Kitabı oku: «The Element Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Hauntings: The Complete A–Z for the Entire Magical World»

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ACHERI

In Native American folklore Acheri is thought to be the ghost of a little girl who died of disease. Legend has it that Acheri is a frail and pale looking female spirit who lives on mountaintops and hills. At night she travels into the valleys to spread infection, disease and pain, usually to children, by casting her invisible shadow over innocent sleeping victims.

It is thought that the colour red affords protection against this entity and amulets of red thread worn as necklaces will protect children from the disease Acheri brings. Similarly, in European folklore, red charms are used to protect against harm from evil spirits.

ADELPHI THEATRE, GHOST OF

The Adelphi Theatre in London is thought to be haunted by the ghost of a celebrated Victorian actor called William Terriss. Terriss was a stylish and popular actor highly regarded in his day and seldom seen without his trademark pale gloves.

On the night of 16 December 1897, during a run of Secret Service, a thriller staring Terriss and leading lady Jessie Milward, Terriss was murdered by an out-of-work actor, Richard Prince, who had been fired due to alcoholism and ever after bore a grudge against the profession. Prince especially resented the success and charisma of Terriss.

As night fell Prince ambushed Terriss as he unlocked the stage door in Maiden Lane and stabbed him. Terriss died in Jessie Milward’s arms, whispering ‘I’ll be back.’ Prince was tried and convicted of murder but declared insane. He spent the rest of his days at Broadmoor prison, where he passed the time writing his own plays and, of course, playing the heroic lead.

The first sighting of Terriss’s ghost was in 1928. A stranger in London, who did not know about the murder, saw a male figure dressed in grey Victorian clothes suddenly vanish in Maiden Lane. Later he identified the figure as Terriss from a photograph.

Again in 1928 an actress who was using Jessie Milward’s old dressing room, felt light blows on her arms, a sensation of being grabbed and the inexplicable shaking of her chaise longue. She also saw a green light above her mirror and heard tapping on the door. Later she discovered that Terriss used to tap Milward’s door with his cane when he passed it. In 1962 there was another sighting: a greenish light that took the shape of a man was seen by a frightened workman. The light opened the stage curtains and then proceeded to the stalls and tipped down the seats.

Members of the station staff at Covent Garden tube station, which now occupies the site of a bakery where Terriss stopped daily, have several times reported hearing disembodied gasps and sighs after hours. One young porter, Victor Locker, immediately requested a transfer after encountering the phantom, an experience he described as being immobilized with an oppressive weight pushing down on him. In 1955 ticket collector Jack Hayden reported seeing on numerous occasions an elegant phantom with ‘a very, very sad face and sunken cheeks’, attired with opera cloak, cane and pale gloves walking the platform or ascending the spiral staircase. Hayden left Covent Garden in 1964 and the sightings have been less frequent, but Terriss still puts in the occasional cameo appearance, especially in the train tunnels between Covent Garden and Holborn.

AFRIT

The Afrit comes from Arabian and Muslim folklore and is alleged to be a spirit demon who rises up like smoke from the spilt blood of murder victims. They are said to inspire unspeakable terror and, because of the unjust, brutal nature of their demise, they are ruthless towards their victims. Sometimes they are said to appear in the form of desert whirlwinds, and it has also been said that they can take on a form similar to the Christian Devil, with hooves for feet and horns on their head. Driving a new nail into the bloodstained ground is thought to prevent their formation.

AFTERLIFE

Afterlife (also known as life after death) is the continuation of existence beyond this world or after death. There are various sources for this belief, but the one most relied upon is the testimony of individuals who claim to have knowledge of the afterlife because they have:

 Died and been sent back to life (near-death experience).

 Visited the afterlife when they were unconscious (out-of-body experience).

 Seen the afterlife in a vision.

 Remembered the afterlife from a previous existence (reincarnation).

 Been visited by a representative of the afterlife such as angels or spirits.

 Believe the testimonal of shamans or intermediaries between the living and the dead.

Almost every society known has some belief in survival after death, although these conceptions vary enormously. Some common ones are: a continuation of life with little change in the nature of existence; spiritual improvement through a series of stages, planes or levels; a series of lives and deaths before ultimate extinction; or the afterlife as a place of reward or punishment based on faith or good deeds on earth and bodily resurrection at some future date.

Christian folk traditions suggest that the souls of good people are converted into angels upon death. However, a more orthodox reading of scripture suggests that the dead are not transformed until the Last Judgement, which is followed by a resurrection of the faithful.

Christian ideas heavily influenced nineteenth-century spiritualist authors like Andrew Jackson Davis, who dictated his lectures in a trance. Davis suggested that after their death, humans continue their spiritual progress through a series of spiritual spheres until they reach the seventh sphere and become one with the infinite vortex of love and wisdom.

Other cultures believe in a land of the dead and locate it in various places: for the Zulus, for example, it is under the earth, an underworld mirror of this world. For the ancient Egyptians, the afterlife was very important. The believer had to act well during his or her lifetime and know the rituals in the Egyptian Book of the Dead to gain entry into the underworld. If the corpse of the pharoah was properly embalmed and entombed, the deceased would accompany the sun god on his daily ride. Other societies believe in universalism, which holds that all will be rewarded regardless of what they have done or believed, while still others consider the afterlife less important compared to the here and now.

Another afterlife concept, found among Hindus and Buddhists, is reincarnation, either as animals or as humans. Followers of both traditions interpret events in our current life as consequences of actions taken in previous lives. Some traditions believe in personal reincarnation, whereas others believe that the energy of one’s soul is recycled into other living things as they are born.

Those who practice spiritualism believe in the possibility of communication between the living and the dead. Some societies distinguish between the ghost, which travels to the land of the dead, and a different part of the spirit, which reincarnates. The ghost part of spirit is thought to be strong three or four days after death, and therefore various rituals are performed to discourage the ghost from returning to haunt the living.

AKASHIC RECORDS

Akashic is a Sanskrit word meaning the fundamental etheric substance of the universe. According to Theosophy, the Akashic Records, or Book of Life, is extrasensory information that exists in another dimension, like the ultimate cosmic library. The records contain information on all world events and all thoughts and deeds that have taken place or will take place on earth. They may be read only by adepts. Rudolf Steiner, for example, claimed to have consulted the Akashic Records for his descriptions of Atlantis. Edgar Cayce also claimed to have seen the Book of Life. Some psychics say they consult the Akashic Records through clairvoyance or during out-of-body experiences.

The Akashic Records are also called the Universal Memory of Nature, and it is thought that everyone has an inherent ability to see his or her own book and all the things they have done or felt in life. It is simply a matter of developing the psychic ability.

The process of consulting the Records is described by psychics as like visiting an enormous library and looking up information in books. Some say they are greeted by doorkeepers or spirit guides who assist them in finding the correct information. The books are kept in rows, line upon line, stack upon stack, corridor upon corridor. Some books are charred, turned up at the edges and blackened, as if they have been pulled out of a fire, some are beautifully illuminated scrolls, and others are embossed in gold leaf with pages in rainbow colours. Yet others are bound in red leather with special emblems.

ALAMO

The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, is a landmark that is believed to be truly haunted. Originally a chapel built in 1718 by monks, the Alamo was later expanded into a fortress for Texans to use as a stronghold against the Mexicans in the battle over land rights. In March 1836 the President of Mexico, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, and 4,000 troops laid siege to the Alamo. The 11-day battle led to the deaths of almost all the 188 defenders of the Alamo and 1,600 Mexicans. The victorious General López ordered the bodies of the dead Texans to be dumped in a large grave and the Alamo to be torn to the ground. Legend has it that when the Mexicans tried to tear down the walls, ghostly hands extended to stop them and they fled in terror.

Today the suffering of those who died has not been forgotten. There have been several sightings of grotesque apparitions coming from the walls of the Alamo, and screaming and yelling at night as if the terrible events of 1836 are replayed over and over again. There are other reports of a ghost on top of the Alamo, walking back and forth as if trying to escape.

See Residual haunting.

ALCATRAZ

Alcatraz, the harshest, loneliest and most haunted of America’s federal prisons, is located on a dark and damp rock in San Francisco Bay. The story of Alcatraz does not begin or end with the use of the rock as a prison – the island was known to Native Americans as a place that contained evil spirits. Many believe that an evil energy still remains to this day. As parapsychologists suggest, where so much trauma and negative emotion has occurred there is bound to be residual energy, and Alcatraz has the feel of an immense haunted house, complete with fog and restless spirits, despite the fact that Alcatraz was closed as a prison in 1963, and today is maintained by the Golden Gate National Recreation Area as a tourist attraction.

Alcatraz, originally named La Isla de Los Altraces (The Island of the Pelicans), was first an army fort and prison. In 1934 it was turned into a maximum-security federal penitentiary where convicts were sent solely for punishment, not rehabilitation. Conditions were terrible and escape impossible. Many inmates were driven insane; others preferred to kill themselves rather than endure the brutal conditions.

Since the prison’s closing no visual apparitions have been seen, but guards and tour guides have reported feelings of sudden intensity pervading the cells and corridors, the sound of men’s voices, whistling, clanging metal doors, screams, the running of feet down corridors and anxious feelings of being watched. Some of the more haunted locations on Alcatraz appear to be the warden’s house, the hospital, the laundry room, and Cell Block C utility door, where three convicts and three guards died in an attempted escape in 1946. The most haunted area, however, is the punishment block – D Block, or solitary, as it was called. Some guides refuse to go there alone. The cells reportedly remain intensely cold, even if it is a hot day.

To this day visitors continue to report feeling strange on their visit to Alcatraz, although some acknowledge their reaction might be influenced by their knowledge of the misery and suffering that went on there.

ALCHEMY

The term alchemy, commonly believed to refer to attempts to change base metals into gold, covers a wide range of topics – from the discovery of a single cure for all diseases to the quest for immortality, from the creation of artificial life to straightforward descriptions of scientific techniques. Broadly, one could describe alchemy as the art of converting that which is base, both in the material and spiritual world, into something more perfect. Symbolically, alchemy is the mystical art for human spiritual transformation into a higher form of being.

The spiritual teachings of alchemy were based on the idea that humans have a spirit or soul as well as a physical body, and it was thought that if the spirit could be compressed or concentrated, the secret of changing one aspect of nature into another could be discovered. The elusive catalyst that allowed this change to take place is known as the philosopher’s stone, which is not a stone but a powder or liquid that turned base metal into gold and, when swallowed, gave everlasting life.

Alchemists are often pictured as stirring a bubbling concoction of base metal on a fire, hoping it will turn to gold. However, not all alchemists were like this, and some of the best minds of the last twenty or so centuries have studied alchemy as a way to unlock the secrets of nature.

Alchemy probably first emerged in ancient Egypt and China. In China it was purported to transmute base metals into gold, and the gold so produced was thought to have the ability to cure disease and prolong life. In Egypt the methods of transmutation were kept secret by temple priests. Western alchemy has its basis in the skills of those Egyptian priests, Eastern mysticism and the Aristotelian theory of the composition of matter. Aristotle, following the theory of Empedocles, taught that all matter was composed of four elements: water, fire, earth and air. Different materials found in nature contained different ratios of these four elements, and so by proper treatment a base metal could be turned to gold.

In the eighth and ninth centuries, Chinese, Greek, and Alexandrian alchemical lore entered the Arab world. Arabian alchemists postulated that all metals were composed not of four elements but of two: sulphur and mercury. They also adopted the Chinese alchemists’ concept of a philosopher’s stone – a medicine that could turn a sick (base) metal into gold and act as the El or elixir of life – and so begun a never-ending quest for this elusive catalyst.

Arab alchemical treatises were popular in the Middle Ages. Indirectly, through Arabic, Greek manuscripts were translated into Latin, and alchemical explanations of the nature of matter can be found in the treatises of such scholars as Albertus Magnus (c.1200–1280) and Roger Bacon (c.1214–1292).

Before the scientific revolution, alchemists were respected figures on the European scene, and kings and nobles often supported them in the hope of increasing their revenue. But among the sincere were charlatans and swindlers, and their fraudulent activities led to alchemy getting a bad name. Even as late as 1783 a chemist called John Price claimed he had turned mercury into gold. When he was asked by the Royal Society to perform the experiment in public, he reluctantly agreed. On the appointed day, however, he drank some poison and died in front of the invited audience.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many practical alchemists, like Paracelsus, the first in Europe to mention zinc and use the word ‘alcohol’, turned from trying to make gold towards preparing medicine. The story is told of a seventeenth-century chemist who claimed he had found the elixir of life in the waters of a mineral spring. This substance has since been identified as the laxative sodium sulphate.

After the scientific revolution in the seventeenth century, alchemy became marginalized, and interest in transmutation became limited to astrologers and numerologists. Nevertheless, the scientific facts that had been accumulated by alchemists in their search for gold became the basis for modern chemistry. In the West, interest in the spiritual dimension of alchemy was rekindled in the mid-twentieth century through the work of psychiatrist Carl Jung on alchemical spirituality.

Today there are few practising alchemists. The fact is, scientists have discovered how to change base metals into gold, but the process is uneconomical and so alchemy today is a spiritual rather than a practical quest. Sincere seekers are people of great wisdom and morality. For them the search for spiritual perfection takes precedence over the quest for easy riches. Genuine alchemists see the universe as a unity and believe that by exploring the infinite workings of its parts they can better understand the whole. The symbolism of turning base metal into gold represents exactly what they are trying to do within themselves – refine themselves spiritually – and it could be said that alchemists are simply taking a more scientific approach to the age-old quest to ‘know thyself’.

ALTERED STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS [ASC]

The term ‘altered state of consciousness’ was coined by parapsychologist Charles Tart (b.1937), and it refers to a shift in the pattern of consciousness or normal waking state, for example during hypnosis, trance or dream state, when the conscious mind is subdued and the unconscious takes over. The operation of some psychic phenomena depends on being in an altered state of consciousness, but ASCs are difficult to study because of their subjective and internal nature, and because there is no universal state of consciousness from which to begin such a study.

States of consciousness take place in four levels of brainwave activity: beta, alpha, theta and delta. Beta level is complete waking consciousness. Alpha level is where material from the subconscious is available to the mind, as in meditation or daydreaming. The theta level is equivalent to light sleep, a state of unconsciousness in which one is vaguely aware of what is going on around one. The delta level is deep sleep.

Many ASCs can be differentiated, ranging from dreaming to trance to mystical states of consciousness, such as that experienced during a shamanic state. ASCs can occur spontaneously or can be induced through disciplines such as Yoga, Zen and other forms of meditation, prayer and magical techniques. They can also be induced through chanting, dancing, fasting, sex, hypnosis, trauma and sleep deprivation.

Orthodox science largely rejects the experiences and knowledge gained from ASCs, many of which are intensely spiritual in nature, but scientific research has been effective in the areas of dreams, meditation, biofeedback and druginduced states. Laboratory tests since the early 1950s on ASC-induced techniques such as relaxation, hypnosis and meditation have also been shown to enhance psi function, especially extrasensory perception (or ESP).

AMERICAN GHOST SOCIETY [AGS]

A society of ghost investigators with members throughout the United States and Canada. The society was formed in 1995 by Troy and Amy Taylor, as the Ghost Society of Central Illinois. It expanded quickly and became the American Ghost Society in 1996. Within a few years it had nearly 500 members, including many prominent authors, law enforcement personnel and paranormal investigators.

The AGS maintains a network of area representatives and local research groups, and the Taylors organize annual conferences and meetings. The AGS publishes a magazine dedicated to ghosts and hauntings, the quarterly Ghosts of the Prairie, and also operates a website (www.prairieghosts.com), which includes the largest Internet bookstore dedicated to the subject.

Membership of the AGS is open to all, and the emphasis is on a high standard of investigation of hauntings using detective work – visiting and inspecting sites, interviewing witnesses and using high-tech ghost detection equipment. Psychics and mediums are not used because they are considered too subjective. All data, once analysed, is presented to the public. The following is an extract from the AGS mission statement:

The American Ghost Society is a national network of ghost hunters and researchers who conduct investigations into the paranormal in a non-metaphysical manner. One of our main goals is to seek out allegedly haunted locations and to assist those who are experiencing problems with the paranormal. The group members then look for authentic evidence of the paranormal and try to determine if the location is haunted. We are seeking genuine evidence and are careful about the presentation of this evidence…insuring that it is legitimate, researched, and analyzed before being presented to the general public…The credibility of the group is maintained above all else as we do not work with psychics or conduct investigations using metaphysical methods. We are not ‘Ghost Busters,’ but when a case does prove to be genuine, assistance through other channels may be provided at the location owner’s request…In addition, we do not claim to be experts in the paranormal, as no experts exist when it comes to the supernatural, no matter what anyone may claim or who may claim to be one. We are instead working to present an image of competent researchers who are collecting the most authentic evidence possible. Investigations conducted under the auspices of the American Ghost Society are always held to the standards of the group and are conducted with integrity, honesty, and with discretion.

The Taylors opened the Haunted Museum in 2000 in Alton, Illinois. The museum houses a collection of books, articles, photographs and materials concerned with ghost research. Prior to the museum’s opening, when the displays were being prepared, several strange phenomena were reported at night. Lights that were switched off were mysteriously turned on by the morning, books fell from shelves, items would vanish one night and reappear the next and displays were rearranged. Curiously, the building’s alarm system was never activated to indicate the presence of human intruders.

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PSYCHICAL RESEARCH [ASPR]

Founded in 1885, the American Society for Psychical Research is the oldest psychical research organization in the United States. It investigates psychic or paranormal phenomena through scientific means. Among its founders was the Harvard psychologist and professor of philosophy William James while among its benefactors was the inventor of the Xerox machine, physicist Chester Carlson. Its library and archive contain rare books, case reports, letters and manuscripts, which date back to the 1700s.

The ASPR serves as a global information network, providing publications and educational services which offer ‘responsible information about relevant contemporary and historical research’. It has an exhaustive library of information on almost every experiment conducted on just about every type of paranormal phenomena. You can visit the society in New York City or look it up on the Internet: www.as/r.com.

See also Society for Psychical Research.

AMHERST HAUNTING

The Amherst Haunting is a tale of poltergeist activity that took place in Amherst, Nova Scotia, in 1878 and centred on a 19-year-old woman, Esther Cox, recently threatened with rape. One night, soon after the traumatic event, Esther started to feel ill and went to bed early. Later she woke up screaming that she was dying. It is said that ‘Her eyes went bloodshot, her hair stood on end, and her body puffed up to twice its normal size.’

Strange, violent movements filled the small, two-room cottage where Esther lived with her extended family. Thunderous bangs erupted from under the bed. Sheets were ripped off her and tossed into a corner. A doctor who came to examine her watched a bolster move of its own accord. Along the wall he watched words a foot high being scratched into the plaster: ‘Esther Cox you are mine to kill!’

The disturbances in the house continued, including terrifying claps of sound and unexplained fires – lit matches materializing out of nowhere and dropping on to beds. After some time, the longsuffering landlord decided he’d had enough of his property being damaged and asked Esther’s family to leave. She alone left instead, finding work at a nearby farm, but her job was cut short when the barn erupted into fire and the farmer had Esther charged with arson. She was sentenced to four months in jail, of which she served one month before being released. The story ended happily, for the disturbances subsided after Esther was freed from jail and eventually ended completely. Later she married, twice, and finally died in 1912 at the age of 53.

The case was never solved. Some at the time put forward the theory that electricity was responsible. Electricity was a new notion at the time, the latest wonder of the age, and people did not yet understand how it behaved. Some theorized that the unexplained fires were bolts of lightning and the noises were thunder.

In light of modern theories of the origin and nature of poltergeists, it is likely that Esther was the focus of psychokinetic energy, in which repressed emotions and sexuality burst forth, causing the phenomena. The case remains unusual in that Esther was beyond the age when poltergeist problems tend to occur, and that the disturbances also occurred in her absence.

AMITYVILLE HORROR

The Amityville Horror, although now considered a hoax, remains one of the most sensational and controversial cases of alleged haunting of all time. A small house in Amityville, New York, had been on the market for a year at a bargain price because it was the scene of a mass murder, by 23-year-old Ronnie DeFeo of his father, mother and younger siblings in November 1974. George and Kathleen Lutz bought the house a year later, in December 1975, and moved in with their three children.

A month later the Lutzes fled the house, never to return. They told the media of bizarre happenings – mysterious odours, doors slamming shut, gelatinous substances oozing out of nowhere. In 1977 The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson was published by Prentice-Hall as a non-fiction book. It sold six million copies and led to a top-grossing movie in 1979 and a host of other books and films.

The haunting was quickly dismissed as a hoax, and while it is possible haunting may have occurred, sceptics argue that there are too many discrepancies. The American Society for Psychical Research found the whole matter questionable and did not investigate, believing that the incidents were not paranormal. Also, when the Lutzes moved out the house became quiet. The next owners, Jim and Barbara Cromarty, said they experienced no unusual phenomena. However, they grew so annoyed by the tourists flocking to see their house that they sued the Lutzes, Anson and Prentice-Hall for $1.1 million. They won a settlement for an unspecified lesser amount, with the judge ruling that ‘the evidence shows fairly clearly that the Lutzes during this entire period were considering and acting with the thought of getting a book published’.

AMULET

An object, drawing, inscription or symbol believed to have supernatural or magic power to ward off evil spirits, the evil eye, disease, poor health and other misfortunes. Amulets are also worn to bring good luck as a kind of mascot or lucky charm.

Amulets are typically worn around the neck in the form of jewellery or a charm – a magical phrase, rhyme or prayer inscribed on paper. Amulets are also worn as rings. Some amulets are found as designs, symbols or inscriptions engraved on doors or posts.

Simple amulets have a colour or shape that catches the eye, but almost anything can become an amulet depending on a person’s beliefs and resources. Among the most common are gems and precious stones fashioned into jewellery or statues of animals. Representations of eyes are also common and one of the best-known amulets is the ancient Egyptian Eye of Horus, which guarded health and protected against evil spirits. Organic amulets such as fruit, vegetables, berries, nuts and plants are common in some parts of the world. For example, the use of garlic as an amulet against evil may be traced back to the ancient Romans, while peach wood and stones are considered strong amulets against evil spirits in China. Certain metals are believed to have protective properties. Iron, for example, is universally thought to keep away demons and witches. Written amulets such as formulas, spells, words of power, secret symbols, religious phrases or signs have also been common since ancient times. See Talisman.

ANCESTOR WORSHIP

Ancestor worship involves paying respects to the spirits of dead relatives or ancestors in the hope this will ward off evil and bring good fortune to the community.

As the ancestors are not really thought of as gods, ‘worship’ may not be entirely the right term to use. Typically, offerings of food or drink or gifts for the spirits of the dead are made in the hope this will please the ancestors and make sure that they continue to look out for the community. In West Africa each family has its own ancestral shrine, inhabited, it is thought, by the founder of the lineage. These shrines are often carved in the likeness of the founder and must be tended and cared for.

See also Day of the Dead.

ANGEL

An immortal supernatural being which mediates between God and humanity. Angels are specific to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but they occur as helping spirits in other traditions.

The word ‘angel’ comes from the Greek angelos, ‘messenger’, and the name refers to one of the angel’s most important duties, which is to travel back and forth between the celestial and earthly realms, bringing human prayers to heaven and God’s answers to earth. Angels are representatives of God on earth, delivering divine messages or helping humans according to God’s will. Angels exist in a celestial realm but have the ability to assume a physical form and pass as human beings. They may bring fire or bright light; sometimes they are pictured with wings and sometimes without. Where appropriate, they appear to humans in visionary experiences or dreams.

Prior to the Western Enlightenment, angels were believed by many to play a magical role in daily life. However, after the scientific revolution angels were no longer taken seriously except by poets and the romantically inclined. The mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, among other occult figures, claimed to commune with angels. Swedenborg called the souls of the dead ‘angels’ and said he visited them in the afterlife during his trances.

Today angels have made a comeback in popularity, due in part to a widespread spiritual hunger for supernatural assurance and guidance. Some people consider the appearance of a spirit of the dead, such as a family member, to be an angel that comes to warn or comfort them. In deathbed visions the souls of dead friends and family members who come to help the dying person are often believed to be angels. Many people still claim to experience angelic visions, especially those who have gone through near-death experiences, and in many such accounts an angel greets them at the threshold of death. Angels are most often sensed through clairaudience. They sometimes manifest as balls of brilliant white light or appear as real persons in a mysterious encounter with a stranger. These encounters often occur when a person is in crisis and needs decisive action. A mysterious, calm but firm stranger who is knowledgeable about the crisis appears out of nowhere and offers a solution. Once the problem has been solved the person vanishes. It is the abrupt and strange disappearance that makes people wonder whether they have been helped by a human or an angel. Famous examples of reported angel encounters include those of George Washington, who suggested that angels helped him during the Delaware crossing of 1776, and the composer Handel, who believed angels helped him to compose the famous Hallelujah Chorus.

ANIMAL PSI

Animal psi is the ability of animals to experience clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy and psychokinesis.

Are animals clairvoyant, and can they communicate telepathically? Do they possess special powers that enable them to sense danger? Although it is not known conclusively if this is the case, scientific evidence suggests that, if psi exists, it probably does so in both humans and animals.

Sceptics argue that animals thought to possess psi are simply responding to subtle changes in body language and physical cues from their owners, but many animal lovers are certain that psi exists in animals and that psigifted pets are those that are the most loved, as love nourishes psi. Many psychics like to have animals accompany them when they are investigating hauntings because animals are thought to be more sensitive to ghosts and spirits, and many cats and dogs have been known to react visibly in fear in places of suspected paranormal activity.

Evidence for animal psi is largely anecdotal, as animals do not respond well to scientific testing for psi. However, American parapsychologist J B Rhine at Duke University investigated around 500 reported cases of animal psi. Rhine concluded that there were five basic types of animal psi: the ability to sense death or injury to a loved one; the ability to sense the impending return of an owner; the ability to sense impending danger; the ability to find the way home; and the ability to ‘psi trail’ or to find an owner when separated by long distances.

There are also numerous reports of animal hauntings, in particular stories of much-loved pets who have appeared to their owners to offer comfort and love. The stories remain anecdotal, but animals have and always will be associated with the supernatural and paranormal. Strange and mysterious stories of dragons, snakes, cats, dogs, serpents and unicorns linger among superstitions and fairy tales today. Religion, folklore and witchcraft have borrowed heavily from the animal world, for they know that the qualities and energies of animals represent strength, power, devotion, intuition, intelligence and wisdom.

ANIMISM

Animism is rare today, but this very ancient way of perceiving the world may once have been universal. At the root of magic beliefs and practice, animism is the belief that every natural object, both living and non-living, has a spirit or life force and is endowed with reason and intelligence. The animist sees movement in trees, rocks, streams, wind and other objects and believes that everything is inhabited by its own spirit.

Animism is found among many tribal societies throughout the Americas, Asia, Australia and Africa. Having observed that during sleep and dreaming, visions and trances – what today we call out-of-body experiences – the spiritual part of a body could detach from the physical, animists deduced that it could also survive death. Instead of going to the land of the dead, the soul might take control of another person (possession) or send messages to the living through mediums or shamans. It might lodge in various features of the natural world such as trees or rocks, or in human objects such as spears or statues.

Beliefs that a person may have more than a single soul are not unusual. For instance, among many Eskimo groups, a name is one type of soul. In societies that lived close to nature not only people but also animals and plants were thought to have souls, and human spirits might be reborn in animals (reincarnation). In some cases people may have a special affinity with certain species of animal, and the animistic beliefs concerning this human relationship to animals are known as totemism.

For the animist, the world abounds with spirit entities. Water spirits and forest spirits are especially common, but animism is more than just a belief in soul and spirits; it has its own logic and consistency and in many respects can be called a religion.

ANKOU

Ankou is part of the fairy lore of the Celtic countries. He is thought to be the personification of death, who comes to collect the souls of humans when they die. Largely forgotten in Cornwall, Wales and Ireland, Ankou remains a part of the living folklore in Brittany. Every parish in Brittany has its own ankou.

An old Irish proverb says, ‘When Ankou comes, he will not go away empty.’ He is depicted as a tall, dark, haggard figure, wearing a black-robed costume pulled up high about his head and with a large hat that conceals his face. Legend has it that he is always preceded by a gust of wind and you cannot see his face, for if you do it means you have died. He is said to drive a small black coach drawn by four black horses and accompanied by two ghostly figures on foot. Many believe it is not really a coach at all but a hearse and that the job of the ghostly figures is to collect corpses and place them in the hearse.

One legend says that Ankou was once a cruel prince who met up with Death in the forest and challenged him to a contest. The prince loved to hunt and kill, and on this particular night he was chasing a white stag (a magical animal in Celtic stories). The prince set out a challenge before the enormous, black-robed rider: whoever could kill the stag would not only keep the meat but also determine the fate of the loser. The stranger readily agreed, and it is said that his voice was raspy, like leaves scraping castle walls.

They set off at a gallop, and the prince realized immediately that he was bested. No matter how hard he rode, the stranger rode faster. And when the prince was still stringing his bow, the stranger had already set loose his arrow and felled the stag.

As the winded prince approached the stranger said, ‘You can have the stag – and all the dead of the world.’ The stranger sentenced him to an eternity of hunting the souls of all who died around the world.

ANTIETAM

The American Civil War battle of Antietam took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland, on 17 September 1862. Twenty-three thousand men were killed or wounded – the bloodiest single day of battle in American history – and ghosts and strange phenomena still greet visitors to the site today.

George B McClellan, commander of the Federal Army of the Potomac, had not yet been victorious for the Union because of his cautious tactics. Robert E Lee of the Confederate army therefore determined to occupy Northern territory and marched his men into Maryland.

But Lee’s luck was about to run out. A copy of Lee’s field orders had been lost, just about the time Union soldiers spotted a small packet lying on the ground. Opening it, they found three cigars wrapped in paper. The cigars themselves were rare and valuable, but only later did they truly realize what they had: the paper wrapped around the cigars contained Lee’s field orders. McClellan went on the march.

When the two sides came face to face at 5 am on the 17th, both generals were determined to make a stand and change the course of the war. The battle was fierce and frenzied. By late afternoon, thousands had died and, although both sides claimed a victory, in actuality it was a draw. It did change the course of the war, however, for Lee’s failure to successfully invade the North led to Britain postponing its recognition of the Confederate state.

Today the battlefield looks much as it did all those years ago. Some woods have been cleared away and monuments erected, but you can stand on the site and perhaps experience what other visitors have reported – hearing the sound of gunfire and smelling the scent of gunpowder. One visitor to the park saw what he thought was a group of Confederate re-enactors, but realized his mistake when the company suddenly vanished from his sight.

A school field trip became quite an experience for some of the children one spring day. After the guided tour, they were invited to wander the area of the bloody battle for a short time before their departure. Later they reported to their teacher that they had heard what sounded like chanting – like fa-la-la-la-la of ‘Deck the Halls’. The teacher, who was a Civil War buff, knew – but the children could not possibly have – that the war cry of the Irish Sixty-Ninth New York militia, which fought among the Union troops, was Faugh A Ballach, which in English is ‘Clear the Way!’ but in Gaelic is pronounced ‘Fah-ah-bah-lah’.

The nearby Burnside Bridge, named after Major General Ambrose E Burnside, who held the bridge for the Union, also is said to be haunted, as is a local bed-and-breakfast.

APPARITION

The supernatural appearance of a person, animal or object too far away to be seen, felt or heard by normal senses. Contrary to popular belief, most apparitions are of the living not the dead, but apparitions of the dead are also called ghosts.

Only a small number of apparitions are visual; most apparition experiences feature noises, unusual smells, extreme cold or heat and the displacement of objects.

Every civilization throughout history and around the world has held beliefs about apparitions. Among Asian peoples belief in ancestral ghosts is strong, and rituals exist to honour and placate them, as the spirits of the dead are thought to interfere regularly in the affairs of the living and are credited for both good and bad fortune. The ancient Hebrews, Greeks and Romans believed that spirits of the dead could return to haunt the living.

During the Dark Ages people believed in all manner of apparitions: demons, vampires and devil dogs. Around this time the Christian Church taught that ghosts were souls trapped in purgatory until they expiated their sins. The only apparitions that were holy and permitted by God were apparitions of religious figures, such as angels, saints and Jesus. All other apparitions, including spirits of the dead, were delusions created by Satan to confuse the living.

In seventeenth-century Europe apparitions of the dead played an important role as advisors to the living. Belief in ghosts fell out of favour in the eighteenth century, returning in the nineteenth with spiritualism, which espouses survival after death and mediumistic contact with the dead. Many motifs of apparitions appear in the folklore of different cultures, such as the Flying Dutchman or the ankou.

According to a study of apparitions by American psychical researcher Hornell Hart, published in 1956, there is no significant difference between apparitions of the living and of the dead. Apparitions can move through solid matter and appear and disappear abruptly. They can cast shadows. Some are corporeal and lifelike in their movement and speech while others are luminous or limited in movement and speech. Apparitions are typically dressed in clothing of their time. The majority of apparitions are thought to manifest for a reason, for instance, to communicate a crisis or death, give a warning, offer comfort or convey important information. Some haunting apparitions appear in places where emotional traumas have taken place, such as murders or battles, but other hauntings seem to be aimless.

Systematic studies of apparitions began with the Society for Psychical Research, London, in the late nineteenth century. By the 1980s polls in the United States conducted by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Council showed a dramatic increase – around 78 per cent – in reported apparitions, perhaps due in part to changing public attitudes towards acknowledging paranormal experiences.

Although many ghost investigators have their own categories, the following are the most typical types:

 Crisis apparitions: usually images that appear in moments of crisis to communicate death or danger. They typically appear to a person who has close emotional ties to the agent (the person who is the source of the apparition).

 Apparitions of the dead: manifestations of someone who has died, usually within a short time after death, to comfort a loved one or communicate important information.

 Collective apparitions: manifestations of the living or dead that occur to multiple witnesses. Approximately one-third of reported apparitions are witnessed collectively.

 Reciprocal apparitions: apparitions of the living in which both agent and the percipient (the person who experiences the apparition), separated by a distance, experience apparitions of each other simultaneously.

 Deathbed apparitions: visual images of divine beings, religious figures and dead loved ones that are reported by the dying in the last moments of life.

 Apparitions in cases suggestive of reincarnation: cases when the deceased appears in a dream to a member of the family into which it will be reborn. Such dreams occur frequently among Native American tribes of the Northwest and in Turkey, Burma and Thailand.

A large number of theories have been put forward to explain apparitions, but none explain all the different types. Society for Psychical Research founders Edmund Gurney and Frederick Myers at first believed apparitions were mental hallucinations that had no physical reality, either produced by telepathy from the dead to the living or projected out of the percipient’s mind in the form of an image. Gurney also believed that collective apparitions were a product of telepathy among the living, projected by the primary percipient to others around him or her. However, telepathy among the living does not explain why witnesses in collective sightings notice different details.

Myers, who believed strongly in survival after death, began to doubt the telepathic theory as early as 1885. In his landmark book Human Personality and Its Survival after Death (1903), he suggested that the apparitions consisted of a ‘phantasmogenic centre’, a locus of energies that could be perceived by the most psychically sensitive people. He conceived of a ‘subliminal consciousness’ as the basis from which the consciousness springs and which survives the body after death. He theorized that the subliminal consciousness was receptive to extrasensory input and that apparitions appeared to psychically receptive people.

Other theories that have been advanced subsequently about apparitions suggest they are:

 Idea patterns or etheric images produced by the subconscious mind of the living.

 Astral or etheric bodies of the agents.

 An amalgam of personality patterns, which in the case of hauntings are trapped on a psychic or psi field.

 Projections of the human unconscious, a manifestation of an unacknowledged need or guilt.

 Vehicles through which the ‘I’, the thinking consciousness, takes on a personality as well as a visible form.

 Projections of will and concentration; see Thought form.

 True spirits of the dead.

 Localized physical phenomena directed by an intelligence or personality.

 Recordings or imprints of vibrations impressed upon some sort of psychic ether. In Eastern mystical philosophy, the cosmos is permeated by a substance called the Akasha. Oxford philosopher H H Price called this substance ‘psychic ether’, a term adopted by some psychical researchers to suggest that if all events are recorded on some invisible substance, then perhaps psychically tuned people can get glimpses of these records and get a playback. See Akashic Records.

It is unlikely that any one theory can explain all apparitions, and it is conceivable that some apparitions are created by the living, that some have their own reality, that some are hallucinations and that some are psychic recordings.

Twentieth-century psychical researcher Andrew Mackenzie suggested that the ability to have hallucinations could be a function of personality. In his studies he found that one-third of cases occurred just before or after sleep, or when the percipient was woken in the night. Other experiences took place when the witness was in a state of relaxation or doing routine work such as housework, or concentrating on some activity such as reading a book. Only when the external world was shut out was the unconscious able to release impressions, which sometimes took the form of an apparition.

English psychical researcher G Tyrrell also made this link between dreamlike states and sightings of apparitions. Tyrrell theorized that there were two stages in an hallucinatory experience. In stage one the witness unconsciously experiences the apparition, and in stage two the information from stage one is processed from the unconscious in dreams or hallucinations with the required details added, such as clothing and objects.

APPLIED PSI

Also known as applied parapsychology and psionics, applied psi is a branch of parapsychology that assumes psychic ability exists and seeks ways to apply it in everyday life.

Applied psi is used today when anyone acts on his or her intuition to make a decision. Experimental studies of applied psi date back to the eighteenth century, but it wasn’t until the twentieth century that the discipline was seriously explored. In 1963 the Newark College of Engineering in New Jersey became one of the first engineering centres in the US to explore psi ability in people. Researchers found that successful people use psi and precognition daily in their jobs in the form of intuition, hunches and gut feelings. In the early 1980s, American parapsychologist Jeffrey Mishlove urged parapsychologists to assume that psi existed and to focus on ways to use it in everyday life. By 1984 applied psi did become an informal part of a number of fields, including archaeology, agriculture, executive decision-making, scientific discovery, military intelligence, criminal investigations and weather prediction. However, over subsequent years the erratic nature of psi made it an unreliable tool.

Some experiments raised interesting questions as to how effective applied psi can be when it comes to making financial investments. It is not uncommon for people to place a bet or buy and sell stock on gut instinct. Experiments, such as one conducted by the St Louis Business Journal in 1982, compared the results of a group of experienced brokers with a psychic. The stocks picked by the brokers fell in value, but the ones picked by the psychic rose. Despite such successes, however, widespread use of applied psi in the stock market has never materialized – if it did it would probably spell the end of the stock market, thriving as it does on unpredictability and chance.

APPORT

In his Encyclopedia of Psychic Science (1933), Hungarian psychical researcher Nandor Fodor defined apports as the ‘arrival of various objects through an apparent penetration of matter’, one of the most baffling phenomena of spiritualism, he thought. Apports are objects that mediums claim to be able to produce from thin air or transport through solid matter, and to this day they remain as mysterious as ever.

The majority of apports are everyday small objects such as rings, sweets and pebbles, although some can be large and unusual such as books, garden tools, live animals and birds. When spiritualism was at its most popular apports were commonplace at séances. Sufis, mystical adepts of Islam, and Hindu swamis are also renowned for the apports they produce. Some mediums have been exposed as frauds, producing apports that were hidden under the table or on their person prior to the séance, which is held in the dark, making trickery easier. Some adepts also have been exposed as frauds, but there are adepts and mediums whose reputations hold. Sai Baba of India, for example, seems to be able to produce apports, such as sweets, banquets of hot food, statues and many other objects, from his closed fist, while others are pulled from the sand.

Theories to explain apports that appear to be genuine include apports as gifts from the spirits, the pulling of objects from another dimension through some sort of psychic magnetism or the medium somehow taking objects from another location, making them disintegrate and then transporting and reassembling them.

ARRIVAL CASES

The appearance of a person before their actual arrival. Frequently the arriving phantom appears in the same clothing the individual is wearing at the same time. The individual is usually not aware of appearing in a distant location until told about it.

Arrival cases were collected and studied by the founders of the Society for Psychical Research in the early twentieth century. They collected their evidence in their exhaustive survey Phantasms of the Living (1918).

Arrivals have been claimed to eat, sleep and seem so real that anyone could believe it was a double (doppelgänger) of the real person. The most likely explanation of arrival cases is that the individual somehow projects a double, which is perceived as real, perhaps as an out-of-body projection (bilocation) or as a psychic projection of intent or desire to be in that different place. Others think that arrival cases are a quirk of time duplicating itself.

In the Highlands of Scotland, the term for arrival cases is ‘spirits of the living’. In Norway, the arrival case phenomenon is called vardøger, which means ‘forerunner’.

One unusual vardøger case occurred in Oslo and concerned Erikson Gorique, an American importer. For years, Gorique had wanted to go to Norway but was forced to keep postponing the trip. In July 1955 he was finally able to go. On his arrival in Oslo, Gorique asked where he might stay. Much to his astonishment, when he arrived at the recommended hotel he was greeted by name by the hotel clerk. The clerk told him it was nice to see him again. When Gorique protested that he had never before travelled to Norway or been at the hotel, the puzzled clerk insisted that he could not mistake Gorique’s unusual name and American appearance. He said Gorique stayed at the hotel several months earlier and had made reservations to return that month.

Gorique was even more surprised when he visited a wholesale dealer, who also greeted him like an old friend, saying it was terrific to have him back to conclude previous business. Gorique told the dealer that he hadn’t been there before, whereupon the dealer nodded knowingly and explained the vardøger phenomenon: ‘It is not uncommon in Norway,’ he said.

ART, PSYCHIC

Also known as automatic painting, psychic art occurs when individuals who often have little or no artistic training suddenly feel overcome by a desire to draw or paint in distinctive, professional styles. They feel guided by a spirit and may actually feel an invisible hand pushing theirs.

A psychic artist can produce amazing likenesses of deceased relatives of an enquirer, people unknown to the artist. Such an artist may also draw or paint spirit guides, angels, animals or figures who are subsequently discovered to be connected to the enquirer in some way.

In addition to artists who create images of guides and people in spirit, there are others who unconsciously collaborate on pieces of original artwork. Some psychic artists claim contact with great masters who have taught them a special skill or who use them as a vehicle to add new collections to works they produced while still alive. Some psychic art is also sacred art. Many shamanic or healing traditions from around the world have used sacred art in ceremonies of healing and as a bridge between the physical and non-physical worlds. The Navajo people, who reside in the Southwestern region of the USA, have passed down the practices of hand painting from generation to generation. Tibetan monks, too, conduct healing ceremonies that involve the creation and destruction of detailed sand paintings.

One of the most famous psychic art cases is the Thompson-Gifford case, which occurred early in the twentieth century. In 1905 an engraver from New York, Frederic Thompson, was seized with the urge to draw and paint in the style of the recently dead artist Robert Gifford. Thompson had met Gifford when he was alive but was not well acquainted with him. When Thompson painted he felt he was Gifford, and he often heard Gifford’s voice urging him to sketch. Thompson produced many works that reminded buyers of Gifford’s style and sold at good prices.

See also Automatic writing; Automatism.

ARUNDEL CASTLE

This magnificent castle in the heart of West Sussex has been the home of the Dukes of Norfolk since 1580. It was severely damaged by fire in the seventeenth century but has now been restored to its former glory. Not only is Arundel Castle the home of countless priceless works of art, but it also is thought to house several ghosts.

The ghost of a young woman dressed in white has been seen wandering round Hiorne’s Tower, particularly on moonlit nights. According to legend, she threw herself off the tower because of a tragic love affair. A ghost has also been encountered in the library and has become known as the ‘Blue Man’. He has been seen on several occasions searching through books, and is thought to date back to the time of King Charles II (1660–1685).

A kitchen boy of 200 years ago or so is said to have been so badly treated that he died young. His ghost has been seen furiously polishing pots and pans. Another ghost is that of a small white bird, which reputedly flutters around the windows of the castle. It is said to signify the imminent death of someone connected to the castle and was reported to have appeared just before the death of the Duke of Norfolk in 1917.

ASH MANOR GHOST

Psychical researcher Nandor Fodor solved the mystery of the Ash Manor ghost in 1930s England. The case was one of his most famous and helped to establish his theory of the psychological underpinning of some hauntings. He recorded the case in detail in his book The Haunted Mind (1959).

Mr and Mrs Keel (a pseudonym assigned by Fodor) moved into Ash Manor House in Sussex, England, with their 16-year-old daughter and servants on 24 June 1934. They were aware that parts of the house dated back to the thirteenth century and that it had a reputation for being haunted. It wasn’t long before the daughter and servants reported strange noises coming from the attic, and Mr and Mrs Keel heard strange bangs on their bedroom doors.

The Keels suspected something supernatural was afoot, and on 23 November Mr Keel woke to see ‘a little oldish man, dressed in a green smock, very muddy breeches and gaiters, a slouch hat on his head and a handkerchief around his neck’. Keel tried to grab the man, thinking him a servant, but was astonished to see his hand go right through him. Keel ran to his wife, who also saw the man and tried to strike him, but her fist went through him too. The strange noises continued, and the green man, as the Keels called him, continued to appear. Once the phantom raised his head, and Mrs Keel could see that his neck had been cut all the way around. She concluded that he must have been murdered and that perhaps his skeleton was hidden in the house.

The manifestations were so frightening that the servants quit their jobs. The Keels were advised to get help in exorcizing the ghost by advertising in a newspaper. Several individuals tried to do the job but did not succeed.

In July 1936 Fodor was invited to investigate the case by a writer who was including the Ash Manor ghost in his book about hauntings. Fodor arrived and saw that the Keels were fearful of any harm being done to their reputations by the publicity. He stayed in the house for several nights, but no manifestations occurred.

At that time the medium Eileen Garrett was living in England, and Fodor asked her to visit Ash Manor. Garrett arrived on 25 July and immediately received the clairvoyant impression of a man who had been half brother to Edward IV or V and had started a rebellion. He had been tortured and left crippled as a result. That evening Garrett entered the haunted house and went into a trance, and her control, Uvani, spoke. Uvani explained that ghosts often manifest when an atmosphere of unhappiness enables a spirit to draw energy and revive its suffering. ‘Haven’t you discovered that these things only happen to you when you are in a bad emotional state, physically or mentally disturbed?’ Uvani asked. The control went on to say that in the fifteenth century a jail had existed near the house, where many unhappy souls had lost their lives. Anyone living in the house who was ‘nervously depleted’ would give out energy that would attract a ghost, who would use that energy to build himself up, like a ‘picture on the stage’.

Uvani permitted the ghost to possess Garrett, and the Keels said that her features looked like those of the green man. Speaking through Garrett, the ghost announced, in a medieval English accent, that he was called Charles Edward. He claimed to have been robbed of his lands by the Earl of Huntingdon and betrayed by a friend called Buckingham. He asked the witnesses to help him wreak revenge upon his enemies. Fodor informed the ghost that he was dead and begged him to give up his quest and join the spirits of his loved ones. The ghost reluctantly agreed to do so, and Garrett returned to normal consciousness.

The hauntings, however, did not stop, and Fodor conducted another session with Garrett, this time without the Keels present. The ghost once again appeared and pleaded for help in getting vengeance. Uvani announced that the Keels had used this ‘poor, unhappy creature’ in order to embarrass each other and that they did not want the ghost to leave. The control also said that if the unhappiness in the house persisted, it would become truly haunted.

Fodor at last felt that he was close to solving the case. Mrs Keel confessed to him that her husband was homosexual and that a great deal of tension existed between them. Fodor suggested that the ghost provided a distraction that prevented that tension from breaking out into the open.

When the Keels admitted they were hanging on to the ghost, the ghost departed. A scholarly investigation of the statements made by Charles Edward deemed they were not authentic, and Fodor, in analysing the case, considered the ghost to be an invention of Mr Keel’s subconscious mind, which Garrett had tapped into.

However, some of the haunting phenomena at Ash Manor could not be explained, for example, the independent sightings by servants and other witnesses. Fodor concluded that ‘it may be that those who put themselves in an unguarded psychological position, in a place filled with historical memories and traditions, do, on rare occasions, come into contact with a force or an intelligence other than their own.’

ASPORT

The opposite of apport, asport refers to psychic phenomena involving the disappearance or transportation of objects, supposedly accomplished with the help of the spirits of the dead. During the height of spiritualism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, apports produced at séances would often become asports and mysteriously vanish from one room to be found in another room. Sometimes, though, asported valuables would vanish altogether and remain forever with the spirits, causing sceptics to question the integrity of the mediums.

Although trickery is undeniable, there are also reported cases of asports that appear genuine. Sai Baba of India, famous for his apports of holy ash, food, precious jewels and other items, has also been said to dematerialize apports if the recipients do not like them and change them into something else.

ASTRAL BODY

Various esoteric traditions talk about the many bodies – the different levels of consciousness and existence – that each person has. Some people think of these different aspects as ‘subtle bodies’ or selves that exist in a parallel plane but are all part of a larger consciousness. This theory suggests that the body itself does not contain these aspects. Rather, this larger consciousness contains the body, as well as other levels of existence, and you can learn to create a closer connection to any of these aspects within yourself.

A commonly recognized ‘extra’ self is the astral body, also known as an energy body. The word ‘astral’ is derived from the Greek for ‘star’. The astral body can also be called a double or doppelgänger, because it is a duplicate of the physical body. Theosophists refer to it as the ‘etheric’ or ‘spiritual double’ containing the soul and made from the vibrations that make up the physical body.

The astral body exists on the astral plane, also known as the astral realm, astral world or astral sphere, and in metaphysical terminology the astral plane is contiguous in space, if not in time, with the material world. The astral realm is the one that the spiritual part or astral body enters during periods of sleep, under the action of anaesthetics or drugs, by accident when a person is unconscious, or immediately after death. The astral realm is not normally visible to ordinary sight, yet it is regarded as the proper dwelling of people’s higher spiritual bodies.

According to shamans and Theosophists the astral body or second self resembles the physical body but is made up of a subtle field of shining and flexible light that encases the body, visible only by a psychically sensitive person. It is thought that when you are sleeping the astral body can separate from the physical body, which results in flying dreams and the experience of disorientation experienced if you wake suddenly and the astral body hasn’t had time to line up with the physical one. Driven by emotions, passions and desires, the astral body is believed to be a bridge between the physical brain and a higher level of mind.

ASTRAL DOORWAYS

Symbols and pictures that are used to help individuals in astral projection reach the astral plane. Tarot cards can be used as astral doorways but the definitive doorways, used by psychics and magicians for hundreds of years, are the Tattwas of the Eastern esoteric tradition. The five primary tattwa symbols are simple coloured shapes – a yellow square (earth), blue circle (air), red triangle (fire), silver crescent (moon) and black oblong (ether) – and each one can be used as a focal point to trigger astral projection and give access to a specific part of the astral plane.

ASTRAL PLANE

According to occultists the astral plane is an alternate and non-physical dimension of reality that can be visited during astral projection or out-of-body experiences. The word ‘astral’, from the Greek word meaning ‘star’, originally described the heavens of the Greek gods, but as time passed the concept expanded to refer to a spirit world inhabited by etheric entities, disembodied spirits and higher beings.

The astral world is believed to be invisible to the ordinary eye because it vibrates at a higher rate than the energy that comprises the material world. However, occultists believe that it can be perceived through astral projection and clairvoyance and it is a world just as real as ours. It has scenery, inhabitants, countries and seas and is subject to the laws of nature and constant change just as the physical world is.

Modern psychologists argue that accounts of trips to a strange and alien dimension spring from the imagination, but according to occult theory the astral plane is undeniably real. It is an intermediate and invisible level of reality between the physical plane and the divine realms where communication with higher beings can be established and where the individuals thought forms take on a reality.

ASTRAL PROJECTION/ASTRAL TRAVEL

The astral body is believed to be capable of a very special type of travel. While leaving the physical body at rest, it can get up, walk around and look at its physical body, explore its surroundings and journey to new places. What makes this experience unique is that you are fully conscious and in control throughout the experience.

This process of consciously leaving the body and travelling free of physical constraints is often referred to as astral projection or astral travel. Although the terms are often used interchangeably, experts define astral projection as becoming aware that your consciousness is separate from your physical body. For instance, people describe floating above themselves and viewing their bodies during astral projection. With astral travel an individual uses this conscious awareness to experience a sense of flying to new, non-physical or physical realms.

How the mind disconnects from its everyday type of consciousness and separates from the body remains a mystery. Experts agree that having a relaxed focus, such as in meditation or when you are just about to fall asleep, helps you to reach that state, as concentrating too hard on achieving the experience may interfere with the process.

See also aura, bilocation, out-of-body experiences, lucid dreaming and near-death experiences.

ATHENODORUS, THE HAUNTING OF

The story of Athenodorus may be the first written record of a haunting, and it dates back at least 2,000 years. The story was related by several ancient authors, the historian Tacitus among them, but the version opposite is by the

Getting Started on the Astral Traveller’s path

Like any skill, astral travel takes time and practise, and it is difficult to prove what actually happens, but those experienced in astral travel tell fascinating stories of their experiences. Some travel to secret realms where they meet spirit guides and spend hours researching ancient texts. When they wake up, their clocks show that only a few minutes have passed. In all likelihood most of us won’t be able to accomplish these feats. But here is an exercise that can help you get started on the astral traveller’s path:

 While relaxing, imagine your astral body positioned just in front or above you in the exact position of your physical body.

 Take note of how your astral body looks. Check out the back of your head and body and parts of your body you can’t normally see.

 Allow your consciousness to move into your astral body and look at your surroundings from this new perspective.

 Ponder what you would like to do next and where you would like to go. You may want to visit a place or person who is normally far away, through a process called targeting. This can be done by focusing on the image of the location or the person’s face, then seeing it at the end of a tunnel. Move forward through the tunnel until you arrive at the desired place or the intended person.

 When you are ready to return, think yourself back into your physical body, and move your body until you feel comfortable back in it.

Roman letter writer Pliny the Younger (AD 61–115). In it we see the classic chain-clanking ghost, the restless corpse and even the beckoning finger. The translation is that of William Melmoth (1746), slightly revised.

There was in Athens a house, spacious and open, but with an infamous reputation, as if filled with pestilence. For in the dead of night, a noise like the clashing of iron could be heard. And if one listened carefully, it sounded like the rattling of chains. At first the noise seemed to be at a distance, but then it would approach, nearer, nearer, nearer. Suddenly a phantom would appear, an old man, pale and emaciated, with a long beard, and hair that appeared driven by the wind. The fetters on his feet and hands rattled as he moved them.

Any dwellers in the house passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. The nights without rest led them to a kind of madness, and as the horrors in their minds increased, onto a path toward death. Even in the daytime – when the phantom did not appear – the memory of the nightmare was so strong that it still passed before their eyes. The terror remained when the cause of it was gone.

Damned as uninhabitable, the house was at last deserted, left to the spectral monster. But in hope that some tenant might be found who was unaware of the malevolence within it, the house was posted for rent or sale. It happened that a philosopher named Athenodorus came to Athens at that time. Reading the posted bill, he discovered the dwelling’s price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion, yet when he heard the whole story, he was not in the least put off. Indeed, he was eager to take the place. And did so immediately.

As evening drew near, Athenodorus had a couch prepared for him in the front section of the house. He asked for a light and his writing materials, then dismissed his retainers. To keep his mind from being distracted by vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he directed all his energy toward his writing.

For a time the night was silent. Then came the rattling of chains. Athenodorus neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen. Instead he closed his ears by concentrating on his work. But the noise increased and advanced closer till it seemed to be at the door, and at last in the very chamber. Athenodorus looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him, beckoning with one finger.

Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that the visitor should wait a little, and bent over his work. The ghost, however, shook the chains over the philosopher’s head, beckoning as before. Athenodorus now took up his lamp and followed. The ghost moved slowly, as if held back by his chains. Once it reached the courtyard, it suddenly vanished.

Athenodorus, now deserted, carefully marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he asked the magistrate to have the spot dug up. There they found – intertwined with chains – the bones that were all that remained of a body that had long lain in the ground. Carefully, the skeletal relics were collected and given proper burial, at public expense. The tortured ancient was at rest. And the house in Athens was haunted no more.

ATMOSPHERE

A term used by psychics to describe a feeling for the environment they are in or the people they meet. Walking into a house with an unhappy atmosphere may leave them with an unsettled feeling, whereas meeting someone who is genuinely kind and honest and friendly creates a positive feeling or atmosphere.

We all pick up information from the environment we are in and from any person we meet for the first time. On a visual level we are influenced by the way a person looks and dresses and by the colours, shapes and styles around us. Sounds and smells influence us too, even before we consciously decide if we like what we see. Operating alongside our other senses is a kinaesthetic awareness, which registers an emotional reaction to the atmosphere that exists in an environment or in a person. In some people this awareness is more developed than others, and for clairsentients, who can sense and respond to the atmospheres created by places and people, it is highly attuned, giving detailed information about the physical, emotional and energetic nature of people and places.

Few of us have not felt at some time that a place is spooky or unfriendly or that we feel irritable or afraid for no reason. When this happens we are psychically tuning in to an atmosphere, and a person who readily senses an atmosphere in a place usually has that same knack when summing up people.

Clairsentients who work with environmental energy believe that everything that happens within an environment affects the way it feels. For example, there is a discernable difference between the feeling of a room used by people who respect and love each other and the feeling of a room in which people have been in bitter competition. Practitioners of the art of feng shui know a great deal about the need to balance environmental energy, and in feng shui the placing of objects such as mirrors and ornaments can help to regulate energy that is out of balance and create a healthier, more harmonious atmosphere in which to live and work.

Some clairsentients may be able to channel a form of healing energy, which can harmonize the feeling of a room, or they may, like feng shui experts, suggest colours, shapes, objects or spiritual practices to help transform the feeling or atmosphere of an environment.

AUBREY, JOHN [1626–1697]

One of the first known collectors of ghost stories, antiquarian and biographer John Aubrey’s compilation, Miscellanies, was published in 1696 and is packed with eye-witness accounts of ghostly sightings gathered from all points of Great Britain. Aubrey’s interest in the supernatural was reinforced by his own personal experiences. In Miscellanies, Aubrey writes about strange knocking sounds on the walls of his house a few days before his father died. ‘Three or four days before my father died’, he wrote, ‘as I was in my bed about nine o’clock in the morning, perfectly awake, I did hear three distinct knocks over the bed’s head, as if it had been with a ruler or ferula.’ This mysterious incident, when combined with his interviews of others who had encountered ghosts, utterly convinced Aubrey that the spirit world existed.

AUMAKUA

A family of guardian spirits from Hawaiian mythology, the aumakua are worshipped to ensure the wellbeing of the family. The aumakua are thought to have laws that must be followed, and transgressions are sometimes punished for decades. Many believe it is of vital importance to be on good terms with your family’s aumakua, or a soul may be abandoned before it reaches the land of the dead. Such abandoned souls haunt the living and remain in limbo until another aumakua takes pity on them and leads them to their new home.

Offspring of the aumakua can be born into families, and various legends tell of people born with supernatural powers, such as the ability to transform into animals.

According to lore the aumakua escort the souls of the dead to the afterlife in a ghostly procession, and if you have not rectified your sins against the aumakua before death, you have one chance to beg for pardon when the procession reaches its first stopping place. It is believed that the aumakua take the entire body to the next world, but if for any reason the body is not taken, the family must prepare the corpse for burial and its transformation into the aumakua form, which is that of a snake or shark.

AURA

The name given to a subtle envelope of vital energy that is thought to radiate round natural objects, including human beings, animals and plants. The colours and forms of each aura are believed to be characteristic of the person, animal or thing it surrounds and to fluctuate and shift according to mood and state of health.

The aura is normally invisible, but it can be seen by clairvoyants as a halo of light and colour. Two clairvoyants viewing the same aura might see different colours or interpret it in different ways. State of health and a person’s emotions show up as differences in colours and energy patterns or breaks in an aura. Physical illness seems related to the part of the aura that is closest to the body, often called the etheric body. Some psychics see the aura as a psychic screen for the projection of information, past, present and future.

Although the body does have a magnetic field – a biofield – there is no scientific evidence that auras exist. However, the belief that the human body emits radiations of a kind that in certain circumstances becomes visible has been encountered for centuries, and was present in ancient Egypt, India, Greece and Rome. In the sixteenth century, discourses on the astral body and its ‘fiery aura’ abound, and in the eighteenth century the theory of animal magnetism was developed by Anton Mesmer, who promoted a variety of scientific experiments to try to identify the phenomenon.

Just before World War I, Dr Walter Kilner from St Thomas’s Hospital in London developed a method to view auras, which he claimed appeared as a faint haze around the body, using an apparatus that rendered ultraviolet light visible. His theory of auric diagnosis of illness linked the appearance of an aura to a patient’s health. Kilner’s work was greeted with scepticism and interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities. In 1939, Semyon Davidovich Kirlian, a Russian electrician, developed a technique that he claimed recorded auras on film, but this technique remains to be verified. See Kirlian photography.

Auras, like parking places, are easy to find when you aren’t looking for them. So if you want to see an aura, you need to feel as relaxed and calm as possible. Breathe slowly and deeply for a few minutes. Then, instead of looking directly at someone, look straight past them and casually glance in their direction, allowing your eyes to lose focus. The idea is to trick your rational brain by deliberately putting a lot of your concentration on something else, but to keep a vague focus on the person whose aura you want to read.

With practise you may see a dim haze of energy around someone. Keep breathing deeply, and the aura may brighten to a colour. Don’t expect people to light up like Christmas trees and stay that way. Visions of auras tend to be lightning quick, but the more you practise the more natural it will feel and the more likely it is for colour to become noticeable.

AUTOMATIC WRITING

The most common form of automatism, automatic writing is writing that does not come from the conscious mind and is done in an altered state of consciousness. Some attribute it to spiritual beings who are somehow able to manipulate a writing utensil in order to communicate. Psychical researchers believe automatic writing emanates from material in the person’s subconscious mind or is obtained through ESP.

Many people try automatic writing in an effort to make contact with spirits or to communicate with the dead. Typically the writer is unaware of what is being written and the writing is much faster, larger and expansive than their normal handwriting. Some people experience tingling in the arms or hands. Pens are a common tool, but slates and typewriters may also be used. Automatic writers have been known to produce mirror scripts, starting at the bottom right of the page and finishing at the top left. At the height of spiritualism, automatic writing was common in séances, and it replaced the much slower methods of spelling out messages from spirits with table rappings or pointers.

In some cases automatic writing occurs involuntarily, as in the case of Anna Windsor. In 1860 Windsor began automatic writing with her right hand, which she called Stump. Stump had a personality of its own, writing out verses and prose while the left hand did something else.

Through automatic writing, mediums have claimed to produce messages not just from deceased relatives or loved ones but from famous persons in history, such as Francis Bacon, Emanuel Swedenborg and even Jesus Christ. Frederick Myers, one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research, found little evidence that spirits communicated through automatic writing but, curiously, after his death several mediums claimed to receive automatic writing messages from him.

While psychical researchers continue to investigate automatic writing as evidence for the existence of the spirit world, the field of psychology has adopted automatic writing. Psychologists use it as a way for the unconscious mind to express thoughts and feelings that cannot be verbalized. Automatic writing continues to be used as a therapeutic tool to this day. Some critics warn of dangers in automatic writing – they claim that the writer is vulnerable to harassment from

Exercise to practise automatic writing

Make sure you are in a calm and relaxed mood. If you feel stressed or anxious, leave it and try another day.

Find a good pen or pencil and a quiet place at a table. Sit there and let your hand move as it will. You may like to ask your hand if it has any messages for you. Hold your pen loosely in whichever hand you normally write with and let your mind roam freely. Write down whatever comes into your head for about five to ten minutes at the most.

If nothing happens, visualize a column of light made up of golden letters, forming and reforming words. Focus on one letter, and let the light flow down into your fingers and the pen. Wait until you feel your pen tremble, and let it move. At first it may scribble and make patterns, but words may follow. Don’t try to read or make sense of them or you will lose the spontaneity.

When you feel you are losing concentration, stop. Lay your pen down and see the column of light fading. Read what you have written. It may seem to relate to you or to another person in your life, perhaps a persona that is deep within you. Don’t be concerned if your first attempts appear nothing more than random scribbles or a jumble of disconnected words. It takes practise to establish a clear delivery of information.

Do something mundane or physical to bring you back to earth.

the evil-minded dead. However, psychologists maintain that the real danger is in exposing material from the unconscious that has been repressed.

AUTOMATISM

Automatism is divided into two categories: motor automatism and sensory automatism. Motor automatisms are unconscious movements of the muscles, which seem to be directed by supernatural guidance. The most common forms of motor automatism are automatic writing and automatic painting or psychic art, and other creative pursuits such as speaking, singing, composing and dancing. Dowsing is a type of motor automatism, an extrasensory guidance influenced by the movements of the rod held by a dowser. Other types of motor automatisms include impulsive behaviour, such as deciding to do or not do something at the last minute without knowing why, sudden inhibitions and sudden physical incapacities.

Sensory automatisms are thought to be produced by an inner voice or vision and can include apparitions of the living, inspirations, hallucinations and dreams. Hallucinations were once assumed to be caused by physical disorders, but Edmund Gurney, an early psychical researcher and a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, established that paranormal visions and sounds can occur without the presence of physical disorders.

After automatic writing and drawing, automatic music composition is perhaps the most common form of automatism. An unusual case was that of a London woman called Rosemary Brown, who, although she had limited musical ability, began in 1970 to compose music that she said was channelled to her from dead composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven. Recordings were made, and the works did indeed resemble the various styles of the composers, but critics declared them not as good as definitive compositions by these musical geniuses.

Problems associated with automatisms include compulsion, obsession and a feeling of possession. The practice may grow until a person feels taken over by it. Some people talk of possession by demons, but psychologists say that the effects are created by paranoia, not demons.

Since ancient times, inspired activity has always been attributed to the divine, the supernatural or the spirits, but today’s view is that automatisms are products of ESP or secondary personalities who produce knowledge or information that has been repressed or forgotten.

AVALON

According to Celtic legend, a mystical land of immortal heroes where the enchanted sword Excalibur was forged and where a mortally wounded King Arthur was taken after a bloody battle.

The story of King Arthur may be based on a historical figure of a Celtic king of the sixth century, who defended his kingdom against Saxon invaders, but it is the legends of King Arthur that have had a timeless, mystical hold over people’s imagination for centuries. According to legend Arthur came to power when he pulled a magical sword from a stone with the help of the wizard Merlin, an act that proclaimed his royal heritage. He started the Order of the Round Table, peopled by noble and virtuous knights, and married the beautiful but adulterous Guinevere who betrayed him for his best friend Lancelot. Arthur was mortally wounded by his treacherous nephew, Mordred, and is said to be buried on the mythical Isle of Avalon, from where he will rise again in Britain’s hour of need.

There is a tradition that Glastonbury was the Isle of Avalon. In 1191 the monks of Glastonbury unearthed, from 16 feet under the ground, an oak coffin that they said was Arthur’s. They showed an inscription: ‘Here lies beneath the renowned King Arthur with his beloved Queen Guinevere his second wife in the Isle of Avalon’ on a lead cross, which they said had been found in the coffin.

With its miraculous weapon of destiny, its goddess-like Lady of the Lake appearing by moonlight from the water and, most of all, the mysterious realm of Avalon, where Arthur journeys by water to be healed from death, the Arthurian world shimmers with a Celtic supernatural glow. Like a faraway, half-heard song, Avalon conveys a sense of something lost forever, never to be found – the mystical quest for the lost land, the lost world, the lost self and lost psychic powers.

AVATAR

Derived from the Sanskrit word avatora, which means ‘descent’, avatar is used in Hinduism to denote a god who has descended, by way of incarnation, to either human or animal form, coming into this world for the duration of one lifespan. An avatar is believed to be a mediator between people and the divine.

An avatar is similar to the Christian figure of an incarnated being but is different in two ways. First, a Hindu god can become incarnate in many places at the same time through partial avatars (amshas); second, the avatars do not fully participate in human activity or lose the knowledge and power of their divinity.

Exceptional holy men and women in India are called avatars. Hindus accept Gautama, Buddha, as an avatar. Vishnu, sky god and protector of the universe, is most famous for his numerous avatars, which include Krishna and Rama, but other gods, such as Shiva, also have avatars. Many charismatic leaders, such as the Indian mystic Chaitanya (c.1486–1533), have been regarded as avatars. In our own time, Ammachi – Mata Amritanandamayi – the South Indian woman who was given the Gandhi-King award at the United Nations in Geneva in 2002 for her promotion of non-violence, and who greets her long lines of followers by giving each person a warm hug, is considered an avatar of the Great Mother.

The bhakti (devotional) movements of Hinduism have often centred round avatars who are supposed to possess psychic abilities and paranormal powers, such as the ability to levitate or bilocate.

AVEBURY

A village in Wiltshire, England, eighty miles west of London, and site of the Avebury stone circle, one of the oldest prehistoric monuments in Britain. More extensive than Stonehenge, Avebury is large enough that it is said more than a quarter of a million people could stand within the boundaries of its circle. The circle was in active use in later Neolithic/early Bronze Age times, between 2600 BC and 1600 BC, so it pre-dates the Druids.

The Avebury circle was probably constructed by people from the Beaker culture. It is the largest stone circle in Europe; its 100 standing stones, reaching up to 14 feet high, mark a circle that is 1,100 feet in diameter. Another nearby landmark, Windmill Hill, bears an earthwork on top and may pre-date Avebury as a cattle market or ritual site. The purpose of Silbury Hill, yet another nearby landmark and Europe’s tallest man-made mound, remains unknown.

No records survive attesting to the original purpose and uses of the Avebury stone circle, and excavations have yielded few insights. According to theories Avebury may have been used for religious festivals to honour the Goddess, or it may have had astronomical purposes, as the stones align to the May Day sunrise. It is believed by some that the Avebury stones are repositories of Earth and psychic energy, which can be detected by clairvoyance and dowsing and that tapping the stones can enable communication with other megalithic sites. Such psychic energy may be responsible for paranormal phenomena that have long been reported at this site, including strange lights drifting on the ground and eerie small figures and apparitions flitting around the stones. In the 1980s Avebury became a major site of mysterious crop circles, geometric patterns made in arable fields that defy explanation.