Angels

An angel is a supernatural being found in many religions. In scripture, they typically act as messengers, as held by the three prominent monotheistic faiths, Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Bibliomancy

is the use of books in divination. The method of employing sacred books (especially specific words and verses) for 'magical medicine', for removing negative entities, or for divination is universal in all religions of the world. "What the Vedas were to the Hindus, Homer to the Greeks, and Ovid and Virgil to the Romans, the Old Testament was to the Jews, the Old and New Testaments to the Christians, and the Koran and Hafiz to the Mohammedan's."

Bibliomancy Methods

Among Christians, the Bible is most commonly used, and in Islamic cultures the Qur'an. In the Middle Ages the use of Virgil's Aeneid was common in Europe and known as the sortes Virgilianae.

Because book owners frequently have favorite passages that the books open themselves to, some practitioners use dice or another randomizer to choose the page to be opened. This practice was formalized by the use of coins or yarrow stalks in consulting the I Ching. Tarot can also be considered a form of bibliomancy, with the main difference that the cards (pages) are unbound.

Another variant requires the selection of a random book from a library before selecting the random passage from that book. This also holds if a book has fallen down from a shelf on its own.

Bibliomancy is a type of Stichomancy: "divination from lines". Some sources refer to bibliomancy as a specialized form of stichomancy, often falsely attributing the word root "biblio" to "the Bible", rather than books in general.

Carromancy

carromancy(from Greek carro, 'waxen', and manteia, 'divination'), otherwise known as ceromancy, is a form of divination involving wax. One of the most common methods of carromancy is to heat wax until molten, then to pour it directly into cold water. The shapes and movements of the wax as it cools and solidifies can then allegedly be read to forecast auguries of the future. Another method more commonly practiced in the contemporary era is studying the burning of an ordinary candle. The movements and erratic actions of the flame are then said to predict the future.

carromancy also has roots in ancient Celtic times. According to scraps of knowledge salvaged from around the period CE 500, it appears that the candle burned during a druid's vigil was poured into a bowl and then into a clear pool of cold water. The auguries for the future could then be read.

Cartomancy

is a form of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. The practice of cartomancy has been observed since playing cards first came into use in Europe in the 14th century. Practitioners of cartomancy are generally known as cartomancers, card readers or, simply, readers. Some practitioners have claimed that cartomancy's origins date back to ancient Egyptian times, the art being derived from wisdom given to the ancient Egyptians by the scribe-god Thoth, although this belief is by no means common today.

Dactylomancy

from the Greek word for finger, is a form of divination using rings.

Modern dactylomancy

In some traditions of dactylomancy, a ring is suspended like a pendulum above a surface that is market with letters or symbols. The direction of the swing indicates which symbols are to be consulted, or which letter are to be formed into a message, in answer to a specific question. Another tradition follows the same pattern as Séance table-rapping. In it a ring is suspended from a tumbler so that it may touch the sides if swung and a code is agreed upon (eg, 1 for yes, 2 for no). A question is then posed and the number of the times that the ring strikes the side of the tumbler is interpreted as being an answer.

Historic dactylomancy

A more complex form of dactylomancy was practiced in Europe during the middle ages in which a ring was suspended above a circular table marked with the symbols of the zodiac. 78 metal discs inscribed with a letter of the alphabet (three discs per letter) were then placed on the table and the thread holding the ring was burnt. The letters that the ring rolled across and the one on which it halted were then consulted to form the answer to the question being divined.In this tradition, the metal that from which the ring was made of was determined by the day of the week.

Monday - Silver, to represent the moon
Tuesday - Iron, to represent Mars
Wednesday - Tin/lead, to represent Mercury
Thursday - Tin, to represent Jupiter
Friday - Copper, to represent Venus
Saturday - Lead, to represent Saturn
Sunday - Gold, to represent the sun

Modern dactylomancy is usually associated with spiritualism and new age beliefs, rather Parapsychology.

Ghosts

A ghost is an alleged non-corporeal manifestation of a dead person(or, sometimes, an animal or a vehicle). It is often claimed to be a manifestation of the spirit, or soul of a person which has remained on earth after death. According to some beliefs, a ghost may be the personality of a person after his or her death, and not directly tied to the soul or spirit. Many cultures throughout the world carry stories about ghosts, though they often disagree as to what ghosts are and whether they are just figments of imagination or a part of reality. There is much debate on whether ghosts are spirits of deceased people or a naturally occurring phenomenon. Some people believe that ghostly images and sounds occur as a result of the natural environment "playing back" past events in a manner similar to that of a tape recorder.Both the West and the East share some fundamental beliefs about ghosts. They may wander around places they frequented when alive or where they died. Such places are known as "haunted"; the rounds they go on are known as "haunting's". They often wear the sort of clothing in which they would have been seen when alive.

Signs That You May Have A Ghost

People in the house are having bad dreams.
You hear footsteps, taps on the walls or voices.
Objects are mysteriously disappear only to return later.(generally shoes, or jewelry)
Pets react to something others can't see. A dog might be growling at thin air or its hackles may rise. Pets may refuse to go in a particular room.
Electrical appliances and lights turn on or off by themselves. Tap water turns on or off, and toilets flush of their own accord. Doors open and close with unseen hands.
Unexplained cold drafts or cold spots can be felt.
Small children talk to people who are not there.
Seeing unexplained shadows, usually out of the corner of your eye. Sometimes the shadows take on a a vaguely human shape.
Feeling as though you're being watched when no one is there.
Feelings of being touched or something brushing past a gentle poke, push, or nudge.
Noticeable changes in temperature. Cold spots are most often reported.
Unexplained smells such as distinctive perfume, foul odors, an electric smell, that have no explainable source
Bed covers moved off you (sometimes jerked right off you).
Touches (light pat on the back, the touch will be warm, never cold).
Phone rings.
Strange animal behavior a dog, cat or other pet behaves strangely. Dogs may bark at something unseen, cower without apparent reason or refuse to enter a room they normally do. Cats may seem to be "watching" something cross a room. Animals have sharper senses than humans, And close attention should be paid to how an animal acts.

Moving or levitating objects (severe psychokinetic phenomena) dinner plates sliding across the table; pictures flying off walls; doors slamming shut with great force; furniture sliding across the floor. Physical assault scratches, slaps and hard shoves. This kind of personal assault is rare, But it does happen. Other physical evidence unexplained writing on paper or walls; hand prints and footprints. Apparitions physical manifestation of a spirit or entity. These phenomena are also very rare and can take many forms: human-shaped mists or forming mists of some indistinguishable shape; transparent human forms that disappear quickly; and most rarely, human forms that look as real and solid as any living person, but that disappear into a room or even while being viewed. If you have any or all of these signs of ghost infestation, and you are feeling overly tired or depressed, wanting to keep your drapes and shades drawn and be in the dark, and you are feeling withdrawn and tired all the time, with no good reason, you may be having your energy being sapped by an attention craving ghost.

Entities

Entities: Often, in the beginning, these are confused with Ghosts. They make noises, project voices, move things, however there is never a pleasant smell with these - even in the beginning. They leave a calling card of an odor not unlike rotten eggs. In addition to all the ghost characteristics above, you can also have any or all of the following:

Bed covers jerked off -usually violently.
Physical damage - slaps, hard pinches, scratches and punches. In rare cases -sexual assault.
Knocks or taps in groups of 3.
Scratches in the walls that sound like animals.
Animal noises at night when there are no animals around (dogs fighting, birds screeching or strange sounding birds singing).
Materialization of Black forms usually either a man or a dog. normally accompanied by a foul odor. These forms have no features they look like a solid shadow. They can remain dormant for many, many years and can suddenly be drawn forward to active duty if there is a general atmosphere of arguments and tension within a family. The Entity will first center on one person in the home, and this person may think they are losing their mind. That is precisely what the entity wants - the more stressed it can make you the more anxious energy it can draw off of you, thus becoming stronger. The person who tends to become withdrawn or depressed in stressful situations is their ideal candidate.

Hydromancy

Hydromancy (from Greek Hydro, water, and Manteia, divination) is the art of Crystal gazing by means of water, including the color, ebb and flow, or ripples produced by pebbles dropped in a pool.

Lychnomancy

Lychnomancy is a branch of Pyromancy (from Greek 'pyros', fire, and 'manteia', divination) is the art of divination by means of fire.

History of pyromancy

Due to the importance of fire in society from the earliest of times, it is quite likely that pyromancy was one of the earlier forms of divination. It is said that in Greek society, virgins at the Temple of Athena in Athens regularly practiced pyromancy. It is also possible that followers of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and the forge, practiced pyromancy. In ancient China, pyromancy was practiced in the Neolithic period and Shāng and Zhōu dynasties in the form of burning or heating oracle bones -- usually the scapulae (shoulder blades) of oxen or turtle shells -- to produce cracks which were then read as portents. Inscriptions on such oracle bones from the late Shāng dynasty are important, as the earliest significant corpus of written Chinese ever found.

Types of pyromancy

The most basic form of pyromancy is that in which the diviner observes flames, from a sacrificial fire, a candle, or another source of flame, and interprets the shapes that he or she sees within them. There are several variations on pyromancy, here at sinai's ancient magic spells and apothecary lychnomancy is cast using 3 candles in a triangle, and reading the pattern of the flames.

Incantation Spells

An incantation is the words spoken during a ritual, either a hymn or prayer invoking or praising a deity, or in magic, occultism, witchcraft with the intention of casting a spell or an object or a person. The term derives from Latin incantare (tr.), meaning "to chant (a magical spell) upon," from in- "into, upon" and cantare "to sing".

In medieval literature, folklore, fairy tales and modern fantasy fiction, enchantments (from the Old French enchantment) are charms or spells. The term was loaned into English since around AD 1300. The corresponding native English term being galdor "song, spell". It has led to the terms enchanter and enchantress, for those who use enchantments.

Structure

Incantations display several of the features of oral literature, including repetition, a strong reliance on per formative language and formulaic composition. The earliest incantations in English are probably the Old English metrical charms. Written in Anglo-Saxon these charms are difficult to differentiate from the riddles and other short poems of the corpus of Old English poetry. However, they do rely strongly on metaphor, a relatively rare device of Anglo-Saxon poetry (except, of course, in the form of kenning), and one that may be universal to the genre of incantation. Furthermore, these charms invoke divine aid, especially in the form of the Virgin Mary, angels, and Christ.

A cursory examination of a cross-cultural selection of incantations reveals a few similarities.

* Most incantations are metrical in one of several poetic forms of the language in which they are written. Some use an unusual verse form. Prose incantations are somewhat rare.
* Almost all incantations invoke the aid of a divine or semi divine being, or some other spiritual entity.
* Information packing in incantations is extremely tight. Sometimes, metaphors are difficult to understand, either because they are deliberately meaningless, or, more likely, because the author intended the metaphor to carry more semantic weight than usual.
* Many incantations contain nonsense words. These words may be mantras, "barbarous words" (in Greek incantations, often badly transliterated Hebrew), or strings of vowels or other non-linguistic sounds.
* Most incantations seem to require some sort of physical action by the reciter in order for the per formative act of the incantation (i.e., the act of magic) to work. These actions may be described as part of the charm. In some instances, it is difficult to tell if the description of the actions is also to be incanted as part of the charm.

Necromancy: A Brief History Of

Necromancy (Latin necromantia, Greek νεκρομαντίαnekromantía) is a form of divination in which the practitioner seeks to summon the spirits of the dead in order to gain knowledge of future events from them. These spirits are called Operative Spirits and Spirits of Divination. The word derives from the Greek νεκρός nekrós "dead" and μαντεία manteía "divination". necromancy most likely has a relation to shamanism, which calls upon spirits such as the ghosts of ancestors. The historian Strabo (Strabo, xvi. 2, 39, νεκρομαντία) refers to necromancy as the principal form of divination amongst the people of Persia; and it is believed to also have been widespread amongst the peoples of Chaldea (particularly amongst the Sabians or star-worshippers), Etruria and Babylonia. The Babylonian necromancers themselves were called Manzazuu or Sha'etemmu and the spirits they raised were called Etemmu.In the Odyssey (XI, Nekyia), Odysseus makes a voyage to Hades, the Underworld, and raises the spirits of the dead using spells which he had learnt from Circe (Ruickbie, 2004:24). His intention was to invoke the shade of Tiresias, but he was unable to summon it without the assistance of others. There are also many references to necromancy in the Bible. The Book of Deuteronomy (XVIII 9–12) explicitly warns the Israelites against the Canaanite practice of divination from the dead. This warning was not always heeded: King Saul asked the Witch of Endor to invoke the shade of Samuel, for example. Norse mythology also contains examples of necromancy (Ruickbie, 2004:48), such as the scene in the Völuspá in which Odin summons a seeress from the dead to tell him of the future. In Grogaldr, the first part of Svipdagsmál, the hero Svipdag summons his dead Völva mother, Groa, to cast spells for him.The 17th century Rosicrucian Robert Fludd describes Goetic necromancy as consisting of "diabolical commerce with unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and invocations and in the evocation of the souls of the dead".Modern séances, channeling and Spiritualism verge on necromancy when the invoked spirits are asked to reveal future events. Necromancy may also be dressed up as sciomancy, a branch of theurgic magic. Necromancy is extensively practiced in voodoo.

Spread Of Necromancy

In the middle ages the literate members of society were either the Nobility or Christian clergy. Either of these groups may have been responsible for the propagation and ongoing practice of necromancy, even though it is forbidden in Christianity. It is apparent that necromancy was not a method of witchcraft. It may have been only available to the scholarly of Europe, because of the accessibility, language, knowledge and methods it employs. There are a few confessions of some Nobles or Clergy members professing a history of experience with necromancy, although these may well have been obtained under duress (cf. the Salem Witch Trials). Some suggest that Necromancy could have become a way for idle literate Europeans to integrate Hebrew and Arabic legend and language into forbidden manuals of sorcery.The possibility exists that literate Europeans were the main forces simultaneously practicing and condemning necromancy. The language, execution and format of the rituals illustrated in the Munich Handbook (Kieckhefer 42–51) are strikingly similar to Christian rites. In a Christian exorcism, various demons and spirits are driven away by name, in the name of God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit. The spells of necromancy are very similar to these Christian rites (Kieckhefer 128–129) in their complete opposition. The distortion of the rites into spells is within the scope of Christian understanding at that time. Necromantic spells were mainly illusory or utility spells. Modern scholarship suggests that most were written with hopes that their utility would prove to be useful in acquiring a feast, horse, cloak of invisibility or perhaps just notoriety among others in the necromancy practicing clergy. The nature of these spells lend themselves to being understood as underground clergy members deviantly indulging in unlawful pleasures.The rare confessions of those accused of Necromancy suggest that there was a range of spell casting and the related magical experimentation. It is difficult to determine if these details were due to their practices, as opposed to the whims of their interrogators. John of Salisbury is one of the first examples related by Kieckhefer, but as a Parisian ecclesiastical court record of 1323 shows, a “group who were plotting to invoke the demon Berich from inside a circle made from strips of cat skin,” were obviously participating in the church’s definition of “necromancy.” (Kieckhefer, 191)The probable reason that these renegade so-called Necromancers were dabbling in the dark arts is that the evolution of "natural" magic and "spiritual" magic was slow. Caesarius of Arles (Kors and Peters, 48) entreats his audience to put no stock in any demons, or “Gods” other than the one true Christian God, even if the working of spells appears to provide benefit. He states that demons only act with divine permission, and permitted by God to test Christian people. Caesarius does not condemn man here; he only states that the art of necromancy exists, although it is prohibited by the bible. Within the Rawlinson necromantic manuscript, a fable is presented as a warning to those that would perform necromancy, although the story ends with a note of physical trial, but without mention of the ramifications in the afterlife.In the wake of these inconsistencies of judgment, necromancers, sorcerers and witches were able to utilize spells with holy names with impunity, as biblical references in such rituals could be construed as prayers as opposed to spells. As a result, the necromancy discussed in the Munich Manual is an evolution of these understandings. It has even been suggested that the authors of the Munich Manual knowingly designed this book to be in discord with understood ecclesiastical law.It is possible to trace Christian ritual and prayer and its subsequent mutant forms of utility and healing prayer/spells to full-blown necromancy. The main recipe employed throughout the manual in the necromancy sorcery uses the same vocabulary and structure utilizing the same languages, sections, names of power alongside demonic names. The understanding of the names of God from apocryphal texts and the Hebrew torah demand that the author of such rites have at least a casual familiarity of these texts. The structure of the spells themselves also requires that the author have experience with Christian rites that are not pedestrian, again suggesting either the Nobility or Christian scholars as possible suspects.As we have suggested that alleged Christians might have been the authors of the sundry necromancy manuals, the question of their inspirations must arise. One of the first clues could be the Gods and demons references in the illusions, conjurations and spells. The Hebrew Tetragrammaton and various Hebrew derivatives are found, as well as Hebrew and Greek liturgical formulas (Kieckhefer, 139). Within the tales related in these Manuals, we also find connections with other stories in similar cultural literature (Kieckhefer, 43). The ceremony for conjuring a horse closely relates to the Arabic The Thousand and One Nights, and the French romances. Chaucer’s The Squire's Tale also has marked similarities. This becomes a parallel evolution of spells to foreign Gods or demons that were once acceptable, and framing them into a new Christian context, albeit demonic and forbidden. Most forms of Satanic Necromancy today include prayers to such Demons, namely Nebiros, Azrael, and Beelzebub.As the source material for these manuals is apparently derived from scholarly magical and religious texts from a variety of sources in many languages, it is easy to conclude that the scholars that studied these texts manufactured their own aggregate sourcebook and manual with which to work spells or magic.It is important to note that necromancy is separated by a thin line from demonology and conjuration. Necromancy is communing with the spirits of the dead, rather than the evil spirits of conjuration and demonology.

Vampires

(sometimes vampyres) are mythological or folkloric creatures believed to be the re-animated corpses of human beings who subsist on human or animal blood, as well as fairies. In folklore, the term usually refers to the blood-sucking humans of Eastern European legends, but it is often extended to cover similar legendary creatures from other regions and cultures. The characteristics of vampires vary widely between these different traditions. Some cultures also have stories of non-human vampires, including real animals such as bats, dogs, and spiders, and mythical creatures such as the chupacabra. Vampires are a frequent subject of fictional books and films, although fictional vampires are often attributed traits distinct from those of folkloric vampires. The term vampire is also used to refer to mythical or fictional creatures that act as predatory parasites, draining power, energy, or life from unwilling victims. Creatures who act in this manner are often considered part of the vampire archetype, even if they do not consume blood. Vampirism is the practice of drinking blood from a person or animal. In folklore and popular culture, the term refers to a belief that one can gain supernatural powers by drinking human blood. The historical practice of vampirism can generally be considered a more specific and less commonly occurring form of cannibalism. The consumption of another's blood (or flesh) has been used as a tactic of psychological warfare intended to terrorize the enemy, and can be used to reflect various spiritual beliefs. In zoology and botany, the term vampirism is used in reference to leeches, mosquitos, mistletoe, vampire bats, and other organisms that subsist on the bodily fluids of others.

Etymology

The English word vampire was borrowed (perhaps via French vampyre) from German Vampir, in turn borrowed in early 18th century from Serbian вампир/vampir, or, according to some sources, from Hungarian vámpír. The Serbian and Hungarian forms have some parallels in some Slavic languages. The Bosnian Lampir which was the name of the oldest recorded vampire Meho Lampir. Bulgarian вампир (vampir), Macedonian вампир (vampir), вапир (vapir) Polish wąpierz or въпир (vəpir), Czech. Previous links with the Slovak upír, and (perhaps East Slavic-influenced) upiór, Russian упырь (upyr' ), Belarussian упiр (upyr), Ukrainian упирь (upir' ), from Old Russian упирь (upir' ) the etymology remains uncertain.[7] Among the proposed proto-Slavic forms are *ǫpyrь and *ǫpirь.The Slavic word might, like its possible Russian cognate netopyr' ("bat"), come from the Proto-Indo-European root for "to fly". Earlier theories had it that the Slavic word comes from a Turkic word denoting an evil supernatural entity (cf. Kazan Tatar ubyr "witch"). This theory has since been proved obsolete. The first recorded use of the word 'Vampire' was from Austrian-controlled Serbia in reports prepared by Austrian police officials between 1725 and 1732 investigating reports of a citizen arising from the dead to attack villagers. The original term Upir', from whence "vampire" was derived, is found for the first time in written form in 1047 A.D. in a letter written by a Novgorodian Eastern Orthodox Christian priest to then-Prince Vladimir (later, Vladimir II) referring to himself as поп Упир Лихый (Father Upir' Likhyj). This can be read online in the original Russian. The meaning of both words is still strongly in dispute.

Vampire Analogies In Ancient Cultures

Tales of the dead craving blood are found in nearly every culture around the world, including some of the most ancient ones. Vampire-like spirits called the Lilu are mentioned in early Babylonian demonology, and the bloodsucking Akhkharu even earlier in the Sumerian mythology. These female demons were said to roam during the hours of darkness, hunting and killing newborn babies and pregnant women. One of these demons, named Lilitu, was later adapted into Jewish demonology as Lilith. The vetala, like the bat, is associated with hanging upside down on trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries The vetala, like the bat, is associated with hanging upside down on trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries In India, tales of the Vetalas, ghoul-like beings that inhabit corpses, are found in old Sanskrit folklore. A prominent story tells of King Vikramaditya and his nightly quests to capture an elusive Vetala. The stories of the Vetala have been compiled in the book Baital Pachisi. The vetala is an undead, who like the bat associated with modern day vampire, is associated with hanging upside down on trees found in cremation grounds and cemeteries. The hopping corpse is an equivalent of the vampire in Chinese tradition; however, it consumes the victim's life essence (qì) rather than blood. The Ancient Egyptian goddess Sekhmet in one myth became full of bloodlust after slaughtering humans and was only sated after drinking alcohol colored as blood. The strix, a nocturnal bird that fed on human flesh and blood is mentioned in Roman tales. The Romanian word for vampires, strigoi, is derived from the word, and so is the name of the Albanian Shtriga, but the myths about those creatures show mainly Slavic influence. [citation needed] As an example of the existence and prominence of similar legends at later times, it can be noted that 12th century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants that arguably bear some resemblance to East European vampires. The vampire myth as we know it is most strongly rooted in East European and above all Slavic folklore (dealt with more thoroughly in the next section), where vampires were revenants accused of killing people, often by drinking blood, but also by throttling, or sitting on them and preventing breathing. A vampire could be destroyed by cutting off its head, by driving a wooden stake into its heart, or by burning the corpse.

Folk Beliefs In Vampires

It seems that until the 19th century, vampires in Europe were thought to be hideous monsters from the grave. They were usually believed to rise from the bodies of suicide victims, criminals, or evil sorcerers, though in some cases an initial vampire thus "born of sin" could pass his vampirism onto his innocent victims. In other cases, however, a victim of a cruel, untimely, or violent death was susceptible to becoming a vampire. Most of Romanian vampire folk beliefs (except Strigoi) and European vampire stories have Slavic origins.

Slavic Vampires

In Slavic beliefs, causes of vampirism included being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived on certain days, "irregular" death, excommunication, and improper burial rituals. Preventive measures included placing a crucifix in the coffin, placing blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, putting sawdust in the coffin (the vampire awakens in the evening and must count each grain of sawdust, which takes up the entire evening, so he will die when at dawn) or piercing the body with thorns or stakes. In the case of stakes, the general idea was to pierce through the vampire and into the ground below, pinning the body down. Certain people would bury those believed to be potential vampires with scythes above their necks, so the dead would decapitate themselves as they rose. Evidence that a vampire was at work in the neighborhood included death of cattle, sheep, relatives, or neighbors, an exhumed body being in a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hair, a body swelled up like a drum, or blood on the mouth coupled with a ruddy complexion. Vampires, like other Slavic legendary monsters, were afraid of garlic and liked counting grain, sawdust, etc. Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, sprinkling holy water on the body, or exorcism.The most famous Serbian vampire was Sava Savanovic, famous from a folklore-inspired novel of Milovan Glišic.In the Old Russian anti-pagan work Word of Saint Grigoriy (written in the 11th-12th century), it is claimed that polytheistic Russians made sacrifices to vampires.

Romanian Vampires

Tales of vampiric entities were also found among the ancient Romans and the Romanized inhabitants of eastern Europe, Romanians (known as Vlachs in historical context). Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it is not surprising that Romanian and Slavic vampires are similar. Romanian vampires are called Strigoi, based on the ancient Greek term strix for screech owl, which also came to mean demon or witch. There are different types of Strigoi. Live Strigoi are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out their souls at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi, which are reanimated bodies that return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbors. Other types of vampires in Romanian folklore include Moroi and Pricolici. According to Romanian tradition, a myriad of ways are presented as to bringing about a vampire. A person born with a caul, an extra nipple, extra hair, who was born too early, whose mother had a black cat cross her path, who was born with a tail or who was born out of wedlock was doomed to become a vampire; as was one who died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, as was the seventh child in a family (presuming all of his or her previous siblings were of the same sex), as well as the child of a pregnant woman who did not eat salt or who was looked at by a vampire or a witch. Moreover, being bitten by a vampire meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death.The Vârcolac, which is sometimes mentioned in Romanian folklore, was more closely related to a mythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon (similar to Skoll and Hati in Norse mythology), and later became connected with werewolves rather than vampires. (A person afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into a dog, pig, or wolf.) The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threw things around in the house. Vampires, along with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St George's Day (April 22 Julian, May 4 Gregorian calendar), the night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St George's Day is still celebrated in Europe. A vampire in the grave could be discerned by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were identified by distributing garlic in church and seeing who did not eat it. Graves were often opened three years after the death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism. Measures to prevent a person from becoming a vampire included removing the caul from a newborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle, especially on St George's and St Andrew's day.To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body, followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the 19th century, one would also shoot a bullet through the coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.

Roma Vampire Beliefs

Even today, Roma frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book, Dracula, in which the Szgany Roma served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him. Traditional Romani beliefs include the idea that the dead soul enters a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stays around next to the body and sometimes wants to come back. The Roma legends of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire legends of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands. The ancient home of the Roma, India, has many vampire figures. The Bhut or Prét is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wanders around animating dead bodies at night and attacks the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found the BrahmarakShasa, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood. Vetala and pishacha are some other creatures who resemble vampires in some form. Since Hinduism believes in reincarnation of the soul after death, it is supposed that upon leading an unholy or immoral life, sin or suicide, the soul reincarnates into such kinds of evil spirits. This kind of reincarnation does not arise out of birth from a womb, etc, but is achieved directly, and such evil spirits' fate is pre-determined as to how they shall achieve liberation from that yoni, and re-enter the world of mortal flesh through next incarnation.The most famous Indian deity associated with blood drinking is Kali, who has fangs, wears a garland of corpses or skulls and has four arms. Her temples are near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.Sara, or the Black Goddess, is the form in which Kali survived among Roma. Some Roma have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptized a gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24 in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred. Some refer to their Black Goddess as "Black Cally" or "Black Kali".One form of vampire in Romani folklore is called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire is believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or hadn't properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper).Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had appendages similar to those of an animal, etc., was believed to be a vampire. If a person died unseen, he would become a vampire; likewise if a corpse swelled before burial. Plants or dogs, cats, or even agricultural tools could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood.To get rid of a vampire people would hire a Dhampir (the son of a vampire and his widow) or a Moroi to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, Gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it. According to the late Serbian ethnologist Tatomir Vukanovic, Roma people in Kosovo believed that vampires were invisible to most people. However, they could be seen "by a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday who wear their drawers and shirts inside out." Likewise, a settlement could be protected from a vampire "by finding a twin brother and sister born on a Saturday and making them wear their shirts and drawers inside out (cf previous section). This pair could see the vampire out of doors at night, but immediately after it saw them it would have to flee, head over heels."

Some Common Traits Of Vampires In Folklore

It is difficult to make a unified description of the folkloric vampire, because its properties vary widely between different cultures.The appearance of the European folkloric vampire contained mostly features by which one was supposed to tell a vampiric corpse from a normal one, when the grave of a suspected vampire was opened. The vampire has a "healthy" appearance and ruddy skin, he is often plump, his nails and hair have grown and, above all, he/she is not in the least decomposed.The most usual ways to destroy the vampire are driving a wooden stake through the heart, decapitation, and incinerating the body completely. Ways to prevent a suspected vampire from rising from the grave in the first place include burying it upside-down, severing the tendons at the knees, or placing poppy seeds on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting. Chinese narratives about vampires also state that if a vampire comes across a sack of rice, s/he will have to count all of the grains. There are similar myths recorded on the Indian Subcontinent. South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings have a similar aspect to it.Apotropaics, i.e. objects intended to inhibit or ward off vampires (as well as other evil supernatural creatures), include garlic (confined mostly to European legends),sunlight, a branch of wild rose, the hawthorn plant, and all things sacred (e.g., holy water, a crucifix, a rosary, a star of David) or an Aloe vera plant hung backwards behind the door or near it, in South American superstition. This weakness on the part of the vampire varies depending on the tale. In stories of other regions, other plants of holy or mystical properties sometimes have similar effects. In Eastern vampiric legends, vampires are often similarly warded by holy devices such as Shinto seals. Vampires are sometimes considered to be shape-shifters not limited to the common bat stereotype put out by cartoons and movies. Rather, a multitude of animals are available such as wolves, rats, moths, spiders and many more. Vampires in European folklore are said to cast no shadow and have no reflection. This may be tied to folklore regarding the vampire's lack of a soul.Some traditions hold that a vampire cannot enter a house unless he or she is invited in. Christian tradition holds that they cannot enter a church or holy place, as they are servants of the devil.

18th Century Vampire Controversy

During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires.It all started with an outbreak of alleged "vampire" attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734. Two famous cases (and first to be fully recorded by authorities) involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole from Serbia. As the story goes, Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbors who died from loss of blood.In the other famous case, Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had allegedly been attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die, and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours.These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-claimed vampire attacks, with locals digging up bodies. Many scholars said vampires did not exist, and attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies. Nonetheless, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well-respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746, which was at least ambiguous concerning the existence of vampires, if not admitting it explicitly. He amassed reports of vampire incidents and numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and supportive demonologists, interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires exist. According to some recent research, and judging from the second edition of the work in 1751, Calmet was actually somewhat skeptical towards the vampire concept as a whole. He did acknowledge that parts of the reports, such as the preservation of corpses, might be true.[15] Whatever his personal convictions were, Calmet's apparent support for vampire belief had considerable influence on other scholars at the time. Eventually, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent her personal physician, Gerhard van Swieten, to investigate. He concluded that vampires do not exist, and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. By then, though, many knew about vampires, and soon authors would adopt and adapt the concept of vampire, making it known to the general public.

New England

During the late 18th and 19th centuries the belief in vampires was widespread in parts of New England, particularly in Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. In this region there are many documented cases of families disinterring loved ones and removing their hearts in the belief that the deceased was a vampire who was responsible for sickness and death in the family (although the word "vampire" was never used to describe him/her). The deadly tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was known at the time, was believed to be caused by nightly visitations on the part of a dead family member (who had died of consumption him/herself). The most famous (and latest recorded) case is that of nineteen year old Mercy Brown who died in Exeter, Rhode Island in 1892. Her father, assisted by the family physician, removed her from her tomb two months after her death. Her heart was cut out then burnt to ashes. An account of this incident was found among the papers of Bram Stoker and the story closely resembles the events in his classic novel, Dracula.

Modern Belief In Vampires

Belief in vampires persists to this day. While some cultures preserve their original traditions about the immortal, most modern-day believers are more influenced by the fictional image of the vampire as it occurs in films and literature.In the 1970s, there were rumors (spread by the local press) that a vampire haunted High gate Cemetery in London. Amateur vampire hunters flocked in large numbers in the cemetery. Several books have been written about the case, notably by Sean Manchester, a local man who was among the first to suggest the existence of the "High gate Vampire" and who later claimed to have exorcised and destroyed a whole nest of vampires in the area.In the modern folklore of Puerto Rico and Mexico, the chupacabra (goat-sucker) is said to be a creature that feeds upon the flesh or drinks the blood of domesticated animals, leading some to consider it a kind of vampire. The "chupacabra hysteria" was frequently associated with deep economic and political crises, particularly during the mid-1990s.During late 2002 and early 2003, hysteria about alleged attacks of vampires swept through the African country of Malawi. Mobs stoned one individual to death and attacked at least four others, including Governor Eric Chiwaya, based on the belief that the government was colluding with vampires.In Romania during February of 2004, several relatives of the late Toma Petre feared that he had become a vampire. They dug up his corpse, tore out his heart, burned it, and mixed the ashes with water in order to drink it. In January 2005, rumors began to circulate that an attacker had bitten a number of people in Birmingham, England, fueling concerns about a vampire roaming the streets. However, local police stated that no such crime had been reported. This case appears to be an urban legend.In 2006, Costas Efthimiou and Sohang Gandhi published a piece that uses geometric progression to attempt to disprove the feeding habits of vampires, stating that, if each vampire's nourishment depended on making even one other person a vampire, it would only be a matter of years before the Earth's entire population was among the undead or vampires died out (compare matrix scheme). However, this notion that a vampire's victims must themselves become vampires does not appear in all vampire folklore, and is not universally accepted by modern vampire believers. This theory also assumes that a single bite turns the victim into a vampire, which is not generally the case in most vampire lore.

Natural phenomena that propagate the belief in vampires

Pathology And Vampirism

Folkloric vampirism has typically been associated with a series of deaths due to unidentifiable or mysterious illnesses, usually within the same family or the same small community. The "epidemic pattern" is obvious in the classical cases of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole, and even more so in the case of Mercy Brown and in the vampire beliefs of New England generally, where a specific disease, tuberculosis, was associated with outbreaks of vampirism (see above).In his book, De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1725), Michaël Ranft makes a first attempt to explain folk's belief in vampires in a natural way. He says that, in the event of the death of every villager, some other person or people - much probably a person related to the first dead - who saw or touched the corpse, would eventually die either of some disease related to exposure to the corpse or of a frenetic delirium caused by the panic of only seeing the corpse. These dying people would say that the dead man had appeared to them and tortured them in many ways. The other people in the village would exhume the corpse to see what it had been doing. He gives the following explanation when talking about the case of Peter Plogojowitz: "This brave man perished by a sudden or violent death. This death, whatever it is, can provoke in the survivors the visions they had after his death. Sudden death gives rise to inquietude in the familiar circle. Inquietude has sorrow as a companion. Sorrow brings melancholy. Melancholy engenders restless nights and tormenting dreams. These dreams enfeeble body and spirit until illness overcomes and, eventually, death."Some modern scholars have argued that vampire stories may have been influenced by a rare illness called porphyria. The disease is a blood disorder that disrupts the production of haem. Porphyria was thought to be more common than elsewhere in small Transylvanian villages (roughly 1000 years ago) where inbreeding probably occurred. The haem group, found in every blood cell in the human body, is excited by electrons, but in a controlled fashion. However, the haem groups in porphyria sufferers causes uncontrollable tissue, bone and skin damage, made worse when the person comes into contact with sunlight. This would have given the porphyria sufferer a very pallid skin color, with teeth that appear larger than normal, due to the porphyria damaging the gum tissue and causing it to recede. Of course these people would have been very anemic, and thus drinking (animal) blood would have been a traditional treatment for anemia. Certain forms of porphyria are associated with neurological symptoms, which can create psychiatric disorders. However, suggestions that porphyria sufferers crave the heme in human blood, or that the consumption of blood might ease the symptoms of porphyria, are based on a severe misunderstanding of the disease. There is no evidence to suggest that porphyria had anything to do with the development of vampire folklore. Another disease that has been linked with vampire folklore is rabies. People suffering from this disease would avoid sunlight and looking into mirrors and would froth at the mouth. This froth could sometimes be red in color and resemble blood. However, like porphyria, there is little evidence to suggest that rabies was the inspiration for the original vampire legends.Some psychologists in modern times recognize a disorder called clinical vampirism (or Renfield Syndrome, from Dracula's insect-eating henchman, Renfield, in the novel by Bram Stoker) in which the victim is obsessed with drinking blood, either from animals or humans. There have been a number of murderers who performed seemingly vampiric rituals upon their victims. Serial killers Peter Kurten and Richard Trenton Chase were both called "vampires" in the tabloids after they were discovered drinking the blood of the people they murdered.

Finding "Vampires" In Graves

When the coffin of an alleged vampire was opened, people sometimes found that the cadaver did not look as they thought a normal corpse should. This was often taken to be evidence of vampirism. However, corpses decompose at different speeds depending on temperature and soil composition, and some of the signs of decomposition are not widely known. This has led vampire hunters to mistakenly conclude that a dead body had not decomposed at all, or, ironically, to interpret signs of decomposition as signs of continued life. Corpses swell as gases from decomposition accumulate in the torso and blood tries to escape the body. This causes the body to look "plump", "well-fed" and "ruddy" - changes that are all the more striking if the person was pale or thin in life. In the Arnold Paole case, an old woman's exhumed corpse was judged by her neighbors to look more plump and healthy than she had ever looked in life. It should be noted that folkloric accounts almost universally represent the alleged vampire as having ruddy or dark skin, not the pale skin of vampires in literature and film. Darkening of the skin is also caused by decomposition. Blood can often be seen emanating from nose and mouth of a decomposing corpse, which could give the impression that the corpse was a vampire who had recently been drinking blood. The staking of a swollen, decomposing body could cause the body to bleed and also force the accumulated gases to escape the body. This could produce a groan when the gases moved past the vocal chords, or a sound reminiscent of flatus when they passed through the anus. The official reporting on the Peter Plogojowitz case speaks of "other wild signs which I pass by out of high respect".After death, the skin and gums lose fluids and contract, exposing the roots of the hair, nails, and teeth, even teeth that were concealed in the jaw. This can produce the illusion that the hair, nails, and teeth have grown. At a certain stage, the nails fall off and the skin peels away, as reported in the Plogojowitz case - the dermis and nail beds emerging underneath were interpreted as "new skin" and "new nails". Finally, decomposition also causes the body to shift or contort itself, adding to the illusion that the corpse has been active after death. Also medicine was not very advanced in the past so many people were in fact buried alive. In some cases people reported sounds from a specific coffin and then later it was dug up and fingernail marks were on the inside of the lid where the person had tried to escape. In other cases the person would hit their heads/noses/faces and it would appear that they had been "feeding".

Vampire Bats

Bats have become an integral part of the traditional vampire only recently, although many cultures have stories about them. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. Conversely, the Gypsies thought them lucky and wore charms made of bat bones. In English heraldic tradition, a bat means "Awareness of the powers of darkness and chaos". In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathhouse of the Underworld. The three species of actual vampire bats are all endemic to Latin America, and there is no evidence to suggest that they had any Old World relatives within human memory. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the folkloric vampire represents a distorted presentation or memory of the bat. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with vampire bats and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their legendary vampires. The bats were named after the folkloric vampire rather than vice versa; the Oxford English Dictionary records the folkloric use in English from 1734 and the zoological not until 1774. It wasn't long before vampire bats were adapted into fictional tales, and they have become one of the more important vampire associations in popular culture.

Ouija Boards

Ouija (wē'jə, -jē) sometimes [wee-gee or wee-juh]) is the belief that one can receive messages during a séance through the Ouija board (also called spirit board) and planchette. The fingers of the participants are placed on the planchette which then moves about a board covered with numbers, letters and symbols so as to spell out messages. Ouija is a trademark for a talking board currently sold by Milton Bradley. While the word is not a generalized trademark, it has become a trademark which is often used generically to refer to any talking board.

Etymology

The term "Ouija" is derived from the French "oui" (for "yes") and the German/Dutch "ja" (also for "yes"). An alternative story suggests the name was revealed to inventor Charles Kennard during a Ouija séance and was claimed to be an Ancient Egyptian word meaning "good luck." It has also been suggested the word was inspired by the name of the Moroccan city Oujda. Despite its common usage, "Ouija" is a registered trademark (but the term "Ouija Board" has been abandoned as a registered trademark.

History

According to some sources, the first historical mention of something resembling a Ouija board is found in China around 1200 BC, a divination method known as Fu Ji. Other sources claim that according to a French historical account of the philosopher Pythagoras, in 540BC his sect would conduct seances at "a mystic table, moving on wheels, moved towards signs, which the philosopher and his pupil, Philolaus, interpreted to the audience as being revelations supposedly from an unseen world. However, other sources call both claims into dispute, claiming that Fu Ji is spirit writing, not the use of a spirit board, and that there is no record of Pythagoras or his students actually having used this method of achieving oracles or divinations. In addition, the claim of ancient Greek use is called into doubt by questions of historical accuracy, as Philolaus was never the pupil of Pythagoras, and indeed was born roughly twenty-five years after Pythagoras's death.

The first undisputed use of the talking boards came with the Spiritualism movement in The United States in the mid-19th century. Methods of divination at that time used various ways to spell out messages, including swinging a pendulum over a plate that had letters around the edge or using an entire table to indicate letters drawn on the floor. Often used was a small wooden tablet supported on casters. This tablet, called a planchette, was affixed with a pencil that would write out messages in a fashion similar to automatic writing. These methods may predate modern Spiritualism. U.S. Patent D056,449. Design patent for toys (D21/813) which was filed May 26, 1920. Issued Oct 26, 1920. Patentee was Clifford H. McGlasson.
U.S. Patent D056,449 . Design patent for toys (D21/813) which was filed May 26, 1920. Issued Oct 26, 1920. Patentee was Clifford H. McGlasson.

During the late 1800s, planchettes were widely sold as a novelty. The businessmen Elijah Bond and Charles Kennard had the idea to patent a planchette sold with a board on which the alphabet was printed. The patentees filed on May 28, 1890 for patent protection and thus had invented the first Ouija board. Issue date on the patent was February 10, 1891. They received U.S. Patent 446,054 . Bond was an attorney and was an inventor of other objects in addition to this device. An employee of Kennard, William Fuld took over the talking board production and in 1901, he started production of his own boards under the name "Ouija". The Fuld name would become synonymous with the Ouija board, as Fuld reinvented its history, claiming that he himself had invented it. Countless talking boards from Fuld's competitors flooded the market and all these boards enjoyed a heyday from the 1920s through the 1960s. Fuld sued many companies over the "Ouija" name and concept right up until his death in 1927. In 1966, Fuld's estate sold the entire business to Parker Brothers, who continues to hold all trademarks and patents. About 10 brands of talking boards are sold today under various names.

Witch Bottle

The witch bottle is a very old spell device. Its purpose is to draw in and trap evil and negative energy directed at its owner. Folk magic contends that the witch bottle protects against evil spirits and magical attack, and counteracts spells cast by witches.

A traditional witch bottle is a small flask, about 3 inches high, created from blue or green glass. Larger and rounder witch bottles, up to 9 inches high, were known as Greybeards, Bellarmines, or Bartmanns. Bellarmines were named after a particularly fearsone Catholic Inquisitor, Robert Bellarmine, who persecuted Protestants and, in consequence, was labeled as a demon by his victims. Greybeards and Bellarmines were not made of glass, but of brown or gray stoneware that was glazed with salt and embossed with severe bearded faces designed to scare off evil.

A witch, cunning man or woman, would prepare the witch's bottle. Historically, the witch's bottle contained the victim's (the person who believed they had a spell put on them, for example) urine, hair or nail clippings, or red thread from sprite traps. In recent years, the witch's bottle has taken on a nicer tone, filled with rosemary, needles and pins, and red wine. Historically and currently, the bottle is then buried at the farthest corner of the property, beneath the house hearth, or placed in an inconspicuous spot in the house. It is believed that after being buried, the bottle captures evil which is impaled on the pins and needles, drowned by the wine, and sent away by the rosemary.

Sometimes seawater or earth are used instead. Other types of Witch-bottles may contain sand, stones, knotted threads, feathers, shells, herbs, flowers, salt, vinegar, oil, coins, or ashes. A similar magical deceive is the "lemon and pins" charm.

Another variation is within the disposal of the bottle. Some witch's bottles were thrown into a fire and when they exploded, the spell was broken or the witch supposedly killed.

This form of "bottled spell" dates back hundreds of years, and were prevalent in Elizabethan England - especially Anglia, where superstitions and belief in witches were strong. The bottles were most often found buried under the fireplace, under the floor, and plastered inside walls.

The Witch-bottle was believed to be active as long as the bottle remained hidden and unbroken. People did go though a lot of trouble in hiding their Witch-bottles - those buried underneath fireplaces have been found only after the rest of the building has been torn down or otherwise disappeared. The origins of this tradition have been dated at least to the 1500s. In ancient times the bottles were made of stone and originally contained rusty nails, urine, thorns, hair, menstrual blood, and pieces of glass, wood, and bone.

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