issue 1 mac(1).indd 1
24/04/2013 19:27
1
mac(1).indd 2
24/04/2013 19:27
CONTENTS. 2. Exercise don't exorcise. 4 Urbexing with casper and friends. 8. The shitty ghost tour of london that made me hate a barmaid. 14. Roston Tavasiev. 18. I failed at summoning biggie smalls so i had a go on a ouija board. 23. Based on a true story. 36. Its almost like harry potter. 40. The day i joined scientology and got conned out of 9 quid. 48. Paper mache nightmares. 56. Dead ghosts. 59. Why people are stupid and scientists are right. 68. So long ghost children. mac(1).indd 3
issue 1
1
contributors. Edittor. Me Art director. Me Words. Me I did everything, okay?
24/04/2013 19:27
Exercise don't exorcise.
2
Someone at some point in their life has considered an exorcism to drive away some supernatural ‘wrongdoings’ within their home or body. Whether you are shouting obscenities at cats or throwing up florescent ectoplasm, you are going to need a priest. Granted, it’s not exactly Bill Murray with a Proton Pack, but within a church, it’s about the same thing. According to Catholics, an exorcism is defined as “The act of driving out, or warding off, demons, or evil spirits, from persons, places, or things, which are believed to be possessed or infested with them, or are liable to become victims or instruments of their malice.” It’s seen as a pretty serious thing, so yeah, it’s normally the last straw when dealing with a pesky little ghost intruder. To achieve a ‘successful’ exorcism, there are basically 8 steps. If you follow these closely, you’re sure to rid your friends of these cheeky spirits and what’s more? It’s DIY! That’s right, fuck Bill Murray, you are Bill Murray.
mac(1).indd 4
24/04/2013 19:27
3 1. Assess whether your best friend isn’t just mentally deranged or in dire need of medical attention. It might be hard to tell someone you cuddled at sleepovers that you think they might need to embrace a shrink into their friend circle on Skype, but it’s probably better than attempting to exorcise the insane. If you’re happy with your friend’s mental state, you’re ready to go. 2. Buy some decent priest gear at your local fancy dress shop. If you want to chase away a dirty nasty demon, you’re going to need to look the part. Nothing screams amateur like a pair of old jeans and a T shirt reading “Show me some ass”, and demons ain’t stupid. 3. Make sure you actually believe in God. It sounds obvious but if your beliefs in God only surfaces at Christmas, then you’re going to have a hard time convincing the Devil that you can fight him, and actually stand a chance of winning. 4. Learn some prayers within your chosen religion. You are going to need to address a higher power in order to save your friend from Satan’s fiery fingertips, and you’re going to need to address them pretty often, just to hammer into the demon that you mean business. 5. Make lots of cross shapes with your hands. Sure you may feel stupid and you might even look like someone who is raving to incoherent mutterings of a severely possessed weirdo, but you’re being a hero remember. Just think of all the free food you’ll get. 6. Holy Water is super important. You want to be sprinkling that shit all over your barely recognisable mate. It’s kind of like washing all the demon stuff off them. But it’ll sizzle. Don’t be alarmed; it’s normal and so what? Your friend was hot before right? 7. Make sure you put your most serious voice on, and command that the demon prick leaves your friend’s body. You can expect a fight, but that’s why you trained yourself to become a black belt in karate. You’ve been waiting for this day. 8. Congratulations, you’ve saved your best friend probably from death. Now they’re going to be a bit sleepy and probably a bit traumatised, so offer them chicken soup, and then sit back and relax while the whole world praises you. You are a saviour to all men. You’ll probably become a saint soon.
mac(1).indd 5
24/04/2013 19:27
4
urbexing with casper and friends.
mac(1).indd 6
24/04/2013 19:27
5
mac(1).indd 7
24/04/2013 19:27
6
mac(1).indd 8
24/04/2013 19:28
7
mac(1).indd 9
24/04/2013 19:28
8
the Shitty Ghost That Made Me hate If you are frantically searching for ghost walks in sunny London to satisfy your ghostly urges, you have plenty of choices. I, however, opted for perhaps the most popular, or if you’re a total hipster, the most ‘mainstream’. The Hidden Horrors Ghost Walk is led by ghost walk ‘expert’ Richard Jones, who is terribly nice but likely to be plagued with a hotbed of mental disorders. He had a pretty annoying habit of shouting‘bang’ at random points during stories, which can only be described as
mac(1).indd 10
At any moment he will leave the ground and join his vampire mates at the blood bar.
24/04/2013 19:28
Tour of London A Barmaid. a symptom of madness, and left his audience wonderingwhere he had hidden his medication. We were instructed to meet at the Lord Raglan pub near St Paul’s Cathedral at 7pm, of course it was pissing down, the perfect weather for an almost two hour outdoor walk. Groups of people were congregating under pathetic excuses for umbrellas but were bly excited. One guy looked like a slightly more insane version of Ron Swanson from ABC’s Parks and Recreation,his moustache was almost an exact copy, and a large percentage of the female ghost
mac(1).indd 11
groupies donned Ugg boots. It would seem that I was completely surrounded by weirdos with only my maggot boyfriend Matt(who hadn’t even paid the £9 fee yet) to keep me sane. The next few hours sure seemed like a hoot. The walk itself was full of the usual bollocks, churches, back alleys, graveyards, and old hospitals. You name anything remotely creepy and you’ve pretty much listed the ‘highlights’ of the tour. We started off in some sort of garden, which actually had a shit load of dead monks buried in it, where Mr Richard Jones
9
told us the legend of the “She Wolf of France” who was basically a total tart and had offed her husband. According to Richard, she lurked among the grounds while we all stood around awkwardly, and attempted to shudder at the sight of her in the distance. No one really bought it, and it all got a bit embarrassing when he began to stutter ‘in fear’ at her presence. Satisfied with the amount of humiliation he had caused himself
24/04/2013 19:28
10
Richard moved us on and we headed for a big old church which just happened to be opposite a public execution site, mmm yummy. Richard told us the story behind the church’s bell, which would apparently signal when someone was about to get their neck snapped. He threw a few shouts in there which failed spectacularly at garnering any sort of fearful reaction but at least he tried, nothing else was scary apart from perhaps his creepy little navy hat. It was becoming increasingly obvious, that the only deathly apparitions I
would be seeing that night were images in my head of various suicide methods. Richard had still not revealed his own beliefs at this point, and seemed to only recount previous stories and add a few sound effects to spice them up. He came across as an avid researcher and based his stories on the history of the area rather than ‘supernatural’ experiences which he would repeat several times. His purpose was a storyteller rather than one who could scare a group of weird tourists out of their rain drenched skins. Maybe not a great ca-
reer choice Richard. After debating his life plan silently in my head, we continued the tour with Richard signalling across the road to supposedly the ‘most haunted pub in London’, The Viaduct Tavern, and took great pleasure in telling us that the pub’s cellar used to be full of old smelly prison cells. This obviously meant it was haunted, obviously. From there, we made our way to some Roman ruins that looked just a little out of place in urban London but apparently that’s not what I should have been ‘focussing’ on. It was
i dare you to spot a ghost, you won't though.
mac(1).indd 12
24/04/2013 19:28
11
the only scary thing about this place is the lack of decent beer.
horrifically muddy so the abundance of Uggs wouldn’t have survived too well but that wasn’t our Richard’s concern either. He led us to a certain part of the ruins that apparently are notorious for a creepy hooded figure and we simply HAD to take a picture, because, nine times out of ten, he would pose for us and do a sexy face. Just for clarification, I took nine photos and he didn’t make an appearance in one. He must have been shy. With that complete failure in the photography department
mac(1).indd 13
in mind, Richard led us back to our start point, told us not to worry if we saw a ghost that night and bid us farewell. I felt completely dejected and that the life that was inevitably drained out of me throughout the walk was probably the closest thing to a ghost on those supposedly hugely haunted streets. Matt paid for the amount of ghosts we saw that night (absolutely none.) A few days later, the thought of such little success on the ghost walk still plagued me. I decided
I would give it one last shot at this ghost hunting business and return to The Viaduct Tavern. As mentioned before, the pub is rumoured to be the most haunted pub in the whole of London, so I figured if I was going to catch Casper, it would probably be easiest there. According to what Richard had said days before, not that I trusted him anymore, was that visitors were able to visit the cellar as long as they bought a drink. Figuring it was worth a try,
24/04/2013 19:28
12 I ordered a beer, and asked a young waitress if I could visit the cellar, she obviously had heard this fairly often as she did a fake smile while probably visualising my death. Despite this, she led me down some steep stairs, which were a huge health and safety hazard, to the gross smelling cellar which was locked. When she unlocked the door, it felt pretty cold. I know coldness is apparently ‘the first sign of ghost activity’ but it was more likely that the temperature stemmed from the lack of radiators down there. The walls were lined with rows of cells that looked fit for animal keeping rather than human keeping and overall it was all pretty depressing. After being nosy for a little bit, I noticed that the barmaid wasn’t actually with me anymore. I heard a giggle and the little prick locked me in.
mac(1).indd 14
Now I’m not one for claustrophobia, but when you’re surrounded by jail cells and all you can smell is death, I wasn’t too happy. After a few minutes of solidarity, the barmaid opened the door with a grin and asked me if I’d enjoyed myself. Well no Miss Barmaid, I didn’t have fun, I was locked in a cellar for five minutes of my life, which I will never get back, and I didn’t even see a pissing ghost. The whole debacle even made me forget that I’d purchased alcohol and I left pretty quickly. I am now completely sure that ghosts don’t exist, but if they did, I would sure as hell come back and haunt the fuck out of that stupid fucking barmaid. I am removing myself from the ‘supernatural’ and from this day forward sticking to reality. Where people lock other people in cell ridden cellars. Real life.
"Well no Miss Barmaid, I didnt have fun, I was locked in a cellar for five minutes of my life, which I will never get back, and I didnt even see a pissing ghost."
24/04/2013 19:28
16
mac(1).indd 15
24/04/2013 19:28
14
ROMAN tAVASIEV. Towards light is a series of sculptures created in 2004 by Russian contemporary artist, Roman Tavasiev. The work was showcased in Moscow in 2009, and moved to both London and Manchester in 2010. The concept is the soul/ghost escaping the body, and finding the light right before death. However deep it sounds, it hugely overshadowed by the body being represented from a obnoxiously coloured stuffed bear. There is also an abundance of googly eyes which scream seriousness.
mac(1).indd 16
24/04/2013 19:28
15
mac(1).indd 17
24/04/2013 19:28
16
mac(1).indd 18
24/04/2013 19:28
27
mac(1).indd 19
24/04/2013 19:28
18
I failed at summoning Biggie Smalls so I had a go on a Ouija Board.
mac(1).indd 20
24/04/2013 19:28
We all remember the urban myths from childhood. We’ve said “Bloody Mary” three times at midnight in an attempt to meet her, and recited the Lord’s Prayer backwards while trying to summon Satan, because if you managed it, you would become a real cool kid. Needless to say, none of these things worked. We were just all dumb children who, for some stupid reason, figured we could summon a notoriously dark character into our badly decorated bathrooms if we said their names repeatedly. In an attempt to recreate my childhood, and prove once and for all that talking into the mirror should only be an activity for the mentally deranged, I decided to summon an actual notorious character, Notorious B.I.G. I’d recently caught a South Park episode that told me if I said ‘Biggie Smalls” three times in my mirror, he would appear in my bathroom and shoot me. Obviously I was putting my life on the line with this experiment, so I asked my friend to do it instead, while I waited patiently with a disposable camera to capture the look of disappointment on his face when Biggie didn’t show up. It got to midnight, and we began. “Biggie Smalls, Biggie Smalls, Biggie Smalls”. We waited for the sound of a gunshot to ring through his nicely decorated
family home and plaster his walls with the contents of his skull. Sure enough, it didn’t happen. Feeling slightly dejected and thirsty for ghosts, so to speak, we decided not to stop there. We had pretty much decided we were Ghostbusters at this point and we weren’t prepared to give up until one of us got murdered by some pissy entity residing between these four walls. It was then that we decided it was time for round two. Tucked away in a typically horror movie style wardrobe, was a Ouija Board. I’ve only ever used a Ouija Board once, and the whole experience was pretty shitty. My Nan made us do it, and as a firm believer of things that don’t actually exist, (Sorry Nan), she spent the entire time pushing the counter around in an attempt to get us to believe in the imaginary ghosts. Knowing that it couldn’t be influenced in that way again, as it was only a group of twenty-something year old students who didn’t believe in anything other than beer, bitches and Super Mario Bros, I sat myself down for my second experience with a Ouija Board. After blowing off a decade of dust from the board, we set it up on a small table, cleared the beer cans away and dimmed the lights. We probably should have lit candles, but
19
"We waited for the sound of a gunshot to ring through his nicely decorated family home and plaster his walls with the contents of his skull."
mac(1).indd 21
24/04/2013 19:28
20
mac(1).indd 22
24/04/2013 19:28
we kind of knew we were destined to fail so the effort seemed pointless. Sat cross-legged on the floor like annoying primary school children, we awkwardly placed our fingertips on the counter and asked if anyone was there. According to the board, the players are meant to wait between one to five minutes before any sign of life (or death). After sitting there uncomfortably for at least fifteen minutes, repeating “Is any spirit present” like some sort of shitty Derek Acorah impersonator, we pretty much lost all faith in humanity, let alone ghost activity. Our hands were aching,
and a so called spirit hadn’t tried to possess me to kill my boyfriend yet. One by one, our fingers withdrew from the counter and we admitted defeat. My conclusion of the night has two possibilities. 1. Ghosts or spirits or whatever you want to call them don’t exist and no matter how hard you try to annoy something that doesn’t exist, they are not going to appear over a pathetic excuse for a board game. Except maybe Cluedo. 2. I’m probably about as good at summoning spirits as Derek Acorah, which is bad. Maybe
I lack the tact that ghosts need to reveal themselves or maybe I got a bit of dust wedged in the counter, and the ghost is a huge believer in cleanliness. I’m just not a good Ghostbuster. Either way, there were no ghosts present that night, and I’m pretty sure if I tried every day for the rest of my life, there would be nothing. I would probably just go insane. Maybe I should leave Bloody Mary alone to party with Biggie Smalls and Satan, and stop trying to make them appear in my toilet, I mean it must be annoying.
21
here are a selection of fingers that collectively couldn't detect ghost activity.
mac(1).indd 23
24/04/2013 19:28
22
mac(1).indd 24
24/04/2013 19:28
based on a true story but actually isnt even slightly true.
24
7 films that claim to be the truth when in reality are a bunch of bullshit.
mac(1).indd 25
24/04/2013 19:28
24
The Exorcist 1973 The Movie: The film starts in North Iraq and you get a bit worried you’ve put the wrong movie on for a bit. It’s okay though because that famous song comes on and you feel a weight lifted off your shoulders. We get introduced to an actress and her annoying excuse of a daughter. The actress mother decides to throw a big bash for some pointless reason, and young Reagan decides to come downstairs and piss all over it (literally). No one really thinks much of a child pissing on the carpet and they just decide that she must be ill. The next few days get a bit worse. Her bed starts jumping up and down which kinda looks fun, so her mum takes her to a few doctors and psychiatrists and eventually gets really stressed and shouts a lot. The kid starts stabbing herself in the fanny with a crucifix quite a bit, and develops a hilariously deep ‘demonic’ voice. She also kills a guy. As a ‘last resort’, the doctors tell the mother to consider an
mac(1).indd 26
exorcism. Obviously at first no one is really cool with that idea, but when she spews florescent green bile over the priest, they think again. The exorcism kinda goes okay even though one priest dies during it, and the other priest gets possessed and kills himself. Well hey, at least she’s not possessed anymore. The Truth: The film was taken from an article the screenwriter read at University. The article was about an exorcism performed on a 13 year old boy in Maryland. The details have changed frequently over time but there was an exorcism at SOME POINT SOMEWHERE so this can’t be said to be a true representation of events. It is even said that the symptoms of the boy were nowhere near as violent as head spinning and genital stabbing. Based on true events? That would be the equivalent of someone saying “I have a dog so Marley and Me must be based on my life.”
24/04/2013 19:28
Audrey Rose 1977 The Movie: A good movie if you enjoy hearing Anthony Hopkins saying ‘Rose’ in a welsh accent. In short, the film is basically about reincarnation. Anthony Hopkins loses his wife and daughter in a car crash and after seeing a bunch of psychics, decides his daughter, Audrey Rose, is living through the body of rich kid Ivy Templeton. At the beginning, you will definitely confuse Hopkins for a complete paedophile but you soon learn that he’s just obsessed with only one girl so it doesn’t seem as bad. Unfortunately the Templetons don’t really believe poor Hopkins and they shout at him a lot. During one of his meetings at the Templeton’s house, Ivy has a violent
mac(1).indd 27
nightmare and only Hopkins can calm her by calling her Audrey Rose. It’s really annoying because he probably repeats her name about a hundred times, and welsh accents shouldn’t really be heard that often. Eventually, Mummy Templeton starts to believe the stories whereas Daddy Templeton seems pretty pissed at it all. They get Ivy hypnotised and she dies during it because Hopkins can’t say her name in time. Poor Hopkins, he’s essentially lost the same child twice. Despite a kid dying, the film ends pretty happy as her Mum and Hopkins sickeningly gush about how Ivy will now live on in a new body so they haven’t really lost anything. Gross. The Truth: The real story behind the film
25 is utter bullshit. The screenwriter Frank De Felitta based the story on something that supposedly happened to him in his fucking garden. He overheard his son playing piano pretty well from inside the house. Apparently prior to this point, his son Raymond had never displayed any sort of musical gift so naturally they all assumed it was a product of reincarnation. Because yeah, that sort of stuff happens on a daily basis. The kid probably just hid his talent away because he realised his father was a total weirdo and would probably interpret something as simple as making a good cup of tea, into some sort of insane monumental s u p e r n a t u r a l e x p e r i e n c e .
24/04/2013 19:28
26
mac(1).indd 28
24/04/2013 19:28
27
The Entity 1982 The Movie: Weird ass shit. Words cannot even describe what the hell is going on in that movie, but you see pulsating tits in one scene. The film is really noisy with collection of screaming children and drawers/windows being opened and closed repeatedly. It is probably the cause of 90% of the world’s noise pollution. But anyway, essentially, a woman is being haunted by a cheeky little spirit who likes to rape her, and also to drive for her sometimes when she needs a rest. The woman goes to see a shrink who tells her she’s imagining the lot and its basically coming from her fear of sex. After some more rapes, her friends come to witness the attacks and finally people believe her. She gets a paranormal team involved who decide to set her up in a house where they can observe the pervy little ghost and freeze him with helium to identify the entity. There’s a bit of fight between the ghost and the woman but eventually the entity is revealed
mac(1).indd 29
to be really huge (so the sex must have really hurt). The film ends with a note that reads that the attacks are still continuing today, but to less of an extent. Basically nothing is resolved. At all. The Truth: Doris Blither was a complete alcoholic. She lived in a rotting excuse for a house with her three sons, and a daughter who is never seen or mentioned in the story. She overheard a bunch of parapsychologists talking in a bookstore one day and approached them.
Cue the birth of The Entity. Through investigations, it was revealed that the Blithers were a hugely dysfunctional family who changed their mind about the events constantly. This included Doris Blither’s transition from being the only witness to this paranormal hell, to at least five witnesses the next day. As well as this, the ‘injuries’ she sustains through the countless rapes are apparent in absolutely no medical records. No actual evidence was recorded. Maybe Doris had just too many tequila slammers
this particular ghost can control the weather.
24/04/2013 19:28
28
The Amityville Horror 1979/2005
The Movie: Probably the most famous(ly bad) ‘based on true events’ movies ever. The usual drill, a family move into a pretty nice house where they soon discover that the previous owner went psycho crazy killer on his entire family, before topping himself. ). At one point the dad tells his annoying whiny wife that houses don’t kill people, rappers do. Well sadly he actually said people, and the audience are all like ‘A HA IF ONLY YOU KNEW RYAN’. In true horror movie
fashion, the new owners start to experience some weird ass shit which almost makes Ryan Reynolds kill his cute little innocent daughter Chloe Moretz (in the remake). More ghost stuff happens. There’s a weird scene where a little girl makes Moretz stick a finger through her forehead, and Ryan Reynolds gets all moody and smouldering during the last forty five minutes of the film. A dog also dies in the movie. The
Truth:
Investigators have relentlessly gone through every detail of George and Kathy Lutz’s over the top claims. Sure, the murder did take place but the supernatural orgy aftermath? They found nothing. Because the Lutz family are pathological liars. It turns out George was broke, and since The Exorcist was such a hit, he decided to strike a deal with some dickhead publisher to capitalise on a grim little mass murder that happened in his house. What a prick.
"go on. touch it."
mac(1).indd 30
24/04/2013 19:28
The Exorcism of Emily Rose 2005 The Movie: The film itself is like a really creepy version of CSI. The story is portrayed through the trial of the priest who performed the exorcism of Emily Rose, a student, who sees a lot of creepy faces and does a ton of weird body movements. Throughout the trial, we learn of the story of Emily Rose and how her so called demonic possession progresses over time. In true freshman fashion, her hauntings start when a bunch of stationary decides to have a party in her room. This starts to get a bit worse when she sees random people’s eyes turning black and it’s not cute or funny anymore. In one scene, her boyfriend walks her home and she does a lot of strange positions that he seems really shocked by (but possibly excited for their future sex life?)This is when she decides to move back with her parents who immediately decide she must be possessed. They arrange an exorcism which involves a lot of cats, and Emily claiming to be the Devil himself. Nothing is really resolved and she dies a week later. The priest is found guilty in his part of Emily’s death, and is imprisoned.
29
the story of Anneliese Michel, a 15 year old German schoolgirl who died due to starvation after an exorcism was performed on her. The film closely follows the story of Anneliese, yet fails to take into consideration that the kid was just mentally unstable. In fact, medical experts have ruled that the symptoms related to ‘demonic possession’ are incredibly similar to the symptoms of Schizophrenia. Anneliese’s parents removed her from psychiatric care and relied only on exorcisms as a form of treatment. It is said that the amount of exorcisms that were performed on Anneliese (67 in 10 months) most probably led her to believe that she was possessed so her body acted accordingly. Another huge factor in the ‘possession’ of Anneliese Michel is the fact that she was severely epileptic which can cause large amounts of hallucinations. The film itself closely follows the story of the exorcism, yet the story has far too many reasonable explanations to become plausible. So to sum up, this film is based on a story, just not one that really emits truth. Both stories end up with priests behind bars though. Not really a great day for priests.
The Truth: The film is based on
mac(1).indd 31
24/04/2013 19:28
30
mac(1).indd 32
24/04/2013 19:28
an american haunting 2006
because you're worth it.
mac(1).indd 33
31
The Movie: An American Haunting is probably the most unscary scary film anyone has ever seen. Arguably, the scariest part of the movie was Donald Sutherland’s dodgy facial hair, or the fact Sissy ‘Carrie’ Spacek was in it. Set in the 1800s (already bored), the film tells the story of a family that get cursed by some creepy woman after a badly settled lawsuit. Wendy from Peter Pan is in it as the daughter who gets constantly cornered by this arsehole of a ghost, and in one scene she gets repeatedly slapped and raped by the prick. More weird shit happens like when the ghost decides to invade poor Wendy’s sleepover and eventually the ghost tells her what’s going on. Apparently, the whole rape thing was actually done by her dad, Donald Sutherland, and the ghost is helping her to get her revenge on his stupid beard. Once Wendy realises that she just suppressed the whole rape, she decides to poison daddy Sutherland, and his eyes do a weird pop thing. The Truth: The film is basically based on the old legend of the Bell Witch which was centred on the Bell family in Tennessee. The legend states that the witch felt cheated out of a land purchase, and vowed to seek revenge on the Bell family. The legend continues that the Bell family encountered some pretty nasty supernatural experiences and eventually the witch poisoned the father. Of course this story is as fake as they come (witches aren’t real duh) and paranormal investigators have determined that there is no credibility in the hauntings and it’s all a bunch of folklore bollocks. Sorry Mr Filmmaker, you are fooling no one.
24/04/2013 19:28
32
mac(1).indd 34
24/04/2013 19:28
33
The Haunting in Connecticut 2009 "guys i don't feel too great."
The Movie: This movie has it all, corpses, cancer and craziness. It begins with a TV interview with Sarah Campbell, the movie version of Carmen Snedeker, explaining how bad things happen to good people and then we’re annoyingly transported to 1987. Sarah is driving her cancer ridden son to a hospital in Connecticut for treatment but there’s lots of vomming before anyone actually makes it there. Sarah is all concerned, and decides it’s probably a good idea to move closer so she doesn’t have to drive with a boy who constantly smells of sick. She finds a creepy old house which is insanely cheap (always the way), and moves in pretty sharpish. Soon enough, the family find out that their brand new home is actually an old morgue and you guessed it, shit starts happening. Cancer boy Matt bears the brunt of the haunting so unfortunately his family just assume he’s hallucinating. He finds a box of old eyelids at one point that just look like moths, and there is a hilarious scene where he takes an axe to a wall and a bunch of gross corpses fall out all over the nice carpet. At the end there’s a big fire, a ghost
mac(1).indd 35
boy and suddenly Matt doesn’t have cancer anymore. This is supposedly a true story. The Truth: In reality, the entire story is ridiculous. The actual family- The Snedekersstayed in the house for two years before moving, so it couldn’t have been that bad really. The landlady of the house also claims that the story is a tall tale as she reports that not one of the previous tenants complained about eyelids, corpses and creepy ghosts. The story first appeared in horror novelist Ray Garton’s book “In a Dark Place: The Story of a True Haunting”. Garton interviewed the family members and found that not one could keep their story straight. “I found that the accounts of the individual Snedekers didn’t quite mesh.” He also admitted that he was told to use what he could and make up the rest to make the story as scary as possible. So no, a heavily ill cancer patient has never taken an axe to a wall to uncover some corpses, or met a little ghost boy called Jonah who could squirt ectoplasm all over his ghost spunk hungry friends. Funny thought though.
24/04/2013 19:28
34
mac(1).indd 36
24/04/2013 19:28
36
mac(1).indd 37
24/04/2013 19:28
36
it's almost like harry potter. According to LA based Tori Hartman’s overbearing press release, she is a bestselling author, psychic and entrepreneur. Her goal in life is to help people grow and prosper ‘spiritually’ and includes her Twitter follower count in her list of qualities. (The girl who sucked her own used tampon still has more followers by the way.) Speaking of her Twitter page, she has a wonderfully sickening photo of her and some dogs as her avatar so that everyone knows she is a gentle animal lover and not a tyrannous con-woman. More about Tori though, she boasts that she is the only psychic in the whole entire world to be interviewed by the NY Times for business. Oooh. Her clients include Jeff Lewis of Bravo’s “Flipping Out” and Jamie
mac(1).indd 38
Bamber of Battlestar Galactica and Law and Order UK and with Tori’s help, have reached their ‘greatest potential and achieved their dreams.” Her most ‘acclaimed’ product is the “Color Wisdom Cards”. The book and card set work as “a divination tool and meditation aid to help clear life blocks and restructure beliefs to empower others to do spiritual work on their own.” The cards are pretty pointless, they have a stupid little fable drawn onto each one which supposedly is meant to unlock a part of your life and help you find inner truth or some bollocks. If you are interested in this, you probably shouldn’t be reading this magazine, but you can buy the set on Amazon for about 35 quid, which seems a bit steep for colourful paper.
24/04/2013 19:28
After realising this woman is the fluffy fairy version of Satan, I decided to try and get to know her a little better to work out the full extent of the crap she spins. Here are the results. K: What’s an average day for Tori Hartman? T: Well, once you’re in this business there is nothing average about anything you do. It can be anything from talking to clients, creating products, picking an order, working on a Spiritual Club meeting, writing articles, recording a class, designing jewelry, teaching, readings, hanging out with my dogs, dealing with correspondence. Actually, it’s really like any other business – the only difference is what I’m selling.
my schedule got so busy with people asking for readings that I had to start charging for my time or I wouldn’t have been able to make a living.
37
K: Have you received a good reception from friends/family and strangers? T: As I mentioned, my family just accepted who I was and the gift that I had. And over the years I’ve become more comfortable with who I am and less afraid to say what I do. And there of course are those who will say, “I don’t believe in what you do,” and I always laugh and say, “I don’t either.” Because for me it’s just what I experience, so it’s not even a question of belief. K: Have you ever had to contact the dead? T: The dead contact me, I don’t necessarily contact them. They often come through when there’s unfinished business and they appear to simply calm the living who they’ve left behind.
"She used to say that there are those who live with magic and without magic.It's far more fun to live with magic."
K: How did you feel when you realized you had this ’gift’? T: I didn’t know I had it, I just thought everybody had it. I thought it was a perfectly normal state to be in. In a funny way, it’s almost like Harry Potter. You don’t realize you’re different until others point it out. I was very lucky in that my mother was an astrologer and understood the gift I had. And she treated it as quite normal. She used to say that there are those who live with magic and without magic. It’s far more fun to live with magic.
K: What is the weirdest thing you’ve been asked by a client? T: To be honest, I don’t get weird questions but I’m always honored and in awe every time I use this gift because I believe that people who come to me are trusting me to give them information and it’s simply what I do.
K: What started your career as a psychic? K: Who are some of your favourite T: My career started because clients?
mac(1).indd 39
24/04/2013 19:28
38
T: To be sure, most of my clients become my favorite. It’s very simple - you see when I open up my intuitive energy it’s inspirational. This energy is akin to a natural high, so when I’m connecting it’s the favorite state I’m in. So, someone who’s attracted to that is always my favorite. And if I had to say there is someone I admire most, it would be Jeff Lewis, who is one of my favorite clients who is successful now on Bravo’s “Flipping Out,” because he has an incredibly powerful energy that’s wonderful to be around. K: If you weren’t in this line of work, what would you want to do? T: Honestly, I’m doing everything I want to do. I write books, I teach and I don’t think of what I do as work, I think of it as a calling, and I suppose if Spirit felt I was meant to be somewhere else it would be presented to me and I would follow it. K: How can you explain your success? T: I don’t quit. I stay true to my message and I do what I love, and show others how
mac(1).indd 40
to do that too. How can being inspired or inspiring others lead to anything but success? K: What is your response to people who disregard your profession? T: Many years ago. an American actor, who is now quite famous but at the time was not, said to me when we were all at a barbeque at a friend’s house, “Do you really believe
"Do you really believe this crap you're doing?" To which I replied, "Nope." this crap you’re doing?” To which I replied, “Nope.” And he looked at me quizzically, with a puzzled look and I elaborated. I don’t have to believe in something if I know it. I know it happens to me. Today I understand that all beliefs are fearbased, but what we know and experience is based on faith and aligning with
Spirit. K: What piece of advice would you give aspiring psychics? T: Find your tribe. Be around other like-minded people. Study, study, study and when you’re finished studying, you’ll know when you’re ready. When the conversations you’re having with your classmates are more powerful than the one the teacher is presenting. If you haven’t thrown up repeatedly throughout her r e l e n t l e s s m e n t i o n i n g of ‘spirit’, congratulations, you are stronger person than most. But let me leave you with a final thought, the fact she compares her ‘gift’ to Harry Potter says quite a bit really. However entertaining that geeky little wizard is, he is entirely fictional, much like the work of psychics like Tori Hartman. So next time you get a slight urge to get your hands molested by a palm reader, think of Harry Potter, I mean you don’t want to run into that bald headed prick Voldemort, do you?
24/04/2013 19:28
if youre super interested in psychics, here's an alternative. mac(1).indd 41
24/04/2013 19:28
40
The Day I Joined Scientology and Got Conned Out Of 9 quid.
mac(1).indd 42
24/04/2013 19:28
It
was absolutely pissing it down on the day I decided to join Scientology. Picture pathetic fallacy at its greatest. My umbrella decided to blow inside out far too many times so by the time I actually reached the door to the Church of Scientology in Blackfriars, I can imagine I probably looked like the most naively weak human who had ever graced the threshold. Pound signs appeared in their eyes almost immediately at my downtrodden appearance. At the reception, a male human Wotsit greeted me far too enthusiastically, and directed me to possibly the comfiest sofa I had ever sat on. As I sat down I noticed the most obnoxiously huge quotation from the founder L Ron Hubbard that read “Man is basically good and it is this basic goodness we want to set free”. Fucking great, I’m surrounded by a mass of brain dead happiness pushers. At the exact point, I decided I wanted to leave, a Dutch girl introduced herself as Chanel. I should probably add that I have stored a strong personal hatred for the name since
mac(1).indd 43
childhood, when a girl called Chanel told me my hairband was stupid. For the record, Minnie Mouse isn’t stupid. Anyway this Chanel was quite a bit nicer than Minnie Mouse my coat, which kind of felt like I was being robbed, and locked it away in a cupboard. We walked together to a small room where Chanel insisted we make idle small talk for
"Fucking great, Im surrounded by a mass of brain dead happiness pushers." and then told me to go inside alone. I felt pretty certain that kidnapping was happening at this point which was worsened when she offered me wine. From this point on, I was certain I was going to be poisoned or worse, forced to be drunk which wouldn’t have really worked out
41
for either of us. The room itself was entirely black and was filled with rows of wooden chairs. All the chairs were empty, which made me feel like I was never going to make it out of there alive. I heard the door click, and then the sound of a key in the lock and that pretty much symbolised the end of my life. Without warning, a screen at the front of the room burst into life which caused me to drop the entire contents of my bag, and a film about Dianetics, a practice which was coined by L Ron Hubbard began. It had now occurred to me that this was going to be the most shitty cinema experience of my entire life. I felt like the lonely fat bloke at the back of a screening of Mean Girls wanking pathetically into his unsalted popcorn. Except I wasn’t wanking, I just wanted to kill myself. The film started like I expected Die Hard would start. It had this epic soundtrack which sounded like something out of Jurassic Park, which held my attention for the length of the song. It then cut to
24/04/2013 19:28
42
an old man holding a book of Dianetics rambling on about how it had changed his life and that without it; he would only have one leg. The film then decided to go all flashback on my ass and showed the same old bloke several years earlier, in a hospital bed with a bad leg. L Ron Hubbard was at his side, telling him lies like it didn’t actually hurt, and that this poor old guy was just imagining it, and suddenly the man’s leg was fine. I half wanted old man Hubbard to tell me this film wasn’t entirely made up of bullshit so I could enjoy it more but that didn’t happen. The news of this miraculous leg recovery inevitably spread around the town like wildfire, and more and more people wanted Hubbard’s help. You got the kind of vibe that Hubbard was basically Jesus and all these people needed his healing hands. It was more self-indulgent than Hasslehoff’s run across the beach in the Baywatch credits. The film continued to force-feed this pathetic miracle story about how Dianetics was written off by both the American Psychological Association and the American Medical Association, attempting to make the viewer feel some sort of emotion towards the old twat. We witness his ups and downs and how he got his big break by writing a bloody big book about it. Cue the epic triumph soundtrack. With his ‘manual for the human mind’, L Ron Hubbard increased public
interest and by 1960, the book had been reprinted six times due to demand. Walter Winchell from the New York Times branded Hubbard’s book “revolutionary for humanity” which didn’t half feed old Hubbard’s already bulging ego. With interest growing and growing, it wasn’t long before he managed to squeeze a few lectures out of its success showing the methods in practice and even wangled a specific day dedicated to Dianetics. While watching this mindless drivel, you can’t help but wonder when the actors are going to start swinging from lampposts while singing energetically, it was simply that camp. It was less of a film and more like a budget Broadway production that you’d expect Les Dennis to be the star of. That being said there were no musical numbers, just quite a few cats running about. How very hipster. After the film had finished, I half expected to be collected from the room, but that might have just stemmed from my incessant laziness. I heard the door click, but no one was on the other side. I felt certain that I might have been dead. After establishing my consciousness, I began wandering around aimlessly for fifteen minutes in an attempt to locate Chanel. When I finally her tracked down, she seemed far too excited to show me the next activity of my thrilling
"It was less of a film and more like a budget Broadway production that you'd expect Les Dennis to be the star of."
mac(1).indd 44
24/04/2013 19:28
44
well said. mac(1).indd 45
24/04/2013 19:28
44
day, The Oxford Capacity Analysis personality test. I was shown to a little Victorian booth which had my paper and those pens you get at banks, which are attached to metal chains so that you can’t steal them. I was sat opposite a middle aged guy who was taking the entire experience incredibly seriously and getting pretty pissy every time I moved as I was apparently ‘disturbing’ him. When I eventually settled, I began the test. “Do you tend to chew pen lids?” Seriously? According to Scientology, the simple act of nibbling the top of your favourite biro was enough of an indication to determine whether or not you have mental problems. The test included other corkers such as “Do you eat your vegetables?” and “How often to you get a haircut?” With its gradual progression from personality test to intense parental interrogation, I was relieved to reach the end of the 250 questions of hell, and had to go and take my paper to Chanel so she could ‘mark’ it. The doom of A Level exam déjà vu washed over me.
mac(1).indd 46
While I waited for her to decide whether I was suitable to be put with other human life, I was shown to The Information Centre where I was told to ‘get to know’ Scientology. The Information Centre can only be described as possibly the driest museum display ever. Confronted with about eight interactive panels resembling a pathetic excuse for a spaceship interior, the area was divided into several sections of Scientology. There was a panel dedicated to the ‘God’ of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, which told the viewer all about his life and influences. Next to him, was a panel about Dianetics, followed by Scientology which was nearby. The panels featured several clips of the subject matter including different areas of practice with quotes from hundreds of Scientologists claiming they could help people more than doctors could. It was all incredibly sickening and forced the viewer to actually question whether a doctor would be appropriate at that exact moment. Getting bored
24/04/2013 19:28
by descriptions of the actual religion itself, I moved onto a panel entirely focussing on drug rehabilitation and education. At first I thought I’d get to observe crack heads in their natural environment but sadly this wasn’t the case, instead I got the thrill of a lecture claiming Scientology was great for meth heads and skag boys. With the idea that Scientology was basically the cure for everything, I realised it was time to leave. The perfect opportunity for Chanel to pop the fuck up again with my results. That woman was the enemy. Chanel handed me over to perhaps the happiest man I have encountered in my life. He still used hair gel to spike up his bleach blonde quiff and had a sickeningly relentless smile. He handed me my personal graph, or perhaps the confirmation of my mental instability according to the Church of Scientology. The graph showed that personally, I was unstable, nervous and severely depressed. Great. Mr Bleach began to try to discover ‘the root of my evil’
mac(1).indd 47
45
which entertained me greatly for all of about three seconds, before I began to dream up ways in which I could off the prick with as much subtly as possible. Realising I would prefer to torture him slowly, I gave up on the idea of killing him and instead tried my hardest to entertain his ratty little face. I answered his questions about my childhood and past relationship trouble. I even made a joke or two to fully suck in this pathetic excuse for a man. He kept on and on about how without Scientology, there would be no telling how soon I would try and top myself. The conversation itself was driving me to give the room a once over for any loose electrical wires. After his incessant whining about my mental state, he moved along the line in the graph to my work ethic. According to the graph, if I were to carry on as I was, there would be no doubt in his mind that I would never achieve any success in my career. Of course he told me how Scientology could help this, offering it up like somesort
24/04/2013 19:28
46
of religious kryptonite but I was beginning to see that whatever could have been written on that graph would have resulted in Mr Bleach telling me that all I needed to be perfectly happy and stable was his fluffy excuse for a religion. The last part of the graph was the relationship section. It couldn’t really get much worse after being told I was basically suicidal and destined for failure in my career so I wasn’t too worried. OH HOW I WAS WRONG. According to the graph, not only was I suicidal and a total failure, I was also going to end up forever alone. My graph indicated that I would withdraw from any commitment and probably end up driving any male human being far far away. There was a solution obviously, good ol’ Scientology. Once he’d plugged the place enough, he decided to run through my ‘options’. Apparently I was a high priority case that needed a d d r e s s i n g immediately but I was fairly sure he said that to everybody. To ‘set me on the right track’ I
mac(1).indd 48
needed to take part in two courses, the Personal Efficiency Course, and a course hilariously named ‘Ups and Downs’.
"It couldn't really get much worse after being told I was basically suicidal and destined for failure" In the interest of this article, I considered both, but that was only until he told me I’d need to pay thirty four pounds for each one. Despite his resilience, I made several excuses, using the woes of having a student loan to my advantage, and he took my number for when I was more financially comfortable. Clearly not satisfied with his progress, the fucking prick made me pay nine quid for a horrendously
large book called ‘Scientology: A New Slant on Life’ by that bastard L Ron Hubbard and I could finally make my escape. Upon my exit, Bleach boy and Dutch Chanel thrust various DVDs and books in my hand for further research, with one booklet entitled ‘The Way to Happiness’. Feeling suitably sick I left the Church of Scientology, nine quid down and wanting to kill myself. Scientology rocks. P.S. Since leaving the hellhole that is The London Church of Scientology, I have received two phone calls from Dutch Chanel, asking when I can return to complete my personal ‘road to recovery’. She seemed pretty annoyed that I’d refused to read my book and I’m beginning to run out of excuses. In short, the only thing I got from my attempt at joining a religious cult, is a Dutch stalker, who I don’t even fully understand. I wouldn’t recommend Scientology to anyone, well except for childhood Minnie Mouse Chanel, but that’s only because I hate her. Good luck in life Tom Cruise, you mad cunt.
24/04/2013 19:28
48
my certifcate of failure from the church of scientology. mac(1).indd 49
24/04/2013 19:28
48
paper mache '
nightmares. mac(1).indd 50
24/04/2013 19:28
49
mac(1).indd 51
24/04/2013 19:28
50
mac(1).indd 52
24/04/2013 19:28
51
mac(1).indd 53
24/04/2013 19:28
52
mac(1).indd 54
24/04/2013 19:29
53
mac(1).indd 55
24/04/2013 19:29
54
mac(1).indd 56
24/04/2013 19:29
55
mac(1).indd 57
24/04/2013 19:29
dead ghosts.
56
Ghosts that have had their five minutes of fame before reverting back to non-existence. R
e
n
t
a
The BBC’s excuse for a comedy children’s show, Rentaghost, ran between 1976 and 1984 and was created by Bob Black. The concept was centred on Harold and Ethel Meaker, who ran a firm that rented out ghosts to the public. The main characters consist of a Scottish witch, Hazel McWitch, who annoyingly likes to rhyme, a jester, Timothy Claypole, who seems incredibly likely to harbour a mental illness and Miss Popov, probably better known as Audrey from the horrendously bad soap, Coronation Street, who is allergic to flowers and teleports suddenly if she comes into contact with one. Hearing my parents bang on about loving the show, I decided to revisit an episode to determine whether the show was reality or one big acid trip, and settled on the first episode of season six. What the fuck did I just watch?
mac(1).indd 58
g
h
o
s
t
After the hugely camp and hugely annoying theme tune, the episode begins with The Meakers chilling nonchalantly on a cloud as if that would be everyday life. Audrey from Corrie appears, floating next to the couple in a bath with a jester, and starts speaking in a horrendously bad Dutch accent. Once you get over the initial shock that she hasn’t wailed ‘Gail’ within the first few seconds of the show starting, you still can’t understand why Audrey is Dutch and sitting in a bath with a jester, but you’re not even near to the absolute chaos that is about to ensue. We cut to actual life on the ground where we’re greeted by none other than Christopher fucking Biggins. (I swear this shit writes itself) He plays Mr Painter, a businessman, who is informing his neighbours, The Perkins, that he has sold his house to The Meakers. Mrs Perkins doesn’t react too well and faints shortly before Mr Perkins does the same thing. We learn that the couples have been
24/04/2013 19:29
mac(1).indd 59
neighbours before and apparently that didn’t work out so well. One by one, The Meakers and their ghost buddies teleport themselves into their new home, as it appears the sky didn’t really do it for them. Audrey and the jester have a bit of ghost related trouble and try to educate their drugged up audience that it’s due to the water from the bathtub restricting their use of psychic energy. KNOWLEDGE. They overcome this
first hit. It becomes apparent that the creator of the show was also addicted to something that probably wasn’t dreams. The rest of the show is Mrs Meaker attempting to track down her sleepwalking horse, who manages to steal an antique painting on his travels (what) All of this unimaginable bullshit is witnessed by The Perkins who are pretty sure their neighbours are massively mental. It really isn’t much of a
ordeal and land right on top of Mr Meaker, oh comedy. His wife also seems to be having a bit of trouble, and manages to get stuck on the chimney in an armchair, with a horse on her lap. That’s right, a horse. The horse in question looks like some sort of nightmare that went horribly wrong and instantly creates the sense of vomit rising up your throat. With everyone finally settled in the house, Biggins appears and witnesses the birth of the dream potion, a ludicrous product that he is intent on selling at his department store. When showing the product to customers, the fucking horse barges in wearing pyjamas with Mrs Meaker insisting ‘he is addicted to dreams’ since his
surprise that series ceases to exist today. Aside from the intolerable music throughout the programme, the story lines create a nauseating vibe which might be purely down to that fucking ugly horse. I am now questioning my relation to my parents and I feel high for no reason. Bye Rentaghost, you were the equivalent of LSD to children for almost a decade, but now must rest in peace and please, please, don’t ever come back.
57
24/04/2013 19:29
mac(1).indd 60
24/04/2013 19:29
Why People are Stupid and Scientists are Right.
59
The Haunted vs. The Brain: I spoke to two girls who had posted separate supernatural experiences on yourghoststories.com (A great site to check out if you want a quick laugh.) and then approached a rational human being, Dr Tim Roberts, a scientist, to get his interpretation. Clearly science and rationality win.
mac(1).indd 61
24/04/2013 19:29
60
The Haunted Vanessa Jankowitz claimed to have come face to face with a ghost lady lurking in her cupboard one night. “She had light coloured clothes on, possibly pyjamas, because she had a night gown on. Her arms were bare. Her hair was slight longer than shoulder length not dark. She looked to be in her 20’s, not later than mid-20’s. She wasn’t short. If I have to guess after all the years I would say she was about 5’8”, because she stood the height of the cupboard/ wardrobe interior. I couldn’t see eyes; there was a dark area around them. The thing I remember most clearly after all this time was her grin. It was big, that was what scared me the most, in my opinion it wasn’t too friendly. She seemed so real to me, like just another person, only she was climbing out the hanging part of the cupboard.” According to Vanessa, this isn’t the first time she’s partied with a dead guy, she even mentions Batman as a ghost so I don’t really think we
mac(1).indd 62
can trust the kid. “It was just a dark shape with glowing eyes staring at me, this might sound funny but it made me think of batman, the overall shape. I prayed once again.” Prayer would often
"We're talking creaking floorboards, shaking beds and mainly the distinct feeling that she is being perved on by someone." been the natural thing to do after Vanessa witnessed something ‘paranormal’ and claims that as a South African, she was brought up in a culture of supernatural
experiences, which led her childhood to be filled with tales of ghosts throwing cups about and tickling people’s feet. She believes her upbringing on a military base opened up a ‘portal’ for these experiences, and for ‘something’ to get through to her. On the night of the cupboard dweller, Vanessa’s family had used an item similar to Ouija board and Vanessa has now developed a fear of using one. She makes sure to point out that she doesn’t believe “the board or similar objects possesses any sort of power, they are just manmade objects. It’s the person channelling by concentrating on it.” Finally, when asked her about her opinion of non-believers, she gave this delightful response: “They don’t bother me, I leave them be. But let me tell you everyone knows someone who has experienced something strange, or they themselves have. Once they hear you believe they will tell a story that they have experienced or
24/04/2013 19:29
61
ghosts like to keep fit too. that their mother/ father etc. has a story. Deep down everyone believes s o m e t h i n g . ” Okay then. The second girl that was spoken to asked to remain anonymous, as she doesn’t want her experience to affect her college application if her name is revealed. “I’ll help you if I can avoid giving my personal identification. I’m applying to grad school and would like to avoid admissions officers seeing things of
mac(1).indd 63
this nature.” That just about says it all really. Like Vanessa, Anon chose to post her supernatural story on a very public website, which for the record, displays her name clearly. Clever kid. Anon posted a story with the title “Gradually Increasing, Slightly Spooky Happenings”, which recounts a series of odd happenings in her home. We’re talking creaking floorboards, shaking beds and mainly the distinct feeling that she is being perved on by someone. According to the post, it has
got so bad that her fiancé lives in an apartment nearby because he feels so uncomfortable inside the house. Or maybe she just snores heavily. “He says he feels like he’s being watched, and things do happen a little more obviously when he is around. One night he was staying over, and after we had gone to bed the hallway light came on. He got up, turned it off, and closed the door on his way back to bed. A few minutes later, the door opened a couple of inches.” The house is situated near
24/04/2013 19:29
62
Glenn Dale Hospital which was built as an isolation hospital and tuberculosis sanatorium. It is currently abandoned, and has been since the early 80’s. Basically the perfect location for a ghost story which is really convenient. Anon states that she cannot begin to comprehend the reasoning behind the events but thinks that it could be “some kind of energy that comes in and out”. How very vague. When asked about other supernatural experiences she has encountered while at the house she describes a recurring incident with her jewellery. “There’s one pendant
mac(1).indd 64
with a huge glass heart that is usually swaying back and forth, very gently, on the tack. It’s most noticeable when I’m doing my hair or applying makeup and I can actually look at it for a moment, but now that I’ve noticed, every time I look, it’s just very gently swinging back and forth. I thought maybe it just might
be
a
breeze
or
something, but when I blow on the wall the jewellery hangs on, they all move. The heart pendent is the heaviest piece hanging on the wall, so there’s no reason why it would be the only thing to move.” Spooky. Unlike Vanessa, Anon doesn’t claim
vs
to be a believer, but states that something MUST be amiss. It simply MUST be. When asked of her opinion on people who label her story as utter bullshit. She was slightly more understanding and said “I completely understand. It’s hard to believe even when something is happening right in front of your face that you can’t explain and, even now, I don’t know what I believe in. All I know, really, is that something is happening in my house and I don’t know what it is.” I suppose, at least she’s not claiming to be possessed or some shit.
24/04/2013 19:29
63
The Brain Dr Tim Roberts is a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics at Durham University. He is the champion of rational thinking, and he doesn’t take shit from any ghosts. Dr Roberts doesn’t believe in ghosts because, according to him, he has no reason to. What a badass. He explains that there is not a scientific explanation for ‘ghosts’, only an explanation for how people perceive ghosts. According to Dr Roberts, it’s entirely down to the way the brain interprets what it is seeing, and it’s “more to do with their state of mind than anything else.” He says that as an astronomer, he’s often alone in big country houses, and it’s incredibly easy to get a little jumpy there. Your mind makes you believe everything has a strange explanation, when in reality, it doesn’t. When asked about the possibility of objects moving, which is often a staple of any good
mac(1).indd 65
ghost story, Dr Roberts laughed at the idea. “If the only evidence you’ve got is a person’s word then I don’t think that’s a very sensible way of doing things, if you have some physical, or
"But if someone comes to you and says "Oh I saw a cup move"well, brilliant, I saw a flying horse the other day." repeatable physical evidence then you can believe something. But if someone comes to you and says “Oh I saw a cup move” well, brilliant, I saw a flying horse the other day.
Again it comes down to rationalism and scientific method. You’ve got to be practical.” So next time you see a table fly across a room in the latest horror movie, you can all laugh and be smug, because you’ll know that it’s just one big bunch of bullshit. On the subject of possession, Dr Tim Roberts claims that it is nothing but a symptom of mental illness. “Possession has exactly the same symptoms as mental illnesses. it’s how people before medicine came along explained mental illness, p a r t i c u l a r l y like paranoid schizophrenia, the symptoms involve people talking about voices in their head, Its ‘possession’.” This relates back to his earlier point that ghosts are merely something fabricated in a person’s mind and have no scientific evidence or reasoning that can suggest otherwise. With regards to finding evidence, Dr Roberts insists that it is empirical
24/04/2013 19:29
64
that the scientist should separate his own beliefs from the actual data. Experiments into the paranormal are almost always fronted by someone who is desperately looking for proof, so they take every single anomaly as cold hard fact and enter it as proof of the phenomena, which basically undermines their entire experiment leaving them looking like a right meathead. Despite the irrationality of ghosts, Dr Roberts believes that the public’s obsession with the supernatural
is a natural thing. “Ghost stories have been around since year dot, they’re interesting so it’s all about people’s perception I guess. People thinking it’s interesting so they want to go and find out more about it. That’s how all academia works at some level, if they’re interested by a subject they want to find out more about it, ghosts are somewhat borderline subjective.” He admits that he hasn’t fallen for the hype though, and insists that he only occasionally reads ghost stories
“to snigger at the idiots that were writing them.” When asked if he has ever doubted the non-existence of ghosts, he explains that he once had a dream about his Great Aunt who he hadn’t thought about or seen for about five years prior to this point. He received a call the next day to say that his Great Aunt had died that night. Despite describing the event as a spooky coincidence he says that he probably only remembers that dream because he had a phone call the next morning saying she’d
The rare sighting of a ghost and a scientist in the same environment.
mac(1).indd 66
24/04/2013 19:29
died. “Coincidences are all about perception, and people remember coincidences and think ‘oh god that’s incredible she must be some sort of psychic. Well no I just probably dreamed her about her and then she died and I remembered it. If she hadn’t I probably wouldn’t have thought anything of it.” He said it was never a doubt, only a coincidence that stood out, much like people’s experiences with déjà vu. Throughout his career, Dr Roberts has done a lot of work to do with black holes which we are certain exist, despite never seeing actually them, so it seemed only natural to ask him how scientists could happily rule out the paranormal. He mentioned an old maxim in science that says ‘absence of evidence is not evidence of absence’ however science is heavily based on what they think is unlikely, based on other areas of science. “We can’t disprove the fact that on some planet, somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, there are
mac(1).indd 67
pigs that turn into sheep at night. What we can do as scientists is make predictions based on what we do know; we think that’s probably quite unlikely. This applies to the paranormal, based on what we know about physics, we think that’s unlikely however we don’t have any empirical data that says one way or another.” With regards to already ‘proven’
"Derek Acorah, you've been rumbled." p a r a n o r m a l existence, Dr Roberts insists that if there were any truth to these claims, we would all know about it, “It would be all over the media. It isn’t. It’s just hearsay, it’s just bad science.” He also added his opinion of shows like Most Haunted that ‘prove’ the existence of ghosts. “You put a load of people in a house with some weird old bloke who claims he’s speaking to the dead, and you freak
them out a bit. It’s very entertaining but that’s all that show is. There isn’t anything d e m o n s t r a b l y s c i e n t i f i c happening.” Derek Acorah, you’ve been rumbled. He believe that people will believe in ghosts for as long as humanity exists. Ghost stories will always be a thing, and people will always watch socalled psychics on TV, and believe everything they’re told, despite what scientists have proven. “What people who believe tend to do is, just narrow their belief or shift their belief somewhere else. People will believe in ghosts as long as they want to similarly to how people will have religion for as long as they serve a purpose for that person. Ultimately if they want to believe, they will believe. All you can do as a scientist is look at things empirically and come up with an answer. You’re dealing with a big conflict between what can establish as fact and the very human response of wanting to believe.”
65
24/04/2013 19:29
66
ding ding and the winner is........... science
k.o. dumb humans Well there we go, do ghosts exist? Well according to a mentally stable human being, Dr Roberts, the answer is no. But will people ever accept this? Probably not. People are stupid and are most probably crazy if they tell you they’ve had a chat with their dead grandma. The scientists have won this battle; they’ve found absolutely no evidence of any dead relatives knocking about, so therefore these stories of supernatural bullshit are nothing more than stories.
mac(1).indd 68
24/04/2013 19:29
mac(1).indd 69
24/04/2013 19:29
68
so long, ghost children. So, what’s in right now? Well you can forget ghost kids. Fuck those ring-style girls, with their ugly black hair covering their ugly white face wearing those ugly dresses. Gone are the days of the Japanese little boys who have the insane ability to replicate a cat’s meow to summon their dead mums. No to more prepubescent dead folks climbing out of 90s television sets, killing the fuck out of some poor unsuspecting sod either. We don’t want you anymore. You are so not hot, and so last season. Instead we want paranormal investigation. It’s just so hip to video yourself being haunted by a ghost. We crave fit actors flying across their bedrooms due to an unseen force and watching doors open and shut. It’s so fashion. Think Paranormal Activity, The Devil Inside Me and The Last Exorcism (1+2). We love those shaky camera movements, and that
mac(1).indd 70
awful sound quality. 2013 is the year of ghost footage, and we can all look forward to Paranormal Activity 5, due in cinemas in October, for our incessant need for dirty nasty spirits. Even the most elite Latinos have embraced the new trend, and have created a spin-off to the popular for us to get our fashion fix. We’re all so current and chic. The trend stems from the demand of shows like Most Haunted and Ghost Hunters. They’re so hot right now. Anyone who is anyone watches these films. Keep with the cutting edge and stay cool. Sorry ghost children, but you’re so passé. Paranormal investigations are where it’s at.
x 24/04/2013 19:29
mac(1).indd 71
24/04/2013 19:29
mac(1).indd 72
24/04/2013 19:29