The Lost Meaning of Halloween

Christian Hummel reveals the lost meaning Halloween and how it evolved from Samhain (pronounced sah-win) to All Hallow's Eve.

All Hallow's Eve, Hallow E'en, Halloween, Day of the Dead, Samhain. By whatever name it has been called, this special night preceding All Hallows day (November 1st) has been considered for centuries as one of the most magical nights of the year. A night of power, when the veil that separates our world from the Otherworld is at its thinnest.

As ubiquitous as Halloween celebrations are throughout the world, few of us know that the true origin of Halloween is a ceremony of honoring our ancestors and the day of the dead. A time when the veils between the worlds were thinner, and so many could "see" the other side of life. A time in the year when the spiritual and material worlds touched for a moment, and a greater potential exists for magical creation. Read more

Spectrophilia: Sex with Ghosts

Tales of spirit lovers go back to the earliest days of storytelling. As author Rosemary Ellen Guily says in the article, some encounters can be explained by psychology, but not all. I know that my own couldn't be. And psychic Patty Negri's claim that you can fend off such encounters by just saying no, is the advice of someone who obviously has no personal experience with the phenomenon. If that works, the whole encounter was imaginary in the first place.

Halloween is without question the best of all possible holidays…there’s no family BS, no gift guilt, just tricks, treats and terror. But let’s face it…trying to squeeze something sexy out of it is like trying to take candy from Rosemary’s Baby.

Sure, you’ve got vampires and the standard hot pirate / gladiator costumes but very few real, old-fashioned ghost and monster stories are turn-ons. My standards are notoriously low but even I’m not aroused by rotting zombie flesh, Nosferatu’s rat face or the slow hand of Freddy Krueger. Unless you’re jumping into someone’s arms while watching one of these movies, sexiness and spookiness don’t often mix.

Unless, of course, you are having actual sex with an actual ghost.

It’s called spectrophilia and some experts say it not only happens, but tales of it go back to the earliest days of storytelling. Read more

Ghost Hunter Flashlight Phenomenon Explained? No

A YouTube video has surfaced claiming to debunk the flashlight phenomenon.

... The host on the "Viper Paranormal" YouTube video offered another explanation. In the video, he said the flashlight turning on and off is basically a short circuit that occurs at random. He said that many ghosthunters unscrew the backs of their flashlights to the point where the flashlight is teetering between staying on or off, then set it down to ask questions. He compares the effect to lights flickering on and off in a home.

"You're not getting enough voltage to that light and for a split second that light has no power. Well, it's the exact same thing with this flashlight. When this thing is unscrewed, it's teeter-tottering between having a connection. And basically you've got a short circuit, so sometimes this light's going to come on, and sometimes it's going to be off," said Mike St. Clair, the host of the Viper Paranormal YouTube series.

Theoretically, then, any vibration could cause the connection to be completed and the light to turn on.

This explanation would only satisfy the extremely gullible, or maybe someone who has never watched Ghost Hunters. On the show, the flashlight sits unlit and then slowly comes on in response to a question. Then it is turned off slowly at the request of an investigator. The flashlight does not flicker on and off.

This is quite typical of the paranormal "debunking" I've read: It either doesn't debunk what actually happens on the show or outright lies about what happens. None of us outsiders can know whether the show's producers and participants are honest, of course, Assuming no chicanery, however, this explanation doesn't debunk the flashlight phenomenon. Furthermore, Sabrina Wu did an experiment to test whether the explanation was even plausible. Read about the outcome

B-2 Stealth Bomber and Other Aircraft Mistaken for UFOs

The is a good example of why UFO investigators must thoroughly explore mundane explanations for events. Most UFOs are simply unidentified or misidentified.

People in Missouri have been scratching their heads this month over a rash of UFO sightings that has them wondering if it's alien visitors, small plane experimental flying teams, the B-2 stealth bomber or all of the above.

So far, eyewitnesses in the "Show Me" state have been entertained by aerial displays of lights or orbs in the night sky, with the majority of sightings centered around the Kansas City area.

"With all the sightings, we've had a description of a triangle-shaped craft with multicolored lights surrounding it," said Debbie Ziegelmeyer, state director for Missouri MUFON, a chapter of the International Mutual UFO Network.

"We have information that the nearby Whiteman Air Force Base, 50 miles east of Kansas City, is under a yellow alert with training mission activities of the B-2 stealth bombers around the area." Read more

Anderson Cooper Spooked by Mother's Mediumistic Messages

TV host Anderson Cooper is spooked by his mother's mediumistic messages.

Gloria Vanderbilt has spooked her son and even a professional psychic by being 'contacted by Marilyn Monroe' - and has revealed that she believes she is psychic herself.

The actress, socialite, artist and mother of TV presenter Anderson Cooper, met with psychic John Edward who revealed that Monroe had something to tell the veteran star.

On the host's daily talk show, Anderson, Mr Cooper spoke about his and his mother's unnerving experiences of visiting the medium. Read more

Air Force UFO Rules Vanish after HuffPost Inquiry

Was it just a coincidence that the Air Force deleted a UFO section from a personnel manual just days after a Huffington Post inquiry about it.

The military deleted a passage about unidentified flying objects from a 2008 Air Force personnel manual just days after The Huffington Post asked Pentagon officials about the purpose of the UFO section.

Before the recent revisions, the document -- Air Force Instruction 10-206 -- advised pilots, radar operators and other Air Force personnel on what to do when they encountered any unknown airborne objects. Now in the 2011 version, the reference to UFOs -- which simply means "unidentified flying objects," not necessarily spaceships with little green men -- has been eliminated.

What makes this so intriguing is that the U.S. government officially stopped investigating UFOs in 1969 with the termination of the Air Force's Project Blue Book. Read more

Exorcism Experiencing a Renaissance in American Catholicism

Exorcism is experiencing a renaissance in American Catholicism.

For more than a decade, Frank, a software consultant who lives near Silicon Valley, California, has been haunted by depression and rage. Searching for remedies to lift his dark mood, Frank, 52, tried pills, therapy, even channeling spirits. Nothing worked.

Three years ago, his wife handed him a book about demonic possession. Written by a former priest active in charismatic Catholic circles, the book presented scriptural arguments for the existence of demons and offered advice to questions such as “How do we know if an evil spirit is really present?” and “How do I pray for deliverance?” Desperate for relief, Frank decided, while he was jogging one night, to pray for deliverance.ed.

“If I had known what was going to happen, I would have picked a more private place,” Frank says. After reciting the recommended prayer, he doubled over, dry heaving, by the side of the road. His lungs felt like they were leaping out of his chest. Read more

The Top 17 Haunted Roads and Highways in the World

Just in time for your Halloween travels, here's a list of the top 17 roads and highways in the world from Amog.

While summer has gone, that doesn’t mean that road trips have to as well. The fall is as good as anytime to jump in your car and just drive. However, if you’re looking for a road trip that involves something other than scenic drives of leaves changing colors, then in you’re in luck, or danger if you dare. Just in time for Halloween, here’s seventeen of the most haunted roads in the world. Read more

The 12 Most Convincing Real-Life Ghost Stories

Are ghosts real? These twelve videos comprise some of the most convincing evidence yet gathered that the spirit world occasionally intermingles with our own.

"Real-life ghost stories"? OK, allow us to clarify. Ghosts may, in fact, not be real. Having said that, the following videos comprise some of the most convincing evidence yet gathered that the spirit world occasionally intermingles with our own. These famous or infamous ghostly encounters include hauntings of famous places, ghosts photographed in creepy haunted houses or cemeteries, curses and folklore, and more. Read more

Alien Technology Could Exist That's Beyond Matter

Some scientists are beginning to think outside the box and speculate that intelligent life could exist that is no longer matter-based.  This is sure to infuriate paranormal "skeptics," whose worldview is based on the premise that the material universe is all that exists.

Much of the current thinking about advanced extraterrestrial life that may be a million to a billion years more advanced that the human species, depicts life forms that have evolved into intelligent AI-powered machines. Even Stephen Hawking has recently asked "Why isn't the Milky Way crawling with intelligent machines."

SETI chief astronomer, Seth Shostak says: "If you look at the timescales for the development of technology, at some point you invent radio and then you go on the air and then we have a chance of finding you," he told BBC News."But within a few hundred years of inventing radio - at least if we're any example - you invent thinking machines; we're probably going to do that in this century. So you've invented your successors and only for a few hundred years are you... a 'biological' intelligence."

But what if advanced super-intelligent life is no longer matter based? What id they exist at a higher level concept than matter. Are matter and information all there is? asks Paul Davies, physicist and astrobiologist at Arizona State University.  Read more

Scientists Claim They Found Evidence of Siberian Yeti Snowman

Scientists say that they are 95 percent certain that they've found the Siberian Yeti.

Has it finally happened? Did scientists find real evidence of the existence of a hairy bipedal creature known as the Siberian Snowman or Siberian Yeti?

Researchers are claiming they are 95 percent sure that the fabled Russian version of the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot lives in the Kemerovo region of Siberia. Read more

Will the Aliens Be Nice? Don’t Bet On It

Many people look forward to the day that earth first contacts intelligent extraterrestrial life. A recent study by Penn State and NASA suggests that we should be careful what we wish for.

The probability that there is intelligent life somewhere other than earth increases as we discover more and more solar systems that seem capable of sustaining life. The thought that there might be extraterrestrial intelligences (ETI) somewhere out there excites us and has led to organized efforts to contact any such beings. We have sent space probes with data about us, and we transmit signals with a structured content (like symbols expressing mathematical formulae) to what we hope will be an intergalactic audience. The search for extraterrestrial intelligence project (SETI) is obviously based on the assumption that the possible benefits of contact with ETI outweigh the possible harms. But do they?

A recent study by researchers at Penn State and NASA provides a useful outline of the various ways that encounters with ETI could be beneficial, neutral or harmful to us. The study faces up to the most chilling possibilities: ETI might “eat us, enslave us, attack us,” inadvertently infect us with horrible diseases or just decide to eliminate us for the greater good of the universe. (Regarding this last point, the report is especially concerned that ETI might be at least metaphorically green and see us a threat to the universe’s ecology.) Read more

5 Haunted Hotels for Halloween

If you don't already have Halloween plans, why not book a stay at one of the top five haunted U.S. hotels?

If you're into things that go bump in the night, there is no better time of the year than Halloween to stay in a purportedly haunted hotel.

From television shows such as "Ghost Hunters" to talk shows that report ratings spikes on days they feature nationally known psychics, Americans are fascinated by ghosts.

Paranormal tourism not only gives traveling ghost hunters a chance for an encounter with something otherworldly, but ghost tours routinely provide a wealth of knowledge about the history of the town and establishment as well.

MainStreet took a look at five of the most haunted hotels in America and their spooky stories. If you want to stay in a haunted hotel, book soon because Halloween will sneak up on you like a... well, like a ghost.

Read on if you dare: Read more

Crafting A Witch's Spell Bottle For Prosperity

A traditional witch's spell bottle is crafted for protection, (see my post How to Make a Witch's Bottle for Protection) However, this is an instructional video for crafting a prosperity spell bottle.

Frankenstein's Hour of Creation Identified by Astronomers

Mary Shelley had her idea for the novel Frankenstein in response to a challenge from Lord Byron to begin a ghost story. Scholars have accused her of fabricating how the story came to her, but astronomers have now confirmed her account.

Texas astronomers have used the light of the moon to highlight the hour of creation for Victor Frankenstein and his notorious monster – and defend the memory of their teenage creator, Mary Shelley.

The inspiration came in a waking dream between 2am and 3am on the morning of 16 June, 1816, during a stormy summer on Lake Geneva, they explain in the November issue of Sky and Telescope.

In the preface to the third edition of Frankenstein Shelley described a villa party: Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, herself and Byron's physician Polidori, and the famous challenge by Byron that each of them should begin a ghost story. She also described her repeated inability to come up with an idea until a moment of inspiration during a sleepless night in her dark room, behind closed shutters "with the moonlight struggling to get through". Read more