Tag Archives | Superstition

Japanese Tsunami Survivors Turn To Exorcists To Relieve Haunting By Ghosts

By on March 23, 2013 in News 0

Via Yahoo! News, a sad example of how can ghosts can manifest in even in the most hypermodern society when there is unresolved trauma:

The tsunami that engulfed northeastern Japan two years ago has left some survivors believing they are seeing ghosts. In a society wary of admitting to mental problems, many are turning to exorcists for help.

Tales of spectral figures lined up at shops where now there is only rubble are what psychiatrists say is a reaction to fear after the March 11, 2011, disaster in which nearly 19,000 people were killed.

“The places where people say they see ghosts are largely those areas completely swept away by the tsunami,” said Keizo Hara, a psychiatrist in the city of Ishinomaki. “We think phenomena like ghost sightings are perhaps a mental projection of the terror and worries associated with those places.” Hara said post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) might only now be emerging in many people,

Many people in Japan hold on to ancient superstitions despite its ultra-modern image.

… Read the rest

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Angel-Shaped Cloud Appears On Florida Coast Following Announcement Of Pope Francis

By on March 15, 2013 in News 30

Many residents of the West Palm Beach area snapped photos of this vivid specter in the sky on Wednesday. This makes it official that God loves Florida above all other U.S. states. Local news WPTV reported:

A message from above? That’s what several South Florida residents thought after looking toward the sky on the day a new pope was named.

Most saw an angel in the clouds and grabbed their cameras to document the vision. Although most felt the cloud resembled an angel, and was a beautiful sign from above, others saw in the cloud something less angelic. Cristina Pina thought the cloud resembled a sea monkey. While Steve Massie opined that “seeing shapes and faces in non-human objects is called “pareidolia.” Nick Stanley even saw the dark lord – Lucifer, in the cloud.

… Read the rest

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Tennessee Man Sues After Pastor Punches Out His Teeth In ‘Surprise Exorcism’

By on March 9, 2013 in News 8

Attending church increasingly resembles backyard wrestling, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports:

A Sevierville man alleges he went to his Pigeon Forge church for a February 2012 meeting and came away with broken and cracked teeth and facial injuries, inflicted by the preacher and a deacon as part of an exorcism. Andrew Byrd filed a lawsuit against the Rev. Joel Arwood, his wife Theresa Arwood and deacon Charles Shields.

According to the lawsuit, Shields and the Arwoods asked Byrd to attend a meeting at Family Chapel Church of God in Pigeon Forge. During the meeting, Theresa Arwood said Byrd had a “demon or spirit that needed to be cast out.”

“Thereafter, Joel Arwood and Charles Shields physically assaulted (Byrd),” states the lawsuit. Byrd alleges the pastor later bragged to the congregation that he had “punched the devil and knocked the devil’s tooth out.”

… Read the rest

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Half Of Russians Believe That The Chelyabinsk Meteor Strike Was Not A Meteor

By on February 25, 2013 in News 10

Was the meteor flash of two weeks ago a UFO, divine miracle, or weapons test? Take your pick. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

A survey published today by the fairly staid Moscow daily Noviye Izvestia found that barely half its readers believe the official report that the blast a week ago in the Ural Mountains was caused by a meteor.

According to the newspaper, the other half prefer to believe in an assortment of bizarre explanations, including that the blast was a secret U.S. weapon test, an off-course ballistic missile, a message from God, or a crashing alien spaceship.

Russian ultranationalist parliamentarian Vladimir Zhirinovsky, has suggested that anti-Russian hardliners in the United States staged a secret weapons test over Russia. And the trade union newspaper Trud made the cheery suggestion that the meteorite could be carrying deadly viruses from outer space, possibly the work of malevolent extraterrestrial forces.

… Read the rest

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Virginia University Offers Course On Communicating With The Dead

By on February 20, 2013 in News 11

Would you dare tamper with other realms in return for three credits? From Roanoke’s WDBJ7:

Radford University students are taking part in an independent study course that’s quite different – learning about the afterlife by reaching out to the dead.

There is a bedroom on campus that has been converted into a chamber, where students have been calling up the dead, for class credit. It’s almost always dark inside, with black drapes. Two large black sheets hang from the ceiling, and a lamp is on the floor.

“For people who are coming in here they are using an ancient ecstatic teaching that’s been used in ancient Greece and elsewhere to contact the dead,” Susan Kwilescki, a professor of religious studies.

Students built the chamber, which they call the psychomanteum, on the cheap. Ran Waide, a junior who helped build it, says the chamber works: “I’ve had a ghost encounter in here.”

… Read the rest

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Jamaican High School Closes Due To Demonic Possession

By on February 12, 2013 in News 7

I have no idea what actually occurred here, but I like the idea of classes being cancelled due to demonic havoc. The Jamaica Star attempts to explain what unfolded:

Classes ended prematurely at a Corporate Area high school last Thursday following reports that there were demons at the institution, one of which possessed a female student.

The demon discouraged other students from praying for the possessed girl warning them that if they disobeyed he would leave the girl’s body and enter theirs instead. The school’s administration [sought] the assistance of a special prayer team that specialises in demon possession.

Subsequently, the school’s administration summoned students to a general prayer assembly feeling confident that the scare had ended, but they were in for a surprise. “In the middle of assembly, suddenly out of the ceiling, a bird’s head, cut off from the bird, dropped down. It was chaos after that,” a source who witnessed the incident said.

… Read the rest

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Nearly Half Of Americans Believe In Ghosts

By on February 9, 2013 in News 17

Well, this seems more reasonable than belief in the tenets of mainstream religion. The Huffington Post reports:

A HuffPost/YouGov poll shows that 45 percent of Americans believe in ghosts, or that the spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations.

The idea of ghosts as evidence of life after death goes back to ancient Egypt, where it was commonly believed that death was merely a transition to some mysterious netherworld of another existence. While skeptics deny the existence of ghosts, claiming there’s no real evidence, polls have shown the public strongly disagrees.

“There are still many hardcore scientists who regard it as superstition and a residual fear of our past,” said paranormal author Brad Steiger. “I put ghosts in what I call a psychic residue category. In environments where human drama has taken place — a murder, suffering — that emotional energy is somehow impressed in the environment.”

… Read the rest

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Tax Forms Stamped With 666 Are ‘Sign of the Devil’

By on February 8, 2013 in News 0

Back in the day I worked in an office at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York. I had a couple of people refuse to meet there because of the “satanic” address. This story from ABC News reminded me that some people really take the Bible much too literally:

Walter Slonopas received his W-2 tax form and found the number 666 stamped on it. Calling it a satanic omen, he quit his job.

Slonopas, 52, was a maintenance worker at a metal manufacturing company in Clarksville, Tenn. called Contech Casting LLC.

“I cannot accept this number. If you accept that number, you sell your soul to the devil,” Slonopas told ABC News…

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Do You Suffer From Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia?

By on January 25, 2013 in News 10

I recently wrote about the subversion of language, examining the way in which the word “apocalypse” has had its meaning changed from its true Greek definition regarding the unveiling of hidden knowledge to one of chaos and destruction. Tied into this is the subversion of a number which has become equally misunderstood thanks to the distortions of religious dogma and popular culture. The fear of this number is known as hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia.

The phobia of the number 666 (pronounced “six six six” as opposed to “six hundred and sixty-six”) stems from the Biblical reference in the Book of Revelation 13:18, which suggests the number signifies the Number of the Beast relating to Satan or the Anti-Christ. This phobia is widely reflected in popular culture and has been a staple motif of numerous horror films. It has also had an impact on politics, most famously when Nancy and Ronald Reagan moved to their Los Angeles home and changed their address from 666 St.… Read the rest

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The Icelandic Elf School Of Álfaskólinn

By on January 25, 2013 in News 3

Looking to go back to school? Atlas Obscura on Álfaskólinn, an institution in Iceland specializing in the study of elves:

Some Icelanders take their belief in elves very seriously — road crews in Iceland will sometimes hire folklore experts to determine if certain boulders are homes to elves, and will divert the road around the boulder if it turns out there are little people living within it.

There’s an entire school dedicated learning about these hidden people. Located in the thoroughly modern city of Reykjavik, the school has a full curriculum of study about the 13 types of elves in Iceland. This concentration comes with a set of published textbooks with drawn depictions of these creatures for reference.

The school studies Iceland’s other supernatural flora as well, such as fairies, trolls, dwarves and gnomes, but they mainly focus on elves, because they are the most commonly believed in and “seen”.

… Read the rest

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