Vatican Castigates Opus Angelorum Sect

The Vatican has decreed the Opus Angelorum sect "wayward," and warns anyone who might come into contact with followers to distance themselves. Specifically, the Vatican says it has reason to suspect the Opus Angelorum is distributing propaganda associating itself with traditional Catholicism.

The Vatican basically gave Opus Angelorum a pass, so long as it promised not to distribute or mention information relating to its core sect beliefs, which were formed largely by its founder, Gabriele Bitterlich. One of the most dangerous of which is that women who have had abortions are possessed by demonic entities.

Bitterlich claimed to have been directed by an Archangel with whom she was in contact. This Archangel coached Bitterlich, and she discovered the names of the angels and demons fighting for control of peoples' souls.

The Opus Angelorum operates mostly throughout India, Brazil, and Germanic Europe.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

 

A Deal with the Devil - Dæmonic Possession

The case of Clara Germana Cele is a bit more specious, yet if the details are to be believed, dæmonic possession is about the only thing that could explain her behavior and, most importantly, the supernatural phenomena which surrounded her at two separate points in her life. You can dismiss all other online accounts of this case (or the majority of them), as they work from one another, and are incorrect at their foundation.

What makes Clara Cele's case less believable from the jump is that she claimed to have made a pact with the Devil - or so she told her confessor, Father Erasmus Horner. Another thing is that the priests and nuns of the Marianhill Order mission school in Umzinto, South Africa¹, which Clara had attended since she was four, always considered her "somewhat erratic." What that means, exactly, is anyone's guess, but for skeptics, these are signs that something else may have been at-play, such as mental illness or simple fraud. Finally, Cele claimed to have actually entered a pact with the Devil, himself.

The phenomena reported is what makes Cele's case striking:

At 16, Cele confessed to Father Erasmus that she had made a pact with the Devil, yet no one apparently thought much of this until a few weeks afterward, when her behavior changed dramatically. On August 20^th, 1906, she began tearing off her clothes, grunting and growling like an animal. Her strength was so great that she broke one of the posts on her bed. She then began conversing aloud with unseen forces.

While this was shocking enough, the sisters were truly alarmed by the sounds she was making. One nun who witnessed at least one of Cele's outbreaks is alleged to have written, "No animal had ever made such sounds. Neither the lions of East Africa nor the angry bulls." In a moment of lucidity, Clara begged them to fetch Father Erasmus: "I must confess everything," she told them, "But quick, quick, or Satan will kill me. He has me in his power! Nothing is blessed with me." She confided in them that she had thrown away all things holy she'd ever been given. Later that day, she cried out, "You have betrayed me! You... promised me days of glory, but now you treat me cruelly."

Over the next several weeks, Cele began showing "classic" signs of dæmonic possession, such as wretching and blaspheming ferociously whenever holy items were present, even if they were heavily concealed. Holy water burned her, but when regular, unblessed, tap water was substituted in attempts to trick her, she merely laughed.

Cele manifested far-reaching clairvoyance, detailing the daily sojourn of one priest through Africa to Rome, naming the addresses at which he stayed along the way. She revealed the scandalous details of one man's life -- down to the names, dates, and times -- to shame him for ridiculing her.

Somewhat similar to the Bruner boys, Clara began contorting her body impossibly without apparent harm, but her contortions took a far more darkly sinister twist: Clara transformed into a serpent-like creature -- her entire body became like rubber and her neck elongated -- and she writhed across the floor. Once in this state, several of the nuns tried to restrain her. Clara darted from the midst of them like lightning, sped across the floor to a nun who was kneeling in front of her, and bit her on the arm. The bitemark is said to have shown the impression of Cele's teeth... and a small, red puncture, like that of a snakebite.

Germana's levitations are among the most frequent and dramatic in the history of dæmonic possession, having occurred numerous times in front of throngs of witnesses, some of whom attempted to hold, or pull, her down -- to no avail. She levitated in church, was seen levitating by "outsiders" (non-Church members, or possibly non-Christians), and levitated several times above her bed. Germana:

Floated often three, four, and up to five feet in the air, sometimes vertically, with her feet downward, and at other times horizontally, with her whole body floating above her bed... in a rigid position. Even her clothing did not fall downward... instead, her dresses remained tightly attached to her body and legs.

Holy water sometimes stopped the phenomena, but on September 10th of that same year, permission was granted to perform an Exorcism. It was a long and grueling effort which lasted at least two days. At some point, whatever was possessing her said it would signal its departure with a levitation.

This levitation occurred in the mission chapel. In front of 170 witnesses.

In 1907, while Father Erasmus was away, Germana was said to have entered a new pact with Satan. Another Exorcism was performed, lasting another two days. Its success, and the departure of the Devil from her body, was marked by an "incomparably foul stench."

Despite the concept of pacts and all else, Clara Germana Cele's case remains one of the strongest in all the recorded accounts of dæmonic possession.

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¹ - Not St. Michael's, as is stated in several reports across the Web. Many of these same sources report the school to have been located in Natal, which is closer to the truth; Natal is about 20 miles from Umzinto. It is possible that this was intentional misinformation meant to shield Germana Cele from further questioning, ridicule, or even ostracism and/or physical harm, but more likely the fault of the authors'.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

The Peculiar Case of the Bruner Boys - Dæmonic Possession

In the annals of dæmonic possession, or "diabolepsy" (a term abandoned due to its similarity to epilepsy, which many skeptics think explains away many so-called cases of dæmonic possession), the peculiar case of the Bruner boys, Theobald and Joseph, is pretty tough to beat.

Though the events which plagued the children occurred from 1865 to 1869, it remains one of the most well-known and accepted cases of "modern" dæmonic possession due to the breadth of symptoms the boys showed, and the documentation of their affliction. From levitation to contortions to glossalia (a specific type of "speaking in tongues," whereby the possessed demonstrates a worldly knowledge of languages s/he could not possibly know, often demonstrated by answering questions posed in one foreign language in another) to the vomiting of foul-smelling articles the boys had never eaten -- if the accounts are to be believed, little else explains the Bruner boys' impossible behavior.

The diabolic events began in 1865 when the Bruner boys started drawing "horrible Devil faces" on their bedroom walls and talking playfully to them for hours. Their bedroom was said to be unnaturally hot despite not being heated. The boys would run and hide from clergymen who visited the house and were said to hide under their covers whenever Rosary beads were placed on their bed. True to form, they would begin cursing and writhing in the presence of Holy items, and soon took to their bed.

Joseph, the younger of the two, displayed fewer, and less fervent, signs of possession than his older brother, who began speaking in foreign tongues and dialects unknown to him, including English. Theobald Bruner also showed knowledge of outside events (clairvoyance, clairaudience) and correctly predicted the deaths of others several times (precognition, or maybe prophecy), which he often did by kneeling beside his bed to mimic the ringing of a mourning bell.

In one such event which included all of the above, a local man's daughter was visiting the house when Theobald predicted her father's demise. Shocked and angered, the girl spat, "You liar! My father is not even ill," to which Theobald responded, "That may be, but he just had a fall." No one in the entire village knew this had happened, but Theobald was correct; Gregor Kunegel had fallen from a scaffold at the precise moment Theobald had made the ringing motion.

Things only got worse from there:

The boys would simultaneously bend backward on their heads and legs, their backs arched high, and nothing could right them "until the Devil saw fit to give these objects of his torture some temporary peace." Every few hours, the boys would entangle their legs so impossibly and intricately that no one could untangle them but the children themselves, who would do so "suddenly... with lightning speed." Their little bellies would bloat and distend to the point of bursting before they would vomit "yellow foam, evil-smelling feathers, and seaweed" which inexplicably covered their clothes, no matter how often they were changed and cleaned. The stench was so foul that their clothes had to be burned.

The children's bed levitated, even with their mother on it; furniture flew around their room; doors flew open of their own accord; the entire house shook.

Finally, Theobald was sent to an Orphanage in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg. Upon arriving, he was forced to remain in front of the altar. It took three men to hold him there. He remained silent for three days, drooling yellow foam, but on the fourth, he said, "I have come and I am in a rage." When one of the nuns asked, "And who are you?" He responded, "I AM THE LORD OF DARKNESS!"

Joseph was eventually sent to join his brother and a prolonged Exorcism of the two boys began. One of the more curious manifestations of the possession was when the brothers' heads were so infested with bright red lice that a team of four people with brushes and combs could not keep pace with them. These were dispelled by sprinkling Holy water on their heads. Theobald had to be restrained by straitjacket, as he ripped at himself and his clothing and tried to break everything in reach. His Exorcism took a full three days, after which he fell into a deep slumber, or possibly coma. Joseph's Exorcism took only three hours, after which he too fell into a deep sleep. When the boys awoke, neither remembered what had happened to them.

Theobald Bruner died two years later at age 16. Joseph lived to the age of 25. The events which plagued the Bruner boys for those four years have never been fully explained by conventional means.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Ghost Sightings Highest in 25 Years

Lionel Fanthorpe, widely considered an expert on the Unexplained in Britain, has concluded that not only are ghost sightings in the UK at their highest in the last quarter-century, encounters with evil spirits, dæmons, and Elementals are "as widespread today as in medieval times."

Fanthorpe conducted his research online, as well as in various archives and his own reports. He sought to identify all decidedly Supernatural sightings with evil aspects, and decided upon 968 reports of "dæmonic activity" over the last 25 years.

Fanthorpe further identified Yorkshire as the heart of the sightings, with 74 reports of sightings - including "hell hounds," ghouls, and werewolves - dæmonic possession, water dæmons, and more. The sightings of a "water dæmon" in Filey Bay, with a serpentine body and glowing eyes, may be sightings of a cryptozoological specimen, though.

Devon rated second on the list, most well-known (here, especially) as the home of the Devil's Footprints. But a dæmonic form dubbed "Stephens" merited special note: A hideous, skeletal apparition clothed in dingy, gray robes, it i s thought to be the specter of a man who committed suicide in Dartmoor. Fanthorpe noted 57 reports from the area.

Somerset landed in third, with 51 sightings, but had the highest number of "monster" sightings. Wiltshire is close behind, with 46 reports, most of which were of "hell hounds." Not surprisingly, a "big, black dog with eyes like hot, red coals" has been frequently spotted at Black Dog Hill near Black Dog Woods.

Also unsurprisingly, Inverness - which lay at the mouth of the infamous Loch Ness - leads the list in "water dæmons," with 13 sightings over the last 25 years. Most of these are of "kelpie," a type of water spirit which attempts to lure victims to their death by drowning.

Dorset, Norfolk and Lancashire¹, Sussex and Derbyshire¹, Essex and Suffolk¹, and Lincolnshire rounded-out the top ten list.

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¹: Tied.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Poltergeist or ESP? Binbrook, Lincolnshire, England

At the turn of the last century, the Reverend A.C. Custance said bizarre things started happening at the rectory in Binbrook, Lincolnshire, England. In December of 1904, the Reverend reported objects began moving of their own accord -- some even caught fire. But it was in January of 1905 that a farmer in Binbrook walked into his kitchen to discover the servant girl sweeping the kitchen, unaware of the flames leaping from her back. He rushed to her aid and smothered the fire, but she was badly burned.

These cases seem to suggest Dæmonic activity, as poltergeists are generally associated with a specific place or person. Poltergeists are also rarely associated with fire but often associated with girls -- specifically, adolescents. Could it be that the servant girl mentioned in the account, recorded by famed Phenomenalist, Charles Fort, also worked, or attended services at, the local rectory and was the source of all the associated phenomenon the small village of Binbrook experienced in the early 1900s? Or was Binbrook perhaps host to a Supernatural entity?

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Saudi Family Sues Genie

A Saudi family has taken a genie to court, citing theft and harassment over the last two years.  Some say this case is being taken more seriously because every person in the family alleges the genie's existence and testifies to the theft and harassment.  A local charity has moved the family to a temporary residence while an investigation is conducted.

The family says they were first made aware of the djinn's existence two years ago, when they began hearing strange noises.  While they dismissed them at first, the events became more boisterous and impossible to overlook.  The family alleges threatening voicemails, theft of their cellphones, even assaults by rocks!

Many Saudis believe jinns, djinn, or genie exist and are even capable of daemonic possession.  The belief is prevalent in the Islamic religion, as the creatures are even mentioned in the Quran.  Djinn are Elementals.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009

Ghostbreakers Gain Relevance?

A British housing council paid a psychic a little over $100 to exorcise an elemental manifestation, as it was the cheapest method of assuaging the tenant.

To their credit, the council -- and the tenant and her family -- truly believe the place is haunted and were not simply trying to shut her up.  23 year-old Sabrina Fallon claims to have experienced moving objects and even called police to report loud noises which frightened her and her children.

The housing council paid half the psychic's fee and now believes the place is free of activity.

Fallon said the incidents began shortly after Christmas.  While the family was away, her brother-in-law let himself in to check on things.  He later called her, "crying like a girl," and told her he had heard whispers and voices from upstairs. When he threatened to call police, a nightgown floated down the staircase and landed at his feet.

The family has been traumatized by the events, but says the place now has a "lovely atmosphere."

©C Harris Lynn, 2008

Paranormal State - A Review

Paranormal State on A&E

Tonight was the premiere of A&E's new Paranormal State -- basically another reality show along the lines of Ghost Hunters. It involves a group of ghost hunters from PA, comprising almost solely college students, who go about, helping those who believe they are experiencing the Supernatural. 

That's where the similarity to Ghost Hunters ends.

I immediately got a sense of "bullshit" when watching Paranormal State. Let's keep in mind that these are college students who all claim to have had paranormal encounters in the past -- all of them -- and not just, "I think I saw something in a graveyard once"-type encounters. These cats have full-fledged, horror movie-style encounters, replete with murderous dolls, monsters in the bedroom closet, and so forth. They all have piercings and take themselves very, very fucking seriously.

College students are melodramatic by nature. Young people with lots of piercings are melodramatic by nature. Young college students with lots of piercings who claim to have had paranormal encounters along the lines of Hollywood blockbusters are... you get where I'm going with this?

There is an all-too serious voice-over that's done in that horror movie radio voice (spooky!) and the guy actually starts off each "entry" with, "Director's log..." They even called in Lorraine Warren on one of these investigations! Seriously!

In fact, this second episode is the one I believe sets the tone for what is to follow: These black dye #1 superfans went to a house that's supposed to be haunted and cried when they found the graves of a family that was murdered there in the 19^th-Century. Then the leader of the pack got all moody and pensive and claimed he'd been dreaming about a daemon's name -- a daemon he once encountered on a case he underwent with the Catholic Church! The Daemon Who Shall Remain Unnamed.

They called in psychic, Chip Coffey, and sat around a table. Someone passed the pierced and pensive little man a note and on it was written The Name -- The Name of the Thing What Should Not Be Named -- and he got all pensive and moody, and they all almost cried again. So they called in infamous Daemonologist, Lorraine Warren, who actually brought a sense of reality to the show.

Next week, The Daemon Returns, as they go to a house and a crucifix turns upside-down of its own volition. As if that weren't enough, the man who owns the house is going to get possessed! I'm sure they'll do an exorcism.

I mean, come on -- wouldn't one of the little girls have played better as the possession victim? When does one of them spit split-pea soup?

"Over the top" doesn't begin to describe this one. I hope it gets better, but I'm not sure I can take these guys seriously. It may make for a good show, but it's kind of embarrassing to watch.

Critics of Ghost Hunters should take note: TAPS shows you how it's supposed to be done; Paranormal State is just a show.

More on Elementals

I know I've gone on about this lately, but I have had this train of thought going for a long time now and either had problems posting (like this weekend) or kept putting it off, so I figured I'd go ahead and get most everything I have on my mind about it out now, while it's still fresh and then worry about what else I have to say another day (besides, I'll have Ghost Hunters to talk about tomorrow):

Keep in mind that the word "demon" comes from Elemental, so I posit that we refer to these hauntings in general as Elemental Manifestations, but within the investigative community, we make a clear distinction between those hauntings which feature mercurial personalities and those that feature malefic ones.

This has nothing to do with the actual phenomena present; prescience, clairvoyance, telekinetic activity - these abilities may very well be the sole domain of one or the other force, but that is not the question. All we are concerned with is whether or not the force is Evil or not, and that's not to say that it cannot be mischievous or even callous from time to time, just to say that if the activity is mean-spirited and dangerous in general, it is Dæmonic activity. A phenomenon such as the Duenda de Zaragoza is Elemental (by all accounts I've read) in nature, for example.

Still, I think it important that the name be specifically changed to Elemental Infestation as opposed to Demonic for the general public's sake. It takes the religious connotations out of the word.

Daemons and Elementals

To forward the idea of classifying spirits and Supernatural phenomena, I proffer the following:

There is a difference in general Supernatural phenomena and Dæmonic activity and this division must be nurtured. We can discern all sorts of very obvious, very straightforward differences between such hauntings as those involving an image or other insubstantial (incorporeal) advents, those involving the physical manipulation of solid objects (poltergeist), and those involving what can only be considered malefic forces. Consider the truly bizarre phenomena surrounding the Bell Witch, which was far more than mere poltergeist activity.

Let us then turn to the matter of Elementals, from which the term "Demons" was culled. Elementals are spirits, not necessarily tied to the elements themselves (contrary to popular belief), that have never existed in human form. They are sometimes malefic, but usually mercurial in nature, and are said to often possess such abilities as clairaudience, clairvoyance, prescience, and telekinesis. They also produce solid materials from nowhere.

"Dæmon" is basically a corruption of Elemental, and since the former has become so intimately associated with religion, I say we should turn back to the original word, but keep the general meaning. Of course, this demands a greater division, since simply assuming that all Elemental hauntings are basically "mercurial in nature" is fallacious; there are undeniably Evil forces at work in certain places/people and many psychics and mediums have claimed to hear the guiding, disembodied voice (invariably male, by my research) of something with prescience. This voice(s) is sometimes called "The Masters" (Occult) but also often referred to as "Elementals" or just plain "Spirits."

The phenomena surrounding such obviously intelligent spirits, who also frequently seem to have a prurient (or at least hyperactive) interest in sex as well as a cutting and sometimes callous wit, cannot be chalked-up to simple poltergeist activity, such as the moving of objects, rapping on surfaces, and so on. And "traditional" hauntings, where the phenomena centers around specific images or incorporeal activity, are easily separated from either of the other two.

Bat Demon Blamed for Sex Attacks

A bat demon known as Popo Bawa, which means "winged bat" is thought to be preying on women in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam. The belief is so strong in the region that some men are sleeping outside in groups or staying awake at night.

The demon is thought to be able to take the form of a man and has been blamed for rapes within the city. Smearing one's self with pig oil is thought to repel the demon. Authorities in the area say that most residents don't actually believe in the legend, even though it is persistent. Belief in superstitions and particularly witchcraft is widespread in Tanzania.

The demon is thought to be controlled by witches, summoned and used by them to torment their enemies.