COFFIN HOP 2014

Welcome to the 2014 Coffin Hop!

Please visit all the other authors after you are done here by clicking the horrible pumpkin button ---------------------------------->>>>

My Coffin Hop challenge this year will test your mind reading capabilities.

I will choose a series of FOUR letters from the alphabet and focus the energy of the letters on the crystal ball in front of the mind reading gypsy. Please use your psychic powers and see if you can tell what letters have been chosen, and put your answer in the comments below. (The four letters do NOT form a word and were chosen yesterday and sent to Axel, the Big Daddy of the Hop, to keep everyone honest.)

At the end of the hop, the person who has the best psychic abilities will win GHOST WRITER ~ a miniature, leather-bound book about a tiny ghosts who faces the same problems as we the living have here on earth.

Ghost Writer has issues with grammar, syntax, punctuation, and has a pile of rejection letters as long as your arm. 

The book is hand-bound with wax coated string, and has original art on each of its ten pages.


Please, please, please SCARE ME!

Thanks for stopping by dearies. XO

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EVIL FLOWERS

Flowers are lovely, and almost everyone loves to receive them. Daisies are bright and cheerful. They remind us of a summer's day  and represent friendship. Roses are elegant and beautiful and are given to our true love. As children we picked tiny yellow buttercups and put them under our chins; if our friends saw a yellow reflection they knew we were fond of butter.

Some of us like the darker, or more morbid versions of flowers.

We can find black versions of tulips, irises, roses, lilies, and many more. We can grow them in our gardens and listen to the Oooos and Aaahhhs from the neighbors who are unfamiliar with these unusual blooms.

I have seen black flowers in wedding bouquets and gracing the wedding cake. They are a favorite at flower and garden shows, and simply fun to grow and look at.

Odessa Calla Lily

 

Morticia Addams cut the bright heads off her roses so she was left with the lovely thorns.

Rick Moranis fed the Venus fly trap unspeakable meals in Little Shop of Horrors.

Not all flowers are pink or yellow and bring back sweet childhood memories.

Some have thorns, some eat protein, and some can kill.

Hidden behind Blarney Castle in Cork, Ireland is a poison garden that contains plants that are so toxic and dangerous that some need to be behind a cage like structure. Wolfsbane, Mandrake, Opium, Ricin, Aconitum, and Belladonna are some of the beautiful yet deadly flowers you can view. Some of these plants have been used as herbal remedies in the past, and many are still used in homeopathy today.

Helleborus

is a beautiful plant with a color range from light green to black. It blooms in the winter and can cause burns on the hands if not picked with gloves. If eaten it is highly emetic and potentially fatal. Years ago parents used to treat worms with this plant. It is said if you step on a Christmas rose you will become invisible.

Another poisonous plant is Belladonna, which means 'beautiful woman'. This name came from a troubling practice in Italy where a woman was given Belladonna and her pupils dilated, giving her a very striking and lovely appearance. But ingesting this plant not only causes dilated pupils, but increased sweating, rapid heartbeat, hallucinations, and even death.

It is used as a homeopathic remedy, especially for children with fevers that make the child look red, feel hot, and experience throbbing in the head or anywhere else.

Severus Snape made Aconite, or Wolfsbane a household name when he stumped Harry Potter with a poisons question in his stressful class in the book Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Aconitum is known as the queen of poisons, and was once used to kill wolves years ago. It is said that those in 'an aconite state' are filled with fear, feverish, and can predict the hour that they will die. When ingested it will cause nausea and vomiting, slowing of the heart and respiration, an unpleasant tingling of the limbs, and eventual death, usually within the hour. Poisoning can happen from a skin prick also. In 2004 a British actress poisoned her lover with an Aconite laced curry dish. She is currently serving a life sentence for murder.

There are hundreds of other deadly and beautiful plants.

Although not a flower, a mention of the Manchineel tree is warranted.

The Manchineel tree (Hippomane Mancinella) is so dangerous, it’s often marked with warning signs. Its leaves and small green fruit resemble those of an apple tree, hence the name – which is derived from “manzanilla”, meaning “little apple” in Spanish. But in Spain, this tree is more often known as “little apple of death”. All parts of this tree are so toxic that if you burn it and stand near the smoke, you can go blind.
Stand under this tree during a rainstorm, and you’ll get a nasty surprise in the form of blisters all over exposed parts of your body caused by contact with a white milky substance that the tree secretes when it rains. The Caribs used Manzanilla sap to poison their arrows and even tied captives to its trunk to ensure a slow and painful death. (From WebEcoist)

Interesting that Harry Potter's awful caregivers lived on Privet Drive. Privet is an innocuous looking bush with yellow berries, but the result of ingestion is terrible. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and cold clammy skin are the result. Horses are especially susceptible to the poison, and riders should avoid at all costs.

With lovely names like Fairy Bells and Heart of Jesus you would think these plants would make lovely tea or decorate the prettiest cupcakes...but NO. Heart of Jesus will set your mouth and tongue on fire and send you to Hell, and Fairy Bells, or Foxglove (Digitalis) will cause nausea, vomiting, convulsions, cardiac arrest and finally death.

I always hear people say to listen to Mother Nature because it is the most gentle method of healing. I think she is the most fierce and ruthless Mother I've ever met. She takes no prisoners and does not care who you are when she takes a stand.

Certainly plants and flowers enhance our lives with their beauty and medicinal uses...but beware, things are NOT always as they seem. :) 

A DARKER DISNEY and some LOST DISNEY RIDES

Disney has done nothing but gain popularity since it first opened its magical gates in 1955. The Jungle Cruise, Mark Twain's Riverboat, and Peter Pan's Flight were all working attractions on this memorable first day, and patrons could visit Tomorrowland, Frontierland, Main Street U.S.A, Fantasyland and Adventureland. 

One of the reasons for Disney's timeless popularity is its family friendly atmosphere. There have been a few rides that did not make it to Disney's roster because they were too scary, and some because the story line did not quite work. One of the rejected rides, Museum of the Weird, was to have a grandfather clock decorated in human bones, a haunted organ played by a spooky skeleton, and wallpaper that seemed to stare at the guests. Read more about it here:
http://theweek.com/article/index/242416/6-rejected-disney-theme-park-rides

The youngest of kids can enjoy the scariest ride at Disney, the Haunted Mansion.

Waiting in the line is fun. An interactive wall, a slightly spooky graveyard, and a maze effect makes the time breeze by in a pleasant way.

But wouldn't it be divine if there was a Terrorland?

I always wondered what Disney could be like if it was just a touch darker. Yes, they have incorporated the world of Tim Burton and Jack Skellington to a point, but what if they put up a section that was truly scaaaary.

Zombies hobbling around is fun in the local theme parks, but Disney could make it epic. With an unequalled special effects team and a seemingly bottomless pocketbook, the Disney team could create a Terrorland could strike fear in the most daring of Mickey Mouse fans.

I envision the Haunted Mansion a bit less friendly. The graveyard outside could contain a maze similar to the end of The Shining. The pressure to find your way would be multiplied by the chain saw and axe wielding apparitions. The purple and blue lighting and dense fog would enhance the lightning bugs you are supposed to be following, and when you finally arrive winded but safe in a spiderweb filled clearing a series of doors would manifest. The happy lightning bugs would vanish--and you would have to choose an entrance before Mama spider appeared to feed you to her young.

The door to the left would be painted dark scab-red and be surrounded by Gothic black iron. When reaching for the hand-shaped door handle, a voice would subtly whisper there is still a chance to choose another door. You reach for the handle anyway and the wrought iron hand reaches out and grabs you, administering a mild but startling electric shock. The door opens inward and you are pulled into an almost black, candle lit and cinnamon scented chamber by gauze draped ghostly arms. You have chosen the door that takes you through a witch's house, and you will meet her face to face momentarily.

The center door would look very modern and sterile with a distinct hospital feel, with a hand print of blood smeared across its center. The third door would be more like the entrance to a tomb.

All of the doors would take the guest on a different tantalizing journey through hell. The scares could be more psychological--inferred horrors and subtle mind-screws that might get you later on in the night.

There could be a few dark-themed restaurants in Terrorland. For instance, The Bates Motel Diner could serve Mother's Favorite Stew and Norman's Nachos. Lady Fingers would be the expected dessert.  Hell's Kitchen would take on a whole new meaning here.  Just Desserts would feature lovely Sundaes like Vendetta Vanilla and Cape Fear Chip.

Public rest rooms can be creepy to begin with, but with "glass" floors that provide a window to the troll and demon infested bottomless pit below, and ghostly shadows peeking from the dark and cordoned off back corner, a visitor might decide to wait for a calmer visit to the powder room in the Magic Kingdom.

And for the brave kids that DO decide to venture into Terrorland, they would be able to see how they would look aged after 100 years of bad living and debauchery in the Dorian Grey Portrait Room, and get a digital print out to hang in their rooms when they get home so it can haunt them forever. Parents could use it as a discipline tool and remind the little hooligans to always do the right thing because they would not want to sell their souls and end up like Dorian.

Instead of It's a Small World After All playing over and over in your head, you might leave the park with the theme to Halloween on your mind. Listen here:   http://youtu.be/Nq6pekM6sZQ

Just as the rest of the parks in Disney have the happy and friendly characters like Mickey Mouse and Ariel walking around and greeting guests and stopping for pictures, Terrorland will have the same. The mass murderers, ghouls, and other terrors like Freddie Kruger, Pennywise the Clown, and Michael Meyers running around Terrorland will probably be best captured for a photo-op by a Go Pro video camera that does well with running action shots.

Hop on kids!

The subterranean boat ride on the river Styx would take you on a reaper-guided ferry through the nine circles of hell which of course would include snake pits, fire raining from unnatural clouds and pitchfork poking, the basement of a funeral home with all its tubes, tables and formaldehyde, and give you a possibly unwanted underground glimpse of what happens below the ground in the glass coffins in a graveyard.

Oh, the fun I imagine we would all have!

Although I don't think Disney will ever go this dark and indulge me in my wildest haunted fantasies--a girl can dream.

I would love to hear any ideas you might have for Terrorland. Maybe we can gather them up and send them off to Disney on some Jack Skellington stationary. :) Looking forward to what you think.

GATHERING GHOSTS

According to some cultures, ghosts are not only real, but can be troublesome.

Here in the United States we tend to believe in ghosts and they are sensationalized on television shows like Ghost Hunters and Paranormal State. According to these shows, ghosts can do things like decrease the temperature in a room, cause orbs in pictures, occasionally move things like curtains or chairs, and speak in difficult to hear voices that are picked up on EVP recording devices.

If the entity haunting the house is demonic, supposedly it is much more dangerous to the inhabitants of the home. A demon or devil can possess a person and take over their lives.

There are many different types of ghosts according to Chinese culture, and even Confucius said: "Respect ghosts and gods, but keep away from them."

If a person died from hanging by either suicide or execution, or far away from home, a wrongful death, or was drowned, he will leave behind a spirit that is vengeful or evil. They can come to the party that wronged them or even seek to harm them.

Some ghosts are benign like Gui Po, who takes the form of a kindly old woman and helps around the house.

During the Ghost Festival, on the 15th day of the seventh month of the lunar year, ghosts and spirits visit the earth from the lower realms. People are told not to go out alone on festival night if they can help it or swim on this day for fear that a malicious ghosts will attack them or drown them in dark water as revenge. Those born during this month are said to be more sensitive and have the ability to see ghosts and apparitions.

According to folklore in Bali, ghosts clutter where it is dark and not many people walk or visit. If you have many useless papers or a dusty mess beneath your bed spirits may hide there in the quiet and interfere with your sleep. It is said we fear the dark not because of what we can't see, but what we CAN feel. 

Almost everyone feels a little trepidacious when walking down the basement stairs. The darkest corner is exactly where we do not want to go. That creepy corner of the yard by the fence that gets no light from the street lamps...you will probably get someone else to go and look what that noise was.

A Feng Shui practitioner might hang a wind chime in the dark corner of your yard to attract motion and rid the area of ghosts. According to Kartar Diamond, in certain instances hanging a wind chime can actually attract ghosts. (A great book on Feng Shui by Kartar Diamond: http://www.amazon.com/Feng-Shui-Skeptics-Kartar-Diamond/dp/0967193788  In a future post I will be talking about my own experiences with Feng Shui and Kartar Diamond after a long-distance consultation.)

Living too close to a cemetery can cause a property to attract more than its share of spirits also. There is a slang word in Chinese for cemetery because it is said the ghosts that inhabit the graveyard come "to life" at night, like at a nightclub.

If your house is very 'yin' it will attract ghosts also. A yin house is dark, damp, and possibly covered in plants. It could be built into a mountainside or have an overgrown garden or landscape.

If someone died in your current house before you lived there, the previous owner might decide to come and visit. If the death was particularly violent, the spirit might have a hard time detaching from the magnetic pull of the place where the death occurred.

If you have a long empty hallway make especially sure not to collect clutter there. The Chinese believe ghosts can only move in a straight line and call anything too straight a poison arrow. 

Ghosts dislike children and animals, especially if they are noisy and funny--so keep them laughing and busy!

Here is a list of things you can do to keep ghosts away:

* Burn crushed and dried orange peels

* Fu Dogs or Fu Lions placed at the front door keep away ghosts

* Placing a penny in the corner of each room in the house deters evil spirits. Copper conducts love. Even a jar of pennies in a room that seems a bit haunted could be the equivalent of psychic Raid.

* Play music in your house

* Live plants and flowers deter ghosts. Dead plants can give them a place to hover.

* Simply ask the ghosts to leave

* Keep the home immaculate. Fix dripping faucets and clogged drains. Get rid of clutter and pick up crumbs.

* Clean your mirrors and windows until they are spotless. Ghosts cannot inhabit them if they are clean

*Clean gemstones until sparkling and then cleanse them in salt

* Open your windows during the day--let in the sun and the air

* Take down pictures of people that give you any kind of bad feelings. Pictures of the dead can attract negativity and 'bad vibes' too

* Keep the entire house and yard well-lit

* Have your house blessed

* Place lines of salt before the windows of doors of your home. Supposedly ghosts cannot cross them and they cannot get in

* If ghosts are haunting your dreams sleep with a bowl of water beneath your bed. In the morning empty the bowl outside the house

* Remove suspicious or old items--dolls recently purchased from an antique store, ring that belonged to a deceased relative. Ghosts can cling to old items

Although the jury is still out whether ghosts actually exist or not, I will NOT be walking around on July 15th this year without a burly escort. For all I know a ghost could be looking over my shoulder right now...and wondering who is reading this.

If any of you have had any ghostly experiences I would love to know about them. I would also like to hear of any ways you keep the ghosts OUT. :)

More ghostly thoughts from 100 UNFORTUNATE DAYS: 

Day 57

Every single basement has a dark corner or room no one likes. Maybe the whole basement is dark and scary. Spirits collect in dark and cluttered spaces. They hide and wait for you because they are stuck. Some people can see them. Some people see the long thin black wispy figures with arms ten feet long that unfold as they slowly reach for you in the dark because you have to go down there to get something or fix a light bulb or retrieve a screwdriver. Part of you revs up and moves really quickly to get out of there because you know if you wait long enough and the arms fully unfold, they can touch you and then part of you belongs in the black corner in the basement. Then it will be very hard to be normal again. You will wake up in the middle of the night, and you won’t be able to get back to sleep because you will worry about all the things you have done wrong and how you are hurting people.

You can’t get this out of your mind now and you think that maybe if you count and envision each number in your head as you say it in your mind; you can block some of the bad thoughts. Or maybe you can pray—say the Lord’s Prayer over and over and over and God will surely be there to help you because you are saying his prayer.

But it doesn’t help. God doesn’t give a fuck when you are miserable—he doesn’t care if you pray. You can pray until there is blood dripping out of your mouth and nothing will change. God is an asshole that way. Even a relatively rotten person will assist you if you are begging for help. But your thoughts will just revolve through your mind over and over until you want to take a gun like the lead in Fight Club and shoot them out of your head. Maybe someday you will, but for now, you are trying to figure why God is such a jerk and you have to live like this. You wonder why you feel forsaken—well it’s probably because you have been forsaken and you don’t know how to live in that state. Because when you are a kid somebody probably told you everything would be all right, and now you realize they lied.

So you keep lying to yourself, telling yourself it’s not such a big deal, but actually it is. Because now the dark corners in your basement have started to get darker. And bigger. The arms get longer and longer and pretty soon there won’t be anywhere you can go where they can’t touch you. So you start to drink or take pills or do some other kind of drug so you can’t tell when you get touched. But now the problem is you get touched all the time, but you don’t know it.

At least now you don’t care.

 

CURSES! Can It Happen to YOU??

DROP DEAD!

If you uttered these words, even without thinking, according to some you have delivered a curse.

Although one of the definitions of CURSE is: foul language, a more common use is: a prayer or invocation for harm or injury to come upon another. Curses direct negative energy by thought and intention to a person or family or group that are filled with HATE with the purpose of causing harm, illness, pain, or even death.

One theory behind curses is that demons get released when a curse is uttered and they are set free to follow through with the curse until it is done. If the person is "protected", either by a counter curse, Jesus, white light, or another method, the curse may boomerang and get the person who sent the curse, or even an innocent bystander. Some consider it very simple to curse another, and name calling, slander, bad thoughts, gossip, envy, jealousy, or just bad will can cause the person to suffer from a curse of oppression.

Witches are said to be able to send curses, along with gypsies, medicine men--or anyone with a dark wish or hatred toward an enemy they want to see suffer.

In Australia "bone pointing" is a curse that is said to kill its victim without fail. A kundela, the bone used in the terrible killing ritual in the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, is usually human, but can be from an emu or kangaroo, and about 9 inches long and sharpened to a point to resemble a needle. They eye end is threaded with hair from the intended victim and held in place with a gummy resin from a local bush and charged with negative psychic energy and power. When the victim is found, sometimes after months of searching, the killer goes down on one knee and points the kundela and issues a short, harsh chant. The kundela is then ritually burned. The cursed is said never to survive, falling first ill, refusing food, and eventually passing away.  More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdaitcha

Damien Mulkrin, author of the book When Bad Things Happen to Bad People, says you do not need to be a witch or a gypsy to throw a curse--he thinks anyone can do it--and here's how--but be warned, he says it can cause harm--or even death:

1. Rise from your bed at midnight. Sit cross-legged on the floor in a dark, empty room and whisper the words: “Evil, live, live, evil” over and over for one minute. In your mind’s eye, picture the person you want to curse.

2. As the image of the person appears to you, visualize great harm coming to him or her. For example, you might watch with delight as a car runs over him or he falls down a flight of stairs.

3. Savor the victim’s agony – but don’t forget: the misfortune you visualize is the misfortune your victim will suffer in real life. If you visualize the victim losing an eye, he should lose and eye, if you visualize his death, he should die. Carefully consider the outcome before the invocation.

4. As you continue to revel in the imaginary evil you have brought to your enemy, whisper: “Powers of darkness, make this so.” Contemplate your actions for a minute or so and then, says Mulkrin, “your work is done.”

“If you are sincere in your desire to punish an enemy, and have absolutely no reservations about bringing him harm, the curse will work,” he said.

Daniel Mulkrin is said to have vast knowledge of the black arts and is known in the world of occult. (from the blog Peach and Things http://www.peachandthings.com/2011/07/casting-a-spell-or-a-curse/)

And please note that I am NOT recommending this.

The Vatican exorcist Gabriele Amorth, a Roman Catholic priest, states in his book An Exorcist Tells His Story, that there are four types of curses. He said "Spells and witchcraft are two different types of curses." He believes that the other type is through demonic intervention--although he does not claim to know how this works.  The four types of curses are:

1.  Black Magic, Witchcraft and Satanic Rites that Culminate in Black Masses-- Fr. Amorth believes these are all similar since they "obtain a curse against a specific person by invoking a demon but without the use of specific objects".

2. Curses--Fr. Amorth believes curses spoken with true feelings of hate, especially when directed and family and during special occasions like a wedding or Christening, can have terrible consequences.

3. The Evil Eye--this is a spell that is cast while looking at the victim--not by merely casting a glance, but by casting a spell on a predetermined person with the intention of evil.

4. The Spell, Malefice or Hex--the most common type of curse, often used with an object that has been "offered to Satan and imprinted with his evil powers". Items used to represent grace, a cross, baptismal water, or a host can be turned into a malefice, or instrument of harm. These can be used in a DIRECT way--for instance mixing cursed water, herbs, or ash into drink or food, or and INDIRECT way--which is cursing and object that belongs to the person such as a photo, a pen, a pillow, or doll. Fr. Amorth says that he has found "just about everything, from colored and tied ribbons to chunks of hair tightly knotted… animals – especially mice – or geometric shapes; and blood clots. I have seen chunks of wood or iron, twisted wire, and dolls full of piercing and marks and have witnessed the sudden appearance of very thick braids of children or women’s hair" inside of mattresses and pillows of the afflicted. He has also stated that these objects are sometime not visible until holy water is sprinkled on them.

More CURSED information:

A cursed item can be passed to an innocent party, and the curse can then affect them.

Burning a cursed item can cause more problems.

You can accidentally curse someone.

James Dean has a "cursed" Porsche he called "Little Bastard"--he died in a crash in that car and it supposedly caused more injuries and pain after it was sold. See more famous curses here:   http://people.howstuffworks.com/7-famous-curses.htm#page=0

Curses can be cast on generations of families.

God can supposedly curse a whole nation for not following his will.

A curse can befall even an unborn child.

There is a psychosomatic side to curses also.

There are many cases of voodoo and curse deaths in medical literature. I read a story of a man who was cursed with bone pointing, and died in a hospital days later from no apparent cause. He was not poisoned, had no injuries, and had no illness. We could say he thought himself to death. The opposite of the placebo effect, these negative thought pattern deaths are partially a result of what we think is going to happen to ourselves, and what others tell us will.  More on voodoo death here:  http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-human-beast/201209/voodoo-death-i

Whether you believe that demons or negative energy can cause problems if someone curses you, you may doom yourself to seven years of bad luck if you believe TOO much. Or you an be like me and know for a fact that there is not a whammy in sight that can get through my self-made Superman shield.

Or is there... 

I'd love to know any stories you may have about curses--or any you have experienced yourself. Thanks for reading :)

Read about a psychic curse in 100 UNFORTUNATE DAYS:

Day 21

The jar from last year contains my hair. Beautiful long pieces of my hair from when I was 15 years old and the sun turned it golden, in a jar of water from a well with one drop of water from Jar 1.

Jar 1 was given to me by someone I no longer know. Last year’s jar is the only jar that has a screw-on top. This jar has to be put in a dark place, behind the stairs, adjacent to where many people walk every day. Seven years from the day the jar is sealed the hair turns into snakes. The person who owns the jar has two options—1. Release the snakes. They will slither away to find any person who has wounded you, bite them, and kill them. OR 2. Open the jar and place one grain of sugar inside. This makes the snakes sleep forever, but the water in the jar is now as potent as the poison of the snake and you can use it at your own discretion and have the joy of watching your victim die.

But—the snakes know what you are planning and they will try to bite and kill you first. This happened to my mother’s aunt—and they said she died from falling and hitting the back of her head on the wooden floor.

Is Magik REAL?

I do not doubt for one moment the existence of witches.

I know many, and some are great friends.

When I was young I bought a book from a old store called The Abbey in Elizabeth, NJ, as I was waiting for my dad to finish taking pictures of some local characters. This was no Barnes and Noble. There were books from floor to ceiling, in boxes, in barely-lit back rooms, and in bookcases that covered every inch of wall space. Wavy glass let the light into the front of the store, and the original light fixtures and scrolly woodwork gave the store a slightly ominous feel.

Although not labeled, my favorite section was in a corner and thankfully low enough to the ground for a little girl to view. As wide as my arms could span, this section would be called OCCULT in today's bookstores--but unlike today's bookstores, held copies of dusty and out of print gems I can only dream of now.

The book of my choice was filled with spells and illustrated in an almost Edward Gorey-esque style. For twenty five cents I could pay for the book myself, and I did.

The first spell in the book was for love and consisted of finding a personal artifact from the person you wanted to love you. After certain words were spoken the item was buried deeply in a place your love interest would pass often, for instance, near their front door. Within a month, supposedly, they would be yours.

The first entire first chapter consisted of light-hearted, easy-seeming spells. The middle chapter's spells were more complex, and to a girl my age, far more interesting. The Hand of Glory had you digging a grave at midnight and stealing the hand of a thief.

The final chapter had spells that scared me and haunted me--it was my favorite. It was very tempting to use the :To Harm Another" spell after my 5th grade class found my diary in my desk, read it, left their own not always positive comments, and put it back. I did try astral projection and fell asleep. I also tried the spell "See Into One's Soul". This consisted of sitting before a mirror and a candle in a dark room and watching for any changes or signs. It was very frightening to be in a quiet room alone at that age, and my face DID seem to morph and change--and I did NOT like what I saw. I still hope that was not my soul.

The book ended with the spell "To Call the Devil". It said I needed a black hen, black cat, and a black sheep. I was then instructed to kill them and skin them and pour some of their blood into a large receptacle of water. I knew I would not be calling the devil--but wondered what would happen to the people who did do the spell as they waited for his reflection to peer back at them over their left shoulders.

As I think back on this book I wish I had not thrown it into the running water near my home when strange events started occurring in my life. I can see why my father had no problem letting me buy this seemingly innocuous and almost child-like book at such a young age. I had no idea it would get as dark as it did either. I have searched the names of the spells in the book but alas, I can't find it anywhere.

About ten years later I purchased more books from Wiser's Bookstore in NYC. This book was a Golden Dawn manual of sorts, and contained not only spells, but information about rituals, ceremonies, and talismans. I also purchased a book by Aleister Crowley that was very confusing, and some tarot cards. I breezed through both books and got caught up in work and life, and never pursued it much further.

But my interest is still there.

I recently read, "A psychic can read your future--a witch can change it."

This made me wonder if spells can only be done by witches--or by anyone. I've tried several of the spells in several of the books I've had when I was young, to no avail. I do not call myself a witch and ponder what type of things a witch actually CAN change.

I would LOVE some input on this subject! I can look this up and read stories from people on the web but I do not know these people and would be interested in first-hand experiences.

Please tell me. :) And if you know the book I was trying to describe earlier--I'd love to know that too.

Questioning the Blessings

As I was watching an Oprah rerun this weekend I realized how many people believe in or want to believe in angels and God.

The featured woman told a story of how she was walking home alone one night and heard a terrifying noise. She prayed for help and was physically lifted by an angel and carried to the safety of a bridge many feet away. She was spared because she asked God to help her, and he responded by sending one of his angels.

I turned off the television because this got me thinking.

Not because I did not believe her, not because her story was long winded, but because of the idea there is an omnipotent being somewhere choosing who to listen to--and more importantly--who to ignore.

I realized it bothers me when people say they are blessed, and until now I never could not figure out why. I WANT to be blessed, and I want you to be blessed too--but then that leaves the people who are in dire straights, hurting for money, sick, injured, lonely, sad, or worse. Are they the UNblessed? The forgotten? They may believe more than you or I, but all the praying in the world does nothing. It almost felt to me that the "blessed" were bragging and leaving the others that were not lucky enough to be smiled upon by the benign and loving father above out in the cold. Why were they the chosen ones?

So what does that mean?  And what about praying?

There have been some studies concerning prayer and the results are inconclusive. http://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20050714/does-prayer-help-others-heal  The patients in the study listed here had less stress before a heart procedure if they were part of the imagery/music group. The group that was prayed over fared about the same as the group that was not. In a similar study the prayed for group had a slightly higher rate of complications after a medical procedure (52%) compared to the group that was not prayed for (51%). http://www.examiner.com/article/prayer-undergoes-a-real-test-with-interesting-results

Even the Pope has his moments of doubt: http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/27/17113318-pope-benedict-tells-cheering-crowd-i-am-not-abandoning-the-church?lite

He said: "Sometimes it feels like God has been sleeping." Interesting.

Prayer seems to be an unnecessary process if we are to believe in the entity we are praying to. We are taught that God is all-knowing and loving and that prayer will help when you are hurting. But the caveat--it will only work if it is God's will anyway.

I am confused.

Admittedly I am more of an atheist than believer, but this does not mean I cannot be swayed. The gorgeous world around me, the stunning sunsets and beautiful babies born everyday do not mean to me that there is a God--and yet I cannot say 100% there is not.

Many of my prayers and prayers of others I know have been ignored or disregarded, so I eventually stopped praying. I am not wicked and I try and do my best to help others and be a good person--nothing has changed since I have ceased praying other than I feel like less of a hypocrite.

I have many things to be thankful for including an inquisitive mind that can't process a subject simply by faith.

I would love your opinion on the subject--agree or disagree.

I would also love for you to change my mind.

Please read Day 57 from 100 UNFORTUNATE DAYS for more God questions.

100 UNFORTUNATE DAYS is FREE TODAY http://tinyurl.com/bb35r3f

Day 57

Every basement has a dark corner or room no one likes.

Maybe the whole basement is dark and scary. Spirits collect in dark and cluttered spaces. They hide and wait for you because they are stuck. Some people can see them. Some people see the long thin black wispy figures with arms 10 feet long that unfold as they slowly reach for you in the dark because you have to go down there to get something or fix a light bulb or retrieve a screwdriver. Part of you revs up and moves really quickly to get out of there because you know if you wait long enough and the arms fully unfold, they can touch you and then part of you belongs in the black corner in the basement. Then it will be very hard to be normal again. You will wake up in the middle of the night, and you won’t be able to get back to sleep because you will worry about all the things you have done wrong and how you are hurting people. You can’t get this out of your mind now and you think that maybe if you count and envision each number in your head as you say it in your mind; you can block some of the bad thoughts.

Or maybe you can pray—say the Lord’s Prayer over and over and over and God will surely be there to help you because you are saying his prayer. But it doesn’t help. God doesn’t give a fuck when you are miserable—he doesn’t care if you pray. You can pray until there is blood dripping out of your mouth and nothing will change. God is an asshole that way. Even a relatively rotten person will assist you if you are begging for help. But your thoughts will just revolve through your mind over and over until you want to take a gun like the lead in Fight Club and shoot them out of your head. Maybe someday you will, but for now, you are trying to figure why God is such a jerk and you have to live like this. You wonder why you feel forsaken—well it’s probably because you have been forsaken and you don’t know how to live in that state. Because when you are a kid somebody probably told you everything would be all right, and now you realize they lied. So you keep lying to yourself, telling yourself it’s not such a big deal, but actually it is. Because now the dark corners in your basement have started to get darker. And bigger. The arms get longer and longer and pretty soon there won’t be anywhere you can go where they can’t touch you. So you start to drink or take pills or do some other kind of drug so you can’t tell when you get touched. But now the problem is you get touched all the time, but you don’t know it.

At least now you don’t care.

Madness and Art

Van Gogh cut off his ear.

Sylvia Plath committed suicide.

Numerous entertainers have overdosed on drugs--accidentally or otherwise.

Shakespeare wrote of madness in Macbeth, and hinted about it elsewhere.

Edgar Allen Poe was questionably depressed or bipolar.

Some scientists believe the connection is clear--where there is creativity, there is the potential for madness. One European study linked the same genetic mutation that insights creativity to schizophrenia.

http://io9.com/5316544/has-science-proven-that-all-artists-are-crazy

It certainly seems that the creators of beautiful musical masterpieces like Mozart or Beethoven or breathtaking art like Picasso or Monet have a special vision or a different type of connection to another world. Some say it is because God is always speaking, and they are taking the time or have the ability to listen.

And of course there is the drug connection too. Do true creatives try and self-medicate with alcohol, heroin, or cocaine? Does their propensity toward drugs stem from wanting to expand their already wider ability to see the world in a different way--or a need to quiet the "voices" telling them what to write, paint, or sing.

Or do artists simply remove more of the social restraints that we and society have put in place from a very young age. We are a civilized nation, each of us fitting neatly into our roles and polite mores that have been dictated since our births.

Freud used "talking therapy" to get to what he considered to be the root of people's problems.  He asked that the filters be removed, even if it was momentarily, and to free associate, and say the first things that pop into our heads--even if they seemed crazy or frightening. Wild things were said! New discoveries were made about deep and mysterious problems. We would never say these things in normal everyday conversation--people would think we are....

What if we all tried to keep the filters down a bit. I'm not talking about the ones that keep us out of jail, but the ones that keep us from being embarrassed, or saying what we really feel, or doing what we honest-to-God want to do without the worry of hurting someone, disappointing someone, or being afraid and doing it anyway.  Maybe that is the only difference from the creative geniuses and everyone else.

Is creativity merely the ability to keep these filters down? Maybe those who can control them are lucky. They can write or draw or make music--or in some cases, all these things, and put the filters back in place when they need to function in a social or familial situation.  Are the poor souls who are locked away and forever confused between reality and another world simply lacking the filters at all?

At this point the jury is still out. Not all schizophrenics are artistic or creative, in fact some are simply and sadly paralyzed by what they experience. Not all madness is schizophrenia, and certainly not all artists are mad. 

Some days I wonder if we are not all mad, but not properly categorized yet.

Tim Burton, Edgar Allen Poe, Edward Gorey and MoMA

Tim Burton is known for his movies; Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Alice in Wonderland (the ninth highest grossing film ever made) and Sweeney Todd.  And rightfully so. They are gorgeously dark, child-like yet demented, and touched with a poignancy usually not felt in horror and fantasy.

Three years ago I was introduced to his art and writing at an exhibition at MoMA in NYC. Tim Burton is a prolific artist, and I walked through rooms of sketches of mysterious stairways, paintings of aliens, sculptures of circus creatures, glow-in-the-dark puppets, costumes from his movies, and other ephemera. 

Strolling through the outdoor patio of the museum I noticed two topiaries from Edward Scissorhands. Also on display were those terrible eyes that popped out of Large Marge's face in the memorable scene from Pee Wee's Big Adventure.

The original sketches of his first ideas from Edward Scissorhands were situated near a child's dollhouse where each room contained a grisly murder scene.

Along with the Edward sketches was the costume Johnny Depp wore in the movie, his scissor-handed gloves, and cinema posters featuring not only Edward, but all of Tim Burton's movies.

For admission to the black-lighted carnival area, one entered into the mouth of a toothy monster, and through a long black and white striped hallway dotted with video monitors showing Stain Boy, a character from Burton's book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories.

  This book contains stories and poems sometimes reminiscent of the tales of Edward Gorey.  Find his book here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0688156819/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

There was a blotter from his desk filled with doodles and early ideas.  

There is a sweet and needy feel to his work, and one wonders if he is sad, manic, brilliant, or mad. Possibly a combination. One of his early films is called Vincent, about a young man who is captivated by Vincent Price, much like Tim Burton. He is also influenced by the works of Poe. The dark and moody images of his work seems to somehow echo Poe's elegant words. I feel if Masque of the Red Death were made into a film directed by Burton we would witness some of the most stunning imagery ever produced.

Read Poe's startling story here:
http://www.poemuseum.org/works-masque.php

Oh, how I wish this display would come back to NYC. But I don't think this will happen anytime soon--Burton has chosen to bring his display to Paris at Cinematheque. 

Lucky Paris.

Dark Shadows, featuring Johnny Depp as vampire Barnabas Collins was released May 11, 2012.

Big Eyes was released last Christmas.

Miss Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children expected to release on Christmas 2016.