Thais Look to the Supernatural

BANGKOK — Don’t be fooled by the skyscrapers, the roads clogged with the latest luxury cars or the high-tech gadgetry in pockets and purses. This country of 65 million people has embraced modernity, yes, but many Thais will tell you that ghosts and spirits still wander the streets and inhabit buildings. Important business decisions often require consultations with a fortune teller. Cabinet ministers and military officers are sometimes so concerned with numerology and advice from their shamans that politics in Thailand could be called the black art of the possible.

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Agnes Dherbeys for the International Herald Tribune

“Spirit houses,” said to be where Thailand’s protective ghosts dwell, are now made of artificial materials rather than wood. 

Anonymous: the new face of cyber-war

FENG SHUI In Your Life

FENG SHUI YOUR LIFE
Feng Shui first began in the west during the Han Dynasty around the third century BC. Feng Shui also known as Kanyu is the art of placing and situating objects so that it is in harmony with its surroundings. Feng Shui believes that every object is living and has its own life and energy and its harmony depends on its placement and its physical surroundings.
The meaning of the words Feng Shui are very simple, “Wind” and “Water” an art practiced for centuries and by applying the simple concepts of Feng Shui you will invite abundance, love, harmony, peace and well-being into your home. To begin you must first understand the concept of Yin and Yang energies

We have a New Forum page!

In addition to adding comments to articles.  We now have a forum page where you can discuss, chat and talk with other people that are interested in the paranormal.

Paranormal Discussion Board

Warlock allowed to break curfew on full moon

By Jaya Narain

Last updated at 9:34 AM on 11th March 2011

For  a warlock who worships the goddess of the moon,  curfews can be a bit of a hindrance.
So when Cerwyn Jones found himself being punished by a court for carrying a five-inch ceremonial knife in a pub he was quick to plead special Wiccan circumstances.
The 52-year-old was sentenced to four months of staying indoors between the hours of 7pm and 7am.

Warlock: Cerwyn Jones, a warlock in the Wicca faith, with his pentacle

'Magic penis' trial date set

By Mandla Khoza

Malalane - A trial date is expected to be set on Thursday for 12 people arrested in connection with setting a pastor alight after accusing him of using a magic penis to sleep with women.

The nine men and three women, aged between 28 and 50 will appear in the Boschfontein periodical court in Mpumalanga on charges murder and arson.

The villagers, among them a community induna (headman), were  arrested on February 24 after Albert Malwane, a pastor of the Izwi Zion Christian Church, was burnt to death a day before.

Mpumalanga police spokesperson Leonard Hlathi said that Malwane had been dragged from his one-roomed house in the Etitandini informal settlement near Jeppes Reef south of Malalane and taken to a hill, where he was set alight.

Malwane's house was also burnt and his wife and daughter went into hiding.

Occult History: Bricks thwarted vampires

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  Matteo Borrini  /  AP
  A wooden stake in the heart is one well-known way to thwart a vampire, but the method was insufficient in the 16th century. Back then, a sure-fire vampire slaying entailed putting a stone or brick in the suspected vampire's mouth so that it would starve to death. The remains of the 60-year-old woman found in a mass grave near Venice, shown here, was one of those purported vampires, according to Matteo Borrini, a forensic archaeologist and anthropologist at Florence University. At the time, plague ravaged the region. People were buried in mass graves that were often reopened to add new bodies. When they did, bloated bodies with blood spilling from their mouths and holes in their head shrouds were often revealed. These corpses were thought to be vampires.
  

Historians put 17th-century witch trial diary online

LONDON — A 350-year-old notebook which documents the trials of women convicted of witchcraft in England during the 17th century has been published online.

The notebook written by Nehemia

h Wallington, an English Puritan, recounts the fate of women accused of having relationships with the devil at a time when England was embroiled in a bitter civil war.

The document reveals the details of a witchcraft trial held in Chelmsford in July 1645, when more than a hundred suspected witches were serving time in Essex and Suffolk according to his account.