Tour Boleskine House!

Boleskine house, the Scottish mansion once owned by Aleister Crowley, has been restored. Not only that, it has made the list of top ten tourist destinations in Inverness after being open only one week. The mansion was was nearly destoyed by a fire in 2015. It has been painstakingly restored by the Boleskine House Foundation and opened to the public. From the photos the restoration looks amazing.

Dating back to the 1760s and known for its notorious previous ownership, Boleskine House — located near Foyers — opened to the public for the first time in 260 years earlier this month, with more than 600 people attending the inaugural weekend.

The mansion, which was previously owned by occultist Aleister Crowley and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, was purchased and restored by The Boleskine House Foundation after seven years of hard work.

Now the charity running the venue has announced that, in just the first week after the Grand Opening, Boleskine House achieved a perfect 5-star rating on TripAdvisor and has entered the platform's rankings as one of the top 10 Things to Do In Inverness.

Reviewers praised the quality and care of the restoration, the warmth of the staff and volunteers, the beauty of the grounds, and the rich history of the house itself.

One visitor remarked, “From the moment we arrived, it was clear how much care, dedication, and thought had gone into every detail," while another called it “truly a magical place."

Aleister Crowley originally purchased Boleskine because it fits all the criteria laid out in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, the grimoire from which Crowley adapted the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. He completed the first half of the Abramelin operation while living there before being called away by the Golden Dawn drama that led to the "London revolt" against MacGregor Mathers.

Crowley never finished the Abramelin operation itself, but adapted it into Liber Samekh, a ceremonial version of the working based on the Stele of Jeu from the Greek Magical Papyri. He eventually sold the mansion in 1913, but it retained a spooky reputation. Some sources alleged that Crowley called up demons in the house and never properly banished them, though such stories, true or not, were commonly written about him in the tabloids of his day.

In fact, The Book of the Law mentions Boleskine and predicted that it would burn in a fire. Chapter II, verse 34 reads in part "But your holy place shall be untouched throughout the centuries: though with fire and sword it be burnt down & shattered, yet an invisible house there standeth, and shall stand until the fall of the Great Equinox; when Hrumachis shall arise and the double-wanded one assume my throne and place." Boleskine stands today, and judging from vistors' reactions it is anything but invisible.

If you're ever in Inverness, be sure to add Boleskine House to your itinerary. The restored mansion is beautiful and has an amazing history, especially as relates to Crowley's work and the practice of magick in general.

Blood of Christ

Europe is littered with alleged relics from early Christianity. While it is hard to say how many of them are genuine, one that is considered among the most holy is an ornate box contgaining two vials that are supposed hold the blood of Christ from the crucifiction. Recently the Dutch church that housed the box was robbed, and the relic were stolen along with a collection of other atrifacts. But the box was soon returned with the vials intact.

On June 1, thieves stole ancient artifacts from the Fécamp Abbey, a historic church in France. The artifacts included dishes, a gilded copper box covered in religious art, and most notably, two vials supposedly holding the blood of Christ, collected during his cruxifiction, Artnet reported.

After the artifacts were stolen, detective Arthur Brand told Artnet that he began receiving anonymous emails from a person saying they were in possession of the valuable relics.

The thieves most likely hid the art at a friend's house after learning that it was bad luck to steal religious artifacts, Brand told ArtNet. The friend then emailed him asking to return the artifact, Brand deduced. "To have the ultimate relic, the blood of Jesus in your home, stolen, that's a curse," Brand told AFP.

Brand told the email sender to leave the art at his doorstep and waited in his home for a week until he heard the doorbell ring. He told Artnet News that he didn't see anybody outside, but saw the box on the ground and ran downstairs. He then notified Dutch authorities.

Whether stealing the vials actually cursed anyone is not known. I can see where the thieves might have taken the box because it looked valuable, and only later discovered that they had a priceless religious relic they could never sell. Curse or no curse, I can also see where a Christian would fear some sort of judgment for stealing the literal blood of Christ. Then again, maybe it did take something paranormal to get the thieves to return the relic, and finding out what that was mioght show whether the relic actually has some sort of cursing power.

At any rate, the relic is a piece of history and I'm glad to hear it was returned rather than disappearing or turning up destroyed. I'm sure the church is happy about it too. As for the other stolen artifacts, though, the thieves remain at large. When they're caught, I hope that Dutch police ask them about curses, since I would be very curious to hear why they decided that the box had to be returned and what led up to that decision.

This Occult Cold Case Also Wasn't

Vice posted an article last week on one of the most influential cold cases in British history that was attributed to "witchcraft" and somehow went on to fuel a pop culture sensation. In 1945, a 74-year-old farm worker named Charles Walton was found murdered outside the town of Lower Quinton in England. Because his body was found in an odd position, police decided that occultism had to be involved - and the media ran with it. Let's just say that the United States in the 1980's and 1990's wasn't the only place where law enforcement liked to connect anything remotely weird at a crime scene with witchcraft, magick, satanism, or whatever the paranormal flavor of the day happened to be.

Lower Quinton subsequently gained a new level of media attention, and the newspapers relished in turning the story of Walton’s death into an Agatha Christie-style murder mystery about backward-thinking, sun god-worshipping rural folk. Salacious headlines about human sacrifice were abound, and the local Coventry Telegraph referred to the case as a “whodunnit witchcraft murder”.

“The then 87-year-old Margaret Murray [author of the popular but much maligned The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology] believed the Walton murder was likely a ritual act, performed with the purpose of replenishing the soil,” explains Darren Charles, a historian from the Folk Horror Revival project. Touching on some of the wilder rumours that circulated, he says: “Apparently the year before Walton’s death proved to be a difficult harvest and the beer brewed from those crops was undrinkable. Walton was seen as an unusual fellow, who had bred Natterjack toads in his garden and tamed wild dogs with just his voice.”

Although this might all sound far fetched as a motive for murder, Charles says it was much more logical in the context of the time; of a remote region re-connecting with its ancient superstitions amid the dread and fears of World War II. To some locals, unsure of the future, looking backwards, and outside of the Christian church for philosophical guidance, was far more appealing. “Near [to where Walton’s body was found] is the Rollright Stones [an ancient stone monument] and the Burhill Iron Age Hill Fort, which give the whole region a sense of being ancient, magical, and strange,” adds Charles.

The crime remains unsolved, giving it a certain mystique to filmmakers, and arguably acting as a nucleus for the booming folk horror genre. David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual was loosely based on the Walton murder. When it was adapted into 1973 cult classic The Wicker Man, the idea of a rural town harbouring pagan beliefs and merrily sacrificing dissenters solidified itself as a narrative device in horror cinema, with a through line that can be traced all of the way to Ari Aster’s Midsommar (2019) and Ben Wheatley’s In The Earth (2021).

And here's the thing - it's very unlikely that Walton's murder had anything to do with magick or witchcraft, just like the also-famous and also non-occult murder of Jeannette DePalma that took place in the United States in 1972. As in the DePalma case, police looked at the Walton crime scene and decided that there had to be a sinister occult motive behind the crime. This was because he was killed with farm implements (that he might have just been carrying with him, since he was a farm worker) and had a mark like a cross in his chest (when any two intersecting cuts form a cross).

Against Gay Eggs

It's true - one of the reasons I'm covering this story is that you don't get a lot of opportunities to use headlines that involve anything as ridiculous as gay eggs. But this also is an article about evangelical censorship advocacy group One Million Moms, an organization that I've covered before that is better described as "A Couple Thousand Crazy People."

Groups like One Million Moms are basically the tip of the spear (so to speak) for those Poor Oppressed Christians who are "oppressed" by the mere existence of gay people, trans people, atheists, non-Christians, and even Christians from denominations other than their own. There's no compromising with them because they can't possibly be expected to coexist with even a single opinion, belief, or identity dissenting from their own.

The latest dumb outrage from the group is over a commercial for Cadbury Creme Eggs that briefly shows a gay couple. As the article points out, the commercial in question only airs on British television and One Million Moms is an American group. So the only way for their members to see it and be offended by it is for other members of the group to send it to them along with breathless condemnations of how awful it is.

The ad shows people eating the chocolate Easter candy in various ways. But the gay couple who appear in the commercial for six seconds, they say, are “graphic and disturbing.” Real-life couple Callum Sterling and Dale Moran went viral this month after they were featured in a Cadbury Cream Egg commercial. The two men share one of the chocolate treats as other people demonstrate other ways to eat the confection.

Monica Cole, the perpetually perturbed head of the group, sent a breathless email alert to her decidedly-less-than a million followers alerting them of the chocolate commercial that describes the men as “disgusting” and “gross.” The group uses the words by attributing them to random “Christians and non-Christians” who have commented on the internet. The alert also quotes a far-right columnist who compares the men to dogs.

Jesus Arrested in Russia

Here's a question for everyone worried about the current state of the world, political and otherwise. Lots of people online have noted that there are at least an unusual number of similarities between Donald Trump and the description of The Beast from the Book of Revelation. Yeah, I know, 666 is Kaiser Nero and all that, so it likely refers to events that happened two thousand years ago.

But stay with me here. What if this guy really is Jesus?

Russian authorities mounted a special operation to arrest a former traffic police officer who claims to be the reincarnation of Jesus and has run a cult based in the depths of Siberia for the past three decades.

Helicopters and armed officers stormed communities run by Sergei Torop, known to his followers as Vissarion, and arrested him and two of his aides. Russia’s investigative committee said it would charge him with organising an illegal religious organisation, alleging that the cult extorted money from followers and subjected them to emotional abuse.

Torop, 59, with long grey hair and a beard, was led by masked troops to a helicopter. The operation involved agents from Russia’s FSB security service as well as police and other agencies. Vadim Redkin, a former drummer in a Soviet-era boyband who is known as Vissarion’s right-hand man, was also arrested, along with another aide, Vladimir Vedernikov.

Torop, who lost his job as a traffic officer in 1989, claimed he experienced an “awakening” as the Soviet regime began to collapse. In 1991 he founded a movement now known as the Church of the Last Testament. Several thousand followers live in a series of remote hamlets in the Krasnoyarsk region in Siberia. Converts to the cult have included professionals from across Russia as well as pilgrims from abroad.

And yeah, I also know there's no evidence that any of the many folks over the years who have claimed to be Jesus are the real thing. Torop's story doesn't sound very convincing either. But again, stay with me. If Trump is the Beast, and Torop is Jesus, then the way forward to fix the world is clear. All we need to do is drop Trump (The Beast) and Torop (Jesus) into an arena and have them fight.

When Jesus wins - which he should since Torop is more than a decade younger and appears to be in much better shape, and besides look at the size of those hands - all of the prophecies will be fulfilled and the world will go back to normal.

One can hope, right?

Penis Candle Toad Venom WHUT???

Possible captions include "Don't lick it, man!" and "Does this toad look high to you?"

This story from AV Club seemingly has it all - penis candles, rituals, toad venom, and manslaughter. Oh, and Spain. If you're wondering what the hell I'm going on about, you're not alone. But here's deal, according to the article:

Today, in ritualistic toad venom death news: A man best known as a prominent Spanish adult film actor—but who also has a sideline selling candles shaped like his own penis—has been arrested on charges of involuntary manslaughter in relation to, well, a death from ritualistic toad venom ingestion.

Ignacio “Nacho” Vidal—a well-known porn performer with several AVN awards, and more than 1,500 credits to his name—was, per The Guardian this week, reportedly arrested in relation to the death of photographer José Luis Abad, in July of last year. Abad died after inhaling vaporized secretions from Incilius alvarius, a species of North American toad that secretes multiple hallucinogenic compounds (and also a few different potentially lethal poisons) when threatened.

Incilius alvarius (a.k.a. the Colorado River toad) has a long and complicated history as a controlled substance (or provider of same), and is both endangered and illegal to transport in a number of states. In addition, Bufotenin, one of the primary hallucinogens excreted by the animal, is considered a Class I controlled substance in the U.S., although it’s not immediately clear whether it carries similar restrictions in Spain, where Abad’s death occurred.

Spanish police have arrested three people in relation to the incident, with Vidal believed to be one of them. Police have accused Vidal of serving as a guide for a “mystical ritual” using the venom, and argue that he encouraged participation from “highly suggestible people who were especially vulnerable and were seeking alternative ways to cure certain ailments or addictions.” (They also claimed he downplayed the potential lethality of the secretions.)

5G COVID Conspiracist is an Evangelical Pastor

Among the goofier conspiracies out there is the claim that 5G cell phone signals somehow cause people to become infected with the COVID-19 virus. Not only does this make no medical sense at all, there's also no actual evidence to support it. Nonetheless, a video making those claims showed up on the Internet back in March and has been widely circulated. According to this article from The Guardian, the video is the work of Jonathon James, an evangelical pastor from Luton.

A recording spread around the world at the end of March, purportedly featuring a former Vodafone executive claiming to let the public in on a secret that the coronavirus pandemic is cover for a global plot to install 5G mobile phone masts, track the world’s population through vaccines, and then destroy human society as we know it. In reality, the Guardian can reveal, the voice on the tape making the baseless claims is an evangelical pastor from Luton who recently tried to convince Zimbabweans to use cryptocurrency in their economy.

Jonathon James, who regularly preached at churches in Bedfordshire, is the previously unidentified individual who reached millions of people with his detailed but nonsense claims that Covid-19 is a fake disease covering for the impact of 5G. “It has nothing to do with biological warfare but is our bodies reacting to radiofrequency radiation,” he told listeners to the 38-minute recording, claiming the real cause of global deaths was new mobile technology causing cell poisoning. “They are using coronavirus to try to hide the fact that people are dying from the 5G frequency.”

Although James was not the first individual to attempt to connect the pandemic and 5G, the popularity of his recording grew at the end of last month, just as people believing the conspiracy theory began to burn down phone equipment and harass telecoms engineers. In the recording he suggests that Bill Gates is involved in a plot to produce coronavirus vaccinations that will contain computer chips to track individuals, a move he claims will ultimately herald the destruction of society.

There's a reason I constantly make fun of specifically evangelical Christians. For whatever reason, they seem to be incapable of minding their own business. Their mindset appears to be that they cause all the annoyance (and even carnage) that they want, but whenever somebody like me puts up an blog post saying that what they're doing is dumb, they're "under attack." It's a vicious circle, because if they would stop behaving that way I wouldn't have grounds to criticize them and would stop.

I don't know exactly how the laws work in Britain, but in the United States "inciting speech" is not protected speech - as I've brought up here multiple times in the context of Alex Jones and the whole Sandy Hook mess. If you're a religious leader and you tell your followers to go and burn down cell phone towers and then they do it, that seems to me to be a clear case of inciting speech. That is the sort of thing that religious leaders need to be held accountable for - religion can't be an excuse to commit crimes.

It also amazes me how much of the really ridiculous "fake news" floating around out there comes from the evangelical world. There's a difference between religious beliefs and facts - there's no objective way to prove or disprove the existence of divine beings beyond the scope of the natural world, but it should be pretty easy to run an experiment and show that nobody is going to get infected with a virus because somebody nearby turned on a 5G phone.

"Cultists" at the Cafe

The always-sensationalistic Daily Mail has an article up today about a woman named Anya Driscoll who went to use the toilet at a vegan cafe in south London and encountered a meeting of "Satanic cult members" on the way. The alleged cultists were, horror of horrors, eating brunch. But Driscoll knew they were cultists because they were wearing robes and a couple of them had ceremonial daggers.

Anya Driscoll, who works as a copywriter, was dining with her brother at the Bonnington Cafe in Vauxhall on Saturday when she ventured to the toilet and came across the meeting of 20 people in floor-length black robes with ceremonial daggers eating pork pies.

After taking to Twitter to share her story, she discovered it was likely a meeting of Order of Oriental Templars, or OTO - a group which was brought to Britain in the early 20th century by infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, who was widely believed to be a satanist, and was dubbed 'the wickedest man in the world'.

Anya told how she was enjoying her mid-morning meal when her brother went to the toilet and came back urging her to find the bathroom. 'He won't tell me what's up, so - suspecting I'm going to look at some really bad art about veganism - I go,' she wrote.

'I was so wrong. I step through a signposted door that takes me into the terraced building next door. The toilet is apparently on the third floor... It feels I'm walking up the stairs in a private home. At the top of the first flight of stairs is a landing room.

'It appears to be a kitchen. On a table, a Classic British buffet of scotch eggs, breadsticks, cheese etc is laid out. The room is full. A party! Except... All the people - and there are at least 20 of them - are wearing floor-length black robes. Some have ceremonial daggers. They're making polite conversation and chomping on mini pork pies. It's like Eyes Wide Shut meets Keeping Up Appearances.'

Ireland Abolishes Blasphemy Laws

In a big win for religious freedom in Ireland, the nation has now formally abolished its "blasphemy laws." Humanist groups have been campaigning for the repeal for many years now, leading up to a referendum in 2018 to amend the Irish constitution to remove the relevant clause. The change has now gone into effect, and Ireland is blasphemy-law-free.

The change in law comes after the people of Ireland voted overwhelmingly in referendum in October 2018 to amend its constitution to remove a clause which punished so called “blasphemy”. It was agreed that the following clause would be removed from the Irish constitution: “blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law”.

Atheist Ireland, a member of Humanists International, has spent more than a decade lobbying for repeal of the blasphemy law with the Irish Government and Department of Justice. Atheist Ireland report that the Irish President has recently signed the Blasphemy (Abolition of Offences and Related Matters) Bill 2019.

Humanists International coordinates the global campaign to repeal blasphemy laws. The Board of Humanists International made a direct appeal to the people of Ireland in May 2018 when it passed a resolution calling for a ‘yes vote’ to the proposed constitutional amendment. Also, in August 2018, the chief executive of Humanists International also urged the people of Ireland to scrap its “blasphemy” laws in a speech to the Humanist Association of Ireland in Carlingford.

Blasphemy laws aren't just an issue for atheists and other humanists. They can easily be exploited by fundamentalist religious groups to go after anyone who doesn't share their strict religious beliefs, whether their targets are believers or not. With the recent rise of the Christian Right in the United States, I can only imagine how much damage they could do if they had blasphemy laws at their disposal.

Congratulations to the people of Ireland, for protecting the rights of all people to practice - or not practice - their religious beliefs as they see fit.

This Port Tastes Like Pee

This story is from a month ago, but it's still funny enough to post. A presenter on the BBC Antiques Roadshow television series sampled a bottle from the nineteenth century, believing it to be port. Unfortunately for him, analysis revealed the that bottle was in fact a "witch bottle" containing urine, brass pins, and other tokens intended to ward off evil.

Glass specialist Andy McConnell inspected a sealed bottle from the 19th century on the BBC show, and decided to sample its mystery contents in front of an expectant audience. Presenter Fiona Bruce had unfortunate news for Mr McConnell, telling him that expert analysis of the antique bottle’s “very brown” liquid revealed it to be an unwanted vintage.

The glassware antiquarian sipped the well-aged urine when valuing a bottle in Trelissick, Cornwall, for a 2016 programme, after the item was found buried under the threshold of a local man’s house. Mr McConnell used a syringe to transfer a sample from the bottle to a tumbler, and sipped at the mystery beverage.

“It’s very brown,” he told the audience at the time. “I think it’s port. It’s port or red wine, or it’s full of rusty old nails and that’s rust.” In a programme broadcast on Sunday, Fiona Bruce delivered bad news to the specialist, after experts at Loughborough University had analysed the contents of the bottle.

The idea behind a witch bottle is that it acts as a sort of "lightning rod" to attract curses and negative magick. The urine links the bottle to the caster so that a spell targeting them will hit the bottle instead, and the container itself and the sharp metal objects usually placed within contain and neutralize the spell, rendering it harmless.

After hundreds of years there probably isn't much magick left in the bottle, so the presenter will likely escape any negative effects from sampling the bottle - you know, aside from drinking somebody's ancient pee.

Spells Against Illegal Logging

Romania has some of the last old-growth forests left in Europe. It also has an entrenched illegal logging industry that threatens those forests. In order to stop the illegal logging, Greenpeace Romania has organized protests and mobilized environmental activists. The organization has also taken the unusual step of working with a prominent local witch, Irina Primavera, to curse loggers who cut down trees illegally.

In Romania, the homeland of superstition and the Dracula, witches thrived at a time when medieval witch-hunts plagued most of Europe leading to the mass murder of at least 100,000 women. In fact, witchcraft is alive in the country to this date. Even the country’s politicians fear it. Hundreds of witches practice their craft across Romania claiming to cure diseases, rid people of evil spells, predict the future, make and break marriages, and more. And they have a sizeable following from all walks of Romanian life.

So, given the indifference of authorities regarding illegal logging, Greenpeace Romania adopted the unconventional approach to use witchcraft as a tool to grasp the attention of the country towards the issue. Instead of celebrities, influencers and activists, Greenpeace took the assistance of Irina Primavera, a real Romanian witch, to cast a spell on illegal loggers.

In the campaign film “Curse for Good,” Irina, who claimed to have inherited her special powers from her grandmother Dochi, recognizes the trees as beings with souls. She said: “I saw the disaster they left here and what is happening in our country. They left the place bare, they cut down souls, trees that were hundreds of years old. They left a lot of pain behind them.”

To stop them (the illegal loggers), Irina cast a spell that whoever cut down a tree, a curse would befall on them and their family, and their relatives for 99 generations.

What that means is that there might be an avenue here for paranormal research. If we could identify a population that seems to have an unusual level of misfortune, and then map that group to the population of illegal loggers, we might be able to see the spell in action. On the other hand, if no such analysis can be done, it's hard to say whether it's working. Of course, the end goal is to reduce illegal logging, which should be easier to determine.

Bad Devil Worshipper

And by bad, I don't mean evil. I mean inept. This article from the sensationalistic Daily Mail asks the question - is a Satanic cult on the loose in rural Hampshire? As evidence, they cite several sheep that were found dead with pentagrams and the number 666 spray-painted on them, and vandalism of a local church that consisted of spray-painted pentagrams, the number 666, and inverted crosses. But if they're talking about an organized cult, or even a real occultist, the answer is a flat-out no. I'll explain as I go through the article.

Rounding up the hefty sheep that graze half-wild on this unfenced expanse is no easy task, even for an experienced shepherd. But somehow they managed to capture one: a pretty black-faced ewe.

The ewe’s owners, Colin Barnes, 76, and his partner Heather Miles, 68 (so-called ‘commoners’ entitled to rear animals in the forest under an ancient law), called her ‘Fluffy’. She was kept for breeding and would have roamed contentedly for the rest of her days. Yet with one precise thrust of a long, very sharp knife, the couple’s sheep was callously dispatched.

As Fluffy bled slowly to death, the attacker used blue aerosol paint to defile her with satanic symbols. A pentagram (five-pointed star) was drawn on her thick fleece, and 666 — supposedly the Devil’s number — on her ear.

While this is clearly the work of a sicko going around looking for animals to kill, I'll point out the first clue that this is no real occultist. The spray paint was blue. It's no coincidence that pentagrams are normally drawn in red. Red = Geburah, strength or power, in the Qabalistic system used by magicians. Geburah is associated with the color red and the number five. The angel of Geburah is Samael or Zamael, often associated with Shaitan or Satan (which is a title meaning "accuser," not a proper name).

Osama Bin Laden Seashell

People who encounter pareidolia normally perceive religious images like Jesus or the Virgin Mary in patterns that crop up randomly on pieces of toast, sides of buildings, or really pretty much anywhere. But according to this article from the British tabloid Metro, a seashell collector in East Sussex came across a far more sinister image - the face of former al-Qaida leader and world-renowned terrorist Osama Bin Laden.

Debra Oliver, 60, was on Winchelsea Beach, East Sussex with husband Martin, 62, to celebrate their 42nd wedding anniversary. After discovering the shell on the floor she said that they ‘fell apart laughing’ and have kept it as a little memento. Debra, from Brentford, west London, also pointed out the irony of the situation. She said: ‘funny that – he was buried at sea too.'

She said: 'It’s not that often you find a seashell that looks like anyone at all, so finding Osama bin Laden was amazing. We’d all gone for a walk on the beach, which is covered in millions and millions of shells and pebbles. I was drawn to this curious-looking shell, and went to pick it up. When I looked at it properly up close, I thought it looked like Jesus. I then saw a turban on the top, and realised who was staring up at me in the palm of my hand – Osama bin Laden.’

In the image above Deborah shows off her find. I have to admit, the shell does a lot look like the face of a man with a beard wearing a turban. It's probably a random coincidence, given the sheer number of shell configurations that exist in the world at any one time. Still, at the very least it's good for a laugh, and after all, you never quite know for sure. Could the famed terrorist leader have some paranormal connection to the shell?

A Real Ghost?

The image above comes from a pretty impressive video that was made during a Facebook ghost hunt in Hull, UK. The image isn't nearly as good as the live video version, which you can watch at the link there. To my eye it shows a three-dimensional shadowy figure that doesn't look like it could be a trick of the light. So is it a real ghost?

Ghost hunters Lee Steer and Lindsay Sheeran held a live paranormal investigation on F acebook - and were stunned by the "spirit" they say they uncovered. The pair streamed it to their followers on their Ghosts of Britain group during a visit to Hull's derelict Lord lane building.

They got more than they bargained for and claim their specialist equipment recorded a spooky figure roaming the abandoned halls. Lee and Lindsay told the Hull Daily Mail that they had never been so scared by what they and other witnesses saw. "We live streamed our investigation to thousands and loads of people were commenting that they could see a shadow stood in the hallway in one of the rooms in the Lord Line building," Lee, 34, said.

"I was on the top floor of the building and felt like my legs were jellified. We do these kinds of investigations a lot but this one made me feel really uneasy. I felt scared, like I was sinking and it was a type of fear that's hard to explain - it just wasn't right."

As part of their visit, they asked the "spirits" to change the temperature by 5c. Upon their command, they say the room went very hot - then cold by 10c. "That's not something that we could have physically done," he added.

Looking at this like a skeptic, I would say this either has to be the real thing or a hoax. There isn't much room for ambiguity or misidentification. It wouldn't be that difficult to have someone stand there with a dark sheet over them and then step away from the camera in such a way that it looks like they disappeared. But if that isn't what happened, we could be looking at a real paranormal apparition or manifestation.

What the video most reminds me of is the figure captured on video by Ghost Hunters at Eastern State Penitentiary during the show's first season, but much closer to the camera. The Ghost Hunters apparition looked like a similar shadowy figure, but it comes into view further away and immediately runs off into the darkness. That one looked like it could only be a hoax or a real apparition too.

So is this a ghost? Maybe. It certainly is one of the best videos I've seen in awhile.

What About Eels?

Longtime readers of Augoeides should be familiar with my contention that the Loch Ness Monster could be an Atlantic sturgeon, as well as the work of Steve Feltham, a longtime Loch Ness researcher who disagrees with me and thinks it's a Wels catfish. But now a recent article from the British tabloid Mirror asks the question that neither of us are asking - what about eels?

Scientists now believe that they may have evidence that the creature could be a ‘giant eel’ after carrying a DNA investigation at the lake. Researchers have been taking samples from Loch Ness and constructing a list of the life that is in the waters by looking at genetic remnants.

Prof Gemmell, who worked on the project, said: ‘We found large amounts of eel DNA in the Loch Ness, every single site we went to had eels. Is it possible there’s a giant eel? Maybe. We don’t know if the DNA is gigantic or just many small eels.’

Let's take a look at this hypothesis. The largest eel by weight in the world is the European Conger, which can grow to almost ten feet long. That's big, but not as big as an Atlantic sturgeon or Wels catfish. I will say that a very large conger could in theory breach the water and explain some of the "hump" sightings of the creature. Looking at pictures like this one I have a much easier time seeing that as an eel than a catfish - even though it really looks more like the back of a sturgeon to me.

That Teddy Bear is Totally Haunted

This article sounds exactly like the first act of a new horror movie. The movie I'm thinking of would be a little like the Chucky series of films, with the twist being that Chucky is a haunted, murderous teddy bear. The whole concept manages to be ridiculous, but at the same time pretty creepy. Here's the story.

Marie and Steve Wesson, owners of Nottingham's Haunted Museum, discovered the venue's only metal door under a layer of plasterboard when they acquired the old Mapperley picturehouse last year. It was sealed shut in an emergency exit chute with plugs and electrics fitted over it, and sinister rumours circulated about its past.

Marie and Steve, scared of what they might find behind it, have left it locked for more than a year, Nottinghamshire Live reports. But on Thursday, along with a group of seven paranormal enthusiasts, they finally cracked it open. Inside, Marie claims they found a five-pointed pentagram star made from charcoal, a grubby old teddy bear and a collection of white candles burnt to their stubs.

It was a shock to the 44-year-old, who'd just expected to find a brick wall on the other side of the door. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing," says Marie, who recreated a ghostly groping for an American TV show. "We're paranormal investigators not satanists so were are going to have to get on it to find out as much as we can about it."

She's convinced however, that spooky things have already been going on. "During investigations [at the museum, recently ranked the 29th most haunted place in the UK by supernatural website higgypop.com], we've had voice recordings of someone saying 'don't open the door' and 'don't open the door' with a sinister laugh after.

This is so much like a movie, in fact, I have to wonder if it might some sort of setup to generate publicity. But let's say that it isn't, just for the sake of argument and because it makes the whole thing a lot more potentially interesting.

Consequences of Yellow Journalism

You can try to make the case that yellow journalism is harmless. But the problem with histrionic articles is that they motivate people who are already on the edge. Sure, these people aren't exactly stable, and they probably would latch onto something extreme regardless of what's in the media, but still. Today's news is that another fire has hit Boleskine House, which the previous article I critiqued claimed in the headline was to reopen as a "sex magick retreat" - and then, the author admitted in the article itself that there was no evidence of any such thing.

Boleskine House along, overlooking Loch Ness, was badly damaged by a blaze in 2015 and the ruin was sold earlier this year. Crowley was said to have performed occultist rituals at the property when he lived there between 1899 and 1913. The B-listed Georgian building was later owned by musician Jimmy Page, of Led Zeppelin.

The Scottish Fire and Rescue Service said the alarm was raised shortly before 16:00 and two appliances were sent to the property. Crews tackled separate blazes in Boleskine House and the neighbouring coach house. The Friends of Boleskine House later posted on Facebook that the coach house had been saved but what was left of the roof of Boleskine House had collapsed. The group said the fires were started deliberately.

So here's my question - does anybody in their right mind think that this fire wasn't started by somebody who read the tabloid article and completely freaked out? There are other possibilities, sure, but I'm pretty sure at this point that it's by far the most likely one. Just like the argument I made with Alex Jones, the fact of the matter is that speech that incites is inciting speech, full stop. I don't know exactly how free speech laws work in the UK, but arson is clearly a crime and it's hard to think there's no relationship between it and the article.

As the renovations go forward, the site clearly needs better security - especially if more exaggerated media nonsense about the place is on the way.

Yellow Journalism at its Finest

Mysterious Universe is not exactly known for reasonable and accurate reporting of events. And by "not exactly" I mean "not at all." The website is the home of various articles on the weird and potentially paranormal. It features hyperbolic commentary that is fun to read and which also often falls short of this pesky little thing called "truth." This article, though, is one of the worst examples that I have come across. Follow my section-by-section commentary here to find out why.

Back in April, the former home of occultist Aleister Crowley went up for sale. Boleskine House, a reportedly cursed Loch Ness estate where Crowley famously conducted Satanist rituals and black magick ceremonies between 1899 and 1913, has been the subject of lore and legend for decades partly due to the reputation of its infamous former owner and partly due to strange events reported at the site.

Much of this is the basic boilerplate that shows up in every article about Aleister Crowley. He was a Satanist. He performed "black magick," whatever that is. Weird and disturbing events are reported at places associated with him. But I dare the author to get in touch with somebody like Aaron Leitch and ask whether the Abramelin operation (which is the magical operation Crowley actually started at Boleskine House) is "Satanist black magick." I would pay to eavesdrop on that conversation, because I expect it would be hilarious.

After Crowley sold the house in 1913, its next owner committed suicide with a shotgun. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page then bought the home, and the caretaker hired to oversee the estate reported witnessing strange occurrences that seemed to suggest Boleskine House was haunted or otherwise cursed.

Again, classic sensationalism. Note that the "strange occurrences" are never really detailed. Also, mental illness and suicide are a lot more common than many people realize. One suicide at a house is not exactly a trend. Jimmy Page owned the house for years and he's rich and successful, so totally not cursed.

Boleskine House Has Been Sold

Boleskine House, Aleister Crowley's former home on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland, has been sold. Back in 2015 a fire believed to have started in the kitchen burned down much of the structure, leaving behind the remains shown in the image above. The site was placed on the market several months ago.

The former Highland home of occultist Aleister Crowley that was largely destroyed by fire four years ago has been sold. The new owners of Boleskine House near Loch Ness will be hoping for a new peaceful chapter in the property's story with it understood the house is to become home to a charitable foundation and opened up to the public.

Those who have bought the property have not been named but they plan to fully restore the house where Crowley centred his black magic investigations after he bought it, aged 25, in 1899. It was later bought by Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page in the 1970s with the rock god owning the "most notorious home in the Highlands" for around 20 years.

As a point, describing the Abramelin operation as "black magic" is not very accurate, but that's to be expected. Crowley has never really gotten a fair shake in British media.

A blaze in 2015 caused extensive damage to Boleskine House with the fragile building now a danger to the public. It has long drawn those curious in the occult but the new owners have urged people to stay away until the house is fully repaired and restored to a safe state.

The new buyers have remained anonymous so far, but I imagine that they are likely Thelemites or at least occultists of some flavor with an interest in Crowley's work. Fixing up the site and opening it to the public is a great idea, and as I mentioned to a commenter here on Augoeides, if I was rich enough to afford buying the place and repairing the damage I might have done something similar.

Best wishes to the new owners, and I look forward to someday being able to visit.

Uri Geller Brings Down The House

If by "bring down" you mean "made a pipe leak" and by "house" you mean the House of Commons. I missed this story back in April, but I'm catching up now.

After posting an open letter to Prime Minister Theresa May stating that he would stop Brexit with his psychic powers, the famed (and debunked) psychic made good on his threats. He claims to have caused a pipe to leak, which resulted in the temporary closure of the House of Commons. This is a logical extension of his old spoon-bending powers, but it also is a little sad. If I were going to try and influence a political body with magick, I could do so much better than a leaky pipe.

He shared a video on Twitter this morning of a leaking pipe at the Uri Geller Museum in Tel Aviv, taken at about 12.40PM UK time. He says this gave him the inspiration to carry out his sabbotage of Parliament.

‘This is when I got the idea! PARLIAMENT! I can’t sack them but I can soak them,’ tweeted Uri, who is a British citizen but lives in Israel. Uri Geller said coffee shop leak 'inspired' him to sabotage Parliament

It’s not like you couldn’t see it coming, after the 72-year-old self-proclaimed psycic warning sent an open letter to Theresa May last month saying: ‘I love you very much but I will not allow you to lead Britain into Brexit. ‘As much as I admire you, I will stop you telepathically from doing this – and believe me I am capable of executing it.’

At this point, many hardcore remainers might think that anything is worth a try, but it probably would have helped if MPs were actually talking about Brexit at the time of the flooding and not the introduction of the 2019 Loan Charge.

It's almost as if Geller were an ineffective superhero from The Tick or Mystery Men with the power to "kind of bend metal a little, you know, some of the time," like a super-super-low-budget Magneto. And speaking of The Tick, "Spoon!" should totally be Geller's battle-cry. But could he really not think of anything better to do than mess with a pipe? Mind-to-mind influence is way more effective than random parlor tricks like this, and the House of Commons wasn't even discussing Brexit when he alleges he did it.

Yes, psychic abilities are just like spells in that sometimes their effects don't manifest the way we expect. Now it could be that he's spent the last month using mental influence to defeat each of May's attempts to get a Brexit plan through Parliament, and the idea is now as unpopular as it's ever been. So maybe I'll cut him a little slack. You know, maybe…

Because let's face it - I was hoping for something really dramatic once the spoons started rolling. Instead, I got a leaky pipe. It's a bit of a letdown, almost as if he didn't really do anything and just took credit for something that happened on its own.