of a Psychic Twitter @NickyAlan07 Instagram @nickyalan333

Drama right? It gets better. What do all good family dramas need? Brother against brother, and this case was no different. Our kind and benevolent Duke had a younger brother, known as Boleslaus the Cruel (clue is in the name maybe?) who decided that his older sibling needed to die and accompanied by three of his friends, murdered his kin in the September of 935AD. Fast forward a thousand years or so, and we see the country of Czechoslovakia invaded by Hitler’s Nazi troops and the control of the Czech people began. If you are familiar with the path of the

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Heydrich was possibly one of the most evil members of Hitler’s Nazi party, not only was he one of the main architects of the Final Solution, his method to quash the resistance in Czechoslovakia was to order a wave of terror. Within two months of him being placed in Prague, he had ordered the deaths of over 300 people and turned over nearly 1300 to the Gestapo. He also established the Theresienstadt Transit Camp, a place designed to hasten the demise of Jewish and other prisoners who were sent there whilst waiting to be transported to other places of horror, names that still have the echo of fear such as Lodz, Auschwitz and Treblinka. Under his terrifying rule of the area, it is believed that he sent over 14,000 German and Austrian Jews and in excess of 20,000 Czech Jews to this camp. But the butcher was arrogant, and with arrogance comes complacency and a misguided belief in your own immortality. Whilst based in his offices in Prague Castle, he had demanded access to some of the Bohemian antiquities including the famous Crown of St Wenceslas, which was stored in nearby St Vitus’ Cathedral. The crown had been commissioned by the 11th King of Bohemia, Charles IV for his coronation in 1347 and dedicated to the Bohemian Saint, Wenceslas (or Wenceslaus). The legend follows that anyone who placed the crown on their head and was not a rightful king of Bohemia would be dead within twelve months of the event taking place. The last true wearer of the piece was Ferdinand V in 1836, that was until Heydrich and his over inflated ego was to visit. It is believed – although not documented anywhere – that when warned by the guardian of the jewels not to place the crown on his head due to the myth, he did so anyway with scant regard to the curse and demanded that his 9year old son Klaus was also allowed to wear it.

Fuhrers megalomaniacal march, you will know that originally, he called for the allocation of Sudetenland - made up of the North, South and Western areas of Czechoslovakia and consisting of ethnic Germans, or so the argument went – but this was merely a pretence for the absorption of the whole of the country into Germany’s new empire. The Czech people were not treated kindly and as you can probably imagine, began to fight back, sabotaging the manufacture of weapons and other items intrinsic to Hitler’s war plans. The damage that they caused antagonised the leader so much, that he decided to replace the Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in September 1941 with the man who became known as the “butcher of Prague”, Reinhard Heydrich.

Well, whether the crown was to blame or not remains open for debate, but over in the UK, members of Czech intelligence were already planning the assassination of Heydrich, known as Operation Anthropoid. They specifically trained two former Czech paratroopers, Jozef Gabcik and Jan Kubis, with the assistance of the now infamous Special Operations Executive to kill the man who Hitler himself described as having an iron heart. You may recall I mentioned Heydrichs arrogance, and that this can sometimes come before a fall, this over inflated confidence in his control of the Czech people meant that the Obergruppenführer would commute to and from the castle in a convertible car with little to no military escort. It was this very vulnerability that the resistance planned to exploit and on 27th May 1942, Gabcik stepped out in front of the open topped Mercedes and tried to fire, but his gun jammed. His partner in the attack, Kubis, threw a modified anti tank grenade into the car which exploded and whilst not killing their prey, caused him injuries which HAUNTED MAGAZINE

meant that head of the Secret Police, Heinrich Himmler was spurred on to send his own personal physicians to treat his subordinate. It was not until 4th June 1942 that Heydrich succumbed to his injuries with the Doctors blaming Septicaemia from parts of the seating from the car having invaded his wounds and causing an infection that medicines were unable to fight. That was not the end to the speculation however; some historians now blame Himmler himself as he is believed to have been scared of Heydrich, assuming him to be a direct competitor to his role as head of the SS. Another supposition is that the grenade contained Botulinum neurotoxin, provided by bio warfare experts in the UK, but an overriding Czech belief was that the curse of

the crown played a part in ensuring that what could have been a failed mission after the breakdown of Gabcik’s firearm was to succeed. The retaliation by Hitler for this attack was vicious and relentless, read about the destruction of villages Lezaky and Lidice, the murder of all men over the age of 15 and the abortions forced on those women who were pregnant – not to mention the other atrocities levelled – and you see that if it was the curse of the crown that contributed to Heydrichs death, then the repercussions left a lot of blood on the hands of the ancient Bohemians. Adding strength to the theory of the crown being all powerful was the death of Heydrichs son Klaus, in a freak traffic accident in October 1943 at the age of ten, when he cycled into the street through an open gate and was hit by a small truck, curse or circumstance? But what of Wenceslaus? He can still be seen protecting his beloved city of Prague in the square named after him, although the history of that area has seen suicides – that of Jan Palach setting himself on fire to protest the Warsaw Pact – and some iconic scenes of revolution with the country being removed from communist power. Did the crown play a role in the death of Reinhard Heydrich, the man with the iron heart, who knows, maybe it did or maybe it was just humanity releasing that someone containing that much evil and a total lack of morals deserved to die. 'orrible, say not so *when we ally be 'orrible, tu it might ac line. g it's just a ta

Penny x

WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH

ZENER CARDS?

he term Zener cards may be new to you, but you have likely seen these cards before. While they have been around for decades, they are probably most famous from their cameo in the movie Ghostbusters. Researchers aren’t necessarily using electric shocks when a participant gets the answer wrong, but they do in fact test ESP ability using these very cards.

"I'm studying the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP ability." Dr. Peter Venkman (Ghostbusters)

In the late 1800’s, researchers would use regular playing cards to test telepathy. In the 1930’s, famous parapsychologist J.B Rhine and his colleague Dr Karl Zener wanted to expand this research by creating their own format. Working together they developed a deck of 5 cards with 5 different symbols (making a deck of 25). The symbols themselves were very distinct yet simple, so that they could not be confused yet easily recognised. Rhine dubbed these as Zener cards after his colleague, however eventually he went on to refer to them as ESP cards. The aim of the cards was to test a person’s telepathic abilities. There were 2 people who participated in the experiment as sitters and a third who acted as a moderator. The participants were designated as a sender or a receiver. The deck was then shuffled by the moderator. The sender picked a card from the deck and attempted to mentally send the image on the card to the receiver using the power of their mind. The receiver then concentrated and said aloud the first image which came to mind. At the end an overall % success rate was calculated. The experiment was of course not without its flaws. As there are 25 cards in the deck with 5 cards of each symbol, there is a 20 percent chance that someone would correctly guess the symbol at random. It was also acknowledged by Rhine that his experiment could not determine if the receiver was guessing

Sarah Chumacero Living Life In Full Spectrum

randomly. It’s also difficult to establish if a person was receiving the image telepathically or if they were receiving the image through clairvoyance (such a medium receiving a message). This meant that even if there was a high percentage of the cards being guessed correctly, there was no way to actually prove it was obtained through using ESP.

Rhine himself claimed to have tested over 90,000 subjects with this experiment and controversially came to the conclusion that ESP not only existed but had been demonstrated during his trials. The results HAUNTED MAGAZINE

indicated that certain people were capable of getting results well above the baseline % which a lot of researchers believe is an indication of ESP ability being present. Those who have tried to recreate his experiments found that the circumstances were not as controlled as they should have been. The cards were not properly shuffled,

How to conduct your very own Zener Card Test

and it was also found that under the right lighting, the outline of the image could be seen through the back of a card. This was rectified by blacking out the back of the card. However, for this and many other reasons, Rhine copped quite a lot of criticism for making such a bold statement and some even claimed that there was some cheating involved with sitters taking visual cues from the tester. Over time his methods of controlling the experiment improved, but like anything in the paranormal, people were sceptical, and the scientific and sceptic communities were not convinced that it was anything more than a random game of odds. “It is to be expected that these experiments will meet with a considerable measure of incredulity… but this reaction is as old as this history of Science:’ J B Rhine

•

I would suggest having at least 3 people.

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You would need a sender, a receiver, and a moderator. It is the moderator’s role to ensure that everything is above board and there is not cheating or misleading. They are also there to record the results.

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Set a number of times to read a card. 50 is a good number as you are going through the deck twice. 25 would be too little and 100 would be starting to get a little bit too much but this is just my recommendation based on the odds.

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Shuffle the cards thoroughly and place all 25 of them face down individually.

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Ideally, there should be some sort of barrier between the sender and the receiver so that they cannot see each other. This is so the receiver cannot read facial expressions or accidentally see the image on the card as it is being turned over. Even sitting back-to-back would work.

In 1937, Rhine’s ESP cards were made commercially available with instructions included for people to conduct their very own test at home. You can still buy them to this day! A lot of people like to use the cards to hone in on their psychic abilities. While some people do test to see if they can mentally project the image telepathically to another person, a lot of people use the cards to test themselves and develop their psychic abilities. The more a person does the test, the better they find their results are!

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The sender will then pick up a card and look at the image.

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The sender then ‘mentally’ sends the image to the receiver.

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The receiver then says which image they believe it is.

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The moderator will take a note of what the card actually is and then the receiver’s guess. It is important that the moderator and the sender do not show any sort of emotion or indicate if the answer is correct or not. It is also important not to tell the receiver the results until the very end, this is to stop them from counting cards.

•

Continue this until all 25 cards have been transmitted.

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Go through the process again (make sure to properly reshuffle the cards). Once completed again, it is time to calculate the results. As there is a 1 in 5 chance of randomly guessing the correct card, Rhine used 20% as his benchmark. If your percentage of correct guesses is above 20% Rhine would class your session as a success!

An online version of the Zener Card game is available on my website:

•

If you don’t have others you can test with, shuffle the deck and lie the cards face down. Write down in one column what you think the card is. After you draw the card, write down the actual results in a second column. At the end, work out your percentage of correct guesses.

https://llifs.com.au/blog/ zener-cards/

Sarah x

Do you have ESP?

Try your luck or practice your skills from the comfort of your home anywhere in the world!

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ADVERTORIAL

Some Christmas Presence from the BBC

GHOSTS CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

n the run up to the festive season, Kitty becomes convinced that Santa has made an early stop at Button House when Mike and Alison discover a man living in a tent on their grounds. The ghosts’ advice on how to deal with him leaves much to be desired, but eventually Mike and Alison learn that they have more to offer this Christmas than they realised. The Christmas episode also guest stars Jennifer Saunders and Justin Edwards.

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The mysterious land of

Hy-Br asil legitimate, lost or legend? Written by Katie Waller

y Brasil. A mysterious land off the west coast of Ireland which was written, recorded and drawn into maps. An island which no longer exists. Is this just an old Irish tale or has it since been destroyed by a geological cataclysm? There are stories and claims of Hy Brasil being a secret military base and as soon as I first heard about it, I was obsessed. I imagined a swashbuckling pirate island, a godly holy land or a home to an ancient civilisation. Some people even believe that this is the location of Atlantis. (Research suggests that Atlantis was likely to have been around Gibraltar.)

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ccording to folklore it is a phantom island; meaning it appears and disappears (in this case, every 7 years). It is said to appear through the mist as if rising from the sea. Supposedly, the next time it is due to appear, is in 2027. These stories have been passed down orally from generation to generation. Could it be explained as a mirage, optical illusion or perhaps another ‘solar flare’? There is no known origin of the name although it is thought to have come from old Gaelic “Uí Breasail” which means descendants. It potentially came from the word “Breasal,” which interprets as ‘High King of the arena’ in Celtic. It’s also important to know that the island was not connected to the South American country of Brazil (named long after the ‘discovery’ of Hy Brasil). The country was named after the trees that grew there which are dark red in colour, or in Portuguese “Brasil.”

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There have been many references to Hy Brasil in old manuscripts, maps, art and poems. It has been documented hundreds of times by witnesses and of those who have visited. The first written document recording Hy Brasil was in 1110 (the voyage of Maeldium) although orally told Irish legends described it much earlier. From 1325 the island was depicted on maps and located off the western shores of Ireland. It was last mapped in 1870. For 762 years this island seemed to exist. It was around 200 miles off the west coast of Ireland, circular in shape with a channel running through the middle from northeast to southwest. Both St Barrind and St Bernard found the island on separate voyages. They described it almost identically and said it was a promised and holy land. In 1480 and 1481 further expeditions set sail to find the island but were unsuccessful on those attempts.

n 1647 Captain John Nesbit was sailing from France to Ireland when he said he came across Hy Brasil. As his crew approached, the mist lifted so he and his men rowed ashore to investigate. He documented spending the day there. Returning with silver and gold which he reported was given to him by an old magician, who lived within a castle on a mountain along with giant black rabbits. Although this sounds strange, giant rabbits actually exist today. We also have evidence of extinct rabbits such as Nuralagus which was the size of a medium to large dog. When Captain Nesbit’s ship returned, another set sail to the island with Alexander Johnson in command. He also found the island and confirmed the captain’s claims. Around 1700; maps referred to it as Brasil Rock. This suggests that the island was flooded or sinking leaving only the top of the mountain poking out above sea level. The island was last documented in 1872 by Arthur T J Westropp as he saw it appear then vanish as he approached it. According to Arthur, that was the third time he had seen the island. There are two possible submerged locations of Hy Brasil. The Porcupine Bank or the Rockall Bank. The latter being off the northerly west coast of Ireland. Today Rockall is a large protruding granite islet which is all that remains visible of a once larger landmass. After researching into the area, I personally believe that the most likely location of Hy Brasil is the Porcupine Bank. The area is off the

southerly west coast of Ireland and recent discoveries have shown that there is an interesting area around 200 metres below sea level; although no land is actually visible, there is scientific evidence to support my theory. In 2013 The Irish Times reported that trawlers fishing around the porcupine bank have on occasion dredged up coconuts. Could these be from the exotic lost island of Hy Brasil or have they simply travelled across the Atlantic with their naturally occurring buoyancy? Perhaps they were thrown overboard from a passing ship. The Porcupine bank is home to exotic corals and other marine species which are usually found in warmer waters. Scientists believe this is due to higher temperatures and warm southern winds. Marine biologist Declan Quigley proposed that a long time ago this area could have been home to “Seychelles-type-islands.” The Porcupine Bank has only been explored in recent years and it would have definitely been home to islands at some point due to being close to the current sea level. This area is significant geologically speaking as there are fault systems which run in very close proximity. Such systems we know often causes land to dramatically rise and fall during geological events. In 1999 a data mapping survey was undertaken which provided Bathymetry images (deep water topography) of what’s actually under the surface. This vital data has shown us the possible location of Hy Brasil.

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The story gets a little odder with a connection to the Rendlesham Forest incident. The most famous English UFO story where a triangular unidentified flying object crashed at around three in the morning on December 26th, 1980. Sergeant Jim Penniston, from nearby RAF Woodbridge was one of the first on scene. On arrival he noticed an inscription on the craft which he touched and recited that at this moment he telepathically received messages and binary codes. He received some coordinates and later on it was understood that these were locations of ancient sites including the Pyramids, the Nazca lines, Sedona in Arizona and other significant locations in Greece, China and Australia. One of these was the exact co-ordinates to a UFO base on Earth protected from human sight. The location of Hy Brasil. The messages he was receiving ended with “origin year 8100.” Could there be technology in existence that has the ability to literally hide an island from sight, and has been doing so all these years? Is this the key to understanding the origin of humanity?

Along with Google Earth images you can clearly see a circular shaped high ground area with either a channel running through the middle or two separate islands adjacent to each other. A coincidence that it is also 190 miles from the west coast of Ireland, about the same shape and size of Hy Brasil. It also sits in the correct position in accordance with another nearby sunken island of Demar, just as it was also mapped in years ago. It measures 7km by 5km with an area of 70kmsq, again very similar to how the island was depicted in the old maps. The interesting thing about this new Bathymetry data and satellite images is that the comparison of the shape and size of Hy Brasil and Demar from the maps to these recent images. You can clearly see that there are two very similar shaped seamounts under the water. When comparing the location coordinates from Jim Penniston’s account with what could potentially be the now underwater Hy Brasil; there is only a 58-mile difference. When looking at Mr Penniston’s coordinates using the Bathymetry data and satellite pictures there doesn’t seem to be anything under water high enough to be an ‘old island.’ It is important to understand that some of the really old maps were in fact a little inaccurate; they were understandably not perfectly to scale yet. Could the coordinates be an underwater base where unidentified submerged objects (USOs) travel to and from or were the cartographers unable to measure correctly at this time? Tidal ranges and climate change could also play a part. Rising sea levels and the difference between high and low tides can be extreme; this can also contribute to the appearance and disappearance of landmass. The average tidal range around Ireland is roughly 4.5 metres although it has been recorded up to 15 metres around neighbouring England. The North Atlantic we already know is on the move, slowly spreading which could have caused a large and recent tectonic event. The fault lines we can see in the area make a recent disappearance more likely. There are other known phantom islands with a similar story to Hy Brasil, the Isle of Demons, Frisland and the Emerald Island are a couple of examples. Some historians believe that many of these were simple mistakes although scientists know much more today. With the use of advanced technology and knowledge of climate change, increasing sea levels, natural tectonic events and tidal change, it is becoming easier to understand. We now know of many ‘extinct’ places that have been submerged under water and of more that will likely become lost to us. Just a few examples include New Moor Island, disappeared by submersion due to rising sea levels in 2010. Dadu island, which was washed away in the severe storm of 2014. Others we know are slowly disappearing such as the Maldives, the Solomon Islands and Fiji to name a few. Some of these could potentially vanish underwater by the end of this century if the current trend continues. Although mainstream historians believe that the old maps are mistaken, and witness accounts were just tales, I believe that the location appears credible. Slowly we are receiving information we were previously not privy too, suggesting otherwise. Alongside the stories there are many documents, references and data from new technologies meaning it really could have existed. It seems odd that alternative theories of our history are often completely dismissed when evidence is stacking at fast pace that appears to prove that what is written in the history books is not accurate. When 2027 arrives, you know where to find me. I’ll be somewhere along the west coast of Ireland with a very long telescope or perhaps in a boat looking for the promised land of Hy Brasil.

Katie Waller

References Davison, I. Dinkelman, M, G. Kool, W. Two Frontier Basins Come to Light. (2010).

Legend: Historic Mysteries. https://www. theguardian.com/books/2005/may/28/ featuresreviews.guardianreview18.

Frazer, W. (December 1883), “O’Brazile or Hy Brazile”, Notes and Queries, Volume s6-VIII, Issue 207, 15 December 1883, Page 475. O’brazile or hy Brazile | Notes and Queries | Oxford Academic (oup.com)

McKillop, James (1998). “Hy Brasil”. A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology. Oxford University Press. Lorna Siggins. Exotic Porcupine Bank catch nets second coconut. The Irish News. (2013).

Freitag, B, Hy Brasil: the metamorphosis of an island, from cartographic error to Celtic Elysium, Textxet Studies in Comparative Literature 5.69, Amsterdam, New York: Rodopi, 2013. Xii + 343 pp +ill. Google Maps and Google Earth. 52°05’39.3”N 13°07’52.6”W. (2021). Hancock, G. (2009). Underworld. England: Crown Publishing. Humphries, J. Scottish Islands Explorer: Resourceful on Rockall. johnhumphries.blogspot.com Hy-Brasil. The Other Atlantis of Irish

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Pretzler, M. The Shipwrecked Otter (Possbily) Hieroglyphs, Heros, and Heretics. Offical Blog of the Department of Classics, Ancient History, and Egyptology at Swansea University. (2020). Tallack, M. (2016). The Un-Discovered Islands. Edinburgh: Polygon Publishing. Thébaudeau, B. Monteys, X. Mcarron, S. O’Toole, R. Caloca, S. Seabed geomorphology of the Porcupine Bank, West of Ireland. Journal of Maps, 2016, vol. 12, issue 5, 947-958. Wikipedia. Brasil (mythical island). (2021).

“When discussing unsolved murders of women in late Victorian London, most people think of the depredations of Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer. But he was just one of a string of phantom murderers whose unsolved slayings outraged late Victorian Britain”

Written by Dr. Jan Bondeson

I J

ane Maria Clouson was a seventeen-yearold servant girl, employed by the Greenwich master printer and stationer Ebenezer Whitcher Pook, who had two sons alive: Thomas Burch Pook, born in 1845, and Edmund Walter Pook, born in 1851. Thomas had married and had an infant daughter, but Edmund was still unmarried in 1871, and considered ‘delicate’ by his parents because he was suffering from epilepsy. Edmund worked in his father’s printing shop, and on his spare time, he was fond of giving public readings at various working men’s institutes, from Dickens and other favourite authors. The Pook family lived on two floors above the printer’s shop, and Jane Maria Clouson was their only servant. On April 13, 1871, Jane Maria was sacked from her job, although she had been with the Pooks for nearly two years and appeared to have given them loyal and competent service. She moved into lodgings at 12 Ashburnham Road, with the landlady Fanny Hamilton. On the evening of Tuesday April 25, Jane Maria told Mrs Hamilton that she was going out to meet her sweetheart Edmund Pook, with whom she was still on friendly terms although she was no longer working in the household.

n the early morning of Wednesday April 26, Police Constable Donald Gunn was walking his beat in Kidbrooke Lane. It was 4.15 am and very few people were about. The lane was very dark and surrounded by tall hedges. Suddenly, he saw a young woman kneeling on the ground. At first, the uncharitable policeman believed her to be drunk, but then he saw that her head and clothes were bloodstained and dirty. Her gloves were beside her and her hat some four feet away. When he asked her what she was doing, she groaned “Oh, my poor head! Oh, my poor head!” Constable Gunn saw that she had been badly beaten about the head, with some formidable blunt instrument. When she raised her left hand and asked him to take hold of it, he was appalled to see that her brain protruded through one of the terrible wounds. Without being able to grasp his hand, she then fell on her face, exclaiming “Let me die!” The shaken constable rolled her over on her back to make her comfortable and ran off to fetch his superior at the police station. When Constable Gunn and Sergeant Frederick John Haynes returned in a cab, the woman was still there. They transported her to Dr King’s surgery nearby. The doctor had a look at the wounds, which he thought were very recent, and ordered that she should be moved on to Guy’s Hospital.

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he doctors at Guy’s Hospital soon realised that the girl’s case was hopeless. She had suffered a dozen incised wounds to her face, one of which had fractured and depressed the temporal bone above the left ear and lacerated the brain. Another blow had destroyed the right eye and fractured several facial bones around it; the brain protruding through this wound was a sickening sight even for the experienced doctors and nurses. She recovered consciousness for a short while, and it was hoped that she would tell them her name, but all she said was something that sounded like ‘Mary Shru …’ before losing consciousness, for good. The police placed her hat, and a pink rose ornament on her frock, on display at the Lee Green police station, in the hope that some person would recognize them and identify the girl. Sergeant Haynes, who was clearly no fool, noted that the grass was trampled down around the spot where the girl had been lying, like if there had been a struggle. He had seen a series of widely spaced footprints in Kidbrooke Lane, most probably made by the assailant running away. He found blood spots on both sides of a rivulet called the Kidbrooke, like if the wounded girl had been chased this way. The direction of a straight line between where the girl was found, and the furthest blood stains was towards the grounds of Morden College. When the canny sergeant went to search these grounds the following day, it turned out that one

of the gardeners had found a long-handled lathing hammer, fashioned like a chopper on the side normally having the claws. It had traces of blood, and hair attached to it. Dr Michael Harris, one of the house surgeons at Guy’s, thought it the murder weapon. When examining the girl’s body, Dr Harris had found out that she was two months pregnant. Since she still wore a locket, and had some shillings in her pocket, she had not been robbed by her assailant. Kidbrooke Lane had a reputation for being a local ‘lover’s lane’ where young couples used to meet clandestinely, and the police suspected that the girl must have arranged to meet a swain there. It would take until Sunday April 30 for the injured girl to be identified: William Trott, a Deptford lighterman, went to Guy’s Hospital and was certain that she was his niece Jane Maria Clouson. The Trotts told Superintendent Griffin all about Jane Maria’s work with the Pooks, and that she had told them that she hoped to marry Edmund, the younger son of the family. The superintendent also interviewed the landlady Fanny Hamilton, and she told him that she had seen Jane Maria at 6.40 the evening before she was found injured, and that she had told her that this evening, she was going to see her boyfriend Edmund Pook. That very evening, Jane Maria Clouson succumbed to her terrible injuries, and the case was now one of murder.

kidbrooke lane from lloyds news nov 10 1907

n Monday May 1, Superintendent Griffin and Detective Inspector Mulvany, of Scotland Yard, went to call on the Pooks in London Street. They explained to Ebenezer Pook that his former housemaid had been murdered, and demanded to see Master Edmund, and to inspect his clothes. Edmund Pook denied ever writing Jane Maria Clouson a letter, as the police had been told he had; when pressed on this point, he angrily exclaimed “Have you the letter? If it is in my handwriting that will prove it!” He claimed to know nothing of Jane Maria, except that she was a dirty young woman, who had to leave the Pook household in consequence. The policemen must have found him a very boorish, disagreeable young man. When his old shirt was produced, it had

“it turned out that one of the gardeners had found a long-handled lathing hammer, fashioned like a chopper on the side normally having the claws. It had traces of blood, and hair attached to it.” a bloodstain on the right wristband, which young Pook could not explain. It is intriguing to speculate if the two policemen had anticipated making an arrest when they went to see the Pooks, but Edmund gave a very bad impression, and the bloodstain seems to have clinched the matter: Inspector Mulvany formally charged him with the murder, and he was removed into police custody.

Tuesday night, she was going to see Edmund Pook. About three months earlier, she had told her that she was pregnant with Edmund’s child, although she had never seen Jane Maria and Edmund together. The confectioner Mrs Elizabeth Plane, and her daughter Susan Billington, testified that on Tuesday or Wednesday evening, Edmund Pook had come into their shop in Royal Hill, Greenwich. He had seemed overly excited and flushed and said that he had been running from Lewisham Road. He wanted a brush to clean his clothes, and made vigorous use of it, cleaning his coat, and paying particular attention to the right trouser leg. He returned the brush, saying “The rest I will wash off with a sponge”, bought a bag of lozenges, and went out. Another witness, the pawnbroker John Thomas Barr, who knew Edmund Pook by sight, had seen him walking towards Mrs Plane’s shop at 8.50 pm, and two other witnesses had also seen Edmund return to Greenwich, adding that he had been walking fast and that he had been very red in the face.

he very next morning, Edmund Pook was brought up at the Greenwich Police Court before the presiding magistrate Mr Maude. He was defended by the Greenwich solicitor Henry Pook, who was surprisingly not a relation, although he lived in Greenwich and knew the family. Constable Gunn, Dr Harris, Mrs Trott and Mrs Hamilton gave evidence. The fellow lodger Emily Wolledge knew of Jane Maria Clouson’s attachment to Edmund Pook, although she had never witnessed any familiarities between them. A certain Mrs Prosser, the wife of a Woolwich costermonger, testified that Jane Maria had, some little time ago, told her that she he London was pregnant. Mrs newspapers were Trott’s daughter, full of the dramatic the seventeendevelopments in the year-old Charlotte clousen body discovered ill chips jan 30 1892 Eltham Mystery, and the Trott, had a spicy arrest of Edmund Pook. In an story to tell. She interview, William Trott denied that Jane Maria had known Jane Maria, who had told her that Clouson had ever shown any immoral or Edmund wanted to see herself. He had invited ‘dirty’ tendencies: she had been religious and Jane Maria to come to a christening at St Ives, virtuous, and educated at the Wesleyan Baptist and then they were hoping to get married. Jane School. Considering the evidence of Charlotte Maria had told Edmund that after they had got married, she would never speak to his mother, Trott, it was speculated that Edmund’s mother although she hoped that if the mother had been had disapproved of her eldest son marrying kind to Thomas’s wife, she might well be kind to beneath him, and that she was desperate that her also. Jane Maria also had another boyfriend, Edmund would do better. Thus, when it was a sailor named Harley Fletcher, but he was at discovered that Jane Maria was pregnant, Mrs sea, and this apparently gave her the license Pook made sure that she was dismissed from to befriend other young men. Mrs Jane Prosser her position. testified that Jane Maria had told her that, on

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edmund pook in the illustrated police news

dmund kept seeing her, however, and he had written to her that she should not tell any other person that they were still together, since he wanted to keep this a secret. Emily Wolledge had noticed that a day or two before she was murdered, Jane Maria had received a letter which she burnt as soon as she had read it; she wrote a reply and posted it herself. Had this mysterious letter contained an invitation to meet Edmund on Tuesday evening, a meeting that would end in murder? On Sunday May 7, Eltham was full of London curiosity seekers, who delighted in visiting the murder scene in Kidbrooke Lane. According to rumour, the site was haunted by the restless spirit of the murdered girl, and strictly avoided after dark, even by the locals. The public opinion was very much against Edmund Pook, and there was much sympathy for the young girl who had been murdered by one of her betters, a villainous young man who had previously seduced her and left her in the ‘family way’. Jane Maria Clouson was buried on Monday May 8, at Brockley Cemetery. The procession, consisting of a hearse and several mourning coaches, formed outside the Trott house in King Street. An immense number of spectators were present, and as the procession got moving, a large force of mounted police helped to make way for the hearse. Every shop window was closed all the way from Deptford to Brockley, as the procession slowly made its way along the streets, through a tremendous thunderstorm with much lightning; it was like if the very heavens mourned the Eltham outrage, and called out for the dastardly murderer to be brought to justice. The coffin was taken into the chapel of the cemetery, where the funeral service was read to a congregation that filled every corner of the building. It was then carried into the cemetery and lowered into the grave; a subscription for a suitable monument had already been started.

s the coroner’s inquest on Jane Maria Clouson, and the prosecution of Edmund Pook before the Greenwich Police Court, proceeded throughout May, several important witnesses were called to give evidence. Professor Henry Letheby, the celebrated analytical chemist, had examined Edmund Pook’s clothes, and the murder weapon. Both legs of the trousers, one cuff of the shirt, and the wide-awake hat, were found to be recently stained with mammalian blood. On the inner side of the left trouser leg, just above the knee, was a human hair, of the same colour and appearance as hairs cut from the head of Jane Maria Clouson. The rusty lathing hammer was liberally stained with blood, and had adherent to it several hairs, again matching those of Jane Maria Clouson. The filibustering Henry Pook did what he could to disrupt this damning medical evidence, claiming that the police had kept his client’s clothes in an open charge-room, through which policemen had been passing at all times, surely putting the clothes at risk of contamination. He had a point when he objected that if Edmund Pook had just murdered somebody with a hammer, surely his clothes would have been more extensively stained with blood, but for some reason or other, his coat had not been tested, and his boots had been recently blackened over. Henry Pook’s explanation of the blood-stained clothes was that Edmund had bitten his tongue during one of his epileptic fits. When the prosecuting counsel Harry Poland asked Professor Letheby if he could explain how blood from an epileptic fit could get onto the cap, the celebrated analyst could not provide any reasonable explanation.

ith Edmund Pook safely in custody, the police concentrated on finding out where the murder weapon had been procured. They were greatly cheered when a lad named James Conway came to say that on Saturday April 22, he had seen a neatly dressed man purchase a hammer at Mr Samuel Thomas’s tool and cutlery warehouse at 168 Deptford High Street. Although HAUNTED MAGAZINE

he had only seen the customer’s back, he was able to pick out Edmund Pook, among twenty other men, as the individual he had seen. Much cheered by what they perceived as valuable evidence, the police out pressure on Mr Thomas, but he turned out to be a good record-keeper: he had indeed sold a hammer fitting the description of the murder weapon on April 22, but to a plasterer’s boy named William Elliot. Thomas was also sure that Conway had not been present when the hammer was sold. Realising that he was in trouble, the lad Conway changed his evidence, saying that he was not quite sure of the date, and that the man’s shoulders had not looked quite the same as those of Edmund Pook. In a hostile crossexamination, Henry Pook made Conway confess that he was in receipt of a daily allowance from the police, and that he had been to see Thomas Pook the brother, to inform him that he had been present when the hammer had been bought. Henry Pook openly accused him of trying to blackmail Thomas Pook, through promising him that if he was given a sum of money, he would travel up north and not turn up again!

fter the Conway debacle, the police soon had another star witness, the ironmonger William Sparshott, of 155 Deptford High Street. He testified that around 8.30 pm on Monday April 24, a man had come into his shop, wanting to buy a small axe or chopper, for use in private theatricals. Sparshott had offered him one for two shillings, but the man said that it was too clumsy and expensive, and left the shop. Sparshott directed him on to Thomas’s shop fifty yards further along the High Street. In a police identity parade, Sparshott confidently picked out Edmund Pook as this customer. When pressure was again put on Samuel Thomas, he could belatedly recall that a

second hammer of the same make had been sold on Monday April 24, to a customer whose name had not been recorded. This was most frustrating and unsatisfactory evidence for the prosecution, but although he was severely bullied by Harry Poland, the obdurate Thomas did not change his story. The evening of the murder, the gasfitter William Cronk had seen a young man walking with a girl in Kidbrooke Lane, near Morden College. The man had been 5 feet 6-7 inches tall, and he had worn a good dark coat and a billycock hat. The girl had seemed reluctant to go along with him, exclaiming ‘Let me go!’ or ‘Let us go!’ Cronk thought she mentioned the name ‘Charley’. He could describe her clothes, which were a very good fit with those worn by Jane Maria Clouson the evening of the murder. Cronk had then seen a second couple walking in

he coroner’s inquest on Jane Maria Clouson ended on May 25. Mr Coroner Payne addressed the jury, pointing out that they had now heard all the evidence, and had a chance to mull it over. It was open to them to return an open verdict if they wanted, but this would be quite unsatisfactory, implying that all the labour of the inquiry had been for nothing. When a juror asked whether it was not still possible for the Greenwich magistrate to send Pook for trial, the coroner replied that doing so after an open verdict in the coroner’s court would very much weaken the case against the prisoner. In contrast, if the coroner’s jury decided to send a suspect for trial, their verdict was usually endorsed by the magistrate. The jury took the hint: after retiring for an hour, they returned a majority verdict of sixteen jurors against six in favour of a verdict of wilful murder against Edmund Pook, and he stood committed for trial.

Kidbrooke Lane. He identified the man as the coachman William Norton, who was taking a walk with his girlfriend Louisa Putnam at around 9 pm. These two, who both gave evidence in court, had later heard a woman scream, and peering through a hedge, Norton had seen a man run away. The fugitive was about 5 feet 9 inches tall, wearing a dark coat, without a moustache. The police had also tracked down a number of other witnesses. Miss Alice Durnford had been Edmund Pook’s girlfriend for twelve months. Since her parents knew nothing about their association, Pook used to go to her house and signal to her with a blast on a whistle, whenever he wanted to see her. Interestingly, a whistle had been found by the police near the murder scene, perhaps indicating that young Pook habitually used to keep one handy to call the women of his life. Alice Durnford was due to meet Edmund the Thursday after the murder, but she had been ‘grounded’ by her parents for some unspecified misdeed, and although Edmund had whistled for her, she had been unable to leave the house.

he trial of Edmund Pook for the wilful murder of Jane Maria Clouson was opened at the Old Bailey on July 10, 1871, before the Chief Justice, Sir William Bovill. Albeit a legal luminary of some standing in his own time, Bovill is nearly completely forgotten today. In his younger days, he had been a good commercial lawyer, and an active Member of Parliament, but as a trial judge he was fairly mediocre, believing that he had grasped the intricacies of a difficult case before he had heard even half of the evidence. The prosecution was led by the attorney-general, Sir John Coleridge, assisted by Harry Poland and by two other counsel. The noted barrister Mr John Walter Huddleston defended Edmund Pook, assisted by three other counsel. The local prejudice against Pook was so strong that residents of Kent and Surrey were excluded from the jury.

hen Edmund Pook was placed in the dock, he appeared perfectly calm and collected as he pleaded not guilty to the charge. Constable Gunn, Sergeant Haynes and Dr Harris gave their evidence as outlined earlier. Mrs Trott,

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the next witness, said that Jane Maria Clouson had always been a very clean, respectable young woman, hard-working and industrious. Due to the inadmissibility of hearsay evidence, she was not allowed to recount what Jane Maria had told her about her relationship with Edmund Pook. Her daughter Charlotte shared this predicament. As for Fanny Hamilton, Mr Huddleston objected to her being asked the question ‘What did she say to you?’, and thus the case for the prosecution was seriously weakened: no evidence suggesting that Jane Maria had said that she had a relationship with Edmund, or that he was planning to meet her the evening of the murder, was brought before the jury. Inspector Mulvany and Superintendent Griffin next gave evidence, facing a hostile cross-examination from the peppery Mr Huddleston. He made the two police officers, who did not have much experience giving evidence at the Old Bailey, seem careless and evasive, suggesting that they had been exaggerating the evidence against Edmund Pook.

he first witness to be called on the second day of the trial was the ironmonger Sparshott, who repeated his testimony without contradiction. He admitted having seen a portrait of Edmund Pook in the Illustrated Police News, but it had not affected his identification of Pook as the man who had entered his shop. He had been wearing a black coat, and a light waistcoat and trousers. Sparshott’s wife, son and shop assistant provided independent corroboration that they had seen the man enter the shop, and that he had asked for a chopper for a theatrical performance but declined that offered by Sparshott since it was too expensive and clumsy. As the second day of the trial ended, the Thomas’s once more made a sorry impression, being unable to explain why they had not entered the sale of the Monday hammer into their books, or why they were unable to identify the person who bought it. The stalwarts Cronk and Norton repeated their evidence without contradictions; the former added that although he had addressed as ‘Charley’, the man he had seen in Kidbrooke

Lane very much resembled Edmund Pook, whom he had been able to pick out in a police line-up.

he first witness on the third day of the trial was a man named Thomas Lazell, who was convinced that he had seen Edmund Pook with his arm round a girl in Kidbrooke Lane at around 6.50 pm the evening of the murder. For some reason or other, he added that at 8 am the morning after the murder, a labouring man had found a bloodstained handkerchief near the crime scene and handed it over to the police. Chief Justice Bovill was appalled that none of the police witnesses had mentioned this handkerchief, and Sir John Coleridge had to admit that this was also news to himself and his colleagues in the prosecution. When Superintendent Griffin was recalled, he admitted that the handkerchief was kept at the police station, but that he had not thought of mentioning it in court. The police again made a bad impression in court, giving the impression that in their eagerness to gather evidence against Pook, other worthwhile clues had been neglected. Mary Ann Love, another girlfriend of Edmund Pook, had walked in Kidbrooke Lane with him, his cousin, and another girl on Sunday April 23. He had told her that he would be busy on Monday and Tuesday, since he would go up to London to sing [an obvious lie], but that he could see her on Wednesday. Alice Wicks then repeated her testimony of Edmund trying to fake an alibi through saying that he had been to see Miss Durnford on the Tuesday as well as the Thursday. Professor Letheby’s damning evidence of Edmund Pook’s blood-stained clothes, and the hair found on his trousers, was not challenged by the defence.

he mainstay of Edmund Pook’s defence, as outlined by Mr Huddleston and Henry Pook, was an alibi. Thomas Pook, brother of Edmund, testified that on Monday April 24, when Sparshott had suggested that the murder weapon had been purchased, Edmund had left work at 7 pm. After washing his hands and tidying himself up, he had joined his brother and gone to the Lecture Hall, staying there for a while before having a drink at the Globe Inn, and then returning home at 9 pm, without having been anywhere near the ironmongeries of Sparshott and Thomas. Edmund had been wearing dark trousers, whereas the man observed by Sparshott had worn light-coloured trousers. On Tuesday April 25, Edmund had again put down his tools at 7 pm, whereas Thomas had worked late. Edmund had gone into town at around 7.20 pm, to take a certain book to the Lecture Hall. He had returned home shortly after 9 pm, looking neither flushed nor untidy, to have his supper and go to bed. There had been several instances of bloodshed in the printing-shop: Edmund had suffered a fit and bitten his tongue on April 6, he had injured his finger on April 14, and a youth had hurt his knuckles and been bandaged up by Edmund, incidents all conducive to his clothes becoming stained with blood.

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number of witnesses were called to bolster up this alibi. Miss Harriet Chaplin, Edmund’s cousin, said that on Monday April 24, the Pook brothers had gone out together at 7.30 pm, returning at nine. The evening of the murder, Edmund had returned home at 9 pm, without looking flustered in any way. A workman in the printing shop had seen the Pook brothers together at 7 pm the evening of the murder, contradicting Lazell’s timing of the meeting in the lane. Two men claimed to have seen Edmund near Lewisham at 8 pm the evening of the murder, and a woman testified that she had seen him waiting in the Lewisham Road between 8.30 and 9 pm. An old man named Ikey said that Lazell had told him that the evening of the murder, he had seen no person in Kidbrooke Lane: it had been quite desolate. Several respectable Greenwich character witnesses were called to explain what a wellconducted, humane young man the prisoner was, enough of them to occupy the remainder of the third day of the trial.

ir John Coleridge managed an eloquent summing-up of the case for the prosecution. Jane Maria Clouson’s money had not been stolen, and there had been no attempt to ravish her; she had been brutally beaten to death by a man who had intended to mutilate and deface her. He pointed out that she had been two months pregnant when leaving the Pook household, and that there had been no suggestion of an involvement with any other man than the ‘boyfriend’ Edmund Pook. The jury could hardly doubt that it had been Edmund Pook who had bought the hammer on Monday night, from the evidence provided by Sparshott, which was not in any way refuted by the Turners. He would not agree that the police had acted improperly when they had questioned Pook while he was in custody; this was the crime of a ruffian who would stop at nothing, and they had been entitled to act as they had done.

hief Justice Bovill then summed the case up at length, from a distinctly pro-Pook perspective. Inspector Mulvany had made a false statement about Pook writing a letter to the dead girl, and since both Griffin and Mulvany were obviously prejudiced against Pook, the jury would have to watch their evidence very narrowly. There was no clear-cut evidence that Pook was responsible for Jane Maria being pregnant. Since her injuries had been very extensive, one would have expected the clothes of murderer to be more severely stained with blood than those of Pook had been shown to be. In his opinion, there would have been time for Pook to have committed the murder, but the sightings of him near Kidbrooke Lane were problematic and contradictory. Three alibi witnesses alleged that Pook had been in Lewisham between 8 and 9 pm the evening of

the murder, and if they were right, the prisoner was clearly innocent. Due to the verbosity of the legal counsel, the jury did not retire until 8.45 pm, but helped by the pro-Pook summing up from Chief Justice Bovill, they only took 35 minutes to find Edmund Pook Not Guilty of the murder, a verdict that was loudly cheered in court.

here must have been jubilation at 3 London Street in Greenwich, on the morning of Sunday July 16, that after narrowly dodging the hangman’s noose at the Old Bailey, Master Edmund’s posterior was firmly placed on one of the chairs at the breakfast table. Ebenezer Pook wrote a letter to the Times complaining of the agony and suspense endured by himself and his family for the past twelve weeks. He had been hooted and yelled at in the streets in the most disgraceful manner, but in the end, truth had prevailed, and Edmund had established his innocence. But although the acquittal of the prisoner had been cheered by the public gallery at the Old Bailey, the good burghers of Greenwich and Eltham had their minds made up who had really murdered Jane Maria Clouson, whatever the judge and jury might say. A crowd of more than three thousand people gathered, driving a truck through the streets of Greenwich, with a tableau in which a woman was struck down by a man armed with a lathing hammer. They ended up outside the Pook family home in London Street, hooting and jeering its hapless inhabitants, and declaring that although the murderer Edmund Pook had escaped justice, they had not forgotten him.

n 1903, the journalist Guy Logan thought of writing about the Eltham Mystery in the old magazine Famous Crimes Past & Present, but he changed his mind after finding out that Edmund Pook was still alive. Sir Harry Poland stated that he and Sir John Coleridge had both been convinced of the guilt of Edmund Pook, although Bovill, described as a weak but well-meaning judge, could not grasp the essentials of the case. In his summing-up, he had wrongly accused the police of straining the evidence against Pook, in order to obtain a conviction, and as a result the prisoner had been acquitted. Guy Logan eventually published his views on the case in 1929, after he had found out that Edmund Pook was now dead. He had discussed it with a friend who had been intimately concerned with it at the time and knew much of its inner history: it was this person’s firm belief, amounting to absolute conviction, that Edmund Pook had been an extremely fortunate young man. In 1951, the case was extensively reviewed by the legal historian Jack Smith-Hughes, a barrister of the Inner Temple: he made it no secret that he considered

Edmund Pook the guilty man. He found the case a good example of the law’s asinine qualities when it came to the admissibility of hearsay evidence, and speculated that in France, it would have had a more satisfactory ending.

n 1931, the old crime writer Hargrave Adam published his thoughts on the Eltham Mystery. He praised the judge and jury, lambasted the police for their carelessness, and proclaimed the innocence of Edmund Pook. He speculated that Jane Maria Clouson had enjoyed an affair with some other bloke, who had murdered her, or that she might have become the victim of a sexual predator on the prowl in Kidbrooke Lane. But Hargrave Adam was a careless and speculative author, who got some of the basic facts of the case wrong: he spoke of ‘Jane Maria Clowsen’ and ‘Kidbrook Lane’, and wrongly argued that since only Pook’s shirt had been blood-stained, this was probably the result of him bleeding from the tongue after an epileptic seizure. He branded Mrs Plane’s evidence absurd, although Edmund Pook had admitted it to be true. Since Hargrave Adam’s times, the Pook Puzzle had regularly been discussed, about once or twice per decade, in various crime books and periodicals. Although young Jane Maria Clouson never became a mother, and although no legitimate offspring of Edmund Pook survived infancy, collateral descendants in both families have taken up the cudgels. In an internet article, a latter-day Clousonite has wrongly claimed that when she was found in a dying condition, Jane Maria Clouson had exclaimed ‘Edmund Pook! Oh, let me die!’ A latter-day Pookist has claimed that Edmund only had a few small drops of blood on his trousers, whereas the truth was that his trousers, shirt, and cap were all quite liberally stained with blood.

o sum of the case from Pookist point of view, a key argument is that both before and after the murder, Edmund Pook appears to have led an exemplary life, without any murderous ambitions. Are we to believe that a quiet suburban print worker, just 20 years of age, was able to plan and execute a brutal, premeditated murder with such impressive cunning and coolness? And even if he had seduced Jane Maria, and got into hot water with his mother after it had turned out that she was pregnant, surely murdering her was quite a drastic solution; why not bribe her to go to Ireland and marry some Paddy instead? Edmund Pook was quite well known locally, meaning that he took a considerable risk if he ventured out to buy a hammer in a shop, or if he led his naïve victim to Kidbrooke Lane. The exact timing of the murder remains unclear, and it is puzzling that the doctor who first examined the victim thought her wounds quite recent, although this might be due to ignorance, inexperience, or that the wounds were disturbed HAUNTED MAGAZINE

when she was transported to the surgery. There is evidence that although Jane Maria Clouson was certainly not the ‘dirty’ girl the Pooks tried their best to make her out as, she was not always truthful: she claimed that a locket that she was wearing had been a present from Edmund Pook, whereas it had actually been given to her by another swain. Pook had a relatively decent alibi for the day preceding the murder, and if his brother was truthful, then it would have been very difficult for him to purchase the hammer. His alibi for the evening of the murder is less impressive. The local anti-Pook bias was very notable at the time, and it seems to have induced some of the witnesses to perjure themselves. With prosecution witnesses such as these, and with the evidence that Jane Maria Clouson was going to see Edmund Pook the evening of the murder not allowed in court, there is little wonder, given the attitude of Chief Justice Bovill and the poor performances of the police witnesses, that Pook was acquitted at the Old Bailey. Edmund Pook went on to lead an exemplary life: he married in 1881 and fathered a son who died in infancy, took over the family business in 1899, and died from bronchitis at the Croydon Union Infirmary in 1920.

ane Maria Clouson was clearly not murdered by some random robber or pervert: she was lured to her death in Kidbrooke Lane, and excessive violence was used to beat her to death, indicating hatred and a desire to mutilate and deface her. As we know, five witnesses testified that Edmund Pook and Jane Maria Clouson were having an affair, and she told two of them that she was going to see him the evening of the murder. Pook had advised his naïve victim not to tell any person about their rendezvous, and to be sure to burn his letters after reading them, as witnessed by Emily Wooledge; this is a stratagem favoured by quite a few murderers over the years, among them Patrick Mahon, executed in 1924 for killing and dismembering his pregnant girlfriend, Emily Kaye. Edmund Pook told his brother Thomas that he had seen Jane Maria Clouson walking out with a ‘swell’, which was clearly an attempt to inculpate someone else; he deliberately planned his alibi by telling Alice Wicks that he had been trying to meet Alice Durnford the evening of the murder; he purchased the hammer clandestinely the day prior to the murder, and perhaps he hid it at the Lecture Hall, along with a spare pair of trousers. Sparshott’s evidence is particularly damning, whereas it can only be speculated why Mrs Thomas did not pick Edmund Pook out as the customer for the hammer; perhaps she was just careless and lackadaisical with regard to record-keeping, or perhaps she

felt that for bigoted religious reasons, she did not want to be instrumental in sending a man to the gallows. In addition to the unreliable Lazell, two witnesses saw what must be suspected to have been Jane Maria Clouson and her murderer, and one of them picked him out as Edmund Pook in a police line-up. And then we have the uncontested stories of Mrs Plane, and several other witnesses, to the effect that on the evening of the murder, Edmund Pook had come to her shop, keen to catch his breath after running hard, and to clean up his clothes after having them spattered with mud, and probably other substances as well. The evening of the murder, the Eltham lanes were quite muddy, whereas those in the Lewisham region were dry. And finally, we have the medical evidence, which I suspect the Old Bailey jury did not fully understand: the significance of the blood-spatter on Edmund Pook’s clothes and cap, and the hair, similar to those of Jane Maria Clouson, brushed into his trousers, makes me quite convinced that he was her murderer, and that thanks to clever planning and execution of his crime, he got off scot-free, by the skin of his teeth. Some aspects of the case are

not just indicative of guilt, but entirely incompatible with Pook’s innocence.

or many years after the murder, the outraged ghost of Jane Maria Clouson was said to haunt Kidbrooke Lane; according to Elliott O’Donnell, many people tended to give this secluded lane a very wide berth after dusk. It was not until the lane was ‘developed’ that the haunting ceased. But as old Edmund Pook lay miserably coughing in the ward at Croydon Union Infirmary, was his mind calm and unclouded by guilt, or did he see terrible visions of a blood-stained spectre, not with a face serene and unsullied in death, like that of L’Inconnue de la Seine, but with a fearful and contorted countenance, like one of the ghosts conjured up by M.R. James? And as Pook breathed his last, did the Ghost of Kidbrooke Lane seize hold of its quivering victim, pressing its fearsome face into his, exclaiming “At Last! – Whistle, and I’ll come to you, my lad!” This is an edited extract from Jan Bondeson’s book Rivals of the Ripper (new paperback edition May 2021, History Press, Stroud).

By Kate Ray

hen I discovered Erwin Saunders, I felt like I was late to the table, but in Tolkien style I arrive exactly when I meant too. He bumbled into my life via YouTube at a time when the world seemed very dark and destructive place.

“I am a faery believer; however, I tend to shy away from “real” faery videos on the internet, I find them highly disappointing and easily debunkable.” I am not sure whether the vibration level of the fae can be captured on modern digital camera, if at all. A friend sent me a link to a video stating the person in the video had found and had captured on film a real pixie. I had a little internal groan about it, but I trusted my friend’s judgment and long history of investigating the paranormal, combined with his excitement lit a spark of curiosity with in me. David Bellamy, the bumbling botanist was a hero of mine growing up, there was something contagions about his unnerved enthusiasm about plants. He was at his happiest caressing plant leaves and talking about their beauty, often talking directly to them. He was authentic, kind and immersed in his world of flora and fauna. I had the opportunity to meet him when I was ten, and then I had never understood being star struck for movie stars, but this was the closest I came when I discovered David was stood behind me and was clearly amused by my flabbergasted and delighted reaction. Erwin Saunders is a slightly grumblier, bumbley character than David Bellamy but there are similarities in the way they look. They both dress in practical outdoor clothing consisting of a palate of greens and beige, both sporting a verging on unkempt beard and wild hair, and they both have the same movements as they forage around in the undergrowth, exuding an excited curiosity.

So, if you have never come across Erwin, allow me to introduce you to him. He is a pixie hunter, yup that’s right he goes out into the woodlands and the moors of the UK seeking out pixies. I am not going to regale the video content of his adventures, because these are only part of the mystery of this man; and well worth watching. The question of who Erwin Saunders is has become the spear head of his mounting legacy. In recent months he has acquired not one, but two articles in Fortean Times magazine and has become a strange sideline in my own YouTube channel.

Above: Many “pixies” are captured on the YouTube channel. Hoax or real? That’s for you to decide! Left: Erwin Saunders, “a scruffy weirdy beardy man seeking out pixies.”

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There are theories, and fairly solid ones on Erwin’s true identity, all can be found with a quick internet search. It is almost certain that Erwin is a character (and it pains me to write that) I don’t care who he is, and the following is why nobody should or endeavour to peruse any people or peoples who may be involved in the pixie hunting he does. Simple magic, and magic when it is most needed has the greatest power. In the darkness of the winter months, it is the magic of Christmas that keeps people going.

speculated his death: what would the pixies do without having Erwin to shoot arrows at? His cryptic video only fuelled fears that he had indeed been taken into the fae realms never to grace our screens again. It is one picture, signed E.S that is dominated by a rolling moor and in the centre, what was thought to be, a tomb stone carved with strange glyphs. This riddle kept me up scribbling notes and searching the net, and I wasn’t the only one. Quicker minds soon started to crack the code and it was revealed in a week or so the true nature of the message. Erwin Would be back in the spring and was thanking his following as it had reached 100k.

“An initial collective sigh of relief was followed by an impatient wait by those who had become firm fans.” Did we really stop believing in Santa Claus as children, even after we discovered the truth, I know I didn’t want to for a long time? The idea that a generous jolly figure dropped off gifts just for me, in the middle of the night used to excite me to a belly full of butterflies. As an adult and I am sure I’m not the only one to admit this, I still chase after this same feeling on a regular basis. The magic that comes from the unknown of going to a new holiday destination or having a new experience such as swimming in the sea with

dolphins. When experiencing these moments, even for a short time the world seems brighter and seems to sparkle at the edges. This is the everyday magic of the world and one in which we are all entitled to, if we allow ourselves to submerge in the enchantment.

t is simple magic that had me committed to two days of insomnia trying to solve a cryptic video Erwin posted at the beginning of the year, he had been offline for a couple of years and many of his fans

What Erwin’s videos have done is ignited the childish, safe, playful curiosity that we lose as adults. They have encouraged us to go back into the woods again, and look, really look at the trees, the fauna and animals. Whether we admit it or not, we are all looking for Erwin’s pixies. He has also fuelled the fire in modern day interest in the faery world, along with the lockdown, a time when people needed to believe in something good and pure. He has taken me back into the state of being that I thrive in; playful, curious and in a world of the magical. In my YouTube videos about him, I often get confuddled due to my excited nature, I really find it difficult to contain my excitement. In the Erwin Saunders YouTube videos, many of which show pixie characters, it begs the question, are they real pixies or not? This, for me does not matter, what matters is in today’s age of perfect celebs, and one where magic is needed, a scruffy weirdy beardy man seeking out pixies is fast reaching legendary status. Check out Erwin’s You Tube page

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Kate Ray

Is God sending messages to us through birds?

BIRDS OF PRAY T H E S P I R I T UA L M E A N I N G O F O U R F E A T H E R E D F R I E N D S Bird symbolism is popular all across the world throughout different cultures. However, these creatures make us curious and lead us to investigate and wonder. What do birds represent? What do birds symbolise, and what do they mean? The meanings of birds and their symbolism varies greatly from representing immortality, departed souls, and spirit messengers to representing fertility, protection, and strength. To give you an idea of the different representations and different meanings of birds, here are ten bird species with their respective symbolic meaning.

BLACKBIRD

MAGPIE

SPARROW

Connotes» Good omen» Paradise» Mysticism and Magic

Connotes» Chatterbox» Flashy» Happiness» Good fortune

Connotes» Gentle» Intellectual» Ancestral knowledge

Seeing a blackbird for most is a sign of a good omen. Apart from being a good omen, it could also refer to a heightened awareness either spiritually or in your personal life. It could also imply shyness and insecurity, which directly implies lack of self-confidence. It could infer to being vulnerable to the decisions made by others. The colour black, as we know, is associated with supernatural prowess, hence lending the individual who sees a blackbird frequently in his dreams a mystical and magical feel.

Magpies are symbolic of happiness and jovial approach to life, yet it can denote a shaky personality. It can also be a reference to unpredictable behaviour or situations occurring around you. It denotes lack of discipline in life and an individual with a highly deceptive nature. In the extreme, it could also symbolise marital bliss.

Sparrows are sweet little birds that symbolise companionship, and a symbol of hope. It is also a sign of fertility and renewal as well as rejuvenation of the spirit.

HERON Connotes» Good omen» Symbolic of the souls of the world» Contended» Symbol of Christ on the mount of olives A heron refers to a self-reliant, independent individual free to make decisions. It basically points out to an individual who strives for reasoning and is aware of the happenings with himself/ herself and the world around at large. Seeing a heron could be interpreted as longevity in life. People who constantly see herons in their dreams are considerably good at dealing with other people and make good leaders.

PARROT Connotes» Bringer of rain and seed» Babbler» Status symbol Parrots are symbolic of an individual who lacks a personality of his/her own, it simply means it is dependent on another for views, opinions and ideas. Parrots are known to be imitators and seeing parrots could mean you or someone is making fun of someone.

PIGEON Connotes» Gossip» Blame for the action of others» Youthful generation Pigeons represent the lost culture of the young generation; it also refers to ignorance and gossiping nature of people. It is taken as a sign of courage to take the blame on to oneself.

ROBIN Connotes» Rebirth of ideas and spirit» New beginning Robins are symbolic of a rebirth or the beginning of a new idea. It is a gateway to new opportunities and refers to patient outlook towards life. It is also symbolic of growth in personal and spiritual life. It also symbolizes selfless and sacrificing nature of the individual.

SEAGULL Connotes» Freedom» Sea God ‘Lir’» Messenger Seagulls are highly intelligent and refer to intellectual abilities. However, they lack concern for life/things. You can take it as references to skilful approach to life.

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SWALLOW Connotes» Harbinger of spring» Attribute of love Goddess, Aphrodite Seeing a swallow could refer to having a disciplinary approach to life. It could also connote rejuvenation of the spirit and is symbolic of the relationship between two brothers.

SWAN Connotes» Personal grace» Inherent spirituality» Foresees impending death» Hypocrite (because of black flesh) Swans with their beautiful white features, refer to the purity of soul, innocence. It also refers to faithfulness towards family and spouse. It is also a sign of honesty and integrity, elegance and grace. It also points towards a spiritual awakening So next time you see a bird, or interact with a bird, it might be more than a coincidence that you’ve seen it. It might be a message for you.

Sam Bennetts xxx

Stoke-on-Trent is a city in central England. It’s known for its pottery industry. It is not known for Vampires, or is it?

STAKE-ON-TRENT

rom its emergence into popular consciousness via Bram Stokers 1890 novel Dracula to its integration with twenty-first century culture courtesy of the Twilight series and with a whole host of pop-culture references in between, if there is one figure above all others from the world of folklore that has the power to speak across all generations, cultures and belief systems, it is surely that of the Vampire. Impossibly charming, impeccably dressed, and with no small dash of sex appeal, such figures have come to represent a caliber of specter that is almost admirable; serving to both terrify and seduce in equal measure. Yet, although the idea of the vampire plays easily as a canvas to imprint all manner of enjoyable and marketable tales upon, its history is one of real, tangible folk history and deep-rooted fear and beliefs. Fears and beliefs that, as we will come to see, far from being lost to the mists of the past, have lingered long on into the modern age.

Throughout Europe, the idea of the dead rising from their graves to torment the living, the core staple of the vampire, has been a worry of superstition for the better part of 2000 years and Britain is no exception. Finding stones placed in the mouths of the medieval dead is far from an uncommon occurrence during archaeological excavation, and a culture of fear for the undead is one that we find present in almost every long-standing community enclave in Britain; something which goes against the grain of the popular idea of the vampire being largely a construct of eastern European tradition.

become embroiled in a local dispute following the transfer of their labors from the lands of the Abbey to the house of a local Norman lord, the pair were soon found to have died in mysterious circumstances. Hastily buried in the churchyard at Stapenhill, the first report of their return from the dead came that very evening, when they were sighted in the nearby village of Drakelow, walking around the village green with their coffins carried atop their shoulders.

As early as the twelfth century, tales of the revenant - a word taken from the French verb meaning “to return” - were to be found in the chronicles of ecclesiastical houses. Geoffrey of Burton, in his 1150 work The Life and Miracles of St. Modwenna [see above], relays a story of how two villagers from Stapenhill in the midlands had found themselves at the center of a case concerning the wanderings of the undead. Having HAUNTED MAGAZINE

They would then apparently appear repeatedly in the nights that followed, and as they did, those classic characteristics of the vampire began to take hold; shapeshifting into dogs and bats, appearing at the doors of village cottages where they would request to be let inside.

hose who lived in the cottages they visited would be become ill the following morning, appearing to have had their lifeforce drained from them during the night. Word of the “Stapenhill Two” soon made its way up the chain of Church command, until the Bishop of Lichfield himself ordered the graves of the men to be opened and investigated. Coffins laid bare, the pair looked very much alive, their mouths smeared with blood. The bishop took action and ordered that the men have their heads separated from their bodies before going on to have their hearts removed and burned. Almost instantly, those villagers that had fallen ill in the wake of the nightcallers, were said to have their health restored in an act of miraculous recovery, which was later attributed to the gift St. Modwenna, whose relics had been present at the time of the exhumation. We might smile at such notions now, in our comforts of modern science and education, especially given that we have long since come to view the issue of the vampire as a purely fictional creation. But for one man in 1970s Stoke-on-Trent (my own hometown) the idea of the vampire was very real indeed. In fact, provision for protection against it formed a major part of his daily life...and ultimately too, his death. Built by esteemed local architect Charles Lynam in the early 1850s, The Villas, a set of two dozen Italianate houses raised by The Stokeville Building Society, were designed to act as a hub for the city’s rising middle classes of the pottery industry. Clustered together off one of the city’s main thoroughfares, The Villas still have a certain charm about them today, feeling like a tiny piece of Tuscany has somehow been superimposed amongst the post-industrial sprawl of the city. During the

Above: The Villas, London Road, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs Below: Demetrius Mykicura’s fear of vampires would ultimately lead to his untimely death

1970s however, the Stokeville estate had become less about representing the aspirations of the city’s ambitious families and more akin to the decaying romanticism of a modern gothic novel; a world of faded glamour, overgrown gardens, and gloomy bedsits. So, when in late November of 1972, 22-year-old PC John Pye was sent to No. 3 The Villas, he had some idea of what to expect. Drunkenness and deprivation were the order of the day, with the building now acting as a low-rent boarding house. But the call hadn’t been made by a concerned resident, rather it had come from the property’s landlady, who had become increasingly concerned as to the wellbeing of one of her lodgers, a middle-aged polish potter by the name of Demetrius Mykicura. Nothing could have prepared the young police constable for what he was about to see. Prizing the door open, PC Pye couldn’t believe his eyes. All the bulbs in the room had been removed, and as the officer surveyed the scene through the light of his torch, a patchwork of crucifixes and religious iconography covered the walls whilst a blanket of salt lay over the bedclothes, and beneath them, lifeless, the body of Mykicura. Cracking the window, Pye

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least to him, real enough to warrant extreme measures. Tales of the vampire in eastern Europe were still in fine form as recently as the 1700s, and it will have likely been these pieces of folklore from which Mykicuras’ fears were first born. During the 1720s a spate of vampire attacks was reported in East Prussia of a nature not dissimilar to our earlier Burton Abbey examples. So wellknown were they in their time that the two main protagonists of this so-called Vampire Hysteria, Petar Blagojević and Arnold Paole, whose nocturnal shenanigans are attributed to at least 25 deaths between them, both have today have their own Wikipedia pages. In fact, it was the subsequent exhumation of Blagojević by Austrian authorities designed to lay the stories to rest - that many experts consider being the kick-starter of a resurgence in vampire lore across Europe that lasted well on into the nineteenth century and ultimately resulted in Polidori’s creation of The Vampyre; widely considered to be the first popular fiction on the subject. See, far from putting the story to bed, based on the well-preserved state of Blagojević’s body after exhumation, the authorities mistakenly declared to the press that the vampiric phenomena was in fact real!

then noticed that an upturned washing bowl was placed on the sill. Cautiously lifting it, he saw that the bowl appeared to be covering some kind of cake; a cake that would later become clear was made of a delicate balance of human faeces and garlic cloves. PC Pye looked around the room once more and then turned to the landlady. This, he noted, felt like an image from a vampire story. He was right.

emetrius Mykicura had been born in Poland in 1904 but having fled his native country during the German occupation, had been settled in Britain for the better part of 30 years. He had made friends through his workplace and was enjoying something of a relatively settled life, yet clearly, not all was well. About 12 months before his death, witnesses stated, Mykicura had suddenly begun to live in constant fear of an encounter with a vampire. It would he said, stalk the estate at night, hiding amongst the rooftops. The salt across the bedsheets and the garlic “cake” were found at the inquest into his death as being traditional eastern European remedies to the threat of vampiric attack.

It was also found that it was the fear of the vampire that had ultimately killed him, as opposed to an actual visitor of the night. He had choked to death on a clove of garlic in his sleep. There was a brief investigation, perhaps founded more in public curiosity than anything. After all, it had been less than two years since another case of vampiric inspiration had caught public imagination locally when little more than twenty miles away, across the Cheshire border in Winsford, two local girls had been examined for bruising and marks on their necks following reports of a figure haunting their house at night. Granted, the case of Mykicura is at the thicker edge of the wedge when it comes to the powers that folk beliefs can hold over our lives in the modern age, but then how many people do you know that still salute a magpie when they spy one on its own? How many times have you witnessed someone - maybe even yourself - throw salt over their left shoulder to keep the devil away? Ultimately, it’s all part of the same theatre. In all seriousness though, the thoughts and fears plaguing Demetrius Mykicura were, at HAUNTED MAGAZINE

That Mykicuras’ home at the villas was little more than a mile away from StokeOn-Trent’s huge and imposing Hartshill Cemetery, given the evident depth of the man’s beliefs, could have given more than enough cause for such a paranoid end to his life. To Demetrius, fifteen minutes’ walk from his front door lay a magnetic center for all things vampire. If he was truly that much of a believer - and as the poor souls’ circumstances may suggest, not of the soundest state of mind - it is hard to imagine how he would not have come to the conclusion that he was living in a world of real, tangible danger. The face at the window was only ever a shadow away. Real or not, belief is a powerful thing. It can inform, it can aid. It can enable a person to build a fortitude for life that sees them through their darkest days. But belief can also harm. It can restrict. It can limit experience and potential. And as we have seen, ultimately it can literally take the life of the believer too. Perhaps there is a lesson in that for all of us. Be careful what you bring to life in your mind. Beware obsession. Beware, as most of us will be wondering. whatever it was that sparked Mykicura’s obsession in the first place. What did he see? Sometimes, creations of the mind can have consequences in reality. Sometimes, in some way, they may well be brought to life.

Eli Lycett

Mike Covell’s curious case of castles, canines, chambers, chants and circular tables

“The castle was originally built to subdue the unruly North of England but somehow Mike Covell managed to sneak in”

ichmond is a delightful market town that stands in the civil parish of North Yorkshire and is part of the district of Richmondshire. Going back in time the area was historically the North Riding of Yorkshire. The town stands approximately 72.87 km / 45.28 miles to the south-west of Whitby, approximately 77.89 km / 48.40 miles to the west of Robin Hood’s Bay, approximately 64.62 km / 40.15 miles to the north-west of York, and approximately 6.02 km / 3.74 miles to the south-west of Scotch Corner. The market town stands between the Yorkshire Dales, which dominate the western side, and the North Yorkshire Moors, which dominate the eastern side. The town was founded in 1071 by Breton Alan Rufus, when lands were granted to him by William the Conqueror. Work soon began on the construction of a defensive fort, and by 1086 the keep and walls of what would become the castle were completed. Today the castle is still an impressive site, now owned by the National Trust, and when viewed from the south the walls dominate the view. They stand above the River Swale in Richmond, and the site was originally known as “The Strong Hill” or “Riche Mount.”

RICHMOND CASTLE – HOME OF KING ARTHUR

ne of the most enduring stories connected to the castle is that of King Arthur. It his claimed that King Arthur sleeps in a large cavern beneath the castle with his Knights of the Round Table and that they were once discovered by a potter named Thompson, who ran away when they woke up. In Notes and Queries, volume 8, there is an entry from December 10th, 1853, written by M. Aislabie Denham, in which it states that: “Vault at Richmond Yorkshire (Vol viii p 388) Touching the vault or underground passage that goeth under the river of Swale from Castle of Richmond to the priory of St Martin every tradition i.e., as to its whereabouts is believe now wholly lost. Your Querist however who seems to feel interest in that beautiful and romantic portion the north countrie will perhaps welcome the following mythe which is connected it is possible with the identical vault which is depictured Speed in his Plan of Richmond It was down from the lips of a great grand dame by of her descendants both of whom are still living for the gratification of your present correspondent who like Luther Would not for any quantity of gold part with wonderful tales which he has retained from his childhood or met with in his progress through life But to my legend Once upon a time a man walking round Richmond Castle was accosted by another who him into a vennel or underground HAUNTED MAGAZINE

passage the castle where he beheld a vast multitude people lying as if they were sleeping A and a sword were presented to him the horn blow and the sword to draw in order as his guide to release them from their slumbers And when he had drawn the sword half out sleepers began to move which frightened him much that he put it back into the sheath instantly a voice exclaimed Potter I Potter Thompson If thou had cither drawn The sword or blown the horn Thou had been the luckiest man that ever was born So ends the Legend of the Richmond Sleepers and Potter Thompson which mayhap is scarcely worth preserving were it not that it has preserved and handed down the characteristic or trade cognomen and surname of its timorous least if not cowardly hero.” The story would later resurface again in The Sheffield Independent, dated Tuesday October 15th, 1861. The report stated that underneath the crypt there was a large room where King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table sleep, and that a man named Potter Thompson, was led to the room by a mysterious guide, who set his hands on a horn and a sword, and how Potter half drew the blade, but when the sleeping king and his knights began to wake up, Potter let the sword slip back into its sheath, and Potter was blown off his feet and ran, but as he did he heard a loud voice proclaim:

“Potter, Potter Thompson, If thou hadst either drawn, The Sword, or blown the horn, Thou’dst been the luckiest man, That ever yet was born.” The same report also appeared in The Highland Sentinel, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, The Usk Observer, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, The Launceston Weekly News, and Cornwall & Devon Advertiser, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, The Christchurch Times, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, The Rugby Advertiser, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, The Tewkesbury Register, and Agricultural Gazette, dated Saturday October 19th 1861, Highland Sentinel, Saturday October 19th 1861, The Cirencester Times and Cotswold Advertiser, dated Monday October 21st 1861, and The Teesdale Mercury, dated Wednesday October 23rd 1861. During 1861 a book was published entitled Handbook for Travellers in Yorkshire, published by John Murray, in which it mentioned the story of Potter Thompson and his discovery. The story eased up, but on Tuesday October 29th, 1867, The Sheffield Daily Telegraph reported on the story, with a few different takes on some of the common sections. It stated that the hall of King Arthur was beneath the Golden Tower, so called because of a tradition that treasure is buried there. It goes on to state that there is a passage beneath that leads beneath the River Swale to St. Martin’s Priory. The article then goes on to talk about the Potter Thompson adventure, and the verse he heard as he ran. The story seemed to go through another revival during 1877 when the Notes and Queries article, as featured above, ended up in the columns of Reynolds’s Newspaper, dated Sunday October 21st, 1877, and later in The Newry Reporter, dated Tuesday October 23rd, 1877. On Saturday July 7th, 1883, the article appeared in The Yorkshire Gazette, stating that the castle was the resting place of King Arthur, as discovered by Potter Thompson. In 1889 the story again resurfaced, with articles appearing in The Wharfedale & Airedale Observer, dated Friday May 3rd, 1889, which likened the story in Richmond to a story that originated in Ireland. In the Irish version the chant stated, “Woe to the coward that ever was born, who did not draw the sword before he blew the horn.” It mentioned that at Richmond the story of Potter Thompson was still very popular, and that Thompson was once led into a vault where he saw

King Arthur and his knights, and on a great table was a horn and a sword, he walked over and began to draw the sword, but as he did a voice came from nowhere uttered the phrase: “Potter, Potter Thompson, If thou hadst either drawn, The Sword, or blown the horn, Thou’dst been the luckiest man, That ever yet was born.” The same story was later reported in the Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser, dated Saturday May 4th, 1889, The Huddersfield Chronicle, dated Monday May 13th, 1889, The Huddersfield Daily Chronicle, dated Saturday May 18th, 1889, The Newcastle Chronicle, dated Saturday May 25th, 1889, The York Herald on Saturday June 1st, 1889, and The York Herald, dated Saturday August 3rd, 1889. In 1891 the story made news again when it appeared in the South Wales Star, dated Friday May 8th, 1891, and the story was later repeated in The Leeds Mercury, dated Saturday July 4th, 1891, but this time the story added that across the British Isles similar stories are heard about similar locations but with a different named hero. The same story appeared in The York Herald, dated Friday March 4th, 1892, and again on Saturday March 5th, 1892, and a similar story was published on Friday October 13th, 1893, in The Manchester Times, this one, however, did not feature the name of the adventurer, or the verse that it was said was spoken.

long article about Arthurian legends around the British Isles. It brought up the story of Thompson but featured previously unpublished details. Among the new material, added to the story, is that Thompson was feeling suicidal, and had gone to the River Swale to kill himself, but sat near a place called Round Howe, near a natural cave known as Arthur’s Oven. It was while he was here that he found the opening to the tunnels. The verse in this version is also different and states: “Peter Thompson, the Potter, If thou hadst either drawn, The Sword, or blown the horn, Thou’dst been the luckiest man, That ever yet was born.” Round Howe is a large mound that stands approximately 4.169.38 ft / 1.27 km to the west of Richmond Castle grounds, and on the opposite side of the River Swale. Today it forms part of a walk that takes in Round Howe and nearby Billy Bank Woods.

rthur’s Oven is a legendary cave that comprises of a pair of caverns, situated in steep rocks, on the south bank of the Swale. They are on land that was previously owned by St. Martin’s Priory, which was destroyed during the Reformation, but is today owned by the John Dakyn Trust and leased to the National Trust. There are a number of theories attached to it, but some state that it was once known as Arthur’s Room.

An interesting take on the story featured in The Shields Gazette, dated Tuesday December 26th, 1893, when it stated that a similar event took place in Eastern Europe in Hungary, when Mathias Corvinus discovered a cave full of ancient knights sleeping on their horses. It is stated that the Richmond Castle story is very similar, but also that a cave was discovered under Tynemouth Cliffs and Priory that could be the cave in the latter story. The story was later covered in the Wharfdale & Airedale Observer, dated Friday July 20th, 1894, in which it covered the basics of the story and Potter Thompson’s adventure. In this version he left when he heard his wife calling him for dinner. The story was also featured in Highways and Byways in Yorkshire, by Arthur H. Norway and published in 1899. An interesting version appeared in The Newcastle Courant, dated Saturday July 7th, 1900, when it featured a

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n A Guide to Richmond, published by T and A. Bowman, in 1846, states that Arthur’s Oven is a natural cave, but the reason for the name has long since been lost. In W. R. Robinson’s Guide to Richmond, it is stated that the cave known as Arthur’s Oven is situated in a limestone cliff and is one of several clefts. On Saturday March 4th, 1905, the story featured in The Leeds Mercury, with the story adding more information to the original story. This time it stated that the sword on the table could well be Excalibur, and the horn was a hunting horn. It also stated that the guide who showed Potter Thompson the room was a “supernatural guide, whom no one has seen before or since.” The guide handed Thompson the sword and horn, and said “Drawn one, and sound the other.” Thompson pulled the sword from its sheath, but as he did, he heard a sound of the dead rustling in their armour. It frightened Thompson so much he put the sword back into its sheath and a great wind rushed through the vault, sweeping him off his feet, but as he retreated, he heard the verse as featured above in previous articles. The segment concludes by stating that the King and his Knights are still asleep and are waiting to be roused once again. Map showing the castle in the 1890’s, with Gold Hole Tower at the bottom just below and to the left of the letter C in the word Cock Pit.

n article appeared in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Saturday February 22nd, 1913, which talked about the story and praised Potter Thompson, stating that he was a visionary, and though he was ridiculed by his peers, he remained true to his story, and was supported by his wife. On Saturday May 10th, 1913, The Tewkesbury Register, and Agricultural Gazette, featured the story, and stated that it had been mentioned in English Illustrated, by Maud E. Sargent. It states that Potter Thompson found an opening in Castle Rock, and when he entered, he came across King Arthur and his sleeping Knights. This version states that the horn was made of gold and ivory. This version states that one of the knights rose up, using his arm to prop him up, causing Thompson to run, and at which time he heard the verse uttered. The same story was later republished in The Dalkeith Advertiser, dated Thursday June 5th, 1913. Another article would appear in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Wednesday September 3rd, 1919, in which it stated that the grave of King Arthur was not unknown, but that he was in fact asleep beneath Richmond Castle, and he was waiting for the sound of his trumpet to wake him when Britain was in its time of need. The story was mentioned in The Graphic, dated Saturday July 31st, 1920.

Round Howe detail

Arthur’s Oven, the track leads over the top, but not at the cliff face

Map showing Round Howe, to the far left, Arthur’s Oven, centre top, and The Temple, far right, which stands where the Castle Mount stands today.

Map of the area in the 1890’s showing Round Howe, on the far left, Arthur’s Oven, in the middle, and the small circle at the far right is the Gold Hole Tower at Richmond Castle

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he Yorkshire Evening Post, dated Saturday December 15th, 1923, reported that the man was named Thompson, and he was a potter, who would often go off in search of adventures and loved exploring. It was said that he was rambling one day when he came across an opening in the ground. He entered and walked along a passage that seemed to go deep into the earth beneath the castle. He eventually found himself in a vault where he came across Arthur and the Knights asleep. He saw the sword and horn and decided to pull the sword from its scabbard, but as he did the King and Knights moved, and Thompson retreated, upon doing so, he heard the voice say the well-known verse. Curiously, this version of the story states that the good potter was afraid, and decided not to return to the cave again, whereas other versions state that the cave could never be found. An interesting article on the subject appeared in The Bridlington Free Press, dated Wednesday March 19th, 1924; the same article would also be published in the same publication dated Saturday March 22nd, 1924, about the location. The article, entitled “Attempted robberies from fairy people,” stated that King Arthur and Knights were asleep beneath the castle, and would occasionally turn in their sleep, but were almost awakened when Potter Thompson ventured beneath the castle. It states that the story is very similar to some of the old Scandinavian stories of old kings being asleep until their country needs them. Potter became Peter from 1924 when a story appeared in The Shields Daily Gazette, dated Saturday July 5th, 1924, when it was stated that the man was called Peter Thompson, not Potter, and that he came across the sleeping Knights and King Arthur. It states that many have since tried to find the cave but have been unsuccessful. The name Peter Thompson would also be published in The Shipley Times and Express, dated Friday July 18th, 1924, and the Acton Gazette, dated Friday August 8th, 1924. The story also reached international attention when it was reported in Australia on Saturday August 23rd, 1924, when the Townsville Daily Bulletin reported on the legend. The article stated that when King Arthur died, he was buried under Richmond Castle, and that the cave is enchanted and no one can enter it. Eventually a man named Peter Thompson found an opening and entered, climbing over a huge stone, he entered a cavern, and discovered that the walls were covered in jewels. On the couch was King Arthur, laid asleep, and when Thompson drew the sword, the king stirred, causing Thompson to run. He then heard the spectral voice utter the verse but left. It then states that Peter Thompson ran home as fast as he could, but he and many others have spent many hours and days trying to find the cave. On Friday December 30th, 1927, The Western Morning News featured a long story on various British Arthurian legends, in which it talked about the story and mentioned Potter Thompson. According to this version his wife was angry with his lackadaisical ways and he went walking along the River Swale, inspecting the pools near the foot of Castle Rock, when he was thinking about committing suicide. He noticed an opening in the cliff face, and walked over to it, entering, and heading along a passageway that had a light at the end of it. It is said that he imagined treasure and great riches. As he progressed forward, he entered a room of the castle that appeared to have been long unused. There was an old lamp hanging from the ceiling, and beneath the lamp was a stone table, on which were a sword and a horn of gold and ivory. On Saturday November 2nd, 1929, the story was featured in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, in which it stated that the entrance to the cave was near a place known as “The Gold Hole.” This version of the story states that Potter Thompson was walking along the riverbank, presumably the River Swale, when he came across a hole in the rock. The article states that he was escaping from his nagging wife, and that he had seen the hole and thought he could rest in it, but upon entering he noticed that it was a tunnel, and as he followed it, he came into a huge cavern that was adorned with shields on the walls, and coats of arms, as well as weapons. On the floor a group of Knights were laid out, and in the centre was a regal bearded figure that was asleep. The bearded figure was clutching a large sword. Thompson, it is said, touched the sword, and all the

sleepers stirred, so he withdrew his hand, and the sleepers fell back to sleep. Thompson decided to head home and tells his wife, and once he was outside, he told a friend, who recognised the coat of arms as belonging to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Sadly, Thompson retraced his steps but could not find the original entrance, and the tomb of the King was lost forever. The Gold Hole is a tower that stands within the grounds of Richmond Castle. The story of Potter Thompson would later feature in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Tuesday October 21st, 1930. Another version appeared in The Berks and Oxon Advertiser, dated Friday April 1st, 1932, but this version states that the explorer was named Peter Thompson, but then later adds that when the voice came it said, “Potter Thompson.” This version also states that the hall, where King Arthur and his Knights were asleep, had walls adorned in jewels. The version also appeared in The Shields Daily Gazette, dated Saturday April 2nd, 1932; The Shipley Times and Express dated Saturday April 9th, 1932. The story was also briefly featured in the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette, dated Monday July 8th, 1935. Back to the coverage in the British press during the early 1930’s and we find a different version in The Shipley Times and Express, dated Saturday January 3rd, 1931, which has an alternate verse that reads; “King Arthur sleeps ‘neath the castle hill, Swale, Swale, flowing down to the sea, Sleeps with his lordings all silent and still, Swale, Swale, flowing down to the sea, O Swale, O Swallow, come bring back our King, Swale, Swale, flowing down to the sea, Our hearts will be gay, and loud carols we’ll sing, Swale, Swale, flowing down to the sea”

more sober approach to the story was featured in The Lincolnshire Echo, dated Friday August 9th, 1935, which stated that while the story was fascinating, these types of stories have been around for some years, and they are a great way of telling a fictional story, but at the same time featuring parts of genuine history. A fascinating article appeared in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Saturday May 2nd, 1936, which looked at works being done at the site of Richmond Castle. It stated that work had begun in 1910 by the Office of Works who were excavating and cleaning in the Gold Tower. The unnamed reporter asked the men if they had discovered any treasure, but the men replied that they had not, he then asked whether they had discovered King Arthur’s hidden chamber, but they replied that they had not found that either. The article then talks about the lost cavern as being a palace of sleep where Potter Thompson found King Arthur and his Knights. The Scotsman, dated Saturday December 14th, 1940, also featured the story, stating that below the foundations of the castle stands the secret vault of King Arthur and his Knights, who can be aroused by drawing the enchanted sword and sounding the horn in the hour of Britain’s peril. It then goes on to discuss Potter Thompson, and states that he came across a narrow cleft in the cliff face and squeezed through it, to find a passage, which in turn led into a large cavern where the King and his men were asleep. The room was lit by a lamp hanging from the roof, and he noticed a sword and horn, but when he touched them the King and his men moved, and he heard murmuring. He then heard the strange verse and left in a hurry. A similar version would later appear in the Birmingham Daily Post, dated Saturday July 9th, 1966, in which it stated that King Arthur held court below the castle, and was once disturbed by Potter Thompson, who ran in fear. On Saturday August 12th, 1967, The Birmingham Daily Post reported that an incident had taken place at Sewingshields Crag, which took place around the time of the Battle of Trafalgar. According to the legend a farmer had found tunnel beneath a rock, and on following it he came across a cavern in which was King Arthur, Queen Guinevere, and the Knights of the Round Table.

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n the corner of the room was a fire that was burning, despite having no visible means of fuel, and there was a pack of around thirty dogs. A sword, garter and horn were present, and the farmer pulled the sword from its scabbard, but on doing so the bodies in the room began to move and wake up, so he returned the sword and left. When he ran out, he was told that he was “witless” and that he should have sounded the horn. The article points out that the same, or a similar story at least, is also connected to Richmond Castle. A similar story covering the similarities between the case in Sewingshields and Richmond Castle also appeared in The Newcastle Evening Chronicle, dated Wednesday August 3rd, 1983. King Arthur: Hero and Legend, published in 1990 by Boydell Press and written by Richard Barber, tackles the sleeping King and Knights legends, and points out that the story has supposedly been linked to numerous locations, not just Richmond Castle. Numerous other books talked about the story. The subject would also end up on a television show that aired on Wednesday February 23rd, 1994, called Earthfasts, about two teenage boys who get caught up in a strange mystery when they hear sounds coming from a hill near where they live, and go on an

adventure in search of King Arthur’s Knights. The television show would be reported in the Reading Evening Post, dated Wednesday February 23rd, 1994. The story would later make it into Ghost Hunting in the Yorkshire Dales, by W. R. Mitchell, and published in 1996 by Castleberg. As someone with a fascinating for the story I decided to do a little digging, albeit not in the earth, but in the archives. There are a few things that spring out from the story that I struggle with. The first is the name of the person, which seems to change through the years from Potter Thompson to Peter Thompson, to Peter Thompson the potter! The other issue I have is that no real date is given for the original event of Potter/Peter finding the chamber. None of the newspaper articles give a date of the discovery. The story is also featured on multiple English Heritage websites and forums, but none of them give a date for the adventure. Another fascinating aspect is that as we have seen other locations have been associated with the sleeping King and his Knights, and one such location is Cadbury Castle, under which it is rumoured to be the sleeping chamber of the Knights of the Round Table.

RICHMOND CASTLE – THE DRUMMER BOY

nother story connected to the castle is that of a ghostly drummer boy. It is said, according to one version, that soldiers garrisoned at the castle during the Napoleonic wars determined to discover a secret passage that was said to be linked to Easby a mile away, sent a drummer boy down the castle end of a passageway. He was instructed to go down the passage and continue to drum, while they followed the sound above ground. They followed the drumming for some time, but eventually, halfway there, the drumming stopped and the drummer boy was never seen again. He was said to be heard drumming on moonlit nights. I remember as a young boy reading this story in a book I had about British ghosts, the name of which escapes me, but the story fascinated me. I often wondered when it happened, and whether he had ever been found, so researching the story was fascinating. The earliest mention I can find of the story dates back to 1901, when County Folklore was published by the Folk-Lore Society, in a section on Yorkshire written by Eliza Gutch, in which it mentions the story of the Drummer Boy. According to this version there is a vault underneath Richmond Castle that was previously the same vault where Potter Thompson had his adventure, and from this vault runs a passage to Easby Abbey along the River Swale. It is claimed that a drummer boy was sent into the vault, and down the tunnel, where he was ordered to go down the passage, playing his drum. As the drummer boy walked alone along the passage he played, and above ground the sound was traced, but after a quarter of a mile the sound

of the drumming fell silent, and the drummer boy never reappeared. It was believed that the roof had fallen on him, and a stone was placed at the spot where he was last heard, which was at the entrance of the Grammar School Cricket Field, at the foot of Clink Bank. It is said that at midnight some nights the sound of drumming can be heard under certain conditions.

ome versions state that the drummer boy came across King Arthur and his knights, and that the knights ordered him to stop drumming. In other variations it is claimed that the story inspired Lewis Carroll, who lived in Richmond for a short while, into writing about Alice in Wonderland and Alice’s trip down the tunnel. The same word for word story was republished in a book in 1901 entitled Publications, and published by W. Glaisher, Ltd., and later in Examples of Printed Folklore Concerning the North Riding of Yorkshire by Eliza Gutch, also published in 1901. The story was mentioned in The Graphic, dated Saturday July 31st, 1920, and later in The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Monday September 8th, 1930. The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, dated Thursday December 10th, 1936, later added further details to the story, stating that the soldiers told the drummer boy of treasures in the tunnel, and that the point at where he stopped was occupied by Richmond Grammar School at that time. The Scotsman, dated Saturday December 14th, 1940, also featured the story, stating that there was a fabled underground passage that ran from the castle’s keep to Easby Abbey. The soldiers stationed in the garrison had heard the stories and wanting to prove

them they took a drummer boy and he entered the vault and began playing his drum. Above ground the soldiers listened and followed the sound of the drumming until it reached Frenchgate, and opposite the old Grammar School the drumming stopped abruptly. It then states that there are similar legends in Scotland in the Highlands. During 1956, the story was published in Bright Tapestry, by Margaret Mary Pearson, and published by Harrap, mentions the story of the phantom drummer boy of Richmond Castle. The Liverpool Echo, published on Saturday June 23rd, 1973, reported that the drummer boy was sent by soldiers to ascertain if the tunnel led to Easby Abbey. The story would later make it into Ghost Hunting in the Yorkshire Dales, by W. R. Mitchell, and published in 1996 by Castleberg. The story was also featured in Collins Ghost Hunters’ Guide to Britain, written by John Spencer, and Anne Spencer, and published by Collins in 2000, and later in The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England’s Legends, from Spring Heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys, by Jennifer Westwood, and Jacqueline Simpson, and published by Penguin in 2005. On May 28th, 2003, The Northern Echo reported that there would be a recreation of the tragic drummer boys walk. It was reported that a nine-year-old schoolboy, named Sam Rawson, would take the role of the drummer, and the public would follow him between Richmond Castle and Easby Abbey. The walk, which takes place annually, was organised by staff at the Green Howards Regimental Museum in Richmond. For more on Great Britain’s Ghostly Drummers check out his feature in Issue 26.

RICHMOND CASTLE – THE PHANTOM HOUNDS The castle is one of several locations in North Yorkshire that boasts phantom hounds! Black dogs across the region are commonplace, usually occupying tracks and crossroads. On several occasions in the past numerous eyewitnesses have come forward claiming that they have encountered phantom hounds

locked up in the grounds of the castle after hours. A number of staff and visitors have also reported seeing and hearing the dogs inside locked off buildings. There are, however, no dogs kept at the site after hours and the identity of these spectral canines remains a mystery. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

If you get the opportunity to visit Richmond, I thoroughly recommend a visit to the castle, you never know what you might hear.... or what you might find!

MikeCovell

Left: The Cursed Stairs Below: The entrance to Pan’s Cave

Charlie Hall

Musing My Charlie Hall, that’s her in the corner…

Religion The enchanting history of Bonamargy Friary

By Charlie Hall, The Musical Medium

allycastles Bonamargy Friary, is the most enchanting, haunted place I have visited in Northern Ireland, with its wealth of history, unusual gravestones and endless stories of mystery, paranormal happenings and myth. Upon researching the site and local area, I discovered many more exciting things than I had anticipated, such as tales of treasure, a ghostly nun, prophesies, and drownings. Having been to the friary twice in the past three years, I can certainly say that there is something alluring about it, a presence that draws you in and made me feel like I did not want to leave. I experienced a strong spiritual connection and familiarity somehow, which was enhanced by my mediumistic summoning that took an odd

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turn, (more about that later!!). The graveyard holds plenty of intriguing archaic surprises if you are willing to explore, headstones with strange angels, masonic symbols, skull and crossbones, graves from World War one and two and apparently one of a 127 year old male. Translated to, ‘The foot of the Margy’, Bonamargy is a third order Franciscan friary built in the early 1500’s on a previous holy plot near the Margy river. A basic building used for worship and education and to serve the McQuillan clan. The Franciscans fled in the late 1500’s when fighting began with the descending English and the friary was sadly set ablaze causing extensive damage. Opposing foes, the MacDonnell’s, took ownership and partially rebuilt it as a place for prayer again until around 1640.

Renowned Chieftain, Sorley Boy MacDonnell and other Antrim earls are buried in the vaults.

There is a curious story that suggests treasure was buried by the monks in the 17th century after several raids. Valuable trinkets, vessels, gold, and silver were placed in an iron chest, reportedly hidden North East, only to be found as far as a ray of candlelight from the East window can be seen. Many decades later locals caught wind of this historical rumour and police received reports of strange holes emerging in the grounds of the friary, but no treasure is known to have been recovered. An oak chest containing four important manuscripts from the 1300’s was unearthed by monks in 1822, including works by the famous Italian friar, theologian and philosopher, Thomas Aquinas. Over the years there have been numerous accounts of paranormal experiences from feelings of being watched, sounds of footsteps and whispering being heard, to sightings of shadow figures in and around the friary. In recent times a wandering family walked through a side passage, subsequently seen a few moments later nervously running out and telling someone nearby that a large two-foot stone bizarrely flew in front of them and shattered. Heritage staff and police were informed in case the structure was unsafe and quickly arrived to seal it off. They concluded that the stone was somehow propelled out of the wall, as though it had been shoved from behind! Another group claim to have seen a nun in a habit and sandals, run into the side entrance by the stairs, whilst countless others have noted seeing a nun either in the window, the stairwell or floating through the grounds and ruins, then vanishing, but who is this enigmatic nun? None other than Bonamargy’s legendary inhabitant, Julia McQuillan, a gifted prophetess, famously known as The Black Nun, who took up residency when the friary was abandoned

Picture: The Black Nun’s grave

in the 1640’s. It is said that she did not like people living in sin so was judgemental and unforgiving and supposedly shunned her own sister when she came to her pleading for forgiveness for her wrong doings. Her sister was unwell and needed help, so she begrudgingly let her in and prayed, but she later passed away, leaving Julia feeling guilt and regret for how she had treated her. No one really knows why she acquired her mysterious moniker; some speculate it could have been due to her eerie appearance or reclusive persona, the most likely explanation was because of her ability to foretell future events. Julia allegedly had many visions, predicting things like iron ships going between Ireland and Scotland with no sails, two centuries before steam ships were built, two distant standing stones would unite at a harbour pier, which people believe refers to when stones were brought from different areas to Ballycastle harbour, and that blood would run through a river, sadly a mill worker fell and was pulled through a water wheel staining the water red. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Picture: The entrance to the Friary

Left: The window out of the Friary

Below: Headstone with skull and crossbones

Her most recognised prophecy being that of a red-haired priest who would drown after mass at Murlough and sure enough in 1940 red haired priest Father James McCann, tragically fell victim to this harrowing augury. He had travelled to Ballycastle for Mass, then head to Pans Rock to swim the following day but got caught in the current and drifted into the Devils Churn, a perilous whirlpool that swallows anything in its path, and consequently drowned. Julia humbly requested to be buried at the main friary entrance so that worshippers would walk over her grave upon entering to symbolise her humility. She woefully met her demise on the friary steps, some say through falling others say she was pushed, nonetheless it has left generations with the belief that the stairs are cursed and bring bad luck to those who walk on them. Inhumed under a slab by the West door, her unique grave is marked by a now worn Celtic cross with a hole in the centre. According to folklore, if you circle the headstone seven

times clockwise, seven times anti clockwise, then place your hand through the middle opening, you will summon her. As a medium and paranormal researcher, I wanted to try this to see if I could make a connection with this gifted soul but first gave some words aloud, offering peace and showing respect, to ensure spirit my intention was through love and light. My Druid dad Clive thought it would be great to film and document our encounter so got the camera rolling, when part way through circling the stone there was a heavy presence and I saw dad look up from the camera. I carried on regardless and crouched down next to the grave following the final rotation and clearly felt an entity standing close to my left side, I tried to make contact but they disappointingly stayed silent. Dad said he had seen what he could only describe as a ripple go across the camera screen and thought somebody walked past, (hence looking up), though it was just us there, I couldn’t wait to review the footage. We left shortly after to get a drink and I excitedly looked through the digital camera only HAUNTED MAGAZINE

realising to my sheer dismay that something had corrupted my faithful device, (Its never failed me!). My memory card was in error mode and all the days photos and video had disappeared I was mortified. Luckily, I remembered I had taken a few back up pictures on my phone, (which I don’t normally do), when suddenly dad was out of sorts and said he did not feel good, he came over very dizzy and nauseas, so we had to head back. A bizarre chain of events indeed, was this all pure coincidence or did we unintentionally upset something, I guess we will never know. Later that week I was pondering on what I had learned re the priest’s prophecy at Pans rock and the Devils churn, I was keen to locate it and visit to see what else we would discover. We came across the beautiful place just a fifteen minute drive away by the beach. Our exploration led us to some fascinating caves, rock formations, a water vortex and face carvings. Treading cautiously down some very slippery steps to one cave we found the Devils churn, you can see why people are deceived by its waters as it looks like a shallow pool, but do not be fooled as to the left you can see the subtle ebb over the deadly whirlpool. Walking into the dark, damp, neighbouring cave gave me an extremely peculiar, uneasy feeling, the tunnel entrance was unfortunately graffitied and littered but I persisted to wander in deeper. My visibility lessened the further I trudged, so I took some pictures and was ecstatic to see later that I had captured two clear illuminated orbs with coloured auras. The origins of the rock face carvings are unclear, and I have read many theories as to who they could be of, based around forbidden loves, sea gods, suicides, and memoriam etc. Some tell of a lady’s suicide after a King killed her lover, others tell word of a little girl who drowned whilst collecting water, tales of a nun’s sinful love and a priest cast into the churn by druids, some even suggest they are monks carvings to mark Christianity, the list goes on. With the history, folklore, and entrancing places of Ballycastle, you can understandably see why people get carried away and lost in the excitement of its wondrous mysteries, my whole experience of investigating this story has been exhilarating with the unexpected things I learned along the way and additional places I got to roam as things unfolded, I cannot wait to go back and see what else will be revealed.

Charlie x

Haunting Weekends w ith

KE A P

Friday 29th - 31st July, 2022 KEAP Haunting Weekends in Shepton Mallet What does your Haunting Weekend consist of? • 2 Nights Dinner Bed & Breakfast at The Dusthole a 15th century Inn • Friday Night Investigation At Undisclosed Location • Investigation At Shepton Wookey Hole Caves • Goodie Bag Included

Weekend Price £200 Per Person

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Pa r a nor m a l

COVID SAFE INVESTIGATING Friday 25th - Sunday 27th November, 2022

KEAP Haunting Weekends in Shepton Mallet What does your Haunting Weekend consist of?

• 2 Nights Dinner Bed & Breakfast at The Dusthole a 15th century Inn • Friday Night Investigation and optional sleepover at Shepton Mallet Prison • Saturday Night Investigation At Undisclosed Location • Goodie Bag Included

Weekend Price £200 Per Person

Friday 13th - Sunday 15th May, 2022 KEAP Haunting Weekends in Beverley Friary What does your Haunting Weekend consist of? • 2 Nights Accommodation • Refreshments & Meals All Inclusive (Vegan Vegitarian on request) • Workshops • Mediumship Demonstration • History Talk - Mike Covell • Stalls • 1st Night - Beverley Tour hosted by Mike Covell • 2nd Night - Ghost Hunt at Beverley Friary with Mike Covell in attendance • Free Time to explore Friary and surrounding areas • Goodie Bag Included

Price £165 Per Person to be paid in full or by 3 instalments

For more details, visit the website: w w w.keapinsidethep ar anor mal.c o.uk or c all 07591414161

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HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

HOW DOES RICHARD ESTEP GET HIS PARANORMAL KICKS?

ON ROUTE

666 OF COURSE!

f there’s one thing the Americans love, it’s a road trip…and who can blame them? This country has mile after mile of open road, each one leading to a myriad of potential adventures. In the summer of 2021, I gathered together a small group of fellow paranormal enthusiasts and hit the open road, planning to visit ten haunted locations over the space of ten nights in what we came to call “The Great American Ghost Trip.”

I’m a Leicester lad, transplanted to Colorado some twenty-plus years ago. I like to think of Colorado as being the Midlands of the USA. Living here, it’s possible to use it as a starting point to go off in pretty much any direction. For the first of what I hope will be many such journeys, I decided to go east. When it came to haunted locations, we really were spoiled for choice, and shortly after I left my home late one Friday, heading for the state line separating Colorado from Nebraska, a brilliant shooting star blazed through the night sky above, lighting up the lonely stretch of road I was driving on. This nod and a wink from Mother Nature seemed like a sign of things to come, the firing of the starter pistol in a race that would take me almost 4,000 miles. Along the way, the good people at Haunted Magazine (Paul and Andy) ran a #WhereIsRichardEstepToday hashtag competition, based on daily photographs I posted from each location. The winner — the person who guessed the most locations correctly — got to dedicate the book when it was finished.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

First Stop: Malvern Manor, Iowa (553 miles) This old favorite of mine wasn’t a “proper” location on the trip, more of a haunted waypoint for me to stop off, get some rest, and visit an old friend. Josh Heard, who oversees this infamously haunted former hotel-turnednursing home, has a side gig as Kiefer Sutherland’s stunt man (allegedly). Chatting with Josh about nothing in particular, it’s a delight to see the closet door which faces his recording studio open itself, apropos of nothing, with nobody anywhere near it at the time. A simple phenomenon, and one that we’re not able to debunk after repeated testing of the door and frame. As I’ve always said, Malvern Manor never disappoints. Josh Heard outside Malvern Manor

On Dark Ground: The Monroe House (1,206 miles) After putting another 650 miles on my truck, the team assembled in Hartford City, Indiana, for a return visit to the Monroe House. It seems like you can’t throw a rock without hitting a supposedly “dark” haunting these days, but this house is the real deal. With a murky history that reads like something out of a Stephen King novel, the Monroe House draws paranormal investigators from across the United States. To this day, nobody knows the identity of the human remains that are still buried in a crawlspace underneath the house. I researched and wrote about the Monroe House extensively in my book, “On Dark Ground,” and I was ready for more answers. The team was fresh and eager, despite the long journey, and we throw every investigative technique in the book

at the place before calling it a night and sleeping there. I slept soundly but my colleagues did not. One of them, a first-time visitor to the house who had chosen to sleep alone in the living room, woke up in the early hours of the morning to find the kitchen door handle jiggling, as though somebody is trying to get in. Of course, there’s nobody there. For my part, I’m taking notes and writing a book about the trip as we go along. I wrote late into the night and crashed out on an air mattress upstairs. Another investigator woke up to hear the sound of my keyboard clicketyclacking, and assumed I was up early, hitting my daily word count. Poking her head around the open door, she was surprised to find me sleeping soundly, my iPad sitting untouched right next to me.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

Seeking Asylum at Randolph County (1,248 miles) Our next stop is just forty-ish miles away. The Randolph County Infirmary/Asylum is a magnificent, sprawling old building, which was once the county poor farm, a place where those with no home or family could live and sustain themselves by working the land. It is owned by Dann Allen, who works to save and maintain historic buildings. We’re there for 48 hours, and our biggest challenge is simply where to star. The place is huge, and reports of ghostly activity come from each and every floor. Visitors have witnessed apparitions (as has Dann himself), shadow figures, phantom voices and footsteps — the list goes on. There’s also, it is believed, a Potter’s Field located directly outside the asylum, where a number of its former residents would be buried. The building is home to a plethora of spirits, such as Doris, who worked in the kitchen for decades and loved to collect

dolls. The room in which she died is filled with them, and it’s easily the eeriest place I’ve visited in quite some time. Then there’s young Noah, a little boy said to have died of measles inside its walls. Visitors often sit and play with him, with toys and coloring books. Disconcertingly, there seems to be some sort of aggressive presence in the basement, as one of my companions found to his surprise when he was shoved by something unseen in one of the corridors. Spirit box and talking board activity was particularly strong that night, and among some of the more impressive audio phenomena was the sound of a woman’s voice being heard not once, not twice, but three times while the entire team had gathered in one place. Randolph County just begs for a more in-depth investigation. We’re sad to leave, and I can’t wait to go back.

Michelle Belanger vs The Monroe House (1,296 miles) Dann Allen also owns the old Blackford County Jail in Hartford City. His brother, Rich, has extensive experience with the place, because he spent a lot of time there in his capacity as a police officer. We’re told that at least one prisoner died there (he was found hanging) and the jail is said to be haunted by a former sheriff, who died of a heart attack. Dann has seen the sheriff’s apparition with his own eyes, upstairs in what is now a bedroom. I was very interested in exploring claims of a link between the jail and the nearby Monroe House, which is located just a stone’s throw up the street. Many paranormal

investigators believe the two places are connected somehow. Using the phone-afriend option, I brought in respected occult researcher Michelle Belanger to consult. Michelle tried to remote view our location, and provide us with information on it, as I wandered around the jail, with her voice on speakerphone. She detected something non-human in the basement of the jail, hunched and skittering. Dann told us that he believed the jail had a Pukwudgie, a mischievous type of nature spirit that is likened to a sort of elemental raccoon. Our next stop was the Monroe House, which Michelle has prior experience

with, having visited to film an episode of “Paranormal Lockdown.” It’s safe to say that whatever haunts the Monroe House doesn’t like females in general, and Michelle in particular. Our remote Estes Method session brought up lots of derogatory terms for women and turned into a show-down between Michelle and the house itself. Michelle is not somebody to be pushed around, and as things grew heated between her and the unseen communicator, we heard the sound of footsteps pacing around the supposedly empty house.

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Uncivil War (1,837 miles) The next day, we drove over 500 miles east, to spend three days on some of North America’s most hallowed ground: Gettysburg. I’m one of many paranormal investigators attending the Battlefield Bash, a wonderful event run by Pam and Steve Barry (along with Erik Julian and a small army of volunteers) which raises money for charity. While I’m there, there are several haunted locations to cross off my bucket list. The Orphanage was established after the battle, in order to care for the fatherless children of Civil War veteran. It soon developed a reputation for being abusive, thanks to its harridan of a matron, a cruel woman named Rosa Carmichael, who thought nothing of beating, starving, and allowing her young charges to freeze. We spent time in the basement, focusing on a cell which served as solitary confinement for the poor little mites who somehow became the targets of Carmichael’s ire. Most were chained to the wall and left in that cramped, enclosed space, usually in absolute darkness. Little wonder that the Orphanage is still haunted by the spirits of children today, along with an aggressive presence that some believe to be the spirit of Rosa Carmichael herself… Standing across the street from the Orphanage is the Jennie Wade House, the subject of our second overnight investigation. We kicked off at midnight, when some of my team-mates thoughtfully surprised me with some birthday gifts and desserts. There was nowhere I’d rather have been on my 48th birthday than with friends at a historic and haunted location, and we eat cupcakes standing next to a life-sized statue of Virginia “Jennie” Wade, the only civilian killed during the battle. A stray bullet passed through the kitchen door and hit Jennie while she was making dough with which to feed Union troops. She bled out inside the house and took her last breath there. Jennie’s body is buried in the cemetery just a stone’s throw away from the site of her death. The house is now a living museum, preserving the look and feel of 19th century life. Stories of phantom mists, light phenomena, footsteps, and EVPs are on record, though we experienced little that seemed paranormal during our investigation, with the exception of some interesting spirit box activity. The Farnsworth House is my favorite place to stay in Gettysburg (so much so that I wrote an entire book about it) and I decided to sleep in one of the rooms I had never spent the night in before. This was Jeremy’s Room, named after a young boy who is said to have been hit by a horse and buggy in the street outside, brought upstairs, and passed away in what is now the bathroom of the Sarah Black Room, just a couple of doors down. One fellow investigator, who is staying in that room, has the door handle jiggled several times in the night, but in the Jeremy Room, I sleep soundly. We’re joined by Sam Baltrusis, a medium who helps us investigate the cellar and it’s infamously haunted mirror, which he tells us is a gateway for spirit entities to come into and out of the Farnsworth House. One of my investigators is so overwhelmed by the atmosphere down there that she leaves the cellar in tears, ending our sojourn in America’s most haunted battlefield on a somber note. 6

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

The Ghosts that Saved America (1,998 miles) Back on the road again, our little convoy kept pushing east. Our destination: the Fort that saved America, Fort Mifflin. Located on the Delaware river, in 1777, this military base held out against the might of the Royal Navy for long enough to delay resupply of the British Army that was fighting George Washington and his Continental Army. It is also haunted by a screaming lady, whose identity and origin are still in doubt. Legend has it that she was the wife of a member of the fort’s garrison, although there’s no real evidence to support the contention. What we do know for certain is that numerous visitors to the fort have heard the sound of a woman shrieking, coming from

somewhere around the grounds of the fort. One of my colleagues heard that very thing as she arrived, as did Greg, our friend and host for the evening. We were keen to get to grips with the officer’s quarters, where, on a previous investigation, two female investigators were physically affected during an Estes Method session. One felt invisible hands upon her body, and the other virtually collapsed — I had to support her to prevent her from falling to the floor. This time, although the physical interactions were much less intense, the same investigators still made contact with a belligerent male and a female who asked desperately for help.

It Smells Like Death (2,373 miles) Fort Mifflin was our furthest stop east. The next day, we reversed course and headed west to Ohio. My good friend Kristin Lee is prepping the Bellaire House for our overnight stay. Built on a coal mine and, some say, a confluence of ley lines, this ordinary-looking residence is home to some truly bizarre paranormal activity — so aggressive, in fact, that it drove Kristin out. She now lives elsewhere and has turned the house into a veritable playground and research lab for paranormal investigators. I’ve been there before and was impressed with the level of activity we encountered. This time, despite the house being thoroughly cleaned and sanitized due to Covid protocols, there was a pungent stench in one of the upstairs bedrooms that can most charitably be described as “deathlike.” At first, I thought that an animal might have crawled under the bed and died, but a thorough search of the room turned up nothing, and the smell dissipated as quickly as it arrived. Kristin even contacted the utility company, who sent out a technician and confirmed that it wasn’t a gas leak. The stink came and went, always localized to the same room, and we never figured out the cause. Our spirit box was also very chatty at Bellaire, and the two investigators who spent the night downstairs were treated several times to the sound of disembodied footsteps walking all around them in the darkness. We each had our own bedroom. I chose to spend the night in the back bedroom, in which Kristin and her dog were savagely attacked by an unseen force. I got a solid five-hour sleep, only to be woken up by a Rem-Pod alarming in the hallway outside my room. Naturally, there was nobody out there. HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

Sallie's Home: (3,227 miles) For our finale, we drove almost a thousand miles to confront a house that has the capacity to unnerve even me: the Sallie House, in Atchison, Kansas. From the street, it looks like an ordinary home, and once belonged to the town doctor. Legend has it that a young girl named Sallie died while being operated on, due to a ruptured appendix. Supposedly she now haunts the house. It’s a great story, but I don’t know how much evidence there is to support Sallie’s physical existence. What we do know, however, is that a young couple who moved into the house during the 1990s claim to have undergone a horrific ordeal at the hands of some kind of malicious entity. Their experiences were documented by the TV show “Sightings,” and included wounds spontaneously occurring on the body of the male occupant of the home. Psychics said that they encountered the spirit of a little girl in the home, and judging from the barrage of attacks that followed, Sallie can be a very nasty girl indeed…if that’s what she actually is. After a recent investigation of the house, I suffered a blown tire at high speed on the interstate which sent me spinning out of control off the road. I was lucky not to be seriously hurt. Normally I’m skeptical of so-called curses, but I’ve interviewed several investigators who have experienced episodes of “bad luck” soon after leaving this house, so I’m beginning to rethink my opinion.

It was a busy night in more ways than one. Hammering on the front door turned out to come from a throng of college students, hundreds of them filling the street outside the house in a post-game parade. Then the weirdness really started. Spontaneous Rempod activity on the staircase *could* conceivably have come from radio transmissions, but harder to explain by far was the stereo system inexplicably switching itself on. Male voices coming through the spirit box were so crude and sexually suggestive that they could never have been from a commercial radio station. Less than an hour after saying goodbye to my team in the early hours of the morning and beginning the long drive west to Colorado, I learned that the Sallie House had one last card to play. Two of my companions had gone back to the house, realizing that they had forgotten to throw out some of the food they’d placed in the fridge. One stayed in the car while the other went inside. He heard the sound of a door slamming from somewhere inside the locked house, and the kitchen light switched itself on. He hurriedly ditched the food and left. His wife asked why he had gone upstairs. Puzzled, he said that he had not…so who switched on the bedroom light on the second floor? She saw it come on as she waited for him to return. He had never gone upstairs…

Home (3,871 miles) Almost 650 miles (and two safety naps at truck stops) later, I pulled into my driveway at home. What an adventure the past couple of weeks had been. There had been highs and lows, fun, laughter, and of course, the inevitable drama. I spent ten minutes getting saged down by my wife before being allowed to enter our home, where a drooling bundle of fur hit me like a missile and begins licking my face. Nobody misses you quite like a rescue dog does! Tired, aching, and sleepdeprived, I soaked in a hot bath full of Himalayan salt, just grateful to be home 8

— and already thinking about how to do it all over again next year, only bigger and badder… I’d like to extend my thanks to the good people at Haunted Magazine for their support, plus all the readers who followed this adventure vicariously via social media. A special shout out to the location owners who opened their doors, and to my companions who came along for the ride. This adventure would not have been possible without you.

Richard

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

Written by Sarah Streamer

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

THE O HOUSE WITH A DARK, SHADOWY PAST BUT A BRIGHT FUTURE...

n a winding gravel road, in Cattaraugus County, New York, there sits an unassuming old farmhouse. This white, two-story house is much like any other that you would find in the area. It’s got a kitchen, a family room and three small upstairs bedrooms that you can only access by a narrow, steep staircase. Many families have lived in this house over the years, but it is now home to a different type of family. The Hinsdale House, recently rescued from demolition, has seen many different shades of residents since the 1850s, and has finally found its place as a beloved research center for the paranormal community. In order to fully understand Hinsdale’s permanent residents better, a look at its history and surrounding folklore is necessary. This story starts long before the house was built. In the early 1800s Cattaraugus County was home to many different Indian tribes that lived on the land. It’s thought that the natives have left their lasting mark on the land that the house is built on. Not long after an epidemic in the area, the land was purchased by settlers that were moving through the area and the house itself was built in 1853. A pair of brothers purchased the property and lived there for about 8 years. The Everet brothers’ time on the property was the subject of local folklore for years to come. It’s said that these brothers would lure in travelers on the stagecoach lines. Once the travelers were on the property, they were robbed, raped, and murdered and their bodies were stored in the house until they could be buried in the back. After the Everet brothers left, the house had a run of normal, farmstead activity until 1942 when Alfred Warren Emerson was severely wounded close to the property in a gruesome buzz saw accident. While young Alfred didn’t die on the property, he has been seen there many times as an apparition.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

n 1970, the Dandy family, the most famous of the past residents, moved into the Hinsdale House. The Dandy family began to experience strange things that escalated into something more worrying over the next few years. It began with their dogs bringing home bones that appeared suspiciously human. Voices and chanting were heard, windows slammed closed, the sounds of objects falling, and screams were all experienced by the family during this time. Eventually, the poltergeist activity attracted a film crew from New York City that wanted to film a famous psychic and priest coming into the house to help the family. On April 13, 1974, Father Alphonsus Trabold of St. Bonaventure was able to perform a structural exorcism on the house, during which, it’s said, the house shook like a freight train. After 20 seconds that felt like hours, the house was declared cleared of spirits and the activity

stopped… for a while. After a few short months, the family begins to deal with paranormal and poltergeist activity again and it drove them to leave the house and move as far away as they could get. In 1986 the house is bought by an elderly couple, Joe and Flo Misnik. They also experience paranormal activity in the house, but not to the extent that the Dandy family did. Eventually, the house ends up sitting empty. It was abandoned for some after time after the Misniks were gone and fell into major disrepair, having all the duct work and wiring stripped out and becoming home to half a million honeybees. With such a history of paranormal activity, it’s no surprise that local paranormal teams began to visit it and conduct investigations, both in the house and on the surrounding land. At the time, these teams focused on the structural exorcism that was conducted in 1974

because that was the most common, and negative piece of history available about the house, but it’s not the only paranormal activity at that site. Investigators have experienced disembodied voices, footsteps, shadows, noises, and even phantom mists. It’s no wonder the house attracted so many investigators during this time. One team spent many nights exploring the house and its stories and grew quite fond of the property. Dan Klaes and the Greater West New York Paranormal Society conducted research on the house and property and began to uncover other families and deaths that connected to the property that could be related to the haunting. Eventually, in June of 2014, the team came to a point that they had to say goodbye to the beloved location. It had been slated for demolition and that date was quickly approaching.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

ith only 2 weeks left standing, Dan and his team went in for a farewell investigation. During this investigation, Dan connected with, who he believes, was Flo Misnik, one of the former residents of the house. After posting his experience on his Facebook page, Flo and Joe’s granddaughter reached out to Dan to talk about the house and his experience. This was a turning point for both Dan and the Hinsdale House. He decided right then and there that the house was worth saving and he was going to do it. In the weeks that followed, Dan was able to convince the owners of his passion and vision for the house; a full-time paranormal research center. They agreed to sell it to him and his journey as the owner of the Hinsdale House officially began. To make his visions a reality, he had a lot of work to do. There were major restorations that had to be done to get it back into basic working order to host teams for their investigations and research. Dan called on the paranormal community to help fix the location up and people came out of the woodwork to support the project. They volunteered their time and brought materials, tools, and manpower to help fix the roof, paint, patch woodwork, clean the yard and help with so many other projects. All the positive energy of bringing people together to save the location has had an amazing impact on so many individuals. New relationships have formed, common visions are shared and there has even been a honeymoon on site. Despite all the hard work that Dan and his supporters have put into the location, there is still a lot of work to be done. Restorations on this property will continue for years. Right now, a pole barn is being constructed as storage and there is a lot of work being put into clearing another 6 acres of overgrown property. Dan also has plans to build cabins on the property to act as a museum and a safehouse for teams when they investigate. Another future project is the renovation of the interior of the house. The kitchen and main floor living room need paint and paneling to make it feel like it did in the 70s. All these visions are coming together to improve the location and the paranormal field for many years to come. The continued research of the house and property is a high priority project and has become a team effort in the paranormal community. A camera system has been installed in the house that continuously records what is happening. Any team that would like access to the footage of their stay has the ability to download it, giving them the opportunity to have more eyes on the investigation. Teams share their evidence with Dan and the community to help fill in the story gaps a little bit at a time. With everyone working hard to support this amazing location, it will be restored to its former glory in no time. In addition to the team effort on telling the house’s story, it has had a positive impact on the local community. Teams and individuals from all over the country and even the world have come to the small town of Hinsdale to support the house. Fundraising continues to happen to help restore the Hinsdale House. Events are held regularly at the location, continuing to bring people together with positive energy and healing for the house and the land. The official Hinsdale House Restoration Project information can be found on Facebook and Patreon, with many ways to support the location from both near and far. Dan and his supporters have taken a location that was in rough shape and transformed it into a site that everyone should visit in their paranormal career. On top of the activity that is reported there, the history is amazing as well. This is a location that deserves to be preserved for many years to come; hopefully advancing paranormal research and standing tall for the next generation of the paranormal community.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

Sarah x

In an exclusive interview we get to find out what makes Danny tick, what makes him tock and how, when and why he has got to where he is now.

DANNY THE CHAMPION OF THE WEIRD

You seem to go from one paranormal project to the next, do you ever sleep? No. Ok, maybe a little, but definitely not enough. It’s been a mad year – wonderful and fun, but incredibly full on, juggling a lot of different things, both current projects and things that were delayed by Covid and are coming back into production now. It’s all exciting stuff though, so I can put up with a little less sleep… Though maybe it was the wrong time to give up coffee. How has Battersea Poltergeist Live been for you? Did you worry if it would transfer from radio to stage? I was really nervous about it. I hadn’t set foot on a stage for ten years and also the tour came right as we were launching Uncanny so it was a bit of a whirlwind, but I just had the best time ever doing it. The muscle memory of my old days of acting and doing stand-up comedy came back to me as soon as I stepped out on stage. We performed in lovely old theatres across the county, like the Grand Opera House in York and the Theatre Royal in Brighton, complete with a whole load of history and (allegedly) their own ghosts. It was a brilliant chance to connect with the community of listeners that has grown around the show and also to introduce a lot of new people who hadn’t heard the podcast to this incredible ghost story. The story is so strong that I think it could work in any medium, but I was chuffed with the live show – I felt like it was a proper, fun spooky night out, equally enjoyable whether you were an obsessive fan of the podcast or had never even heard of it. I’m so glad we did it now and I really hope we’ll bring it back for another tour. I’d love to do an Uncanny Live show too. Tell us about Uncanny, how did that come about? Uncanny grew out of The Battersea Poltergeist. One of the lovely off shoots of that was that I received hundreds of emails and social media messages from people who wanted to tell me their ghost stories. In fact, I have been receiving those ever since I made my first show Haunted. In many cases, the people sending me stories haven’t really told many other people about them before. Almost all the cases we feature in Uncanny have never been told publicly before now. The common thread is that they all feature an ordinary person having an extraordinary, life changing experience that they believe is paranormal. Then, with the help of a team of experts, I help them explore it to see if we can solve the mystery of what happened. We have this amazing extra resource of our listeners – the hive mind. The idea is each episode is a beginning – we throw over the case to the audience so they can help us investigate. The cases we feature aren’t all ghosts, we also feature UFOs and we’ll stray into some other realms such as cryptozoology and folklore. The first case we featured, regarding a haunting in a student hall of residence in 1980s Belfast, seemed to really capture people’s imagination. The story went viral, and the listener response was amazing. New witnesses came forward and we have already done a follow-up episode. It’s a genuinely chilling story!! Do you think that anything paranormal with ever be proven 100% or is it the uncertainty that people find appealing? It’s so hard to know, isn’t it? One of our Uncanny interviewees said to me, “the impossible is just things that haven’t been proven yet”. Maybe one

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

day we will understand ghosts better, but yes, I think the mystery and uncertainty is appealing – it’s the thrill of the hunt, isn’t it? What lies in the shadows, outside the bright lights of our everyday existence? Also 2:22 – A Ghost Story is now back in the theatre for its second run, was that an easy decision to make, what is it like working with an all-new cast? The first run went really well this summer. We broke box office records at the Noel Coward Theatre. Apparently, we also broke their bar records – which suggests people needed a few stiff drinks to cope with the spookiness! But I think it shows that there’s a real desire for ghost stories at the moment. You can feel it in the air. Also, just that buzz of being out at the theatre – we wanted the show to feel like an event, a big night out, something you’re going to find yourself talking about in the pub with your mates afterwards. We weren’t sure if we’d be able to come back for another run this quickly, but then a theatre came free so we leapt in. We’re at the Gielgud Theare in London’s West End. Check out www.222aghoststory.com for more info and tickets! It’s really exciting to be running over Christmas – a time when ghost stories are a real British tradition. The new cast seem sensational – we have Giovanna Fletcher who won last year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Outta Here but is also a great actress, Elliot Cowan (Mr Darcy from Lost in Austen), the brilliant Stephanie Beatriz from Brooklyn 99 and James Buckley from The Inbetweeners. How exciting is that? There was a real tangible buzz around them on social media when we announced.

When did you become fascinated with all things paranormal? Did something trigger / set it all off? I’ve been fascinated by it since I was a kid. I think it’s to do with growing up with atheist parents. I was fascinated by ‘belief’ – that there was something more out there; something magical and mysterious. Some people would have found God, I found ghosts. I also think my interest deepened after I had an experience in my early 20s where I thought I was dying. I was convinced I was having a heart attack, but it was actually just a panic attack. It felt so real and horrible though and it gave me a profound fear of death for probably a couple of years afterwards. I just hated the idea that life would suddenly cease. I think that awareness of my own mortality made me become more fascinated by the idea of ghosts. As much as ghost stories can be scary, they also offer comfort – the hope that death is not the end. You’ve worked with the likes of Ciaran O’Keeffe and Evelyn Hollow many times over the last year, is it easy to accept their explanations to certain things at times, has your mind ever been changed because of them? I love working with them both, and indeed the other experts who feature on Uncanny such as Chris French, Rev Peter Laws, Deborah Hyde and Caroline Watt. I love the fact that I can be surprised by their theories –

both sceptical and paranormal. Surrounding yourself with people like that can help you see cases in a new light.

“ I’ve always thought ghost stories are detective stories – if you are a believer, you’re trying to work out the source of the haunting – who the ghost is – and if you are a sceptic, you’re trying to work out the environmental or psychological factors at play.“ Having a team of sleuths from both backgrounds gives you the best of both worlds. Ciaran and Evelyn, I have grown particularly close too, because we spent so much time together on The Battersea Poltergeist and for the recent live tour and I’m looking forward to working with them again on my next investigation. Do you think social media plays an important role in the paranormal sector? It certainly does for me because I love the engagement around the shows I make – the fact that we can all join in the investigation together. That question “Do Ghosts Exist?” is something that literally everyone has an opinion on and of course social media is the place we debate our opinions these days. One trend I think is interesting is that of people sharing their hauntings on social media. The question there of course is the degree to which that is genuine or contrived but I definitely think social media is a great way to build or plug into a community. I’ve been really touched by the support of the paranormal community for the shows I’ve made – it’s been so lovely. I came from outside their world, but they have really welcomed me in. Re: 2:22, the original cast worked perfectly, was it a conscious decision to get Lily Allen involved. Matthew Dunster, our director, just had an instinct that she would be great. We managed to get a script to her and we caught her at just the right moment when she was looking for a new development in her career. She hadn’t acted before, but she was such a natural. She really was brilliant. For those that have had the pleasure of going to watch Battersea Poltergeist LIVE they were lucky to hear the new witnesses and new evidence. Will that be made available to the not so lucky ones? Yes, I’m pretty sure we are going to do a follow up episode next year. Probably around Easter time. We have some really compelling new witnesses with some evidence that throws an intriguing new light on the case.

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

Plus, I know people will be keen to hear how Shirley has been getting on.

Everyone has a ghost story, or so the saying goes, do you believe that? I think everyone has a second-hand ghost story and a lot more people than you think have a first-hand one. That’s what’s been so revealing, getting all the emails I have over the last year or so – it’s amazing how many people have had experiences and some of them are so compelling. Completely ordinary people with stories to tell that read like Stephen King novels. That’s why Uncanny is such a pleasure to make – I love exploring these weird and chilling tales, told by people just like you and me. Has your beliefs, views and opinions on the paranormal changed over the course of the last 12 months. I describe myself as a sceptic who wants to believe. In the last year, I’ve certainly been told stories that push my scepticism to the very limits. I would love there to be something out there, something more than just the reality of the world around us – I think you can hear that in my shows…

What’s your favourite paranormal stories that you’d really to get your teeth stuck into. I am reading The Apparition Phase by

Will Maclean at the moment. I also enjoyed Thin Air by Michelle Paver. Both great ghost stories. I like reading ghost stories. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is a favourite, but I like real ghost stories even better. It’s the realness I find really scares me most, The fact that, if it actually happened to these people, it could happen to you. The Enfield Poltergeist is a case I find myself enduringly fascinated by. Did you ever think that the Battersea Poltergeist would become as big as it did? No. I’d hoped it would be successful but couldn’t have dreamt of the kind of worldwide impact it had. It felt very surreal having Hollywood producers calling me up in my shed at the bottom of my garden in Walthamstow. What a mad and wonderful adventure. I count myself extremely lucky to have met Shirley and been allowed to tell her amazing story. Have you ever been on a paranormal investigation? Yes, and I have had fun times on some investigations, but I do sometimes find them a bit anti-climactic. You arrive full of excitement but can leave a little disappointed by a lack of ‘action’. I think maybe I am more interested in people than places. I love hearing people tell me

about their experiences and I tend to think that the most interesting supernatural experiences (if that is truly what they are) happen when we are least expecting them. When we are going looking for ghosts they don’t necessarily want to play ball… That said, it is pretty exciting arriving at a creepy old mansion knowing you are going to be roaming around in the dark, that frisson of fear… I think I’ll always keep my hand in going out on investigations. What’s next for Danny in 2022? Uncanny will run till the end of January, then we have a new case that we are investigating in the same way we did The Battersea Poltergeist, using a mixture of drama and documentary to tell it over 8 parts. That will be out later next year. I’m also working on the TV pilot of The Battersea Poltergeist and I’m writing a show about The Gunpowder Plot that will be on in some old vaults under The Tower of London. It’s immersive theatre that also uses VR and I think it could be really thrilling. You can find out more here

https://gunpowderimmersive.com/ There will be a few other things too – watch this space!!

HAUNTED MAGAZINE: THE GREAT AMERICAN GHOST TRIP

STA LL S | S E A N C E | M EET & G R EET S & M O R E

FEATURING:

BARRY FITZGERALD

PATTI NEGRI

BARRI GHAI

SARA & PHIL WHYMAN

GHOST HUNTERS INTERNATIONAL

GHOST ADVENTURES

HELP! MY HOUSE IS HAUNTED UNEXPLAINED CAUGHT ON CAMERA

DANIEL KLAES

ARE YOU HAUNTED?

PHILIP KINSELLA

WITH CHRIS & BRANNON SMITH, MIKE GON

CALVES AKA

THE TENNESSEE WRAITH CHASERS

THE HINSDALE HOUSE [OWNER] GHOST FINDERS

ROB THOMPSON

UFOLOGIST

RONALD KINSELLA

UFOLOGIST

GHOST FINDERS

SIMON ENTWISTLE

MIRANDA YOUNG

STORYTELLER

GHOST BIKER EXPLORATIONS

PENNY GRIFFITHS-MORGAN

RICHARD FREEMAN CRYPTOZOOLOGIST

AUTHOR | HISTORIAN [FRIDAY]

AND MANY MORE...

BOSWORTH HALL TH E

PARK ,

MARKET

BOSWORTH

CV13

0 LP

11TH - 13TH MARCH 2022 PAC K AG E S AVA I L A B LE W W W. FE STI VA LO F TH EU N E X PL A I N ED.CO M

The Paranormal Subculture on YouTube By Brian Baker

hen the digital gods conjured up a new portal for video entertainment, they probably had some idea that paranormal videos would manifest themselves. YouTube has been a ubiquitous haunt for amateurparanormal researchers, spookyvideo curators and their stans. Some television show episodes, like “Ghost Adventures”, have been illegally shared on the platform, only to have them make like a disappearing shadow figure once copyright infringement has been declared.

A lot of paranormal types are now streaming their investigations via YouTube in the hope of reaching out to a newer audience but there has been a kind of paranormal underground bubbling away for years. For the most part, it’s been a haven for audience members intrigued by the inexplicable captured on film, and their appetites are whetted by curated content channels like Sir Spooks, Slapped Ham and Nuke’s Top 5, as well as paranormal researcher YouTubers Franko TV, Live SciFi and OmarGoshTV.

SLAPPED HAM Kallen Johnstone launched Slapped Ham in 2014 and has seen his channel get bigger in the last couple of years. He initially started sharing videos about history, science, nature and pop culture but shifted the subject matter began in 2017 when they noticed the appetite for paranormal content. “We eventually noticed … ‘What are we doing? Let’s just go for this niche,” the 35-year-old Melbourne native said. “That’s when we saw some traction and our channel pretty much exploded from there.” The number of views of each video segment can run anywhere from 300,000 to just under a million. Slapped Ham also has 2.4 million subscribers. Johnstone has always been intrigued by the paranormal, having imbibed in a steady diet of “Unsolved Mysteries” and “The X-Files.” And he’s well aware that pop culture can influence beliefs. “It goes way back though doesn’t it, Gothic literature is heavily steeped in the paranormal and mysterious tales, I think it comes from there and slowly built up,” he said. “TV and movies grab a hold of that because there’s something in that people are fascinated by, whatever the medium. “It speaks to the afterlife and people want to know, ‘Is there something bigger to life?’ That’s what grips people and draws them in.” HAUNTED MAGAZINE

SIR SPOOKS Myths, legends and mysterious tales have also fascinated Mikkel Lundgaard, the curator of the YouTube channel Sir Spooks. He’s based out of Odense, Denmark and his hometown has its legend — Åmanden of Odense River — that’s akin to the Nixie of Scandinavian folklore or the Kelpie in Scotland. If a person does not drown in the stream to satisfy the sprite, then water will envelop the entire town. His love of folklore is also put into a second YouTube channel called the Spooky Hour. But most of his viewers, more than 736,000 of them, soak up the ghost videos that he collects through submissions from YouTube and Reddit. He veered off from his original mission of sharing videos about the MMORPG game Runescape, and he channelled his interest in horror, cryptids and urban legends. “I’d seen some channels that also presented scary videos and I thought it would be fun to just try it out and do a video about Bigfoot,” the 23-year-old admitted. “That’s what I did five years ago, and it turned out to do well, so I just continued.” Since the age of 10, he’s had a keen interest in the inexplicable, as well as exploring old, abandoned houses on the island of Funen. One of those adventures provided Lundgaard with his own ghost story. Four of his friends were over for a sleepover and he suggested visiting an abandoned house at night. He had explored it during the day and the doors were open. During the night, however, the doors were locked up. “It had been abandoned for 30 years and one of my friends tried to open the door, but then we heard a loud banging noise from inside,” he recalled. “That just made us all jump in fear and run away. I’m not sure what that was, a ghost or just some person, but it didn’t make sense anyone would go in there and lock the door at night. It was out in the middle of nowhere. “That’s always stood out as one of the weird experiences I’ve had as a kid.” That’s the perfect source material for the Sir Spooks channel, which features a lot of usersubmitted stories, as well as segments from paranormal investigators that live-stream or share episodes of their investigations on YouTube.

Which introduces audiences to a whole different side of the paranormal community on YouTube. Some content raises concerns for established paranormal researchers like Elliott van Dusen the Director of Paranormal Phenomena Research and Investigation (PPRI), based in Halifax, N.S, and Tim Wood of Live SciFi, based in San Francisco, Calif. Both are often worried that the snippets of video taken from investigations are taken out of context. “The type of content they’re putting out has got that entertainment aspect to it,” said Van Dusen during an early July Zoom conversation. “They have really good editing skills, and they do creepy music and graphics … It would be fair to say that I do worry about some of the content that’s being put out there.”

The 38-year-old’s main concern is how much the media can influence paranormal beliefs. He cited a 2001 study by Purdue communications professor Glenn Sparks and Dr. Will Miller about shows like “The X-Files” and “Unsolved Mysteries” impacting beliefs of people in extrasensory perception, alien abductions and communication with the dead. Van Dusen is a former RCMP Corporal who retired after 15 years of service. He’s studied under the tutelage of Loyd Auerbach, as well as earned degrees from the University of Edinburgh’s Koestler Parapsychology Unit as well as the Rhine Education Center. He recently launched a monthly video podcast called Duelling Parapsychologists with PPRI colleague Darryll Walsh. “You can find some good quality stuff there,” Van Dusen said. “The modern era of parapsychology has seen such an increase in individuals who selfidentify as paranormal investigators and researchers.

“You’re constantly seeing evidence of survival — like ghost photos and videos and audio clips are posted on people’s social media, but you don’t have any sort of explanation,” the 38-year-old added. “They don’t say what they did to analyze (the evidence).” Wood concurred, expressing concern that the full context of a video is not shared, and the lead-up to the phenomenon is cut for the sake of a more lurid visual.

“I think it’s great they’re sharing the content, but I’ve seen it, even with my stuff, that they don’t get the story right,” Wood said, during a July phone conversation. “They don’t take the time to fully tell the viewer what transpired. They’re just taking a section of it.”

Wood has been the lead investigator and creator of livescifi.tv since 2008. Based out of San Francisco he started his HAUNTED MAGAZINE

investigations on Justin.tv back in 2007. Justin.tv was the early form of Twitch. Originally Livescifi, which has a subscriber base of over 478,000, was approached by Justin.tv, the early version of Twitch, in 2007 and only joined YouTube in 2008.

Wood had been investigating paranormal phenomena right out of college until joining a group called Bay Area Paranormal Investigations in 2003. In 2014, he extensively investigated 46 South Welles Street in Wilkes-Barre, Penn. with a group of investigators.

Wood purchased the house, which had been investigated for its demonic activity by Ed and Lorraine Warren. It presented some personal challenges for him. “I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough. It was just one of the worst experiences of my life,” he admitted. “Not only was the activity affecting me when I was there, but it was also affecting my family at home.” When asked if Wood brought his work home with him, he said he never went home.

The investigations at the Welles house can be found on YouTube, as well as the plethora of ghostly material provided by the other channels. For him though, his audience has been built what he prefers to show through his investigations and live streams.

As with any medium airing paranormal content today, it’s always good to consider who the target audience is. The appetite for paranormal content on YouTube remains high, perhaps not as high as those watching modern popstars like Dua Lipa or Olivia Rodrigo, but for curated video channels like Sir Spooks and Slapped Ham, they can net over 100,000 hits in one day.

So, remember to subscribe, and hit that bell icon if you want to be notified of the next slew of paranormal videos.

Brian Baker

Colin Evans, the worst medium OF ALL TIME?

hen other famous mediums were manifesting flowers from the ether, floating across the night skies and bringing the dead into our living rooms, Colin Evans was creating his own little pocket of adoration in pre-war Britain. For all his claims of psychic successes, Colin Evans really was one of the worst mediums of all time. Colin Evans. It’s hardly the most mystical of names, but back in the 1930s, Colin was presenting himself as just that. Evans was the pseudonym of a Welsh man who carved a brief and brilliant career as a spiritualist medium with a penchant for levitation. In his home circle, university graduate Evans had quickly developed a strong reputation as a clairvoyant. Six years after his first introduction to the world of spiritualism, his local renown brought him to the attention of investigators from the International Institute for Psychical Research. In 1937, Nandor Fodor, a renowned name in psychical research, was to visit a series of seances led by Evans and document the phenomena for the wider world. What occurred was nothing short of a smorgasbord of supernatural phenomena.

“Not only did Evans levitate trumpets, but materialised objects from the ether and produced spirit lights that floated about the room.” To cap off his seances with the greatest of his abilities, he would levitate himself, the Welshman’s body would be ‘floating over sitters’ heads in his aerial trips round the room.’ Much of Evans’ career is rather fittingly lost to the ether, but what does remain is a small record of photographs, taken from once dark seances. Taking images of séance rooms and paranormal investigations using infra-red photography equipment is no new development but was in its infancy while Evans was flying around village halls. These early techniques,

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employed by pioneer of séance photography Leon Isaacs, are to thank for the enduring images of Evans’ soaring career. Evans was a familiar fixture at large halls across the UK and conducted his seances in a very particular way, namely in darkness. Spirit matter, such as ectoplasm, was firmly established in the minds of spiritualist circles to be a creation best produced in darkness. The familiar frothy sight of ectoplasmic matter was said to either dissipate or simply fail to manifest in full light, and so many mediums were nurtured in shadows. While darkened rooms helped spirits to thrive, it also created the ideal environment for unscrupulous individuals to exploit the credulity and keenness of others, making their moves before a sightless audience. Strengthening the necessity of darkness in the séance room was the introduction of the belief that the sudden exposure of light into a spiritual environment could cause serious injury to the medium. Much like unplugging a computer device without prior warning, the interruption of a medium’s performance with the immediate introduction of light, and as such a full view of their movements, could result in pain… or death. This was a belief that Evans was keen to strengthen, not only reiterating the importance of darkness in his own seances but writing extensive articles on the defence of infra-red and non-flash photography in respected magazines. As chronicled in Photography magazine of January 1939, Evans proclaims that ‘most “material” or quasi-material phenomena can seldom be obtained in light, or if light is suddenly flashed during their production grave injury may be done to the medium.’ Subsequently, Evans offers up earlier instances of photographed séances as being examples of poor methodologies. He criticises the work of William Crookes, calling his 1870s investigations with medium Florence Cook as unnecessarily risky and harmful: producing good images, but at great risk. ‘These (Crookes’) photographs were taken by flashlight—a sudden shock of white light, strong in

the ultra-violet and blue parts of the spectrum, which would in most cases be mortally injurious to the medium and often did cause violent haemorrage.’ As such, by highlighting the foolish risks taken by his mediumistic forebears, he was able to protect his own reputation; by disallowing flash photography for health reasons, there was a far smaller chance of criticism towards Evans. He was covering his back, and reiterating it at every turn: ‘Personally, I would not risk it (flash photography). I have known what it is to have a week’s illness as a result of a little light through an imperfectly darkened glass roof at night, when I have been used for materialisation or there has been levitation of my body to a height above the floor.’ But for all of his criticism of the form, Evans was no stranger to photography in the séance room. Indeed, were it not for the introduction of infra-red cameras into his performances, there would be little evidence of his mediumship left today. One such photograph was taken in 1937 when Evans was leading a séance at Wortley Hall in Finsbury Park, London. In this image, Evans can be see levitating in mid-air, surrounded by a circle of open-mouthed onlookers. His supporters would surround him in a circle, chanting to encourage the spirits to attend to the medium when suddenly, in a blinding flash, Evans would be levitating in mid-air, illuminated before the crowd. The spirits had come good and lifted the Welshman from his seat, and conversion to Spiritualist belief, and belief in Evans’ powers, was inescapable. However, each time Evans produced one of his controlled flash photographs, observers and sceptics alike noticed commonalities that seemed rather more terrestrial than paranormal. In photographs of Evans’ levitations, a wire or thick cord can be seen trailing out of his left hand, inferring that it was the medium himself who held the flash trigger for the photographs. Combining this with his noticeably blurred feet, it became staggeringly clear that the medium had not been levitating and was caught midflight by a camera flash, but had simply jumped from his chair, and triggered the camera himself. It would later be revealed that the camera was placed in the ceiling and was deliberately fired while Evans’ sitters reached fever pitch, for maximum effect. With such measures in place, it’s no wonder that Evans didn’t want cameras

aplenty at his seances, capturing the medium springing rather un-supernaturally from bent knees. With a singular controlled image from Evans’ spectral feats, he was able to not only add the drama of a moment of sudden illuminated levitation, but produce images to his liking, primed for reproduction in magazines and periodicals alike. Conducting such seances in darkness was ideal for the medium’s jumping deception but had a very short shelf life. Soon, crowds became wise to Evans’ methods. At a 1938 séance at North Gate Mansions in London’s Regents Park, Evans pulled the same stunt and the gathered believers were less forgiving. Instead of approbation and praise, he was met with demands for refunds, which he was obliged to fulfil. However, such a simple answer of ‘he jumped’ is never sufficient in the world of historical mediumship, with several websites continuing to argue his legitimacy, or simply giving more thought and explanation to what seems to be a particularly cut and dried case. Such sites give weight to the concept of human levitation, with comparisons made between Evans’ images and those of Brazilian medium Carmine Mirabelli, who levitated with far more satisfactory creases in his trousers. However, Mirabelli was also exposed in time for levitating by noticeably non-spectral means. In a photograph from 1934, signs of retouching were noticed under the medium’s feet. Beneath Mirabelli’s floating shoes had once been a ladder, the rungs of which had been chemically removed to produce the ideal spirit-aided levitation. It should be reiterated that Evans’ blatant fraudulent activity removes little from his historical importance, nor his cultural importance as a male Welsh medium. Too often are we fixated with images of beautiful, young Victorian female mediums that we forget the mediumship of the 20th century. Victorian male mediums such as Daniel Dunglas Home popularised levitations, and Evans could be seen as another Celtic man following in his footsteps. Indeed, during a séance in 1852, Home was famously lifted to the ceiling of the séance room by unseen hands. According to the Hartford Times in August 1852, ‘Suddenly, without any explanation on the part of the company, Home was taken up into the air…Again and again he was taken from the floor, and the third time he was carried to the ceiling of the apartment.’ And let us not forget Mrs Guppy’s infamous levitational flight across London from her home in Highgate to a séance table in Lambs Conduit Street, Bloomsbury. Her, admittedly unseen, route led her to be known as ‘Venus in Transit’ by admirers and critics alike and her fame as a powerful medium was unavoidable. Guppy’s levitation fortified her in the mindsets of both the spiritualist and common press as a celebrity in her own right. Regretfully, photography was not yet sophisticated enough to catch Home and Guppy mid-flight, so their feats remain lost to time or trapped in black and white illustrations. While the years of Victorian grandeur had ceased decades before Evans appeared on the Spiritualist scene, like all belief systems, spiritualism and what constituted a sensational act changed considerably. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

And for every blatant jump, there was always money and fame to be courted in the next town.

Kate Cherrell x

The tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time hit its zenith during the Victorian era, the most famous of which must surely be Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’. The moralistic tale of the visitations of the ghosts of past, present and future to the miserly, uncaring Scrooge is universally familiar, and still easy to identify with today.

s the bleakness of winter draws in, the long, dark nights create the perfect atmosphere that go hand in hand with all things spooky and supernatural. In years gone by when snow lay thick on the ground, creating a blanket of silence over the everyday world, it’s easy to picture how the eerie stillness, or harsh storms of midwinter sparked the imaginations of our ancestors. With this in mind, there’s little wonder that numerous residual hauntings are reported to occur annually, on Christmas Eve.

By L.J.Willgress

Stand and Deliver! The Hawkhurst Gang were notorious for smuggling and roadside robberies throughout south-east England between 1735 and 1749, so it’s unsurprising that the name of Hawkhurst Road in Marden, Kent, not only harks back to more violent times, but is also the site of the murder and subsequent haunting of one of this nefarious gang’s members. Local legend says that a young woman was travelling home by coach with her father one Christmas eve, when a highwayman called Gilbert rode out of the peripheral trees, holding up the coach. The thief forced the young lady to step out of the carriage, but before her father could alight behind her, the horses became spooked and bolted, taking the coach with them. Now alone in the dark with Gilbert, the girl had the sudden, horrifying realisation that this man was the very same that murdered her brother on the same stretch of road the previous year. Knowing the fate that most likely awaited her, the girl panicked, pulled out her knife and drove it hard into the side of the unsuspecting bandit. When the coach returned some time later, they found the lifeless body of the highwayman in the mud, awash with blood. He was hastily buried in a shallow grave on the same spot. Locals say that Gilbert still haunts the stretch of road where he died, terrifying unsuspecting motorists from time to time, but each year on Christmas Eve, his gruesome death plays out again, only visible on this particular night.

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AMBLING ANNE BOLEYN Built in 1270, the moated country house of Hever Castle passed into the hands of the Bullen family in 1462. By the time it was inherited by Anne’s father, Thomas, the family name had altered slightly to Boleyn, in order to gloss over his ancestors’ much humbler beginnings and cement their status amongst the nobility. Power-hungry Thomas married into one of the most prestigious families in the kingdom, taking Elizabeth Howard as his wife. This undoubtedly eased his rise through the ranks at court, so when King Henry VIII’s eye was caught first by his daughter Mary, and later Anne, he saw their favour with the king as yet another opportunity. Whilst Mary gave in to Henry’s advances and quickly married off once he grew tired of her, Anne was the opposite of her sister in every way. While Mary was light haired and obedient, contemporary accounts describe Anne as dark, elegant, cultured, clever and witty. After seeing how her sister was cruelly discarded, she used all these attributes, along with her incredible strength of will, to play the game of courtly love, winning the King over whilst refusing to become his mistress. She never wavered from her insistence that if Henry wanted her, he would have to divorce Queen Catherine and marry her instead. The King went to extraordinary lengths to make this happen, breaking with the Catholic church to become head of the Church of England, and after seven long years, Henry and Anne were married. Their happiness was not to last long. Anne’s sardonic wit and flirty nature - once so appealing, began to wear thin, as did Henry’s patience when she failed to give him the son that he so longed for. By now, the Boleyn’s controlled all the important positions at court, and were deeply unpopular with the other courtiers, who were only too glad to see their downfall. In 1536, just three years after Anne’s marriage to Henry, both she and her brother George were charged with treasonous adultery and executed at the Tower of London. Anne’s ghost seems to get about a lot – there have been sightings of her at Blickling Hall in Norfolk and at the Tower, where one guard witnessed her lead a procession through the Great Hall whilst another fainted after he mistook her spirit for an intruder, tried to run her through with a halberd and then promptly fainted. Considering that Christmas was said to be Anne’s favourite time of year, it’s perhaps unsurprising that her shade would choose to revisit the childhood home where she and her siblings had such a happy, comfortable upbringing. According to ‘Haunted Castles of Britain and Ireland’ by Richard Jones, every Christmas Eve, the ghost of Anne materialises on the bridge within the grounds that links the land over the river Eden. From there, she can be observed slowly floating towards the castle, but vanishes into thin air before she can reach it.

THE KNIGHT OF CHRISTMAS EVE Cannock Chase in Staffordshire is rife with legends, lore and sightings of myriad phenomena, the most famous of which in recent years is the black-eyed children. This mysterious stretch of land also happens to be home to the Lords of Hatherton Hall, and also it would seem, the spirit of one of their ancient ancestors. In ‘Ghosts and Legends of Staffordshire and the Black Country’, author David Bell describes a shocking encounter experienced by one Lord Hatherton during the mid-nineteenth century. The story goes that a party was held at the Hall on Christmas Eve. While drinking and making merry with friends, Lord Hatherton passed around a goblet of wine and explained that it was made from the skull that was dug up from the private chapel of one of his ancestors and coated in silver. Whilst this may seem strange and macabre to us, the gothic revival, obsession with death and all things medieval was at its height in the mid-nineteenth century, so an eccentric gentleman eager to impress his peers couldn’t go far wrong with a goblet made from a skull! All was well until the last chimes of midnight. Thudding footsteps approached the room and as the guests paused to listen, the silver goblet inexplicably crashed to the floor before a headless figure in armour appeared, blocking out the doorway. The ghost, who Bell names as Sir Hugh de Hatherton, then bowed, crossed the room and vanished through a closed door, taking the goblet with him. All that was found of the bizarre object the following morning was a lump of silver that once coated the vessel, balled up on the lawn.

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What’s in the Box? My last tale of Christmas spirits is the most tragic of all, taking place at Bramshill House in Hampshire during the first half of the eighteenth century. There are two variations of this story – some sources say the unfortunate lady was one Anne Cope whilst others call her Ginevra Orsini.

Several accounts of a white lady, thought to be the forlorn spirit of the bride has been regularly seen over the centuries, most often in the long gallery, the Fleur de Lys room and the vicinity of the chest, which currently resides in Bramshill’s reception hall.

In the first version, a young lady called Anne married Lord Lovell at Bramshill on Christmas Eve, 1727. During the reception party, the bride suggested a game of hide and seek, insisting on being the first to hide. Hours passed, the search continued, but to no avail, and as hours turned into days, it was assumed that Anne had changed her mind about the marriage and fled.

Joan Penelope Cope, who grew up at the Hall said that as children in the 1930s, she and her brother often awoke to find the white lady at their bedsides. Notably, during his visit in the 1950s, King Michael of Romania insisted upon being moved to a different room so as ‘not to be disturbed by the young woman in white who passes through my bedroom every night.’

Then one day fifty years later, the ageing Lord Lovell discovered a large, ornate chest hidden away in the attic. Inside lay the skeletal remains of his lost bride, still in her wedding gown. Deep scratch marks etched into the underside of the top show that poor Anne desperately tried to escape after she’d pulled the top shut and the clasp accidentally trapped her inside. The second version is the same tragic story of a bride trapped in the chest on her wedding day, but instead of taking place at Bramshill, the sad wraith is thought to be that of fifteen-year-old Ginevra Orsini, an Italian bride whose spirit attached itself to the chest, which was bought and shipped from Italy to the Bramshill estate.

However, the chest on display may not be original. Sir William Henry Cope wrote ‘Bramshill: Its History and Architecture’ in 1883 in which he states that the chest is ‘a facsimile of the original, which had been large enough to fit a woman of comely proportions’, claiming that the creepy item was removed by the widow of Sir Denzil Cope in 1812. Based on the above account, the story of Anne is more likely to be connected to the white lady that still roams the house, as a spirit attached to the chest would be unlikely to remain if the object had indeed been removed and replaced.

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So, why do ghost stories and sightings seem to be so popular at Christmas? It would stand to reason that as many ghost sightings are domestic, people spending more time at home over the holidays or returning to their childhood homes to spend time with family, combined with other factors such as our minds being less busy and more relaxed. By the same token, family tensions may ramp up and act as an aid to poltergeist activity or possible psychokinesis. Longer, darker nights seem to factor into this too – while spirits can make themselves known during daylight hours, the after-dark atmosphere is more conducive, along with the chemistry of the human mind. Our brainwaves tend to relax into a more receptive state as night draws in and our subconscious prepares us for sleep. Christmas is also an emotional time for some, when we recall loved ones no longer with us, remembering them in traditions such as toasting them at Christmas dinner. This Christmas Eve, whether you’re in search of spooks or enjoying a brandy by the fire, be sure to enjoy the festive spirit!

Lucy

Scary Ghost Stories, Tales of the Glories An argument for bringing back a Victorian Christmas tradition By Amanda R. Woomer spook-eats, putting the ghoul into goulash and the soup into the supernatural

hen I was a young teenager, I remember coming out of an antique store with my family to the sound of Andy Williams’ voice singing It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year on the radio. The song had always bothered me, and I finally decided to bring the issue up. “Dad,” I asked. “Why does he say, ‘scary ghost stories?’ It’s Christmas, not Halloween.” My dad paused for a moment and tried to come up with an answer (the struggle was real before we had Google sitting in our pockets). “Think of A Christmas Carol,” he finally answered me. “That’s a scary ghost story.” He had made up the answer on the spot (as most parents do at times), but what he didn’t know was that he was 100% correct. A Christmas Carol isn’t just one of the most famous Christmas stories, but it’s also one of the most famous ghost stories. But it

certainly isn’t the only one. In fact, other famous writers such as Robert Lewis Stevenson, J.M. Barrie, and even Edgar Allan Poe all wrote ghost stories published and told around Christmas and New Year. Everyone from the world’s favorite writers to anonymous authors featured in periodicals to even just friends trying to spook each other around the fireplace all participated in the tradition of telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve in the 19th and early 20th Centuries. The idea of the holidays being a dark and frightening time was not a concept specific to the Victorian Era. For centuries, stories were told during the long, dark nights as the snow fell outside and the fire burned low stories that brought us Krampus, the Yule Cat, the Tomtar, and the Kallikantzaros. Before the modern luxuries of electricity, heat, indoor plumbing, and grocery stores, the winter months were a dangerous and terrifying time. There was no guarantee that you would survive into the spring. And so, winter was the most frightful time of year (no matter what Andy Williams says). Telling ghost stories transformed from a folk custom of the lower class to a festive pastime at Christmas parties spanning social classes and was locked into the English holiday

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tradition after Charles Dickens published A Christmas Carol in 1843. Of course, telling ghost stories at Christmas time was not embraced by everyone. The Puritans looked down at the superstitious (and possibly even evil) custom, leaving behind the tradition as they traveled to the new world. Washington Irving (author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow) attempted to bring the custom over to the United States in the early 19th Century. However, it still struggled to take off, which wasn’t helped when Irish and Scottish immigrants arrived in America and brought with them Samhain… Halloween.

ver the last century, Halloween has become the nightmarish holiday (especially in America), filled with ghosts and goblins, while Christmas has been transformed into a time of merriment, mandated joy, and extreme commercialization. And yet, despite the bright lights, tinsel, and colorful wrapping paper,

there seems to be a return to the old way of doing things. People have struggled with the pressures of gift-giving and appearing grateful and blessed at the holidays to the point where people have begun to dread the holiday season and even despise it. With the pressure for the perfect Christmas party, the drive to find the sought-after gift, and the toxic consumer industry that has appeared over the last 50 years, perhaps now is the perfect time to resurrect Dickens’ Christmas ghost stories.

Many of these ghost stories (most prominent in A Christmas Carol) remind us that generosity, forgiveness, and kindness unify us and are the true gifts we can give one another. Life can be difficult, so why not lessen each other’s burdens before our time is up? It’s also true among families grieving the loss of loved ones (and even paranormal investigators and researchers) that “the veil” seems to be just as thin (if not thinner) during the holidays than at Halloween. Many times, people have paranormal encounters with deceased friends and family during the winter months. Even throughout the

To go with your Vi ctorian Christmas ghost stories, enjoy this Spook-Eats renditi on of an 1845 Christmas recipe:

Mock Turtle Soup

Turtle soup was a favorite dish during Victorian Ch ristmas celebrations. Howe ver, the prized meat of the turtle s was expensive and sought after by royalty and the upper class. Man y people found ways to bypass tur tle meat while still enjoying this traditional soup, and so, mock tur tle soup was born.

A manda

8 52

MAAGGAAZZI INNEE HHAAUUNNTTEEDD M

Victorian age, many of the stories shared on Christmas Eve were actual ghostly encounters people experienced and not just fictional fantasies. It would seem grief, like ghost stories, transcends time. I suppose, in the end, we’re all fated to become ghost stories told around a fire on Christmas Eve… just make sure your story is worth listening to.

Did the most infamous of all Victorian Serial Killer s plan a minimurdering spre e in a fishing village in Scotland?

By L eona r d L ow

t is October 1888. The sea fog swirls thick across the streets of the fishing village of Pittenweem, blocking out the streetlamps, and reducing them to a rancid glow! There is no wind, the silence is broken only by the clinking of the moored boats’ rigging, gently swaying in the harbour with the rising tide. The hour is late, some piano playing can be heard, the two inns on the sea front have done the usual business, drunken sea hands are making their way homeward, and here and there, ladies of the night mingle with men who still have some coin to spend. In the shadows steps one who has a deadly purpose. He wants to deal in one business tonight … death! The name he is known by ... Jack the Ripper.

In 1888 a bloodthirsty fiend had been stalking the lowborn products of the Whitechapel area in the East End of London. Brutally slaying a number of prostitutes, he taunted the police in letters, with severed bits of cadavers sent as proof, all this from a man who signed himself Jack the Ripper! He teased the authorities with phrases in his letters such as “Catch me if you can” and by 1st October he had brutally murdered four young women. The police had made his first “Jack the Ripper” letter public, and the newspapers went into a frenzy about the possible identity of the man responsible. But five hundred miles from Whitechapel, at Cornceres in the Fife fishing village of Kilrenny, farmer David Edie had just opened his mail. The threatening letter he had received was signed off with: “I remain yours truly JACK THE RIPPER.”

His letter read: Dear Sir, As I was walking down the road today, I saw your two sons and O! O! the pride in them is something awful. The boy who told me that had corduroys on, and he told me that Charles, the second boy, was the pridefulest boy in the school, and that he was in his class. I think I heard that some boys called him Andrew. We passed some boys and never looked at them, so I have been employed by one who hates you very much to kill you all, which I will soon do, for I will not come to Anstruther for nothing. After I am done with you all, I will murder in Anster and Pittenweem here, so be on your guard, for I will murder you all before the year is gone, so that will put down pride. What is pride? Pride is self-conceit, so I will do what I have done in Whitechapel. The last day you have on earth is the 21st November, at half-past eleven at night. Another person I am informed about was Jamieson, but I will write to him too, soon.

“I will do what I have done in Whitechapel. The last day you have on earth is the 21st November, at half-past eleven at night.”

I remain, yours truly, JACK THE RIPPER According to its postmark, this frightening letter had been posted in Pittenweem. The date on the postmark was October 15th. It was evident that whoever was calling himself “Jack the Ripper” had posted a letter there ... he was in Pittenweem! Another letter was addressed to the Reverend Andrew Douglas, the minister of Abbey Parish in Arbroath. Recently, on the 10th September, he had had the still of the night at his home in Arbroath severely HAUNTED MAGAZINE

“I was of the opinion that the handwriting of the works when compared with the schoolbooks, the handwriting corresponded with one of the textbooks.”

Sir,

disturbed by a gunshot shattering his study window as he worked. The mystery deepened as he received the first of his threatening letters. It again, like farmer David Edie’s letter, promised death to him and his family, signing off as “your assassin”. Next came letters to the local newspapers. One was sent to Mr Russel, the editor of the East of Fife Record making more threats and uncannily signing off with the same rhetoric that the Whitechapel Ripper had recently offered to the London newspapers; “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”. The letters kept coming to Mr Russel and David Edie, always with threats and promising murder. One took credit for the recent death of a young boy in Pittenweem called Alexander Robinson. Aged only four, he was last seen alive on 1st October 1888. He had been caught by a wave and carried away; his body was never found! The mystery hate mailer admitted he “was the murderer” and called for the last letter to be inserted into the East of Fife Record newspaper and made public. The Reverend Mr Douglas received his latest letter. It read:

Although I am just now staying here, I am waiting for a chance for your life, which I hope will soon be taken. You have done me very much harm, so you will suffer for it. Don’t think you will get away with it – no, no. Watch at night, for some night the bloody deed will be perpetrated. I will not shoot you this time but will murder you. I have plenty more who are willing to do it. I will scatter your brains through your house but will not touch your wife. So, enjoy yourself for a while. Then you will be no more. Goodbye. Rev Mr Douglas This letter had a postmark from Anstruther, another Fife village. It had been sent on 26th September 1888. Enter Inspector Maiden, of St Andrews police. He now had the job of finding the threatening letter sender who signed himself “Jack the Ripper”. Maiden had to hand the latest three letters sent to the three victims. He took his search close to the locations where the letters had been posted, and thinking the culprit might be a schoolboy, he visited the school of Waid Academy in Anstruther, half a mile from the town of Pittenweem. His plan was to review the papers written by the boys at the school, to

see if he could possibly get a match in the handwriting. After an age of searching hundreds of exercise books, he came across what he considered was a good match. “I was of the opinion that the handwriting of the works when compared with the schoolbooks, the handwriting corresponded with one of the textbooks.” Robert Jackson, the head teacher, agreed with the match between the school jotters and the letters. After this, the evidence was taken to an expert in Edinburgh, lithograph writer James Melville. He was struck by the similarities of the capital letters “A” and “I” and found that words such as “kill” and “murder” and also “pride” were identical across the letters and school notebooks. It was his clear expert opinion that the writing belonged to John Peter Watson, who was a schoolboy at Waid Academy. This boy lived in Pittenweem and was thirteen years old! The arrest was made. Proceedings took place in the sheriff court in Cupar. On the 3rd November John Peter Watson, with his mother and father in the space at the bar reserved for counsel, heard the charges made against him and denied them! The boy was charged with having written a threatening letter to Mr David Edie “a farmer at Cornceres”

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on 15th October, and signing it “JACK THE RIPPER”; another threatening letter on the 22nd signed “CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”, and further letters on 22nd October with a further letter written to Mr Russel, the editor of the East Fife Record, stating “Catch Me if You Can” and desiring that the letter should be inserted into the weekly paper. Both sets of letters repeated the threats to murder David Edie and his family. The endings and signatures in all the letters mirrored those from the Whitechapel “Jack the Ripper”, whose letters written to newspapers had been published and highly publicised throughout the United Kingdom. The boy was also accused of writing the following letters: Addressed to the Reverend A. Douglas, the Abbey Minister of Arbroath. Sent from Anstruther 26th Sept 1888. A further letter bearing the date 1st October posted from Pittenweem. Both letters were signed:” your assassin”. A third letter bearing the date 31st Oct posted in Pittenweem and signed “Rob the Beginner”. A fourth letter dated 16th October - posted from Pittenweem, signed “Your Assassin”. A fifth letter bearing the date 22nd October, signed “Catch

“The endings and signatures in all the letters mirrored those from the Whitechapel “Jack the Ripper”, whose letters written to newspapers had been published and highly publicised throughout the United Kingdom.“

Me if You Can”. All the letters had been posted and received in due course, as detailed in court, and contained threats to murder the Rev Andrew Douglas. In the packed courtroom, they heard the accused boy plead, “Not guilty”. Cross-examined at the Bar by the Procurator Fiscal Mr Renton. Reverend Douglas testified that on 10th September 1888 his study window was fired into. He had since received a number of threatening letters. Crossexamined, he said: Answer: Though the outrages had not happened, the letters were of such an insulting and disgusting nature that I would have done all I could to get the author of them! Question: Then were you terrified and alarmed? Answer: It depends what you mean. Question: Were you alarmed by the letters, pure and simple? Answer: I was alarmed in this sense, that it brought before me some possibility that the outrage in some form might be repeated. Question: You regarded these letters seriously, notwithstanding their absurdity? Answer: I did. Evil is very absurd of itself.

Question: Did you think these letters would emanate from a boy, or did you suspect them to come from one? Answer: I don’t think they could have come from a boy without collusion with some other person, for the fact stated of my wife at one time having lived in Grangemuir. No mere boy could have known that fact unless it had been communicated to him. Question: That reference leads you to think there were more than one party at the bottom of these letters? Answer: That was my impression, and is my impression still, seeing that I base my opinion very largely on that simple fact. Question: How long is it since your wife resided at Grangemuir? Answer: I think it will be twentyseven or twenty-eight years and she has not been in the habit of visiting there since. Question: How many threatening letters have you got altogether since the outrage? Answer: Eleven; five from this district, three from Arbroath district, two from Dundee, and one from Glasgow. The prisoner’s declaration was read to the court on the 3rd November 1888, in which he denied writing the letters that he had been accused

of writing to Mr Edie, Birrel, Russel and Rev Douglas. But John Watson did admit writing one letter to Mr Edie, one which did not appear to have reached him. The Fiscal and the accused’s agent having addressed the Sheriff, his lordship said that after evidence which had been read at great length, it was impossible to come to any conclusion, other than that he had written these letters and despatched them for the purpose of annoying the gentlemen.

To put the boy in prison was out of the question. He would only be punishing the parents. In order to impress upon him that it was not to play or trifle with the feelings of others, it was to make him physically suffer. He was at an age where he could not be severely punished, but he was prepared to sentence twelve strokes – with a birch rod!

The accused’s agent now handed the judge a medical certificate which stated that the state of the accused’s health would make it dangerous to visit him with such a physical punishment! With this the Judge issued a fine of £5, which was immediately paid by the accused’s parents. And so ended the tale of the “JACK THE RIPPER” of Pittenweem. Caught by his handwriting by an intrepid detective from St Andrews police force. Sentenced in the High Sheriff’s court of Fife to receive twelve lashes with the birch, promptly reduced to a £5 fine*, and released back home to Pittenweem where I’m sure his own parents delivered a severe punishment also. He was indeed a very naughty boy! But the Jack the Ripper of Pittenweem’s terror was over! *The average earnings for the late 19th century was 21 shillings a week (according to William Booth the founder of the Salvation Army) £5 was about a month’s wages!

Although the judge did not think this would be a severe punishment, in fact it would involve being hit on the bare flesh a dozen times with a bundle of switches.

I would be very ignorant about this story without the help from Mr Stewart Evans, who directed me to the two newspapers that highlighted the case... Dundee Courier 17 December 1888, Fife Herald 19 December 1888

Once this sentence had been delivered, there was another shock for the large crowd in the courtroom.

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B Y

L O R I E N

J O N E S

ust off the A47, between Peterborough and Stamford, is the family attraction, Sacrewell. The establishment has maintained the long-standing mission to keep the traditions of farming alive. You can view rare breeds of livestock, visit quaint artisan shops established in the old barns, and view the working mid-18th Century waterwheel, restored in 2015 after a conservation and restoration project, thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund. Sounds like a nice day out for families or history enthusiasts, right? But why are you reading about it here? Well, let’s start with the A47, Ermine Street. Dating back two thousand years, began life as a Roman road and trade route between London and Lincoln. A little way off the road there was a water source, likely a pond, fed by the nearby River Nene. This made the perfect site for a Roman settlement; the water providing a valuable resource and likely inspiring the name of the farm ‘Sacrewell’ coming from ‘sacred well’. And this Roman settlement was indeed discovered over time with artefacts being HAUNTED MAGAZINE

reclaimed such as coins and pottery. Excavation work resulted in the findings of two Roman villas and during some field ploughing in 1949, a Roman tombstone was also unearthed. With this extensive history on site, it’s beginning to sound much more interesting. But that’s not half of the tales the place has to tell! Fancy a look around? Let’s go…. You turn off the busy road and immediately begin to feel the urban life slipping behind. Passing fields of sheep and horses on the drive up to the entrance, you begin to unwind but don’t be too quick to relax…. Parking up on the gravelled spaces, you see the entrance up ahead of you. A fairly new building, nice enough. Passing through the reception, gift shop to your right and café to your left, you pay your entry fee and head on out to the farm. It’s here you get your first glimpse of the past.

t feels as though you’ve suddenly stepped from your modern life into something written by Daniel Defoe. The warm stone barns with their local Collyweston slate rooves suddenly surround you. Easy on the eye and unimposing, yet they seem to have stories to tell. Quaint shops nestle into the nooks and crannies. A cheesemaker, a chocolate shop and a woodcarver are among them. You pop into the chocolate makers, the warm, sweet aromas tantalising. Whilst you browse the treats on offer, you ask the friendly face behind the counter if there are any spooky stories from these barns. She knows of none but warns you to take care around the buildings to come. You pass through a narrow barn whose walls are adorned with old farming tools and emerge on the other side, face to face with Sacrewell Lodge, the farmhouse. Initially, you admire the beautiful building, but as you stand there a sense of foreboding creeps over you. Your skin begins to crawl as you look around at all the dark windows, the sense of being watched is overwhelming. Standing by the door, the house seems to almost encompass you. You’ve heard stories about this farmhouse, and they’re not for the faint-hearted. Accounts from staff who have locked up, only to look back and see lights have turned back on inside the closed building. Would you brave going back in to switch them off again? Disembodied footsteps are heard on the old floorboards when no one else is around, staff have experienced the sensation of being followed when all alone. Objects vanish or move mysteriously from the places they were left. It’s not a favourite place of the staff. You quickly move away and around to the other side of the building. Walking away from the lodge, you pass by the long, flat façade. You can’t shake that feeling of being watched, almost as if you are being seen off suspiciously. You quicken your step down a tree lined path and begin to feel quite isolated. On a busy, summer day there would be families and laughter all around.

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On this cold, November afternoon you are alone. The drizzle is cold against your face, so you pull up your hood and bury your hands deep in your pockets, glancing over your shoulder as you do. Glad to be leaving the farmhouse behind, you head downhill. Little do you know; you’re heading in the direction of a Bronze Age burial site. You won’t pass it by, it’s a good eight hundred or so meters from the farmhouse, away from the mapped-out visitor trail. But just think, that’s four thousand years’ worth of life and death here on this land. Consider all the feet that have trodden this ground before you! Heading further down the hill you are met with the sight of the old mill. It doesn’t look much like a mill, more so another farmhouse. What with its matching stone and slate roofing, and neat little blue windows? Considering the age of the land, these buildings you see today only cover a part of that time. For these were built in the 1750s. Before then, another mill occupied the site. In 1525, Sir John Russell was gifted Sacrewell. Russell, also known as the Earl of Bedford, was a close advisor of King Henry VIII. During those Tudor times, there would have been a previous farmhouse, mill and accommodation for twenty farm labourers who tenanted here. But those buildings are long gone and before you now, are the mill and two workers’ cottages. You stand taking in the building, and it watches you back, almost waiting for you. You look around, you’re still quite alone. There were quite a few cars in the car park, you’re yet to see any visitors. That shiver returns and the sense of unease creeps back in. Still, the thought of the dry indoors is more appealing than this cold rain, so you head over to the door. You’re surprised to hear a loud gushing of water as you approach, and even more alarmed to be suddenly faced with a huge waterwheel, steadily turning rhythmically. Behind the mill is a large, still lake. But its trickle of continuous water is enough to feed the HAUNTED MAGAZINE

hungry wheel and keep it spinning. You step inside the mill. The place you have heard less about but know it as a place that people fear the most! No one wants to be the person to come down to this far end of the farm and lock up at the end of the night. But why so much dread? I suppose if you stop and think about it, it would have been a perilous place to work. The waterwheel, powering huge industrial cogs. Which, by the way, surprisingly fit into this mill which just doesn’t look big enough from the outside. Cramped working conditions would have surely also added to the risk of injury or worse when working. Children were employed as young apprentices to learn the trade. They were also used for menial jobs such as keeping water rats at bay! Not to mention the illnesses that came from working with flour, the lung conditions that would eventually lead to an early demise. Are there spirits down here who lost their lives working in the mill? Do they remain working today, or warning others of the dangers the mill once posed? The restored waterwheel and working mechanisms acting as a daunting reminder to those haunting here? Then we have to consider the theory that running water acts as a conductor for the spirit world, a natural source of energy. Not only do we have the waterwheel, but then also a natural running stream and waterfall sandwiching the mill between the two. Not only allowing the spirits of the mill to remain, but also empowering ancient spirits of times long ago. Is this why the mill is feared more than any other building? Maybe… Francis Percival owned the farm from 1870 until 1917. During this time, they saw the introduction of tractors as the Industrial Revolution came into play. They certainly wouldn’t have been inundated with mechanical engines at this time, but they were making an appearance. With these machines came new dangers to farming life and undoubtedly saw more loss of life.

We are left with little but our imaginations as to what has occurred on this land in all that time gone by. As you wind your way around the mill, still all alone, you feel quite the opposite. You feel as though you are surrounded by many and it’s strangely quite comforting. Maybe it’s simply because the machinery is running along unmanned around you? Or maybe it’s because you’re not quite as alone as it seems?! You finally find yourself in the workers cottages, decorated as beautifully as they once would have been. A cap and jacket hang on a coat stand, a worn old leather chair sits waiting in front of a dark, cold fireplace. The wireless sitting on the sideboard, you can almost hear Billie Holiday drifting from it still. Of all the uneasy feelings you’ve experienced around the farm, you find yourself most relaxed here. Is it the homely set up, do you find the vintage memorabilia reassuring? Some would say it’s old and creepy. But you don’t…. Maybe the longer you spend here, the more you become attached. Are you beginning to unwind and accept those that once frightened you? Are they drawing you in? Maybe it’s time to head back up the hill, just in case.

A Mr George Edward Abbott bought Sacrewell farm in 1929. His son, William, was a keen farmer and upon George’s death in 1938, he left Sacrewell to his son. William worked tirelessly to improve and develop the farm. When the Second World War broke out, many of the men were sent away to fight. Land Army girls stood in and ensured that farming life continued to run smoothly. You can discover more about the ladies who worked at the farm, including Edna Dixon and Mary Watson down in the worker’s cottages. In 1959, William passed away. Four years later, his widow Mary set up the William Scott Abbott Trust and his mission lives on. “I have always had in mind the creation of a sound, practical, enterprise, preserving what is best in our country way of life, and based on sound, practical farming, as all country life must be.” Sacrewell continues to keep this ethos alive, whilst expanding and improving to create an immersive experience for all who come to visit, wherever your interests may lie. https://www.sacrewell. org.uk/

L orien

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The ‘Wicked Witch’ of Much Wenlock

Nanny Morgan By Amy Boucher

itchcraft is in the bones of Shropshire folk, if we are to believe Folklorist Charlotte Burne. She wrote that it was so intertwined in the lives of people here, that when a new vicar took parish near Clee Hill, he was shocked to discover how it was a factor of daily life. He was advised in no uncertain terms not to preach its ills. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I’ve always had a proclivity for witchcraft. For as long as I can recall, it’s held sway over my little soul, from consuming media like ‘The Worst Witch’ and ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ as a child, to my disastrous attempts at practicing the craft as a teenager (which usually involved long hours in Shrewsbury’s Occult shops, much too shy to talk to any of the staff), I’ve always believed that life is best with a little magic in it. Similarly, I am fascinated by the interplay between history, magic, and folklore, particularly in Shropshire. Thus, when I heard about Nanny Morgan, the wicked witch of Much Wenlock, scorned by her community and murdered by her lover, consort of the Devil and Curser, I had to explore this sensationalised figure further. She is said to have been so wicked, that her ghost haunts the area trying to lure young men to their demise, even after preventative measures were taken. Despite her otherworldly status, I find her tale incredibly sad, and an example of how when a woman deviates from societal expectations, she is at risk from the community she belongs to.

Its accredited as being the birthplace of the modern Olympic games via William Penny Brookes. There has been a lot of life lived here. It was also part of the wider community in which Nanny Morgan navigated, and perhaps called home. From what we know about her life, the folklore surrounding it, and her death she was a fascinating flawed creature, unconventional, charismatic, cruel, vulnerable, and sometimes criminal, she was incredibly human and for all of her wrongs did not deserve to be murdered. Nanny Morgan didn’t deserve her fate, which can be said about so many women persecuted by their own communities under the guise of

For those of you that don’t know Much Wenlock (I would recommend a visit) It is an exquisite little place. It’s a patchwork of historical periods, all melting beautifully into each other. It has the Priory, first founded about 680 by King Merewalh of Mercia, for his saintly daughter Milburga (who’s relics were miraculously rediscovered there in 1101). The town is made up of narrow streets, with timber framed black and white buildings, it’s picturesque.

eliminating witches. Though her murder may have been a civil matter, witchcraft was used as an excuse for her death, and a justification for her eradication. It was easier to believe she’d bewitched a younger man that it ever could be he loved an older woman. I want to explore her life and her story and gain as much as we can from the folklore and speculation that has become part of her history and to understand the women behind the witch. I also want to discuss her legacy, her ghost and the lengths the community went to ensure her ghost wouldn’t return. We do not know for sure when Ann (Nanny Morgan’s real name) was born, though the 1851 census shows Ann Morgan living with Thomas Morgan, her agricultural labourer husband at Westwood Common. She was listed as being 55, thus would have been born around 1796. However, it is known she was the daughter of Richard Williams and lived at Westwood common between Much Wenlock and the village of Bourton. Much of her story takes place in Bourton, Westwood, and Much Wenlock’s surrounding areas as well as Much Wenlock itself. Descriptions of Ann in her girlhood depict her as dark haired, tall and with steely grey eyes, which were said to leave a lasting impression on all those who met her. Our story really begins though in 1809, when Ann was implicated in a robbery whilst working as a servant girl at the house of Mrs Powell, in Bourton, alongside Mary Beamond. Its unsure who was the instigator of such a theft, (though the stolen goods, including clothes were found in Ann’s possession) however both girls were tried for the offence at the Shrewsbury assizes, and found guilty. Beamond was said to have been transported, however our Ann was merely sentenced to imprisonment. Ann was said to have been in jail for some time, (though I cannot find the exact length of time) and upon leaving jail, she was in a predicament.

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Nanny Morgan

er actions had gained her a certain level of notoriety within the community and because of this, her family ostracised her. This left Ann without a home. It’s important to remember that she was still a young girl at this point, and the options for her would be very limited, especially being unmarried, and deemed a criminal. However, life provided her with an opportunity, one that set her on the path which would characterise her for the rest of her life. After searching for a place to live, and a means of supporting herself, Ann was welcomed into the travelling community, who often came to the area to take work as farm labourers. In her new community Ann found acceptance, and a way of life which was said to suit her, and one can imagine that she thrived in this new circumstance. It was during this time living among the travelling community Ann was taught her ‘cards’ and how to read fortunes, as well as other occult practices. It seems she was a natural and began gaining a reputation for her accuracy. So, Ann began to travel around the countryside and was said to have taken up ‘unchristian ways’ having quite a lot of fun in the process. Through reading fortunes, she was able to sustain herself, and had found her place among these transient peoples. Ann had found acceptance. She left Much Wenlock for some time, and her trail went cold, until one Monday, she unexpectedly returned and it is said she was seen in Much Wenlock Market. A local asked her what she was doing, and she informed them that she had inherited her father’s house and planned to settle there. And settle she did. Ann moved into the house in Westwood Common, and very quickly used it as a base for her business. She began to peddle her trade selling fortunes and gained a reputation across the countryside for the truth in her foresight. Her skills were said to make Ann a very wealthy woman. Indeed, she was always in demand and was consulted by women of all standing, from servants to wealthy ladies. After her death a great quantity of jewellery was found in her house, which was given by her customers in payment for her services; alongside a number of letters, which were reported to have contained the signatures

The ‘Wicked Witch’ of Much Wenlock

of ladies of great education and position in the neighbourhood. Here we see the contradiction which would mark Ann’s life. Her foresight and skills as a fortune teller were seen as a commodity to many in her community, who would seek her out for fortune telling, palm reading, love potions as well as hiring her as a curser however she was ostracised from the community, met with indignation and even fear. They needed her but didn’t want to associate with her. Ann Morgan had a real talent for cursing. She was said to have been the best in the area, and her curses were so potent that they reached deeply into the lives of her victims and dealt them a terrible blow. She was as in demand for this as she was her other practices, which demonstrates the widespread belief and superstition regarding such taking place, well into the 19th century. She’d gained such a reputation for herself that rumours started to develop about Nanny Morgan being a witch. So as the rumours grew, Ann began another phase of her life, from girlhood criminal and runaway, fortune-teller to her final form, The Wicked Witch of Much Wenlock, a woman equipped with the evil eye and multiple instruments of devilry. She is described in this time like a stock character or cheap Halloween costume, but if they had been so afraid of her then why was she sought out for fortunes, the settling of petty disputes, enacting vengeance and for the seduction of potential suitors?

hether Ann Morgan considered herself a witch is up for debate, though perhaps not even relevant here, though the community certainly painted her as one. One contemporary of Ann, Bessie Roberts, had described how she’d caused great terror in the district, just like the Shropshire witches in Stuart times, and that ‘no one dared to call their soul their own’ when they were in her presence. There is certainly evidence to suggest she was a strong woman and left quite an impression. I like to think of Ann as the sort of person who wouldn’t have liked labels, for she was living her life, her way despite the hardships she faced. It was making her money and allowed her an unconventional freedom so what did

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it matter? She certainly peddled her trade well, and perhaps lived up to some of the stereotypes of such. Perhaps as the rumours spread, she began to embody the witch like a consummate show-woman. Ann kept a group of cats, with names such as ‘Hell-Blow’ and ‘Satan’s Smile’. Her unusual pets didn’t end there however, for she also kept ‘a box of toads’. These toads were fashioned into the devil’s conduits in the imaginations of those who feared her. They were said to roam the village freely at night, peeping through windows and learning many secrets. Her most beloved (and wickedest) toad was called Dew, who was fed exclusively on communion bread, and showered with kisses. It’s nice to know he was well looked after. Perhaps the most shocking condemnation we could throw at Ann, which proves her status as a witch is that she was said to own a whole library of books. I am obviously being sarcastic here, however these books were described as ‘the wickedest’ which only makes you wonder what was in them, and perhaps her fortune telling was as threatening as her literacy. I want us to move forward now to 1857, the year of Ann’s death. It was the 12th of September 1857 when Ann, aged 69 was stabbed to death in her home in Westwood Common. She’d been stabbed in the face, neck and wrist as well as receiving other wounds. One of the injuries to her neck had cut her carotid artery, and it is said that the scene was incredibly bloody. But who could slay the witch? The woman imbued with the Evil Eye and armed with potions and curses? Her murderer was the 35-year-old William Davies, described by many as inoffensive and “ a weak and silly fellow” who had moved in with Ann around 12 months before her murder. This companionship seemed to raise a number of eyebrows within the community, with many attempting to understand the nature of the relationship. I am not here to speculate; however, it appears there was a romantic element to the pairing, despite the substantial age gap.

hough people preferred to believe that William was after Ann’s considerable inheritance (Ann was a very wealthy woman through peddling her trade, and one source suggests that William believed he was set to inherit £600-700 about £70,000 to £80,000 in today’s economy, at the event of her death). A further narrative began to unfold, that simple minded William had been bewitched by Ann with witchcraft and potions and been coerced and controlled into such a relationship. Thus, he murdered the woman to escape a magical thraldom, to break the curse. As we shall see shortly, this narrative was echoed by his lawyer, and other prominent minds of the time including the mayor of Much Wenlock. The narrative of witchcraft had power in this community, despite it being the 1800’s. There are conflicting accounts of how Ann’s murder happened, however it is said that on the 12th September, Ann had given William some money to go and buy meat from the market. He was said to have stopped in the pub on the way and blown Ann’s money on drink. He was gone all day, causing Ann to go and search for him. Upon finding him the two argued in the street not far from their house. It was said to have settled down and they ate tea but flared up again not long after. Whatever the relationship, it was a far from a happy one, with abusive behaviour a regular feature, and problems had been flaring up for some time now. Perhaps the ‘bewitching’ of William Davies was actually a very controlling and negative relationship. We can only speculate. However, after dinner Davies announced his decision to leave Ann and began packing his belongings. The argument continued, and then Davies attacked Ann, inflicting fatal wounds. Davies was witnessed leaving the home, with blood on his face and smock. An opened and bloody pocketknife, purchased by Davies just days before, was found nearby and presumed to be the murder weapon. A very shook Davies was quickly tracked and arrested. He was said to ask the policemen if Ann was truly dead, suggesting he didn’t think the attack had been quite so bad.

He also said he did ‘love that old woman’ However as we shall see Ann’s remains were not treated with love. Davies was tried for Ann’s murder, and the witchcraft narrative was used in both court and the community. The Huddersfield Advertiser reported that Morgan ‘Assumed to exercise supernatural powers… incantations appearing to be the very words of fate’ furthering the narrative that Davies had been coerced and controlled by witchcraft. Davies collaborated this by suggesting some of Ann’s books were in fact tomes of witchcraft and the occult and used as an instrument of fear. The community believed so. A number of people spoke out during the time, cementing the unconventional relationship as a product of witchcraft, and that Ann Morgan was a witch. With this being said, the general consensus was that William Davies, though had suffered under the witch, had done the community a favour by removing her. I am more inclined to believe that the power dynamic in this relationship was abusive, rather than magical. Davies’s lawyer described Ann as a woman of ‘very strong body and abusive tongue’ so perhaps her bullying behaviour in an ill-suited relationship had caused William Davies to snap and commit such a crime. Or perhaps it was a drunken argument that went too far, as others have suggested. We will never truly know what caused Ann’s life to be taken, but I think its testament to the belief in witchcraft, that people would rather believe she’d bewitched him, than this being a relationship that went sour.

ltimately, Davies was convicted of murder and condemned to death. He was soon granted a respite and sentenced to penal servitude for life. Folklore suggests that the transportation ship sank, and Ann got her revenge with William Davies drowning. As for Nanny Morgan, her corpse was as feared in death as it had been in life. No one would carry out her last offices, and she was buried as she was found, without pomp or ceremony, still in her bloodstained clothes and shoes. Soon after her burial, attention was turned to keeping her spirit from returning. A dead witch was just as much of

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a threat as a live one it seemed, and even the Mayor and corporation of the borough feared her return, or that her belongings would fall into the wrong hands. Thus, Ann Morgan’s books, alongside any charms or belongings were taken down to a pub known as the Falcon’s Yard inn, and publicly burned in the centre of town. There is something very chilling about this to me, something I cannot quite put my finger on. Perhaps it’s the fact that the mayor had ordered this to happen, that by burning her things, they were destroying everything that she meant and that they were wiping out any trace of her. This whole story seems to be surreal, and it’s very easy to forget that though she may have been flawed, she was a human of flesh and blood and not a supernatural entity needing to be slayed. So, her books were burnt, and folklore suggests even her house was knocked down to prevent her ghost from returning. I wouldn’t put it past the mayor, apparently even the Town Crier watched. However, Nanny Morgan was never that easy to pin down. She is said to haunt Westwood Common and is a frequently seen and heard entity. Reports of disembodied screams, and the struggle that ended her life are heard, and well as full apparitions of her stood in the middle of the common, waiting and watching. She has been seen regularly since her death, though many of the stories surrounding her spirit still fit into the wicked witch narrative. There is a story that her small figure stands in Westwood Common to beckon young men towards her, and if you succumb, you will love no other for the rest of your life and meet her one day in eternity. I don’t know if that is true, but she is definitely a spirit I would like to experience, to find out more about the woman behind the witch…

A my

www.nearlyknowledgeablehistory.blogspot.com

THE LI FE OF RY LEIGH

https://www.ryleighblack. com/

THE LEGEND OF

CAMP ST. ANDREW B ack in the 1940’s, one of the Catholic churches located in Northeast PA purchased a large parcel of land from a family who use to live there. They then started a camp for boys and boy scouts. The camp was staffed by the Diocesan seminarians and a priest. In 1971, Monsignor Kelly was appointed to serve as

a director of Camp St. Andrew as the site for Project Hope (a summer camp experience for children from low-income families in Lackawanna County. Three hundred “day campers”, and 1,500 resident campers attended the eight-week summer program that year. In the 70’s and 80’s the numbers grew even larger.

Over the years the Catholic church decided to allow girls to stay on the opposite side of the camp for a 2 week stay on the 375 acres including access to Lake Oxbow in Tunkhannock. As the story goes, a very wealthy family named the “Blye’s” owned the property. The father, Maxwell Blye, supplied lumber to the local towns to build their businesses. While the father was in town, he met a young man named Samuel Whitehall through the general store’s owner Lyle McNichols. Samuel needed a job and the father needed another worker since the ones he had kept walking off the job. Samuel jumped into the back of his wagon and away they went back to the lumber yard. The deal was that Samuel would work for Maxwell Blye, and in return he would stay in the bunk house free of charge.

The Blye family had 4 sons and 2 daughters. The sons were learning the lumber business while the women learned how to do domestic living. At home, all of the children were taught to speak different languages since they frequently travelled abroad. One of the Blye children (named Nellie Blye), was 15 years old and she was looking for a suitor to marry. Maxwell (her father) wanted her to marry into money and continue with a family fortune. As you may have guessed, Nellie didn’t want to have an arranged marriage like her father suggested. She wanted to find a man of her own choosing. She had never been in love before and like most, wanted to fall in love with that someone

special. But that was an emotion her father didn’t believe in. So, he arranged for Nellie to meet a young man from a very wealthy family that had just moved to the area from England. Marrying this boy would secure family riches for many years to come. One spring day Nellie ventured out of the house. She went for a walk to find her father to argue about this decision of the arranged marriage. She walked to the lumber yard where she was introduced to Samuel Whitehall. She loved everything about him right away! The way he talked, his laugh,

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and most of all the way he made her laugh. As the days passed, Nellie and Samuel started to grow closer and closer. Before anyone knew what happened, Nellie and Samuel fell in love. Nellie’s father had not known of his daughter’s indiscretions. Samuel and Nellie were planning to run away together and be married. But that evening at the last minute, Nellie’s mother needed her to help with a benefit dinner she was throwing for the local Catholic Church. As fate would have it, Maxwell ended up catching Samuel outside of Nellie’s window! A huge fight ended up

again. Her parents searched for her and thought she had run away. Until the next spring thaw when both bodies of Samuel and Nellie surfaced. The towns folk saw the gunshot wound in Samuels body. And the way his legs were bound! Maxwell confessed to the whole

thing and was sentenced to prison where he remained until death. Some of the town folk say that Nellie found him in the lake and freed him of his icy grave. Her mother sold the land and all the buildings to the Catholic church.

Many, years later in the early 1980’s, I was a camper at camp St. Andrew. I never knew the story of the Blye family until one day, a camp counsellor had taken our cabin on a nature walk over to the other side of the lake. Where we came across the old foundation of the Blye’s family home. My counsellor told us the story of what had happened there so many years before. Later that evening, I was at the concession stand with the other campers. And this blue mist started to come across the lake towards the area where we had our mess hall. One of the female campers decided to walk down and show us how she wasn’t afraid of it. We all begged her not to go down by the water. But she did anyway and walked along the cement barrier. When she turned around to say to us that we were all chicken, something grabbed her and pulled her into the water! The lifeguards that were off duty heard her scream and ran to save her. Lucky for her that they got to her in time. The next day she left camp St. Andrews and never spoke to anyone about what had happened.

breaking out between the two of them. As Samuel tried to run away towards the lake, he was shot in the back by Nellie’s father.

Maxwell knew he would go to prison for the rest of his life for this, so he dragged Samuel’s body to the rowboat.

Maxwell rowed his boat out to the middle of the lake and attempted to throw Samuel’s weighted body overboard. But Samuel wasn’t dead and started to fight for his life! After a furious tussle, Maxwell managed to overpower Samuel, and threw him over into the black waters. Maxwell watched as Samuel struggled as he sunk further and further down and out of site. Within minutes, Samuel was dead. Later that evening Nellie returned to hear of the horrible events that took place at her home. She raced to find Samuel only to find out the rumour was true. Her father had killed the love of her life. Nellie sunk into such a depression, she stopped eating and taking care of herself completely. Her

parents decided it was best to send Nellie away to a Sanatorium until she was cured. When Nellie found out what that plan was, she couldn’t bear to leave the lake where her love had died. So that night, while everyone one was asleep, Nellie slipped quietly out the door and walked herself into the Lake, never to be seen

Over the next few days everyone was on edge. The lifeguards and counsellors all got together to discuss what was going on. A few girls including myself were coming out of the showers and saw the blue mist again. This time we saw the spirits of a couple holding hands. They came right out of the water and walked along the beach of the lake. We all ran to the meeting and found the group of counsellors and told them what we had just seen. Monsignor Kelly thought it would be best if none of the campers wandered off alone or walked alone until the remainder of the 2 weeks stay. I had called my mom and told her what had happened and how scared I was and how wanted to come home. She said no and to finish out the 2 weeks. A few days went by and it seemed like everyone had enough of being scared. The adults wanted to find out who or what was causing all of this so they waited up at night to see if the ghostly couple would come ashore again. That night it was my turn to sit in front of the cabin as the “cabin monitor”. I would check the name of the girls that came back to the camp for check-ins. While sitting there, I heard something moving behind the

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cabin. I first thought it was an animal. Or maybe it was another girl playing a trick on me. I walked back to find it was nothing that I could see. And as I made my way back to the front of the cabin, I came face to face with the spirit of Nellie Blye! I’ll never forget what she looked like. She had long blond hair, a blue dress with white flowers, a black velvet type bow in her hair, and very dead eyes… She spoke to me, asking if I had seen Samuel. I froze right where I stood and screamed so loud it was heard across the camp. I was so shaken by this my mom had to come and get me. As weeks passed and the boys were now allowed to stay (because the girls 2 weeks were over), it was rumoured that the boys’ basketball team was attacked by some unseen force while they were out on the lake with their canoes. The boys kept telling the town folks that something kept trying to grab onto their boats to drag them under. Rumour has it, that it was Samuel’s spirit trying to grab onto the boat like he did when Maxwell tried to throw him over. Shortly after, no one wanted to go to the camp, and it was shut down due to lack of funds.

Nellie’s and Samuel’s spirit still roam the lake and the land around it, never to leave and always together.

Ryleigh X

RYLEIGH BLACK founded the paranormal investigative team Black Cross Paranormal in 2008. She is an empath and is of Chiricahua Apache origin, growing up on a reservation in Arizona. Later on in life she lived with her Russian grandmother and was raised in a house that was full of spirits. She now specializes in the capture of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). She recently appeared as an extra in the latest Ghostbusters movie. 65

BACK TO THE FUTURE / FORWARD TO THE PAST?

Con nect i n g To Pa st L ives a nd New A ge Bel iefs

ransgression and past lives may potentially collide with one another in one’s current life as we go about our day-to-day affairs. The afterlife is one thing, but Deja Vu and that feeling one gets of familiarity, is quite often disturbing. For many, it is a feeling of unknown origin and often times swept away like dust beneath the carpet. Hypnotherapy is utilized as a way to regress individuals to that past that seems so familiar to them. Answers are being searched to the why’s and why nots. It is hard to convince others that we have been here before. People are inter-connected with their past. If one has visited a place or met a stranger — it can become a part of one’s subconscious, but there’s a reason for it. Perhaps hidden messages await. One can equate it to going ‘back’ to search deeper until we pass, again. Some may never know this information, but if one reads Edgar Cayce’s book on the Akashi Files, it explains that life files are stored for us. One may have to think a bit more on the topic of past lives. Is there more to this than meets the eye? Human beings are not in a portal but are potentially surrounded by them. Portals, in fiction are a magical or technological doorway that connects two distant locations. Portals are a common concept

in sci-fi and fantasy fiction. Either you must step through the frames of an object (a mirror, a gateway etc.), which serves as a portal, or, when they stand alone, the portal will commonly appear in the form of a vortex of energy. Energy is linked to any ghost or spirit thus leading you down the path of orb phenomena and all the others following suit. A less common portal form is what is called the Portkey and is simply used when it is touched; whisking the person off to the place the Portkey was linked to. Some days we all could use a good Portkey.

Like the hose and nozzle at a local gas station, one knows where it begins, where it fits and where it remains once you’re done using it. But does a portal remain open or can it close? Quite possibly it is mobile and moves about as everything else in the universe does. Based on that theory and fact, life is in constant motion and people are on the back of its short ride, until one has to get off for the next crew to take a spin and continue. Perhaps one needs to ask the questions on what a portal is and where does it link? Does a portal link to a different spot in the same world (in which case it might be an alternative for teleportation); a parallel world (interdimensional portal); the past or the future HAUNTED MAGAZINE

(time portal); or other planes of existence, like heaven, hell or other afterworlds? If one doesn’t believe in an afterworld or another world other than the one they currently reside in, okay. However, on that flip side, based on past experiences, theories, science and so on, nonetheless can be very informative. Portals are similar to the cosmological concept of a wormhole. This branches into out of body experiences in which one leaves their body still connected by a thin (umbilicallike) cord that will link one back to their body when done traveling. This equates to an unconscious bungee jump! Reincarnation, literally meaning, “to be made flesh again”, and is the belief that some essential part of a living being (in some ways only human beings) survives death to be reborn into a new body. Once again, possible connection from one’s past thrusted into one’s current life status. Reincarnation is referred to as the Spirit or Soul, the ‘Higher or True Self’, ‘Divine Spark’, ‘I’ or the ‘Ego’ (not to confuse one with the ego definition by psychology terms.)

According to these beliefs, a new soul begins again for each life in the physical world, but some part of the being remains constantly present throughout these successive lives. Is it possible that one’s past portals are one’s doorway to reincarnation? Is this the bus one gets on when it’s time to hit the next stop? Belief in reincarnation is an ancient phenomenon. Today, it has been adapted into society. It is just as fascinating as ghosts only more so, by ways of thinking that one could recycle themselves like a can of Coca Cola! Diet for me, please. The majorities of society who do believe, come from Indian religious traditions, such as Hinduism (including Yoga, Vaishnavism, and Shaivism), Jainism, Sikhism, Ancient Greek philosophers and many modern Pagans. Some New Age movements, along with followers of Spiritism, practitioners of certain African traditions, and students of esoteric philosophies such as Kabbalah, Sufism and Agnostic and Esoteric Christianity also believe. The concept of rebirth (reincarnation) comes from the Buddhists. New Age movements feel there is no “self” (or eternal soul) to reincarnate. Cultures all have their way in describing their thoughts and beliefs. During recent decades, significant minorities of people in the West have developed a belief in reincarnation. It appears in the field of entertainment, contemporary books and popular songs: where the subject reincarnation is, regularly mentioned, as well as “coming back” or “I have been here before “. Some researchers, such as Professor Ian Stevenson and Dr. Hans Holzer Ph.D., have explored the issue of reincarnation and published suggestive evidence.

Some sceptics are critical of their work and others say that more reincarnation research is needed. For all we know, there’s a UFO portal station, lingering about space and some alien named Henry is in-charge! Like reincarnation, its own flip side is pre-

incarnation, which is the belief of reborn in a new body. Oppose the reborn with former personality, pre-incarnation is the reborn with future life’s new soul. Futurist visionaries are the examples of preincarnational thought. This is where society is today if we fast forward. The belief in reincarnation was probably commonplace among the Vikings, since the annotator of the Poetic Edda wrote that people used to believe in it, but that it was in his (Christian) time considered “old wives’ folly.” In a fairly typical reincarnation case, to quote a true story as an example. “A boy in Beirut spoke of being a 25-year-old mechanic, thrown to his death from a speeding car on a beach road. According to multiple witnesses, the boy provided the name of the driver, the exact location of the crash, the names of the mechanic’s sisters and parents and cousins, and the people he went hunting with – all of which turned out to match the life of a man who had died several years before the boy was born, and who had no apparent connection to the boy’s family.” It was felt that this strict method ruled out all possible “normal” explanations for the child’s memories. However, it should be noted that a significant majority of Professor Stevenson’s reported cases of reincarnation originate in Eastern societies, where dominant religions often permit the concept of reincarnation. Following this type of criticism, Stevenson published a book on European cases suggestive of reincarnation. The most obvious objection to reincarnation is that there is no evidence of a physical process by which a personality could survive death, and travel to another body, and researchers such as Professor Stevenson and Dr. Hans Holzer from ‘Life Beyond: Compelling Evidence for Past Lives and Existence After Death,’ recognize this. Another fundamental objection is that most people simply do not remember previous lives, although it could be argued that only some, but not all, people reincarnate.

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Again, one is left to one’s own devices whether or not one believes. If one experiences it, they may then believe — regardless of if it is based in the past, present or future life. Having some sort of belief in anything is comforting even if it is intangible, and based on feelings, emotions from digging deep within oneself. There seems to be an overflow of negatives in the world to not try and believe in something positive. Some sceptics explain that claims of evidence for reincarnation originate from selective thinking and the psychological phenomena of false memories that often result from one’s own belief system and basic fears, and thus cannot be counted as empirical evidence. So, the need for more reincarnation research will always be at hand, as with any other stormy topic under the paranormal umbrella. Blessings,

Alexandra XX

www.alexandraholzer.com

Jayne Mortimore talks about ‘That Paranormal Thing’

THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THE

PARANORMAL W

ombwell, a little historic town that was mentioned in the Domesday Book. It has everything you’d expect for a small town; a river, a train station, police station, its own renowned haunted woodland, and a population of just under 11,500 people. One of those residents goes by the name of Mark Gallagher. Mark had a typical and happy upbringing and was close with his parents and sister. At the age of 11 and starting high school, our young Mark steps into the school library with his friends and stumbles across some books about ghosts. After reading the books, the small group decided to start their own paranormal posse, named the Ghoul Squad. Sadly, nothing became of the adolescent ghost busters but for Mark it started an interest that has lasted right through to adulthood. At the age of 30 the paranormal enthusiast decided to take his fascination to the next level when he joined local team Soul Reaper Paranormal. With team leader Kyle Thompson, Mark learned a wealth of knowledge and gained investigating experience.

During this time, Mark and the team had experienced some of their best evidence to date which changed his sceptical mind to thinking that there was something more, something that couldn’t be explained, happenings outside of the realms of normality. As a child, Mark never experienced anything of a supernatural nature and it wasn’t until his first investigation with SRP that something out of the ordinary happened in an old, abandoned bar.

Picture the scene, an old pub with a partially rolled down security shutter over the bar and an upturned flip hatch. Mark watched Kyle walk through and under the shutter as the flipped hatch seemed to be pushed back with force toward Kyle. As Mark recites this account, he tells me that if the shutter was not down far enough to catch the heavy hatch that he feared his team mate could have been hit on the head and could have caused a serious injury. As I asked what he thought had happened, whether it was done by the ghostly hands of a spirit, or some other unseen force Mark simply replied “… at the time I didn’t think paranormal, I remember thinking it was not normal and that was all.” I asked Mark what he thinks it is that he is trying to make contact with and his response, somewhat unsure was “I think it’s the human soul but I also think there are some darker things out there. Dare I say it, the ‘D’ word, but just something more negative. Also, the stone tape theory, residual non intelligent things happen too”. This led me to asking about his most memorable experience. On an investigation at an old hospital, the Soul Reaper Paranormal entered the building and Mark looked straight down the corridor to see a head look out of a door and pop back in. Thinking they were not alone, perhaps another investigator, the team walked down to the end of the corridor and to the room where Mark had seen the head and torso only to find nobody around. The strange thing about this is there was no exit at the end of the corridor and no window in the room so no possibility of the person leaving. To this day, Mark finds it hard to explain and there was no doubting what he had seen after trying to recreate the experience. Spooky!

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fter having his fair share of experiences, Mark decided to take a break from pushing hard with the investigating and took some time to spend with his young family but amidst this, the paranormal still kept knocking on his door and he found himself urbexing, visiting the odd abandoned building and still on the look-out for anything outside the realms of normality. This has only spurred on the paranormal curiosity and brought him around full circle to wanting to get back out and investigate. That Paranormal Thing Facebook page

https://www.facebook.com/ Thatparanormalthing or use the QR Code above.

In more recent times, sad circumstances have hit Mark and his whole family unit. Just as life was plodding along nicely, Mark’s father discovered that he has cancer which, of course, it’s a huge blow to any family, especially one as close as the Gallaghers. Feeling a little powerless, Mark decided it was time to do something to help… Mark, now 34 and slightly greyer than when he first started investigating, has decided to set up a new paranormal venture with a bit of a difference. Using his talents as an investigator, he created a new Facebook page called That Paranormal Thing and a JustGiving page, with the goal of raising funds for Cancer Research as he investigates whilst live-streaming his investigations for his viewers and page supporters. Some of the time you’ll see Mark on lone investigations and others he will be joining paranormal teams in some more well-known locations. Mark’s hopes are that as people watch his investigations, they may feel inspired enough to give to the Cancer Research charity. As we conversed, I enquired as to what his final fund-raising goal would be and Mark simply said “There isn’t one, I’ll keep on going until I feel it’s enough or when I’ve had enough. I may even go on to support another charity after Cancer Research”. I have to say that this really set me in awe of such a kind, gentle man just wanting to make a difference in his own existence and for others. I believe we could all take a little something away from Mark’s demeanour and perhaps make our own corner of the world that little bit better too.

“As part of the paranormal community, I feel it’s important to thank and congratulate Mark on being an outstanding role model and bringing back some of the reasons we all entered this field in the first place… Good luck with your fundraising journey” Jayne Mortimore If you want to help Mark, you can do so by simply going the That Paranormal Thing Facebook page, clicking the like button, and sharing the posts but if you feel inclined or are able/want to donate then all the relevant details are on the page. Cancer affects up to 375,000 people in the UK every year, that’s approximately 1,000 diagnosed cases every day. No matter how small, every penny counts in the fight of such a relentless killer.

For the GoFundMe page:

https://www.justgiving.com/ fundraising/thatparanormalthing? or use the QR code above.

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With the new movie, ‘Ghostbusters: ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ Afterlife’ now showing in cinemas, (hopefully) bringing a new audience to the GB franchise as well as ticking all the boxes for the seasoned fans Higgypop looks into the real Paranormal Science, Parapsychology & Supernatural Beliefs Behind ‘Ghostbusters ‘Ghostbusters’’

BEFORE AFTERLIFE

any of today’s paranormal investigators credit the 1984 movie ‘Ghostbusters’ as the thing that first got them interested in the paranormal. Although the comedy isn’t based on a true story, much of the supernatural jargon is. In fact, this movie popularised many of the little-known terms that feature and brought these concepts to a mass audience. The movie was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis. While Harold was a complete non-believer, Dan is very interested and wellread in the paranormal, and it was his vast knowledge of things that go bump in the night that fleshed out the paranormal elements of the film. At one point in the movie the Ghostbusters’ over-worked and underpaid secretary, Janine Melnitz, asks the new recruit Winston Zeddemore, “Do you believe in UFOs, astral projection, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full transmediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?” These are likely to all be topics Aykroyd has researched himself. Although in the movie Dean Yeager from the university says that the Ghostbusters “regard science as some kind of dodge or hustle”, and calls Peter Venkman “a poor scientist,” the science and beliefs behind much of their tech and approach to the supernatural is rooted in either proven science or mirrors the current trends within the paranormal community.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

the aim is to study “the effect of negative reinforcement on ESP abilities” - of course ESP is extrasensory perception or psychic abilities. There’s some debate over the method of Venkman’s experiment and whether it’s negative reinforcement or positive punishment, but this doesn’t seem to matter as clearly, he’s only interested in flirting with the female volunteer, Jennifer.

Early in the movie we see the gang’s original base at the Paranormal Studies Laboratory within the Department of psychology at Weaver Hall, Columbia University. A university is generally the only place you find practicing parapsychologists. Parapsychologists study a number of paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis, near-death experiences, reincarnation and of course ghosts, but it’s not actually possible to get a degree in the subject.

Most professionals who identify as a parapsychologist do so as it is their area of expertise as a brand of psychology, hence why the Ghostbusters formed in the psychology department of Columbia University. In fact, Dr. Peter Venkman tells us in the movie, “I have PhDs in parapsychology and psychology.” We first meet Peter when he’s conducting an experiment with two student volunteers, HAUNTED MAGAZINE

It’s pretty common to use student test subjects in experiments of this nature. They’re readily available around campus and will pretty much do anything for five bucks, as Venkman proves.

Famously, a Cornell University professor claimed to have found proof of psychic powers after conducting experiments using 1,000 student test subjects. Dr. Daryl Bem conducted nine different experiments, which he said proved that participants were able to gain unconscious influences from future events.

In Dr. Venkman’s experiments we see him using a deck of cards depicting five different designs, a hollow circle (one curved line), a Greek cross (two lines), three vertical wavy lines, a hollow square (four lines), and a hollow five-pointed star (five lines). These are Zener cards and have been used in scientific experiments to test for ESP since the early 1930s. Venkman asked the two test subjects to guess which card he was holding while administering electric shocks when a subject got the card wrong, or at least that was how it was supposed to work.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY The first case we see Peter investigate is a ghost sighting and poltergeist activity at New York Public Library. He’s joined by Dr. Egon Spengler and Dr. Ray Stantz. They’re called to investigate after a librarian reported seeing books moving and index cards flying around, and a female ghost.

Paranormal investigator, Carrie Poppy, says that there is almost always a scientific explanation for paranormal phenomenon and

It’s said that ever since, he has haunted his beloved library at Felbrigg Hall perhaps returning to read the books he didn’t have a chance to whilst he was alive. Some say that his ghost will only appear when a particular combination of books is placed on the library table. So, in the case of William, it’s stacking books that encourages him to show himself.

Libraries are classic haunted locations. They are usually housed in old building, some of which have had alternative uses such as courtrooms or stately homes. The initial activity the librarian experiences is also pretty typical poltergeist activity, although it’s not normally witnessed in such as sustained and dramatic fashion. Probably the most similar real-life haunting is that of the Senate House Library in London, where staff have reported seeing floating books and even a full-bodied apparition of an unknown man wearing a cloak. Of course, the actual encounter with the ghost breaks from reality, but the movie needed to give 80s cinemagoers a bit of a jump scare. Ray describes this ghost as a “free floating, full torso, vaporous apparition”. The term “full-torso” or “full-bodied apparition” is now pretty commonly used within the paranormal field to describe this type of haunting. Upon meeting the terrified librarian, Peter asked her a few standard questions, “have you or any of your family ever been diagnosed schizophrenic, mentally incompetent?” Even if not directly asked to the victim of a haunting, these questions are among the questions that a real-life paranormal investigator might attempt to answer.

The Ghostbusters next stumble across a part of the library which is dripping with ectoplasmic residue as a result of, what Ray calls, all the “telekinetic activity” that took place there. For most of us growing up in the 1980s, the first time we ever heard of ectoplasm was in ‘Ghostbusters’, but the gloopy, slimy, ghost residue actually dates back to séances in the Victorian era. Mediums of the time would spew up reams of ectoplasm as part of their elaborate shows. The name ectoplasm was coined by Nobel Prize winning French physiologist, Charles Richet in 1894. It derives from the Greek words ektos and plasma, meaning an “exteriorised substance”. Ektos meaning outside or exterior and plasma meaning “something formed or moulded”. Then the Ghostbusters encounter the full torso apparition for themselves. “It’s real,” Ray remarks. This seems to be the first time they witnessed such a complete ghost, something they’ve always dreamt of. Despite this, when

in 1809, William risked his life to save as many of the books as he could. This resulted in him being badly injured by the flames and he died a few weeks later.

this should be ruled out first. Speaking at a TED talk in Vienna. Carrie, who has taken part in over 70 investigations, said that “100% of the time, science can explain away any paranormal claims”. Moments later the team are investigating the haunted basement and they find a pile of books that appear to be stacked in a way that no human being would stack books. Ray calls it “symmetrical book stacking, just like the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947.” Sadly, a mass turbulence in Philadelphia in the 1940s was not a real thing that actually happened and the closest thing to symmetrical book stacking we know about is at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk. Its former owner William Windham III was obsessed with books, so when a fire broke out at a friend’s library in London

they come face to face with the ghost in the library, they have no plan of action. This also mirrors real-life paranormal investigation. Amateur ghost hunters often spend hour after hour sat in the dark waiting for something to happen, and if it finally does, they often get scared and run off. They have no idea what to actually do. Neither did Ray, his suggestion was, “get her!” The team lunged for the ghost and actually touched the etheric plane. “Etheric plane” is another piece of real paranormal jargon. The term was coined by occult author Charles Webster Leadbeater and Annie Besant. The etheric plane is said to be another level of consciousness that we can pass into, either through our dreams, astral projection and out of body experiences, or when we die. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Although the Philadelphia mass turbulence of 1947 wasn’t real, something else Ray references is. At the end of the movie Ray tells Louis Tully, “You are a most fortunate individual. You have been a participant in the biggest interdimensional cross-rip since the Tunguska blast of 1909.” The Tunguska blast was an unusual explosion that occurred in Russia, it flattened 2,000 square kilometres of forest and caused at least three human casualties. The reason the explosion is so unusual is because it was an asteroid, but there’s no impact crater. Instead, the object from space burnt up in the atmosphere pushing super-heated hot air down onto the surface of the Earth with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. However, Ray did get the year wrong, the event actually happened a year earlier in June 1908, but we’ll let him off as he was clearly very excited at the time over the stack of books.

SEDGEWICK HOTEL Now with receptionist, Janine Melnitz, on their staff the team get their first proper call. Janine answers the phone and we hear her side of the conversation, “hello, Ghostbusters. Yes, of course they’re serious”. This reflects the real-life criticism that paranormal investigators receive and how they are spoken to. Non-believers often assume they must be joking, “you don’t really believe in all that do you?”

In the library we also get our first glimpse of a PKE meter, which Egon has used to detect high PKE valances, that “went right off the top of the scale, buried the needle”. A PKE meter, or Psychokinetic Energy meter, detects the psi-energy associated with haunting phenomenon. Unfortunately, no such device exists and psychokinetic energy is purely fictional, but the tool is very similar to one very popular ghost hunting gadget used by investigators, the EMF meter - the most common of which is called a K-II Meter. Just like the PKE meter, an EMF meter also detects invisible energy. In this case electromagnetic fields. The connection between spirits and EMF is based on the fact that the human brain uses tiny electronic impulses to send signals around our bodies. Ghost hunters think that this synaptic energy can live on as a disembodied consciousness after death and it is this that EMF meters can detect. This makes the K-II similar but not exactly the same as a PKE meter. In one scene of the movie, we see Egon using a PKE meter. He picks up on a guest in a hotel and pokes the man to see if he’s real or a ghost. So clearly the PKE meter can detect living humans - something an EMF meter can’t do. After leaving the library, the Ghostbusters discuss the fact they lacked a plan, but Egon tells them the that based on measurements he collected with his PKE meter the experience wasn’t a total waste. He says, “according to these new readings, I think we have an excellent chance of actually catching a ghost and holding it indefinitely.”

Once Janine confirms the call is real, she sends the team off to the very exclusive Sedgewick Hotel where we see the boys in grey fully tooled up for the first time, and of course, they’re each wearing a proton pack. It’s during a scene in the elevator up to the 12th floor that the team discuss the fact they haven’t fully tested the proton packs. Peter says, “each of us is wearing an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back,” hinting at some of the science behind the ghost hunting device. The proton pack is basically a wearable particle accelerator that kicks out a proton beam. Believe it or not, this technology already exists and could just about be small enough to wear on your back, but it wouldn’t have any effect if you encountered a ghost. The nuclear accelerator element of the proton pack that the gang refer to is the cyclotron at the heart of the device. A cyclotron is a circular particle accelerator and was invented in 1932 by nuclear scientist Ernest O Lawrence. It accelerates particles, in this case protons, up to high speeds before releasing them, smashing them together or forcing them to collide with a detector. In real life the beam of protons that is emitted turns the air a faint blue - it’s way less dramatic and destructive than the proton beams in the movie.

Later we learn that the Ghostbusters should never cross their proton streams. Egon warns them, “try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light”. As any true Ghostbusters fan will know, this is “total protonic reversal”. Luckily, a total protonic reversal isn’t something you risk experiencing on a ghost hunt. Presumably this fictional catastrophic event would involve the creation of antiprotons. When these collide with protons it would cause both particles to be annihilated in a burst of energy, possibly even create a catastrophic chain reaction and causing all life as we know it to be instantaneously ripped apart at a molecular level. It may sound silly and like nothing more than science fiction, but many people believed something similar and as severe as this might have happened when scientists turned on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for the first time in 2009. The LHC is a huge, much more complex version of a proton pack. It’s a particle accelerator 17 miles in circumference built underground on the border of France and Switzerland at CERN (the European Council for Nuclear Research). Before scientists began experimenting with the accelerator it was widely reported that it could produce a doomsday scenario. Many people feared that the experiment could open up a stable microscopic black hole that could grow exponentially and swallow up the planet. Of course, the Ghostbusters eventually save the day by crossing their steams and reversing the particle flow through the gate that’s been opened up at “Spook Central” and causing the cascade annihilation of the encroaching plane of existence, thus permanently closing the gate.

Ray agrees and tells the gang, “If this ionisation rate is constant for all ectoplasmic entities, we could really bust some heads.” The science seems to have gotten away from them a little bit in this sentence, there’s no known link between ghosts and ionisation. Ionisation is a sub-atomic process where an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons. For this to occur in an ectoplasmic entity, it would mean that an entity must be made of regular physical matter. This goes against everything we believe about the nature of ghosts, specifically their ability to appear semi-transparent and pass through solid objects.

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The Ghostbusters eventually corner Slimer in the hotel ballroom and we get to see for the first time how the team dispose of spooks. While Peter and Egon use their neutrona wands to hold the entity in confinement streams, Ray throws out a trap into the middle of the dance floor. When Ray pushes the foot peddle, Slimer is sucked into the trap.

While at the Sedgewick Hotel the team encounter a real nasty “focused, non-terminal repeating phantasm,” also known as a “class five full-roaming vapour”. He’s also a greedy little ghost who later picks up the nickname Slimer. Venkman is the first to make contact with him, he finds the ghoul eating the leftover food from a room service cart in a 12th floor corridor, but surely ghosts don’t need to eat? It might seem like an obvious question and that ghosts don’t require food, but there are some links between food and the afterlife. The ancient Greeks believed that after death most spirits would wander meadows of asphodel, a flowering plant which grew in abundance. It’s said the poor ate parts of the plant as it was free and readily available. They believed the spirits roaming the meadows would eat the plant for eternity. In Mexico it seems many people believe that ghosts enjoy a snack, in November each year they celebrate the Day of The Dead, a day to honour the memory of friends and family members who have died and help support their spiritual journey. Part of the celebrations involve leaving the deceased gifts of their favourite foods and drinks. The gifts are left on graves or in homemade alters. Asians have a similar celebration, the Ghost Festival. It takes place during the seventh month of the Chinese calendar, the 15th day is known as Ghost Day and as in Mexico, part of the celebration involves preparing ritualistic food offerings.

Believed by some to entrap the ghost with a laser containment field, exactly how the trap works was never fully explained in the films and there’s no real-life science that makes a ghost trap possible. However, there are some spiritual methods of spirit entrapment, such as enticing it into a jar using a candle and closing the lid, or by sealing it in a box and burying it. The problem is, if there’s one thing we know about ghosts it’s that they can pass through solid objects, which seems to conflict with the idea of using a glass jar, wooden box or any other kind of trap. Another thing we know about ghosts is that they walk on the floor and that disembodied footsteps are very commonly reported during hauntings. So, logic would dictate that if ghosts can’t pass through the floor, then the best way to catch one would be by building a box out of flooring.

Catching a ghost is one thing, but holding it indefinitely is another thing all together. This is done in the basement of the Ghostbusters’ headquarters, the old firehouse. Ray describes the containment unit as a “custom-made storage facility,” Egon later expands on this by telling a city official that it is a “high voltage laser containment system”. Again, we don’t know the science of how this works, but we do know that an uncontrolled shutdown is like dropping a bomb on the city. In reality a ghost hunters aim isn’t to trap, remove and detain a ghost. After all, that shows little respect for the lost souls that have become trapped in our realm. Ghost hunters will actually try to communicate with spirits in order to help them move on or perform spiritual cleansing rituals to free them from the property.

IVO SHANDOR BUILDING The Ivo Shandor building, located at 55 Central Park West, is the location where most of the action takes place in the movie, hence why it’s given the nickname “Spook Central” by Ray. The first person to witness something odd is Dana Barrett. While unpacking her shopping, a box of eggs popped open, they began to shake before leaping out of their shells and cooking on the counter.

Egon then says, “I could look for the name Zuul in the usual literature” and ‘Spates Catalog’ and ‘Tobin’s Spirit Guide’ are suggested. Sadly, neither of these spirit compendiums actually exist outside the ‘Ghostbusters’ universe, although there are similar books like Judika Illes’ ‘Encyclopaedia of Spirits’ and Rosemary Ellen Guiley and John Zaffis’ ‘Encyclopaedia of Demons and Demonology’.

The incident isn’t too dissimilar from a real-life case which took place in Glasgow in 1958. A group of American students fled from the flat in Gibson Street after they witnessed eggs dancing on a shelf in the kitchen.

Later there’s another passing reference to another of the Ghostbusters’ reference books, ‘The Roylance Guide to Secret Societies and Sects’. This is where Peter gets the details about Zuul that he tells Dana outside the orchestra rehearsal, but this book doesn’t really exist either outside of the movie.

Next Dana heard growling noises coming from her fridge and opened it up to find it led to a different plane of existence inhabited by a vicious dog-like creature that speaks the word “Zuul” to her. Having previously seen their commercial on television, Dana goes to the Ghostbusters for help. During their initial meeting Ray and Egon brainstorm some of the possible causes for Dana’s experience, all of which are commonly believed paranormal phenomenon. Ray suggests that it could be “past-life experience intruding on present time,” Egon agrees and adds that it could also be “erased memories stored in the collective unconscious,” and states that he “wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact.” HAUNTED MAGAZINE

Peter tells Dana, “The name Zuul refers to a demi-god worshipped around 6,000 BC by the Hittites, the Mesopotamians and the Sumerians”. According to Peter’s notes, Zuul was the minion of Gozer. You may be surprised to learn the Gozer the Destructor did exist before the movie. The supernatural being first made its presence known in London in the 1970s as part of the famous Enfield Poltergeist case. Over a 14-month period the Hodgson family were tormented by a poltergeist, it gained worldwide press attention and the house was visited by countless mediums, journalists and paranormal researchers.

At one point a medium named Annie Shaw came to the house with her husband, George. During a séance in the council house, Annie suddenly let out a cry, “go away!” George tried to tell the spirit to leave and before long Annie started to moan “Gozer, Gozer, help me.” Later George said “this Gozer is a nasty piece of work, a sort of black magic chap.” The Enfield case was so well publicised around the world that it didn’t take long for Dan Aykroyd to hear about Gozer at around the time he was writing ‘Ghostbusters’. He went on to incorporate the dark demon’s name into the script. When we return to the Ivo Shandor building later in the movie, we seen lightning striking the tip of the building. This could just be shown for dramatic effect, but there are many within the paranormal community who say that hauntings occur as a result of psychic or spiritual energy and the massive amounts of energy generated by a lightning strike causes a spike in paranormal activity. Although lightning occurs due to a massive electrical charge, most of this energy is lost as it travels through the air from the cloud to the ground. The energy is converted into the bright flash of light that we see and a lot of infrared energy including heat which superheats the air around it. This means all the energy is converted into other forms of energy before a ghost could get its ethereal hands on it.

However, Ray does state that “the whole building is a huge super-conductive antenna that was designed and built expressly for the purpose of pulling in and concentrating spiritual turbulence.” So perhaps this building is able to harness the energy of lightning strikes, something scientists have been trying to do in real life as a single lightning strike delivers enough energy to power a 60watt lightbulb for six months. Zuul emerges as a dog-like creature from a statue in its own likeness on the roof of the Shandor building and possesses Dana. When Venkman later visits Dana the first thing she asks him is, “are you the key master?” Peter tries to talk to Dana but eventually a gruff voice emanates from Dana without her moving her lips, the voice says “there is no Dana, there is only Zuul”. Moments later, to Venkman’s astonishment, Dana is seen to rise above the bed and float in mid-air. This moment of the film could have well been inspired by Aykroyd’s interest in the Enfield poltergeist case. The case is perhaps best known for levitation and voices from beyond the grave. One of the case’s investigators challenged the entity that was allegedly haunting the house to speak and witnessed a gruff, male voice coming from the youngest daughter, Janet. The voice sounded like that of an elderly man and the researchers were convinced it was not the voice of a 12-year-old HAUNTED MAGAZINE

girl. Just like Dana in ‘Ghostbusters’, the girl’s lips did not move when the voice was heard. Later in the case, Janet was witnessed levitating by a member of the public who saw the action through a window. The woman watched as Janet appeared to levitate inside the bedroom window, she described the occurrence as though Janet was “going up and down as though someone was just tossing her up and down bodily, in a horizontal position, like as if someone had got hold of her legs and back and throwing her up and down.” At this point of course, Dana is possessed by Zuul. Demonic possession is something which is said to be real and genuinely terrifies some paranormal investigators. The idea of possession was forced into the mainstream in 1973 by the chilling movie ‘The Exorcist’, based on a novel by William Peter Blatty. This book was inspired by a real case of possession, which is said to have taken place in 1949 and involved the exorcism of a young boy from Cottage City, Maryland. We don’t know where the inspiration for Dana’s possession came from, but as Aykroyd was well read in the field of the paranormal, it could have been reports of cases like the 1949 possession that inspired him.

CITY HALL Walter “Dickless” Peck has the Ghostbusters arrested and they’re locked in a jail cell, until a guard tells them the mayor wants to see them. “The whole island’s going crazy,” he tells them. Police escort the Ghostbusters to City Hall where they meet with the mayor in his office and discuss the paranormal events taking place in New York. The police commissioner is the first to talk about something he’d witnessed, “the walls in the 53rd precinct were bleeding. How do you explain that?” This is said to be common in haunting involving demons. Some believe demons are able to materialise substances, often in the form of liquids oozing from walls, flowing from taps or appearing in puddles on the floor. This can be anything from water, through to dark tar-like substances and even blood. At Samlesbury Hall in Preston a mysterious blood stain is said to appear on the floor in a room where a priest was killed in 1384. Venkman then tells the office that “this city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.” Ray clarifies that this means “Old Testament biblical. Real wrath-ofGod-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming from the sky. Rivers and seas boiling.” Egon chips in and adds, “forty years of darkness. Earthquakes. Volcanoes.” Winston takes over, “the dead rising from the grave!” This is the second time a biblical doomsdaylike scenario has been mentioned in the film. Earlier in the movie Winston asks Ray, “do you remember something in the Bible about the last days, when the dead would rise from the grave?”

Ray quotes from memory, “Revelation 7:12. And I looked, as he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the Sun became as black as sackcloth. And the Moon became as blood.” It’s not just religion that talks about the end of the world, there’s countless prophecies that speak of an impending end to life as we know it. It seems every few years someone comes forward with a new date for the end of civilisation, citing the threats as anything from nuclear war or civil unrest through to a natural disaster or alien invasion, but the most common theme when it comes to Earth’s destruction is threats from space. We’ve not yet had anyone predict an interdimensional cross-rip.

We’re not about to tell you that a 30-meterhigh marshmallow man once terrorised a small village in Germany. Every supernatural movie needs some kind of showdown with a seemingly unstoppable monster of some kind and it’s always at this point that realism goes totally out of the window. But there is still a bit of science we can do here. Have you ever wondered how many calories were in the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?

Jumping ahead slightly, in ‘Ghostbusters II’ a guest of Dr. Venkman’s television show informs viewers that “the end of the world will be on February 14th in the year 2016.”

Luckily, Kyle from the Nerdist series ‘Because Science’ on YouTube has done the maths based on a figure given by the ‘Ghostbusters’ model makers that tells us that Stay Puft is 34.5 metres tall.

As Ray says in the film, every ancient religion has its own myth about the end of the world. Ray and Winston agree this is called “judgment day”. The concept of a final judgement of all people is not unique to the bible or Christianity. The much older religion of Zoroastrianism and Islam both believe in a judgment day before a final destruction of the Earth. This concept also features in some ancient Greek and African religions, and there’s examples of similar beliefs from India and China.

Based on this Kyle is able to estimate the volume of the cylinders that make up his body. This gives us a massive 1.6 million gallons of marshmallow, which equates to 3.6 million kilograms. We know that marshmallows contain 120 calories per 100 grams, which means that in total the Marshmallow Man contains over 7 billion calories. Based on a recommended daily intake of 2,000 calories, that’s enough marshmallow to keep a family of four well fed for over 2,000 years. On a side note. The 1984 movie averages one product placement every ten minutes. Brands shown on screen include Coca Cola and Hostess Twinkie, plus the publications The Atlantic, Globe, New York Post and Time.

TEMPLE OF GOZER The finale of the movie takes place on the roof of Dana’s building at Central Park West, where a gateway has opened up between our world and the domain of Gozer the Gozerian. In paranormal circles, this is known as a portal or a vortex. They are believed to be points at which our physical realm and the spirit realm meet and allows spirits and other supernatural entities to pass through into our world.

containing spirits or even demons date back even further, with countless tales being told for generations.

Probably the most common belief is that mirrors can act as portals or windows to the spirit realm. The notion was popular in Victorian times and played upon in the séances of the time. Stories of mirrors attracting and

Probably the best known of these stories is the legend of Bloody Mary, a medieval witch by the name of Mary Worth. Her haggard face is said to appear in a mirror to those who call her name three times.

The final showdown in the movie features the “destructor” which has taken an unusual form. Gozer allows the Ghostbusters to choose the form of the destructor. They all try not to pick anything and empty their minds, but Ray accidentally thought of something he loved from his childhood, “something that could never, ever possibly destroy us. Mr. Stay Puft.”

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However, Stay Puft Marshmallow aren’t actually a real confectionary brand, which is a missed opportunity as a towering, 35-metre-high billboard strolling through downtown Manhattan would be the ultimate advertisement. ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ is set thirty years after the events of Ghostbusters II (1989) and is based around the grandchildren of Dr Egon Spengler. Let’s hope that this iconic franchise will continue to inspire new generations of ghost hunters.

HiggyPop

Do you think you’d be afraid if you saw a ghost?

ilms come and go, that is the very nature of them, but some resonate with you, some stick with you, some you can watch over and over again. The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972) is one of those films. I cannot remember when I first saw it, probably late 1970s, it actually might have been at junior school, or early 1980s but it has been part of me ever since. I am sure it holds fond memories for anyone who encountered it in their youth especially as it has been regularly served up as bank holiday treat on TV. The Amazing Mr. Blunden is a nostalgic Edwardian time slip fantasy fairy tale ghost story and for a kid with an overactive imagination it has everything; poor kids, a haunted house, ghosts, time travel, magic, evil baddies, playful, happy times, dark, sinister times and of course Mr Blunden (who is amazing, by the way). I was hooked. It is almost Dickensian in its story and despite it not actually being a proper Christmas film, my memory is of watching it at Christmas time, something which I continue to do with my own kids (they’re not forced to watch, honest). When I found out that Sky were doing their very own adaptation of it, I was a bit wobbly with it, I’ll be honest, sometimes you just have to let classics be classics, let’s not forget that this has been one of my go to feel good films for over 40 years but when I knew Mark Gatiss was involved I wobbled no more. If there’s anyone who can do ghost stories, with darkness, with light, with humour and with passion it is he. There’s a famous line from the original that goes “do you think you’d be afraid if you saw a ghost?”, I guess I have carried that with me since I first saw it, an invisible tattoo magically inked into my psyche. Is it one of the reasons why I love ghost hunting, possibly, who knows? I cannot wait to see what Sky have done with this. Fingers crossed they have reimagined it, reinvented but stayed true to what it is about. I will always encourage anyone to watch the original film from 1972 (or read the book it was based on) but I hope this version enriches and delights a new generation of people. I am sure it will. Paul Stevenson, Haunted Magazine

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What you need to know...

nspired by the 1972 motion picture of the same name and adapted from Antonia Barber’s children’s fantasy novel ‘The Ghosts’, The Amazing Mr Blunden is a new Sky original made especially for Christmas. Adventure arrives for teenagers Jamie and Lucy in the form of a mysterious old man, Mr Blunden, who offers their mum the opportunity to become the caretaker of a ruined country house – one that’s said to be haunted. Within its neglected grounds, Jamie and Lucy have an encounter with what appears to be a pair of ghosts. But these kids, Sara and Georgie, aren’t actually ghosts. They’ve travelled forwards in time to seek help, believing they’re in danger from the wicked Mr and Mrs Wickens, and Lucy and Jamie’s strange visitor seems to be the key to it all. With his help, they must travel back to 1821 to save Sara and Georgie and redeem their remorseful new friend - The Amazing Mr Blunden!

Mark Gatiss who adapted this updated version says: In the book it's based on, “The Ghosts” by Antonia Barber, the kids are modern. So, I thought, “there's something interesting here about making the kids defiantly 2021. Then there'll be much more of a contrast when they go back in time.” So that got me interested. And then I started to think, as with so many things I’ve done, such as Sherlock, Dracula, and Doctor Who, you can honour the thing you love without preserving it in aspic. And the truth is, though the original film is very beloved to those who know it, not many people do know it. It’s such a great story. So, I thought, “well, it's 50 years since the original. Why not?” And so, I then got very excited about doing it. It was a very swift commission from Sky, and they have been absolutely fantastic. In remaking The Amazing Mr Blunden, were you concerned about upsetting the purists? There will always be people who worry that you’re going to spoil something by remaking it – they said the same thing about our version of Sherlock. But I always have the same answer. I had the same hard-line mentality about Doctor Who when I was 14! But no one is going to destroy the original. All we’re trying to do is introduce The Amazing Mr Blunden to a new generation who, to be honest, will never go near a 50-year-old film. It’s obviously nothing to do with dishonouring a beloved original. It’s about making it for a new audience. We also have three of the original cast – Madeline Smith, Rosalyn Landor and Stuart Lock – doing cameos, which has been an absolute delight. I always do that when I can. I had Douglas Wilmer, one of the great Sherlock Holmes on Sherlock. It’s like paying people back for what they gave to you, and this film has been so special to me over so many years. It’s just glorious to see them on set.

"It was ghosts. It was time travel. It was magic. It was faintly sinister... I just loved it." Mark Gatiss

The Amazing Mr Blunden, available this Christmas on Sky Max and NOW. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

QR CODE: https://www. themanorhousehotel.co.uk/

HUBERT HOBUX GETS TO GO CLASSIC GHOST SEEKING AGAIN

n investigation into paranormal activity was held at this 16th century Manor farm. once home to the squires of Ferryhill, County Palatine of Durham, the structure must have been the centre of local authoritative administration and was said to have held the infamous axe murderer, Andrew Mills, prior to his execution by gibbet, in 1682. A servant in the nearby house of a farmer called Brass, he claimed to have been spurred on by a demonic being to “Kill all....” of the Brass offspring. Alone in the house whilst their parents were away, Mills bludgeoned and slit the throats of Jane, John and little Elizabeth Brass. Whilst running from the scene, he was apprehended by soldiers and declared the slaughter was perpetrated by two unknown intruders, but the mother of the youngsters’ gut reactions told her it was Mills that had done the deed. The soldiers searched his person and found a bloodied knife still in his pocket. Taken to Durham and tried, he was condemned to be returned to Ferryhill and suffer a ghastly death by being “hung in chains” on the North Road gibbet. He would probably have spent his last uncomfortable night in the cellar of the Manor whilst his iron cage was readied. Does some form of his troubled energy still lurk in the area? There has been a dark energy long recorded as being present at Manor House.

The place had been repurposed as an orphanage by a local parson in the early 19th century, he, or a superintendent he had employed, may have been a strict disciplinarian. A male entity of malevolence reportedly assaulted the young son of a previous landlord, and still stands glowering at people as they attempt to sleep in the wondrously comfy

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guest rooms. A friend who had stayed last year had experienced the exact same phenomena. He had creeped her out all night long, and she had been terrified to use the bath the next morning! Maybe with good reason, for there were rumours that the bodies of unfortunate waifs were buried in the grounds. Would it have been acceptable even back in those dim distant days, to conveniently dispose of brutally treated children in the private grounds? Hopefully not, though not much thought would be given for a poor orphans’ welfare presumably. Seems some bones had been unearthed during renovation of the patio, supposedly. So that could explain the amount of ghostly children that linger there then and maybe the sad lady ghost who has been seen, distraughtly climbing the staircase toward the Gothic arched landing of the dormitory corridor, “searching “ for “her “ lost child.

INVESTIGATION #1:

The Manor House Hotel Investigation, Ferryhill, County Durham.

ur intimate group congregated on the Friday afternoon and we were allocated rooms Six, Seven, and Eight with room Three as a supposedly flat safe base room, for the investigation host medium John Blackburn to spend the night in. The evening was spent acclimatising to the hostelry, which certainly held an air of anticipation. Friends Karen and Dave (both very sensitive to spirit) were in Six and were starting to feel very edgy already. Debbie and Sarah shared room Eight and had already located a pocket of abnormal energy by the twin beds. I had had a serious dose of the chills in Seven as I had opened the small walk-in wardrobe up. A brief pendulum session told me that this was a male energy, didn’t seem negative towards me, but seemed to carry something of a history that he had no remorse for.

We gathered for a pre shenanigans supper in the dining room just off the old farmhouse kitchen range room, and I had the nagging feel someone was in that kitchen, observing us with interest. It wasn’t long before a cold chill arrived amongst us, obviously attracted towards Karen, we all felt this was the spirit of a curious young girl, a young girl with a paranormal history of her own (more on that later). And so, the evening started properly with a session of sit and listen in the dimmed light of room Three.

“Quickly the dark entity was amongst us, I had made the mistake of positioning myself by the wide old original butter stone fireplace, obviously his favourite spot as the energy of the room soon had us all swaying.” Karen, at the opposite end of the room noticed I was enveloped in a shadowy mass. Suddenly he took morbid delight in bouncing my head lightly but persistently off the wall, at one stage giving my trouser leg a sharp tug, which was audible to all in the room, as were my cries of terror at that moment! The others mentioned I had been emitting an extraordinary amount of body heat but my personage was actually swathed in chills! Vigil two was carried out in room Eight, Debby and Sarah were sharing this twin bedroom and they had already located a ‘pillar’ of some vortex phenomena between their bunks. This was the room where the young lad from the pub had, years back, been hauled physically out of bed! By his throat!! John Blackburn is a superbly good “Trans Medium “ so he was able to utilise that pillar and bring this dominant dark force over himself, before transferring us all to room Six..... room six is the room for eeriness. Karen and Dave were in this ‘family’ sized room consisting of main bedroom, and a smaller single bed/cot room off the bathroom and what a hive of spirit activity it was. Children haunt that room, whilst we engaged the energies in communication a small invisible girl was felt by Karen tightly holding her waist in fear, as if shielding behind Karen. Her hubby Dave was strongly affected in the bedroom where there were reports that several of the ghosts seemingly cower. This must have been the orphan’s boarding area, perhaps the girl’s dormitory. They were heard “walking around” by a disconcerted Karen and Dave in the early morning hours, though the room left us all feeling anxious in that earlier encounter. The night wore on and as the pub was emptying of customers, we were able to get downstairs and investigate the bar area. The staff often feel as though they are being watched. A couple of barmen helped us out with a bit of good old fashioned table tipping, I went back in the bar early next morning to try a spirit box app. The place is definitely busy with energies bustling about their daily business, I heard a lady’s lilting voice twice, called me “sir” as if in some apologetic response. I got the impression that the old yeoman farmers household occupy the lower floors, whilst the slightly more negative stuff remains upstairs.

The modern-day landlord pointed out the “ghost photograph “ to us during a pause for breath taken by an old Wooden Plate Bellows Camera in 1896, the framed print shows the exterior of Manor House with its proud new owners stood in the courtyard prior to moving in. It wasn’t until the photographic plate had been developed, that the image of what looked like a little girl, peeping out of the ground floor window was noticed. Those new owners had no children.... nor were there any children inside the Hall at the time… not living ones anyway! So, how did I sleep in that haunted room Seven? I could feel his eerie menace lurking in the walk-in wardrobe He was no bother to me, not until I was disrobing for bed at 3am and he flung the bathroom door open, catching me full on the posterior with it (sod). He did give me some slightly disturbed dreams as well but I’m used to that now (try harder next time ghoul friend). The Manor House Hotel is still a classically haunted hostelry and well worth seeking out for a haunted stay!

https:// youtu.be/ tiPCzTvdE44

Yvette and Derek Acorah did a classic Most Haunted from here. They were all pretty spooked in the production of the episode. Derek got possessed (CON-FRON-TATION!!) You can see a copy of the episode at the YouTube link below:

INVESTIGATION #2 (Private):

Hubert, Hobgoblin and a Hullabaloo, The Shakespeare Tavern, County Durham

o, on Saturday afternoon I was lucky enough to get into The Shakespeare, Durham’s “most haunted pub”. Now I’ve been in before and didn’t get a lot from that earlier visit, last autumn, though the landlord was claiming many incidents of eeriness, he wouldn’t really define anything specific apart from advising me to “ heed the shadows”. Anyway, I went in again because the place and people are very friendly, gave my track and trace details, then was lucky enough to find the small nook at the very back of the pub empty (the place was packed out last year)! I was sat enjoying a pint of Hobgoblin, absorbing the classic old pub atmosphere whilst Facebooking a friend, Sarah, about some astral projection experiment we were dabbling with. Could have been the effects of the ruby ale taking hold of me, but I suddenly thought there was a slight shift of vibe in the small snug. You know when you get that ‘feeling’ of ‘anxiety’ mild vexation? Instantly there was one hell of a commotion the “other” side of the pub wall, presumably in the alleyway outside? Sounds of an argument, yawping, shouting, a woman crying out as if trying to step into the middle of a scuffle. HAUNTED MAGAZINE

I sat listening to it thinking “Flipping Heck, even in classy Durham there’s yobs”. The cacophony went on loudly for a good minute or more before going totally quiet. Relieved, I jokingly posted Sarah to ask if “she had astrally travelled and ‘sorted out’ the louts outside?” So, I risked another half of ‘Hob’ and mentioned the exterior rumpus to the barman. He looked at me a bit funny. He hadn’t heard anything himself so I didn’t pay much more attention to the incident myself. I did hear a couple of sets of feet apparently running along the alley, though no more shouts, no shadowy glimpses neither, so I decided to leave and wander up to my Gilesgate hotel.

INVESTIGATION #3: Vane Tempest Hall, Gilesgate, County Durham

was incredibly lucky to get a bed at the Queens Head, Gilesgate, right next door to the 1863 built military barracks that was named after the local colliery, supposedly on the site of a mass burial. Perhaps the casualties from the nearby battle of Neville’s Cross? The energy in this place is really immense. The Hall was buzzing from the moment we moved in, our intimate little group from Manor Hall was joined by four local lady guests, and whilst John Blackburn introduced them to the delights of spirit seeking, we more experienced fools performed glass divination and table tipping to warm the session up. Vane Tempest has been a smallpox hospital, World War convalescent ward and entertainment centre so we were being bombarded with spirits trying to vie for our attention; nurses, patients, old folk, young folk, those who passed from wounds, those that succumbed to illness and those that just loved the place and returned in joy. The energy was mental! Karen suddenly had a slight scare as she was being ‘clawed’ at by slithery slimy entities that were crawling up from out of the ground clasping at her feet. We had to waft them away from her as she was being drained badly, sometimes I’m glad I don’t *see* things like that!

Moving into the large old drill hall next door, we were aware that there may have been the residual energy of a uniformed man, standing sentry by the door separating the corridors. There was a lot of spirit activity behind that door, you could see shadowy heads peer through the glass window, bobbing about as if checking through on us, occasionally a mass of energy would pervade through, was that why the guard was standing stalwart? We were curious to see so a human pendulum session was decided upon, arranged at the far end of the hall and we managed to bring the invisible soldier amongst us. Ms G acting as fulcrum in the middle, was taking a pretty rough handling from him!

He may have died in an air raid, may have been buried close (St Giles church down the road hosts commonwealth war graves), may have had a fancy for one of the nurses, thought he was standing guard on roster. All the while he was driving us insidiously back towards that eerie, haunted doorway, and as he lurched Ms G nearer to his position of duty, he was gone, only to be replaced by a whole host of strange spirits intent on having a go! Energy circles in the drill hall gave us disembodied voices, light anomalies and a mind-boggling glimpse of a pall of dark mass of energy descending on the group in circle whist I was stood lone vigil by the haunted doorway! An introduction to the art of Human Scrying was practiced whilst the spirits were high. This technique, first opened up to me by ‘astral travelling’ friend Sarah, involves staring deep into each other’s eyes and nostrils in low light, just as you would stare at yourself in black mirror scrying, except this is some sort of “‘who blinks first” face off, gawping until the face opposite transmogrifies into all manner of peculiar fizzogery whilst your whole peripheral vision is opened up as well. When I first attempted it with Sarah her left eye drooped all the way down the side of her face and I grew a bulbous nose on the ear ‘ole side of mine apparently, the longer we concentrated on staring the stranger it got. Sarah mentioned I had four or five separate faces vying to come through, rapidly flickering over each other in a race to settle in, I could sense the spirit energy lining up behind me, walking in to try and project themselves. Sarah’s face began morphing into an Edwardian lady with a bun hairdo, then into a small, button-nosed child before contorting into a ghastly hag, then strangely she settled in as androgynous faced, ‘Nephilimic’ entity that amazingly made her two or three feet taller. That was the time we were both drained dry and had to extract ourselves from the psychically intense link. Mind blowing experiment for me! That was trialled at Haunted Antiques Paranormal Research Centre but the results at Vane Tempest were equally involved! Us five ‘ more experienced seekers’ stared in turn at the four newbies who were getting some scary results as they were watching our faces go through young, old, strange; seeing misty auras come over us and shadowy shapes loom above and around, a brilliant technique to employ if the night is falling flat! The events with John B’s Enigma Paranormal Experiments usually include an introduction to the remnants of the “anguished man painting” to haunted venues, so the nights are usually quite intense and interesting when that energy makes his presence known. This was no exception; much weirder involvement was experienced and indeed the Vane Tempest is a classically haunted venue indeed! So I will leave our Durham Paranormal Weekend with that conjecture, needless to say we all HAUNTED MAGAZINE

went our separate ways happy. Happy to have met up again and reunited in socially distanced weirdness. Thanks to John Blackburn and friends for a special weekend. Hubert Hobux was in the good company of http://www. Enigma Paranormal Events enigmaparanormalevents. co.uk/

UPDATE: So I’m back home Monday night, and going through google search about the ‘hauntings of the pub, which had been serving ale since 1109 and had had many names, including Ostler and Groom, Lord Nelson and eventually the Shakespeare when a theatre was opened behind the pub. These were the hauntings and paranormal happenings that were recorded by the then licensee, George: “There’s footsteps that are sometimes running up and down the stairs but there is no one there.” “There are sudden gusts of wind where they shouldn’t be, as if there should be a window open but no window will be open.” “There’s a lot of things that you can’t explain going on. There is a sewing machine out the back and the pedal seems to want to start working itself because it makes this distinctive squeak every now and again. It is just an eerie feeling.” Although he’s unsure quite what it is, George believes there is at least one or two ghosts walking the corridors. “I think there is something in the cellar because I went down someone was down there and it felt like someone touched the back of my shirt - even though the door was shut behind me.” “I turned round straight away and said, ‘Who was that?’ and they said no one.” George, the licensee said: “There’s all sorts from people being shushed on stairways, to shirts being tugged, dark figures being there, then disappear” “Now and then you get the odd screaming and shouting and there will be nothing there”.

Hubert Hobux

EDITOR Paul Stevenson @hauntedmagazine paul@hauntedmagazine.co.uk

HAUNTED MAGAZINE ISSUE 32:

DESIGNER Andy Soar @thehauntedguy andy@hauntedmagazine.co.uk ADVERTISING Karen Fray @Karenhauntedma1 karen@hauntedmagazine.co.uk COPYWRITER / PROOFREADER Belle Ward belle@hauntedmagazine.co.uk BRAND AMBASSADORS Lorien Jones lorien@hauntedmagazine.co.uk Katie Waller katie@hauntedmagazine.co.uk WRITING TALENT Sarah Streamer, Eli Lycett, Steve Higgins, Sarah Chumacero, Nicky Alan, Amanda R. Woomer, Morgan Knudsen, Kate Cherrell, Kate Ray, Richard Estep, Alexandra Holzer, Jane Rowley, Lorien Jones, Penny Griffiths-Morgan, Amy Boucher, Mike Covell, Hubert Hubox, Katie Waller, Ryleigh Black, Leonard Low, Charlie Hall, Lucy Willgress, Sam Bennetts, Brian Baker, Jayne Mortimore, Dr. Jan Bondeson. THANKS Danny Robins, Spook-Eats, Dr. Hans Holzer, The Hinsdale House, Dan Klaes, HAPRC, Neil Packer, Chris Willcox, Higgypop Paranormal, Kallen Johnstone, Slapped Ham, Mikkel Lundgaard, Sir Spooks, Tim Wood, Live SciFi, Elliott Van Dusen, PPRI, Sacrewell Farm and Mill, Bonamargy Friary, Camp St. Andrew, Erwin Saunders, The Manor House Hotel, The Shakespeare Tavern, Vane Tempest Hall, Mark Gallagher, BBC Pictures, Lisa Vanoli, Alex Gill & The Christmas Spirit (in fact any spirits), Molly Wyatt, Sky UK and Josh ‘Kiefer’ Heard. SPECIAL THANKS Mihai Costea for the original The Great American Road Trip artwork.

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