Pull up a chair or gather round the campfire and get ready for twenty-five creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences in this all-new addition to the best-selling Spooky series. Set in the Buckeye State's big cities and rural communities, along the shores of Lake Erie in the north to the Appalachian Mountains in the south, the stories in this entertaining and compelling collection will have readers looking over their shoulders again and again. Ohio's folklore is kept alive in these expert retellings by master storyteller S. E. Schlosser and in artist Paul Hoffman's evocative illustrations. Readers will see the mystery of the missing postmaster's cousin solved, relive the long night a ghost captain saved a sinking ship, laugh along with a prankster who capitalizes on a barber's ghost, and feel an icy wind on the back of their necks on a warm Ohio evening. Whether read around the campfire on a dark and stormy night or from the backseat of the family van on the way to Grandma's, this is a collection to treasure.

They re lurking in museums, graveyards, and private homes around the world. Their stories have inspired countless horror movies, reality TV shows, campfire tales, books, and even chain emails. They re cursed objects, and in order to unleash a wave of misfortune, all they need is you. As a culture, we can t seem to get enough of cursed objects. But never before have the true stories of these infamous real-life items been compiled into a fascinating and chilling volume. Entries include: Annabelle the Doll, a Raggedy Ann doll which inspired the acclaimed horror franchise The Conjuring The Tomb of Tutankhamen, the discovery of which kicked-started media hysteria over a rumored Curse of the Pharaohs The Ring of Silvianus, a Roman artifact believed to have inspired J. R. R. Tolkien s The Hobbit The Hope Diamond, which was owned by kings and inspired the Heart of the Ocean in James Cameron s Titanic The Dybbuk Box, which was sold on eBay and inspired the horror film The Possession. Whether you believe in curses or not, the often tragic and always bizarre stories behind these objects will fascinate you. Many of them have intersected with some of the most notable events and people in history. But beyond Hollywood and beyond the hysteria, author J. W. Ocker suggests that cursed objects are simply objects which have been witness to great human tragedy, and thereafter operate as mechanisms for remembering and retelling those stories. Cursed Objects will be equally appealing to true believers as well as history buffs, horror fans, and anyone who loves a good spine-tingling tale.

2015 Best Book Award from the Communal Studies Association The captivating story of the people of Heaven's Gate, a religious group focused on transcending humanity and the Earth, and seeking salvation in the literal heavens on board a UFO In March 1997, thirty-nine people in Rancho Santa Fe, California, ritually terminated their lives. To outsiders, it was a mass suicide. To insiders, it was a graduation. This act was the culmination of over two decades of spiritual and social development for the members of Heaven's Gate. In this fascinating overview, Benjamin Zeller not only explores the question of why the members of Heaven's Gate committed ritual suicides, but interrogates the origin and evolution of the religion, its appeal, and its practices. By tracking the development of the history, social structure, and worldview of Heaven's Gate, Zeller draws out the ways in which the movement was both a reflection and a microcosm of larger American culture. The group emerged out of engagement with Evangelical Christianity, the New Age movement, science fiction and UFOs, and conspiracy theories, and it evolved in response to the religious quests of baby boomers, new religions of the counterculture, and the narcissistic pessimism of the 1990s. Thus, Heaven's Gate not only reflects the context of its environment, but also reveals how those forces interacted in the form of a single religious body. In the only book-length study of Heaven's Gate, Zeller traces the roots of the movement, examines its beliefs and practices, and tells the captivating story of its people.

Drawing from social theory and the anthropology of religion, this book explores popular media’s fascination with dreams, vampires, demons, ghosts and spirits. Dreams, Vampires and Ghosts does so in the light of contemporary animist studies of societies in which other-than-human persons are not merely a source of entertainment, but a lived social reality. Films and television programs explored include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twin Peaks, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Truly Madly Deeply and the films of Hitchcock. Louise Child draws attention to how they both depict and challenge ideas and practices rooted in psychology, while quality television has also facilitated a wave of programming that can explore the interaction of characters in complex social worlds over time. In addition to drawing on theories of film from Freudian psychology and feminist theory, Dreams, Vampires and Ghosts uses approaches derived from a combination of Jungian film studies and anthropology that offer fresh insights for exploring film and television. This book draws attention to explicit and subtle ways in which cinematic narratives engage with myth and religion while at the same time exploring collective dimensions to social and personal life. It advances new developments in genre studies and gender as well as contributing to the growing field of implicit religion using in-depth analyses of communicative dreaming, the shadow, and mystical lovers in film and television.

Using occultism to understand the paranormal sounds like diluting water or burying earth, but in this thoughtful and unusual book Duncan Barford draws on a deep familiarity with modern magick to provide a valuable toolbox of concepts for exploring the relationship between consciousness and the paranormal. Writing in an accessible and humorous style, Barford examines intriguing first-hand accounts of poltergeists, telepathy, communication with the dead, religious phenomena and astral projection. The essence of his unique exploration is that the paranormal does not happen only to special people and on rare occasions. In fact, to experience the paranormal we need simply turn our attention to the nature of our consciousness itself.

For centuries, the mountains of western North Carolina have inspired wonder and awe. It was only natural that man, after gazing at such scenic wonders, would turn some of the mystery he felt into legend. Sometimes these legends attempted to explain natural phenomena, sometimes they attempted to explain an occurrence that appeared to be supernatural, and sometimes they grew up around the eccentric characters that were drawn to the isolation of these mysterious hills. This collection of eighteen stories presents some of the mystery and awe that the mountains convey, and it may alter your perception of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains forever. You may never stand atop Roan Mountain during a storm without thinking you hear a ghostly choir. You may gaze at the top of Chimney Rock during a hazy summer afternoon and wonder if it really is a ghostly cavalry fight you see. If you spend the night near High Hampton, you may find yourself listening for the call of the lonesome white owl. If you stand at Wiseman's View, you will probably think that you, too, can see the Brown Mountain Lights. Standing atop Clingman's Dome, you may wonder if there really is an enchanted lake where animals flock to heal their wounds somewhere in the valley below. And you will always wonder if the fly you hear on your mountain walk means that Spearfinger is lurking nearby. For several years, folklorists Randy Russell and Janet Barnett have taught a course about Southern folklore at the North Carolina Center for Advancement of Teaching in Cullowhee, North Carolina. Russell is also the author of several mysteries, including Edgar Award nominee Hot Wire. They live in Asheville, North Carolina.

Plato's legend of the famed lost continent of Atlantis has become notorious among scholars as the most absurd lie in literature. Exciting our imagination and our curiosity, Atlantis Destroyed explores the possibility that Plato's account is the historical truth.
In this fascinating account, Rodney Castleden considers the widely-debated location of Atlantis and its destruction, the literary origins of utopian Atlantis and how this became confused with Plato's authentic account and also the remarkable parallels between Plato's narrative and the bronze age civilisation in the Aegean.

Things that go bump in the night, disembodied voices, footsteps in an empty stairwell, an icy hand on your shoulder ... let your imagination run wild as you read about the Old West's most extraordinary apparitions, sinister spooks, and bizarre beasts. You may know of the famous and well-documented Alamo, but perhaps you haven't heard about: -The Mamie R. Mine, plagued by Tommyknockers who beckon miners into danger by mimicking the screams of children; -The Mizpah Hotel, where a murdered seductress whispers in the ears of male patrons and leaves pearls to those she visits; and -Yuma Territorial Prison, one of the most inhospitable prisons in US history where over a hundred inmates had perished--some by their own hand.

Plato's legend of Atlantis has become notorious among scholars as the absurdest lie in literature. Atlantis Destroyed explores the possibility that the account given by Plato is historically true.
Rodney Castleden first considers the location of Atlantis re-examining two suggestions put forward in the early twentieth century; Minoan Crete and Minoan Thera. He outlines the latest research findings on Knossos and Bronze Age Thera, discussing the material culture, trade empire and agricultural system, writing and wall paintings, art, religion and society of the Minoan civilization. Castleden demonstrates the many parallels between Plato's narrative and the Minoan Civilization in the Aegean.
Fired by the imagination a new vision of Atlantis has arisen over the last one hundred and fifty years as a lost utopia. Rodney Castleden discusses why this picture arose and xplains how it has become confused with Plato's genuine account.

eBook available with sample pages: 0203024869

A fun look at unexplained phenomena in New Jersey, featuring information on ghost tours in the state.Featuring stories about: * The Jersey Devil * UFOs in New Jersey? * The Confederate Ghosts of Finn's Point * The Woman in White * Water-Dwelling Monsters * Pirates and their Treasures * Dozens of other tales of ghosts, hauntings, curses, and monsters

Paschal Beverly Randolph, an African American who carved his own eccentric path in the mid-nineteenth century from the slums of New York to the courts of Europe, performed as a spiritualist trance medium. Self-educated, he became one of the first Black American novelists and took a leading part in raising black soldiers for the Union army and educating Freedmen during the Civil War. His most enduring claim to fame is the crucial role he played in the transformation of spiritualism, a medium's passive reception of messages from the spirits of the dead, into occultism, the active search for personal spiritual realization and inner vision. From his solitary travels in England, France, Egypt and the Turkish Empire, he brought back occult beliefs and practices (the magic mirror, hashish use and sexual magic) that worked a revolution. The systems of magic he taught left their traces on Madame Blavatsky, her Theosophical Society, and many practicing occult organizations in Europe and America today. This is the first scholarly work on Randolph, and it includes the full text of his two most important manuscripts on sexual magic.

The Qabalah is essentially the search for God through a system of mathematically-related concepts. With an emphasis on how the Qabalah actively influences the Western Mystery Tradition, this work makes Qabalah understandable to help seekers in their quest for ultimate identity. It covers subjects including the value of "nothing", the purpose of the cross, the tree of life, and pathworking.

The Classic That Changed Our Perception of the Afterlife

In 1975, Dannion Brinkley was struck and killed by lightning. When he awoke twenty-eight minutes later in a morgue, everything was different. He had visited the afterlife, met thirteen angels, and been given 117 revelations about the future. In the years since, one hundred of the revelations have already come true. In "Saved by the Light," now available in trade paperback for the first time, Brinkley shares his incredible story, revealing the truth about the afterlife and providing guidance from beyond about how we should live today.

It's no surprise that the historic Massachusetts seaport's history is checkered with violence and heinous crimes. Originally called Naumkeag, Salem means "peace." However, as its historical legacy dictates, the city was anything but peaceful during the late seventeenth century. Did the reputed Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, strike in Salem? Evidence supports the possibility of a copy-cat murder. From the recently pinpointed gallows where innocents were hanged for witchcraft to the murder house on Essex Street where Capt. Joseph White was bludgeoned to death and then stabbed thirteen times in the heart, Sam Baltrusis explores the ghost lore and the people behind the tragic events that turned the "Witch City" into a hot spot that has become synonymous with witches, rakes, and rogues.

??? Does Colorado's Grand Canyon hide an ancient city found by a Smithsonian Institution photographer? ??? Did the Vikings beat Columbus to the New World using a fiber-optic navigational instrument? ??? Who built a colossal water reservoir in Iowa long before the first European settlers arrived? These are just some of the intriguing questions posed and answered by expert researchers in Unearthing Ancient America. They go on to tackle a broad variety of archaeological enigmas shunned as too heretical for consideration by conventional scholars???a Roman figurine found off the New Jersey coast, North African gold in Illinois from a long-vanished kingdom, an Egyptian knife removed from a centuries-old tree in California, a fifth century Christian church in Connecticut, a prehistoric harbor underwater in the Bahamas, Easter Island's cultural connections with pre-modern Japan, and voyagers to Maine from Stone Age Scotland.

The Ultimate Human Experience

The interaction between mankind and spiritual beings -- of Divine Encounters -- as recorded inscriptures and ancient texts provides a powerful drama that spans Heaven and Earth, involving worship and devotion, eternity and mortality, love and sex, jealousy and murder. But how much of these are based on real happenings and how much is based on myth?

With a visionary's ardor and a scientist's attention to detail, Zecharia Sitchin, author ofThe Earth Chronicles, gives a stunning account of human interaction with celestial travelers. He also provides further proof that prophetic dreams,visions, UFO encounters, and other extraordinary phenomena are indeed the hallmark of intervention by intergalactic emissaries who reach out from other realms to enlighten, guide, punish, and comfort us in times of need. Sitchin's research and theories, illustrated with maps and charts, chronicle a magnificent and inspiring journey through history, from the dawn of time to the approach of the millennium.

"Impossible Realities" is one of the first books to examine the science behind psychic and paranormal activity. A former Defense Department expert on artificial intelligence, Maureen Caudill provides evidence for a wide range of paranormal phenomena.

"Impossible Realities" presents a wealth of anecdotal and empirical evidence to prove the existence (and power) of:
psychokinesis (most famously spoon bending)remote viewingenergy healingtelepathy, animal telepathyprecognitionsurvival after deathreincarnation

Caudill presents the strongest case yet for bringing paranormal phenomena from the margins into the realm of the normal and credible. This is a book both for true believers and skeptics alike.

Myths and Mysteries of Missouri dispels any notion that the Show Me State is a boring place harboring little unknown. Thirteen diverse chapters, each a story unto itself, probe dark secrets, unexplained phenomena, legendary individuals and actual events which leave people incredulous to this day. Much in this well-researched book has been largely forgotten, but the author's lively and amusing style will awaken curiosity in lifelong residents and armchair visitors alike

Curious Tales from Lincolnshire is filled with hilarious and surprising examples of folklore, eccentrics, historical and literary events, and popular culture from days gone by, all taken from Lincolnshire's tumultuous history. Here the reader will meet forgers, poets, aristocrats, politicians and some less likely residents of the county, including Spring-Heeled Jack - whose spectral figure reportedly jumped over Newport Arch - and the appearance of an angel in Gainsborough. There has always been much more to Lincolnshire than farm lands and sea-side towns: this is the county that brought us Lord Tennyson (whose brother was treated at an experimental asylum in the area), John Wesley and, in contrast, William Marwood, the notorious hangman; here too were found the Dam Busters, the first tanks and the fishing fleets of Grimsby. All may be found within the pages of this book, bound to delight residents and visitors alike.