CREE
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P
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INDEX Paranormal
3
Ip’s Witches
4
Telepathy Me
6
Phobia & Myth
7
Demon on Board
10
Scary Places
12
UFO
14
Thank you!
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Text: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son
Text: Basia Jazubowska, Kasia Pajuert Images: Joke Duponcheel, Céline Gladiné
Text: Lies De Nyn
Text: Céline Gladiné, Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son Illustrations: Lies De Nyn
Text and illustration: Griet Beyaert
Text: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son Images: Céline Gladiné, Silvy Van Son
Text: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son Image: Silvy Van Son
Text: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son
Covers and lay-out: Céline Gladiné 2
Haunted mansions, spooky pubs, scary forests and shivery incidents: we experienced it all during the short time we had to make this magazine. While we were travelling around in Ipswich looking for ghost stories and haunted mansions, our search for interesting tales sometimes turned into our own spooky story. When we were in a gothic souvenir shop, The Purple Shop, suddenly a porcelain statue of a little girl fell of a high shelf and nearly knocked us out. No one had a clue how it had happened because nobody was tall enough to accidentally hit the shelf. While we were editing, something spooky occurred too. The door had been open all day and all of a sudden it slowly closed. That was weird because the door was blocked with a doorstop and could not be closed without human help. Despite of all these obstacles, we managed to finish our mysterious magazine filled with interesting articles. In this gazette you will experience the stories of white witches of Ipswich, the Black Shucks of Suffolk and we even have a big scoop for you: we spotted UFOs in Christchurch Park and we have got pictures to prove it! Take this magazine to a forest at night or to a cold and moist dungeon for the ultimate experience of horror! Sincerely, Your VXM team
paranormal
Intro to the paranormal
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ips’ witches
Paganism History records that worship of many gods, goddesses, and deities was viewed by people as important in worship. It was thought that everything had a spirit and was polytheistic, so people had gods and goddesses of the forest, sea, and all aspects of nature. From the interview with Adrian and Ria who both follow the religion of Paganism, we have found out that ‘it is about what you believe in and what you want to believe in’. To Ria, Paganism ‘is an old religion and it is more to do with the changing of the seasons, also celebrating them.’ Paganism is about everybody being equal. ‘There is no hierarchy’ meaning that men and women are treated equally. Not only celebrating the changing of the season but also ‘everything around you’. As like Ria, Adrian believes that ‘paganism covers a broad spectrum of different things’. Paganism is not like the ‘Hollywood witchcraft’, but instead it uses natural herbs and remedies to help others. Adrian also confesses that ‘Catholic churches burned a lot of women, simply because they could heal people using natural herbs and remedies, and they saw
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it as a threat to the church and they classed them as witches’. Both Ria and Adrian believe that paganism is a personal belief. Pagans believe in reincarnation, but they did not believe in the existence of heaven and hell. They use a range of different equipment to see the energy and other powers of a person. Not only healing people, pagans also use spells to help others feel better on the emotional and social side. One of them is the love spell which is the most popular among other spells. it is used to bring back lost love, to strengthen an existing bond, or to attract a new lover.
Witchcraft Witchcraft began in 1609. The most obvious characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell. To Christianity and Islam, witchcraft came to be associated with heresy and apostasy, which was viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and leadership of the European Late Medieval period, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch, and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. Throughout this time, it was increasingly believed that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches. In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men. Accusations of witchcraft were often combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Waldensians.Since the mid-20th century Witchcraft has become the designation of a branch of contemporary Paganism, most notably including Wiccan traditions, who claim to practice a revival of pre-Abraham spirituality 5
telepathy me 6
Telepathy is the transference of thoughts or feelings between two or more subjects through Psi. Telepathy isn’t really from this time anymore. Originally it comes from Greece. (from the Greek τηλε, tele meaning “distant” and πάθη, pathe meaning “affliction, experience”). The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, specifically to replace the earlier expression thought-transference.
Learning telepathy
You actually can train on telepathy, to become more sensitive for it. The first key to telepathy is to “Be present”, be “here” and be “now”. Do not think of any other place. Do not think of the past or the future. This is the hardest part of telepathy. It’s a bit like mindfullness.
Telepathic stories I know
* One of the first stories I’ve heard is one of the most common things in telepathy, that you have the feeling that something is happenend with someone. There was a guy, he sets his house on fire with a sigaret, and he died. The police went to his sister to tell her the news, the moment she opend the door and saw the policeman she said: ‘my brother is death, isn’t he?’. She just dreamed about it, and she had such a strong feeling about what happened. * The second story I’ve heard is about a girl that went on a trip to India, she had a little breakdown so she called her mom. Her mom said to her ‘be calm, you have money, take a plane to somewhere else and call me when you get there.’ On her way to the airport she met a group of roadtrippin friends and went with them to a hotel. She took a shower, and laid down on the bed to get some rest. Right on that moment the phone of the hotelroom goes over, she picks up the phone and it’s her mom on the other side of the line. Her mom just turned a random phone number to try to connect with her daughter, so you see telepathy does exsist. Or it is just luck on your side.
Matt – “When I was younger, my brother needed syringes. So they had to stick a needle in his ear and I fainted. While falling, I hit my head on a trolley. Ever since then I can’t look when a needle penetrates the skin. I get lightheaded and a sick feeling. Even on television, I look away from the screen.” Vampire! Now it’s time for a Belgian story. Between 1971 and 1972, 3 women were raped and brutally murdered in Muizen. They all had one thing in common: Bite marks. It looked like a vampire had bitten them. The police couldn’t explain what these marks were until they found the murderer: His name was Staf Van Eyken and as soon as the police arrested him, he confessed everything. He bit his victims while he was harassing them and then strangled them. He was sentenced to life and he is still known as ‘The Vampire of Muizen’…
phobia & myth
Aichmophobia (fear of needles)
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Cynophobia (fear of dogs) Tonia – “I did hypnotherapy to reframe my fear of dogs. I don’t recall being bitten by a dog when staying with a friend of a friend, but my mother said it did happen. My father has always been afraid of dogs. He grew up with dogs just being there for protection, not as a man’s best friend. They were wild animals. So whenever on a walk, he was really weary of dogs and that infected me, I think. I try to rationalize the fear but the barking is what triggers it. My heart starts racing then and I freeze completely.” Black Shuck! In the eastern part of England there are a lot of spooky stories about Black Shucks. A Shuck is a big dog who attacks innocent people. There is a story situated in the church of Blythburgh. A large black shuck burst in during a church service. It made scorch marks on the church door and you can still see them today. Another report was about a Shuck who harassed a couple of innocent men. They tried to hit him with a stick but that would not work because the stick passed straight through the dog’s body. There are many other reports about Shucks that haunt places. There even exists a legend about donkey faced dog that spooks around the area of Melton. 8
Claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces) George – “There was one time when I felt trapped in the narrowest tower of a church. You can compare it with the places in castles where there is a small gap for shooting intruders. The tightness of the room was overwhelming and it felt as if my body took over this tightness. I couldn’t breathe anymore but wasn’t paralysed. So I got out of there as quick as possible. When I was nine, my uncle and I were playing in the kid’s play area and we were chucking stuff upon stuff. I got under a pile and my uncle then sat on the top. I thought I was never going to get out. It felt like being buried alive.” Living dead! There once was an old lady who loved to wear her golden jewels. The lady died and was buried in a church while wearing her valuable rings. One night, a man broke into the church and looked for the grave of the lady, who was just buried. He intended stealing the ring so dug up her body, but he noticed that it was impossible to slide off the rings of the woman’s fingers. He decided to cut off the fingers and just when he was making the initial incision, the woman awakes. She was not dead at all and had been a victim of premature burial. The thief ran away screaming was never seen again. The woman walked over to her house, but she was not welcome anymore because her family thought she was ghost. She could not do anything else but wandering around for years and years…
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demon on board 10
OUIJA BOARD Although the Ouija board is often used as a toy by children and teenagers, people who are already in touch with a familiar spirit say that using a Ouija board can be dangerous. Even though a Ouija board it’s relatively easy to use, there is always the possibility of not understanding what the spirits are telling us. On the board you find letters and words. You use a movable indicator called planchette, which is used by the spirits to spell out. The participants place their fingers on the indicator during the séance or spiritual session; the spirits move the planchette to tell a message. It is a tool to help us understand what they are trying to tell us. If you are open enough to the world of spirits, there is the possibility that other spirits will try to contact you as well. Then you need to try to establish who they are, for example by testing them by asking questions. You have to be sure that you are not in contact with a demon. So, how can I make sure that I do not get in touch with a demon?
A demon is a considered an unclear spirit, a paranormal malevolent angel. Demonic possession is the control of a person by a demon. If you are possessed, you will have to exorcise the demon. Some sacred rituals are used for healing, for example praying. The mainstream religions believe that the Ouija board is associated with demonic possession. In 2001, fundamentalist groups in New Mexico burned Ouija boards, alongside Harry Potter books, as symbols for witchcraft and a tool of Satan. When something weird happens during a séance, like a noise or a candle that snuffs, a demon is not always responsible for that. Because you are scared, you do not react like you would normally do. You see everything in a different context. Scientists did a lot of research on Ouija boards. They concluded that the participants make motions unconsciously, also known as the ideomotor phenomenon. In other words: because you think the planchette will move to the word ‘Yes’, your muscles instinctively move the indicator to that word.
SOME FUN FACTS ABOUT OUIJA BOARDS: • The live stage backdrop of Marilyn Manson’s tour in 1995 was a Ouija board. He experimented with the board as a kid and says he has had some weird experiences with it. He used it as a backdrop, because the board is a symbol of communication. His guitarist had a guitar with a body styled as Ouija board. • It is said that the band name of ‘Alice Cooper’ was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board. Vincent Furnier found out that he was the reincarnation of a 17th-century witch with that name. • In 1917, Emily Grant Hutchings contacted author Mark Twain with a Ouija board to write her novel Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board. • The name ‘Ouija’ is the combination of the words ‘Oui’ and ‘Ja’, which means ‘Yes’. Almost every Ouija board contains the words ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Maybe’. • One of the inventors of the Ouija board, William Fuld died after complications falling from the roof of his factory. He was 57 years old. 11
scary places
Christchurch Mansion The haunted Christchurch Mansion, built in 1547, is a large brick mansion situated in Christchurch Park on the edge of the town centre of Ipswich. In 1995 there were stories about turning paintings and a Victorian woman walking through glass door. An assistant at the Mansion, Steve Parkes, was featured three years ago in the local newspaper with his spooky story. While he was preparing a room for an exhibition he saw a painting lift off the ground and fly six feet across the room. He said that the painting moved as if someone had lifted it up and thrown it. A spokeswoman for the Mansions says that was not the first incident. A similar situation took place in the same room about 14 years before Steve Parkes’ experience. The haunted stories of the Christchurch Mansion are supported by two firm believers. Two male visitors put a video on Youtube where you can hear a women whispering while the boys claiming that there is no one else in the room‌
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Buttermarket
WS Cowell’s, now the site of the But- hid their treasure in a well on the site termarket Centre: On this site there when under attack, and until this day used to be a monastery. Apparently it hasn’t been found. since one old monk couldn’t go to heaven, he’s still spotted on the site. Two women fainted, a few men fled during a night shift and phantom footsteps were heard inside the building. Maybe the monk wasn’t allowed in heaven because he was a thief, because it is said that the occupants
PJ McGinty’s and sons This pub might be the most haunted pub in England. People have noticed dozens of ghosts and strange sounds while having a beer. The most famous myth of this pub is the ‘heartbeat’: it is said that when you place your ear against the wall, you can hear a human heart throbbing from within. But this heartbeat isn’t the only shady sound you can hear: footsteps, slammed doors and barrels being moved in the basement are only a few of the
spooky noises heard in here. Furthermore someone saw a monk walking through the fireplace and on a wall nearby, there constantly appeared to be a shadow even though nobody was around. But since all of these have been seen in a pub, one can wonder whether these are genuine ghost appearances or they are just hallucinations by drunk people. 13
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uFO SPOTTED in ipswich
For our story about the haunted Christchurch Mansion, our Creepswich reporters went to Christchurch Park to check if the site is really haunted (for the full story: check p 12). To recover from their ghostly experience, our journalists chilled a bit in the park and guess what they saw! All
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of a sudden, a huge U.F.O. flew over! They grabbed their cameras and took a few amazing shots. The U.F.O. floated around for a few minutes and then suddenly vanished. What do you think? Are U.F.O.s real or not? Share your thoughts on twitter with #UFOipswich.
THANK YOU BEDANKT DZIĘKI We want to thank everyone who supported us with their knowledge and answered all our needy questions. We learned a lot about the myths and legends of Ipswich and met tons of interesting and friendly people. A big thanks to you all for this great adventure!
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