Vampire and Werewolf...

Werewolves

Description

Werewolves are men who change into vicious often man-eating wolves or wolfmen during a full moon. The first half of the name, "werewolf", comes from the Teutonic wer, meaning "man"; therefore werewolf literally means "man-wolf". Although this is the most common belief in lycanthropy, there are numerous others that describe the voluntary or involuntary transformation from man to bears, big cats, hyenas, and other fierce creatures.

Often, werewolfism is passed on through tainted blood and can only be ended in death. It is said that shooting using silver bullets is very effective in killing werewolves, as is forcing them to drink salt water or splashing them with holy water. In some cultures, a blow to the head of a werewolf using an iron rod will free the man from werewolf possession.

Location

Werewolves were primarily sighted in various rural parts of Europe. However, their presence and the appearance other were-animals has also been seen in North America and other regions of the world. This includes Asia (were-tigers & bears), Africa (were-hyenas), Central America (were-coyotes), and New Zealand (were-lizards).

History/Origin

The belief began in the lycanthropy figures in Greek mythology, where Zeus, furious when he learns that Lykaon served him and the other gods human flesh, turns Lykaon into a wolf.

Despite the modern belief that werewolves are nothing more than characters in the newest horror flicks, there was a time that they were feared as a real-life menace. In the 16^th century, areas suffering from bad weather, disastrous harvest, wolf attacks, and burgeoning crime rates needed someone or something to take the blame. As a result, the werewolf became a common and easy scapegoat. Even human mass murderers were declared werewolves.

Reason Behind Creation/Possible Explanation

Of all the possible types of transformations, the werewolf is the most common in Europe, probably because the wolf was the predator most feared by the Europeans. Medieval and later chronicles describe wolf attacks on humans during hard winters and wartime. The development of the concept of werewolves may also be attributed to the vicious warriors in northern Europe, known as wolfmen or berserkers. These notoriously murderous and feared men clad themselves in suits made from wolf pelts.

At the same time, the belief began that honoured ancestors would become wolves after death in Germany. Consequently, names such as Wolfgang, Wolfhard, Wolfbrand began to spring up in hopes that the wolf spirits would enter them and give the soldiers strength and courage. The combination of these events led to wolves became associated with violence and eventually the devil.

Other than the growing relationship between wolves and evil, there were medical disorders that occurred from time to time that may have furthered people’s fears. These made victims of the illnesses appear to have characteristics of werewolfism or convinced that they had become animals. The first disease is called porphyria. It is characterized by yellow, hairy skin that is extremely sensitive to light, forcing the sufferers to go out only at night or risk tissue damage. Ulcers may also cause their hands to become deformed and paw-like. Even their behaviour becomes erratic and red pigments appear in their teeth and urine. The result is a convincing "werewolf".

Sometimes hallucinogens can also play a part in creating werewolves, either through self-administered forms or poisonings. A man with ergot poisoning reportedly escaped from seven straight jackets, lost all his teeth biting through a leather strap, and bent two iron bars on the hospital window while trying to flee from a tiger he believed to be chasing him. Werewolf salves have also been concocted that make people feel as if they were transformed into wolves.

Vampires

The vampire, a creature of the night that rises from the grave to feast on the blood of the living, has terrorized the minds of people of every culture around the world for centuries. Although vampire legends has existed since ancient time, it was not made popular until the novel Dracula by Bram Stroker was published in 1897. Since then, the figure of the vampire can now be seen in all forms of media available including movies, books, and card games.

Location/Map

Variations of the vampire myth can be found in every culture around the world, but those from Slovenia are the most prominent.

Description

There are many variations to the appearance of the vampire. Its form is seen to be human, but can so appear grotesquely distorted, with long nails curved like claws, bloodshot eyes, and deathly pallor. The popular, modern depiction of a vampire is a tall, thin, aristocratic man, dressed in a black suit and a long black cape. He has retractable fangs that are used to the blood from the neck of its victims. He can be a deceiver, luring his young victims through sexual attraction and desire.

Vampires appear undead in their graves, their bodies completely fresh with no traces of decay or rigor mortis (the condition after death which involves the stiffening of the body). There are even signs of rejuvenation like hair, nail, and skin growth. Fresh blood is often seen around the mouth area.

They come out at night from their graves between nightfall and down, hunting down innocent victims to drain their blood. Some vampires in Poland and Russia appear from moon to midnight. Not all vampires drink blood, but steals things that are perhaps even more valuable to a human, such as youth, hope, and love. They have the ability to fly, as well as to change forms into a bat, or other animals, and to mist. They are able to control creatures like rats and wolves, and the elements. Some have the ability to turn invisible.

In most vampire legends, they are required to sleep either in coffins, or return to their graves. They have a need to return to the earth of their homeland each night, or carry their native soil around with them. They cannot cross running water, see their reflection in a mirror, or enter a place uninvited.

Vampires from Different Cultures

Although the more common vampire lore is confined to the resurrected corpse of male humans, there are other variations from different cultures. The Malaysian believed in the penangglan or the langsuir, a female vampire that preys on houses where a birth has taken place, which led to the custom of hanging up a branch of thistle in order to trap her. Some believed that these vampires must place the throat of their victims to the back of their necks to feed, and therefore prefer infants and children. They are credited with a fondness of fish.

Civatateo are Mexican vampires that have the magical powers of a priest. They are noblewomen who died during childbirth who stalk travelers at crossroads and haunts temples and churches. In the Malay Peninsula and parts of Polynesia, they have a vampire that is conceived as a head with entrails attached called the penangal who attack human and their blood.

The Manananggal is the Filipino version of vampire, and is said to be unwilling or unable to touch the tail of a dried stingrays.

In Slavonic countries, the vampire is said to have only one nostril, and possess a sharp point at the end of its tongue, similar to the sting of a bee.

To Become a Vampire

Vampires are believed to be created in a number of ways. It could be a child born under certain omens, someone who committed suicide or came to a violent end, or have been cursed by their parents or the Church. It is a common practice in England to drive an ash stake through the breast of all suicide victims until 1823. A cat, other animals, even a young boy, jumping over a corpse would turn it into a vampire, as well as a bird flying over it.
According to the Servians and Bulgarians, unclean spirits enter into the bodies of criminals and other evil-natured persons, who then become vampires.

Even inanimate objects can turn into vampires, including pumpkins, watermelon and other fruits left out past a certain amount of time, door latches that are left unlatched for too long, as well as dogs, horses, sheep, and snakes.
In Transylvania, it is believed that whoever was killed by a vampire will become one.
Vampire Protection

Holy symbols are often used for protection against the vampire including the cross or crucifix and holy water. Garlic is the most popular vampire repellent, and hawthorn and mountain ash (rowan), is also used. Some believe that the scattering of seeds is also a good defense because the vampire would become so involved in counting every single seed that they would allow its target to escape.

The Wallachians believed that the dead can be prevented from returning to life by driving a long nail through the skull of the corpse and placing a thorny stem of a wild rosebush upon the body. One way prevent a person from becoming a vampire is to rub the body with the lard of a pig killed on St. Ignatius’s Day. For vampire detection, they place a young boy on a black horse and walk them around the cemetery. If the horse refuses to pass over a certain grave, it means that a vampire lies within it.

In Poland and Russia, it is believed that one may become immune from the attacks by eating bread made with flour mixed with the blood of vampires.

To Kill a Vampire

The various methods of destroying a vampire include cremation, beheading, exposure to sunlight, and driving a stake through the heart. Other ways are to touch it with a crucifix and drenching it with holy water and garlic. It is also believed by some cultures that by stealing the left sock of a vampire, filling it with stones, and then throwing it into a river would destroy the creature.

Dhampirs are believed to be a vampire’s child and are the only people capable of seeing invisible vampires. Therefore, they often lend out their services as vampire hunters.

In Bulgaria, a vampire can be destroyed by trapping it in a bottle and throwing it into a fire. This is accomplished by chasing it with a picture of a saint to a specially prepared bottle baited with the vampire’s favourite food, for they believed that vampires only have a thirst for human blood when their human food supply ran out. Once the vampire is inside the bottle containing a fragment of an eikon or holy picture, it will be trapped inside.

History

The vampire is one of the oldest and most global myths of all. There are variations of creatures who rises from the dead to drink the blood of the living in almost every culture around the world. However, the vampire lore of the Slavic people are the most prominent.

The word ‘vampire’ comes from the Slavi word ‘obyri’ and ‘obiri’ which evolved into the Bulgarian word ‘vampir". It is also believed to have to be derived from the Servian word, ‘wampira’. Another name for vampires is ‘Nosferatu’, which might have originated from the Greek word ‘nosophoros’ meaning "plague-carrier", or that it evolved from the Old Slavonic word ‘nosufur-atu’. Russians, Morlacchians, inhabitants of Montenegro, Behemians, Servians, and Arnauts know the vampire as wukodalak, vurkulaka, or vrykolaka, which means ‘wolf-fairy’.

The origin in the vampire has been credited to Greek Christianity, but references of this myth can be found in earlier times, in Chaldean and Assyrian tablets. It is believed that the early vampire legends were developed to explain things that nature could not, like mysterious deaths and wasting diseases. For instance, the Greek vampire lamiani attacked babies and pregnant women so that miscarriage and still-born can be explained.

The Romans believed that the dead bodies of certain people could be raised from their graves by magic, as long as the body was not decomposed. The only way to prevent this was to cremate the remains.

From Greece and Rome, vampire lore spread throughout Austria, Hungary, Lorraine, Poland, Romania, Iceland, and the British Isles. It reached its height in the period from 1723 to 1735, when a vampire-related epidemic broke out in Hungary and Servia. The belief continued to gradually spread to the rest of the world, including the Asian countries and Africa.

In countries that believe suicide victims become vampires when they die, the myth is used to help the love ones cope with their deaths. By performing the vampire rituals to destroy the corpse through staking and cementation, for instance, it destroys the dead person’s psychological attachment to the living, allowing his family and friends to cope with their grief and move on.

Literary Connections

British author Bram Stroker popularized the vampire in his 1897 his novel Dracula about a Transylvanian vampire. The character of Count Dracula was supposedly based on Vlad Tepes, Romania’s fierce warrior king. He ruled Walachia in the 15th century as Vlad III. He earned the nicknamed Vlad the Impaler because of his habit for impaling his enemies on wooden stakes and then beheading them. He was the son of Vlad Dracul, and the rightful holder of the name Dracula, for the name means Son of Dracul. It also means son of the dragon or devil. However, Vlad did not have any vampiric tendencies besides his barbarism.

Before Stroker, vampire literature was rare. The most popular pre-Dracula stories include Carmilla by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Varney the Vampire by James Malcolm Rymer, and The Vampyre: A Tale by John Polidori.

Interesting Facts

Blood is extremely fattening- a litre can provide approximately a thousand calories of high-fat, high-protein nutrition

Porphyria is a rare medical condition whose sufferers display certain characteristics very similar to vampires. Its victims cannot make an adequate amount of blood, and one treatment is to give blood to the patient. However, this is done through injection, and not by ingestion. Porphyria suffers are also very sensitive to light, and burns severely in the sun. Therefore, like the vampire, they tend to avoid sunlight.

The novel Dracula was prevented from being published in Romania until 1993, because Vlad Tepes, the actual character Count Dracula was based on, was a respected historical figure in Romania. The vampire concept surrounding the character caused it to be banned under communist rule

J Dee
Singapore

Mirror and Superstitous

Look into any mirror ... Do you see a ghost? Or does a real ghost see you? Invisible and watching you from the other side in it's backwards world.

Many old mirrors thick and old and silver back stained are said to be haunted by the ghosts of those that died. their image forever frozen or trapped in the glass. Some recent stories on eBay tell of people selling their antique mirrors that were either bought or passed down the generations in their familes and said to be very haunted . It is said by some that if a ghost or lost soul wanders your home during the night, a mirror can capture it. An old New Orleans Voodoo way to capture a ghost was to put a large standing mirror in your bedroom door way. When the ghost thinking it is a door enters the mirror it is forever trapped in the rooms that were reflected in it when caught not the real rooms.

Bloody Mary The Face In The Mirror

A urban legend of sorts states: If you go into the bathroom and look into the mirror with the lights off and the room completely black, and then say 'Bloody Mary' thirteen times, a woman will appear and scratch your face off. The research into Bloody Mary goes back to 1978, when folklorist Janet Langlois published her essay on the legend. Belief in summoning the mirror-witch was even at that time widespread throughout the U.S.

Mary is summoned whenever young teen aged girls get together for a sleepover, but boys have been known to call on her too. The 'Bloody Mary' legend was common in the early 1970s. Typically performed the "ritual" in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows. In latter years after the release of the movie Clive Barker's Candyman (1992) calling upon him became more popular. Many do believe the Candyman's Movies premise is based on fact and try summoning him even today.

Helen Lyle is a student who decides to write a thesis about local legends and myths. She visits a part of the town, where she learns about the legend of Cabrini Green and the Candyman, a one-armed man with a hook who appears to you in your bathroom when you say his name five times, in front of a mirror. Of course, Helen doesn't believe all this stuff, but the people of the area are really afraid. When she ignores their warnings and begins her investigation in the places that he is rumored to appear, a series of horrible murders begins.

In the 1998 movie Urban Legend, two co-eds try to summon an evil spirit by chanting 'Bloody Mary.' In an episode of television's The X Files ("Syzygy," original air date 26 January 1996), two teenage girls lure a rival for a boy's affections into the bathroom — and a "Bloody Mary" ritual — during a birthday party. They prevent her from leaving the bathroom, and the camera cuts to the rest of the partygoers downstairs, who hear a crash of breaking glass and a scream.

Mirror ... Mirror on the wall you make my skin creep and crawl. Whose the ghost that resides within... The spirts of the dead the lost or my next of kin!

Fear of mirrors probably arose from the time when the first humans saw their reflections in a pool of water and once they had got over their initial shock of seeing someone or something, believed that the image was their soul or spirit and to endanger it would mean risking injury to the other self. Also since ancient times, mirrors were said to have magical powers, including the power to foretell the future and were considered to be devices of the gods. Thus breaking a mirror would end its powers and bring untold miseries and misfortunes upon the one whose reflection it last held. Or even damning a trapped spirit to a hell that only the Devil himself knew exisited.

All is Vanity Charles Allan Gilbert, American Illustrator, 1873 - 1929.

The Vanity is considered by many to be one of the finest optical illusions ever conceived. Reproductions of this illusion continue to be popular more than 100 years after the drawing first appeared in print.

The painting is an ambiguous illusion with an allegorical theme, as the title suggests. The two aspects become clear as you study the figure. It can be seen as either, a beautiful girl gazing at her reflection in a large mirror; or the scene can be realized as a grinning human skull. The girl's two heads make up the eye sockets of the skull, her vanity items, and an embroidered table cloth form the teeth and jaws.

The reason for the popularity of the artwork is clear; stunning realism, style, and exquisite detail performed flawlessly by a master illustrator. Charles Gilbert learned his amazing style in New York, and Paris.

Mirrors are the perfect example of an everyday household furnishing attached with countless superstitions. Probably the most common belief concerning mirrors is that their breakage causes seven years of bad luck. But does Breaking a mirror with a real ghost locked in it set it free to haunt you? Consider this: Was the ghost trapped their on his own or placed their by some force to trap it to save others from the haunting the ghost could cause? In New Orleans Voodoosit are said to use a grand spell to capture household haunting ghosts in Zombie bottles or large mirrors. The mirrors which render the ghost harmless only to haunt the world that is reflected in the mirror. Not the Real world we live in. One custom unique to New Orleams voodoo is to watch ( particualrly if it is a bad or evil spirit or ghost) wander into a room or door way reflected in the mirror then to smash it trapping the ghost forever to roam into a different eternity and not haunt your house any longer. And to tell if a old mirror given to you or purchased is haunted place to tall white candles no further then 12 inches apart . Do this at midnight. Focus your eyes at the space between the two candles if it is haunted you will see the ghost!

STROZZI, Bernardo
(b. 1581, Genova, d. 1644, Venezia) Old Woman at the Mirror
c. 1615
Oil on canvas, 132 x 108 cm
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

The theme of this painting has a long tradition: the old woman who has not learned to give her life any other meaning but that of ornament and vanity, and who is unable to see the truth or recognize her true self in the mirror. Strozzi's formulation, however, is both individual and new. It makes the most of the surface values, deliberately contrasting the wrinkled skin of the old woman with the fresh complexion of her servant and juxtaposing the firm and rounded forms of youth with the withered slackness of old age. He reveals in the mirror that the old woman's red cheeks are painted with rouge, and he places a blossoming, scented rose in her wrinkled hand. He also shows us the uncriticizing complacency on her face, leaving it up to the spectator to deduce a sense of embarrassment, emptiness, transparent illusion and moral warning.

As for the seven-year period, the ancient Romans believed that life renewed itself every seven years. If the person looking into the mirror were of ill health, their image would break the mirror and the run of bad luck would continue for seven years, at the end of which their life would be renewed, ending the curse.

But if you do not wish seven years of ill-luck, a variety of remedies are available to counter the curse of the mirror, including some crazy ones like taking all the pieces and throwing them into running water or pounding the broken mirror into tiny fragments so that no piece can reflect anything ever again or taking the pieces outside & burying them in moonlight. There is also help for those who are too lazy or too busy, just leave the breakage the way it was for seven hours and then clean it up immediately after the hours are up.In Greek mythology, the hero Perseus killed Medusa by using a mirrored shield so as not to gaze upon her monstrous appearance (she turned anyone who looked at her to stone.)

In English literature, a famous example is Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, in which protagonist Alice uses a mirror as a portal to a strange alternate world. A common use is that of scrying with a mirror. In Canterbury Tales, "The Squire's Tale" describes a magical mirror that can look over a king's realm; similarly, in The Faerie Queene, Merlin enchants a mirror to have this power. Another example, from the German tales of the brothers Grimm, is Snow White, in which the Wicked Queen consults a magic mirror to determine the identity of the most beautiful woman in the world; this mirror is capable of scrying the forest and finding Snow White. In modern fantasy, the mirror of Galadriel, in J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be.

Mirrors, along with labyrinths, figure prominently in the work of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who often used them as symbols of infinity, impersonation, and illusion. In Dreamtigers, he writes of fearing that his reflection would move independently or change shape before his eyes. In Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, a fictional heresiarch declares that "mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both multiply the numbers of men."

Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe expresses an aversion to mirrors in The Philosophy of Furniture:

Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, – a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector, it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity: and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and displeasing effects.

In the Harry Potter series of novels, the Mirror of Erised is a magic mirror that reflects its viewer, not physically, but representing the viewer's deepest desires. Also featured in the series is a type of device (a dark detector) that functions as a mirror, depicting not only the gazer but also a number of shadowy figures in the background; they are enemies and their proximity to the viewer represents their imminent threat.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula the count (Dracula) has no reflection in a mirror (and no shadow).

In Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, Kilgore Trout calls mirrors "leaks," and tells people he believes they lead to other worlds. He often tells people that where he is from "taking a leak" means stealing a mirror.

Venus Effect

The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after Diego Velázquez's painting The Rokeby Venus. Viewers of the painting assume that Venus is admiring her own reflection in the mirror. However, since the viewer sees her face in the mirror, Venus would actually be looking at the viewer, not at herself.

La Venus del espejo, also known as The Rokeby Venus, is a painting by Diego Velázquez in the National Gallery, London. It dates from 1644 to 1648.

In the painting the goddess Venus is depicted lying on a bed, looking into a mirror held up by Cupid. The face reflected in the dimmed mirror appears to be that of an older woman, which has long intrigued experts. Some think it is a commentary on the vanity of beauty which is transitory due to aging. Some think the face in the mirror was over-painted by another artist at a later time. Another explanation is that the face is not aged, merely out of focus, a sharper face would distract our immediate attention from the form of Venus. By seeing the nude first, and the face afterwards, we are "caught" in voyeurism. The face in the mirror is also substantially larger than it should be, and the mirror is angled such that, in reality, it would reflect a different part of the goddess's body.

The painting is unique for being the only surviving female nude by Velázquez, and one of only two such paintings in all of 17th-century Spanish art, which was often censored by the Spanish Inquisition. It was revolutionary for its depiction of the nude female form with its back facing the viewer. The composition has only three main colours: red, white and grey, which include the pigment of Venus's skin.

This psychological "trick" is often used in the cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at himself in the mirror, with the camera just out of shot. In fact, the actor will be looking at the camera and just be pretending to see himself in the mirror.

The difference in relative sizes of the real face and the reflected face makes it possible to estimate the distance the viewer was from the object when they formed the image.

In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera Erik (the Phantom) uses a revolving room of mirrors to torment his captives. Erik also hides behind a one way mirror when teaching Christine how to sing. In Erik's lair all of the mirrors are hidden behind curtains as Erik is afraid of his own face. At the end of the film of The Phantom of the Opera the Phantom breaks out of his solitude by smashing a mirror and entering an underground tunnel.

Mirrors appear in the Bhagavad Gita (3.38): As fire is covered by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered by different degrees of this lust.

In Chinese Literature, the novel Dream of the Red Chamber, a Taoist monk has a two sided mirror that is capable of reflecting truth from the main screen, while the back screen shows the distorted truth.

In most fantasy stories and games, mirrors are often items that have great magical power, such as being able to oversee the activities of others in locations far away, being gateways to other realms or its most common application of being used to redirect an opponent's attack back at them.

Mirrors, typically large and unframed, are frequently used in interior decoration to create an illusion of space, and amplify the apparent size of a room.

The softness of old mirrors is sometimes replicated by contemporary artisans for use in interior design. These reproduction antiqued mirrors are works of art and can bring color and texture to an otherwise hard, cold reflective surface. It is an artistic process that has been attempted by many and perfected by few.

Ghost And Mirror Superstitions

Never look into a mirror by candlelight, it may show you a very haunted version of your home.

If you stare into a mirror between two tall white candles you might see the spirit of a loved one who has passed away. And their soul is stuck in your mirror.

Always cover a haunted mirror during a thunderstorm lightning will release the ghosts.

It is considered a bad omen to receive a mirror from a deceased persons home as a present.

If a mirror in the house falls and breaks on its own, A evil ghost is trying to escape it's mirror prison.

A baby should never be shown its own reflection before it is a year old, else it will stutter or grow no bigger than it is or die before it turns one.

Many families cover a mirror if someone dies, as they believe that the mirror will capture the dead person’s soul, thus preventing its entry into heaven. When a person is bad in life many say let them be trapped in mirror it is better then going to Hell!

And if someone sees their reflection in a mirror from a room where someone has recently died, they will die soon too.

It is said that if ghost wanders your home during the night, a mirror can capture it.

Early mirrors were often little more than a sheet of polished metal, often silver or copper, for example the Aranmula kannadi. Most modern mirrors consist of a thin layer of aluminum deposited on a sheet of glass. This layer is called the Tain. They are back silvered, where the reflecting surface is viewed through the glass sheet; this makes the mirror durable, but lowers the image quality of the mirror due to extraneous reflections from the front surface of the glass (ordinary glass typically reflects around 4% of the light). This type of mirror reflects about 80% of the incident light. The "back side" of the mirror is often painted or coated in some way to completely seal the metal from corrosion.

Mirrors for precision optical applications are more likely to have the reflective coating on the front surface of the mirror, to eliminate reflection from the glass. Metal films on the front surface are generally covered with a thin, transparent coating to protect them from corrosion. This is often made of silica. In some cases this coating may also enhance reflectivity.

The Devil's Looking Glass

A mirror is an object with a surface that has good specular reflection; that is, it is smooth enough to form an image. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror, which has a flat surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce magnified or demagnified images or focus light. Mirrors are most commonly used for personal grooming, decoration, and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery. Most mirrors are designed for visible light, however, mirrors designed for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation are also used, especially in optical instruments.

Magic Mirrors

They bring bad luck The help tell the future. Before mirrors came along, any reflective surface was considered to be magical and credited with the ability to look into the future. In ancient mythology we can often find the gods and goddesses, as well as mere mortals, looking into the still water to catch a glimpse of their fate. The power of reflective surfaces to captivate and deceive are also featured strongly in such myths as Narcissusand Snow White. Reflective surfaces like shiny metals and mirrors were also used to receive messages from the gods.

Queen Elizabeth's court magician and well-known alchemist, John Dee, used a mirror for scrying. He has been credited with prophesying the plot to kill King James in 1605.

Because mirrors were thought to hold the key to the future, to break one was to shatter your own future. One of the techniques devised to reverse the bad luck was to bury all the pieces deep within the earth. Another superstition for breaking a mirror was that shortly thereafter a family member would die.

(As email to PRSG by Kirsten Scholl, Budapest)

Abondaned surau in the bushes

View from the road side

Thick bushes surrounding the building

Swampy land near the location

Another view of the building

Located in the middle of Kuala Baram Lutong Road and has been abandoned for nealy 20 years. Few sightings of apparition reported by highway user near the area in the form of dark figure, old man crossing the road in front of the place and suddenly vanished, mist and goosebumps

The building was about 100 metres from the road and surrounded by thick bushes and trees. Investigation during a day time was done for a stage 1 assessment by PRSG Team ( Goh TT and R Iskandar) and found out that in term of entering the area, the team needs to walk and hack the bushes and also crossing a swampy ground. Further visits and research will be done in a near time.


Hasnida
PRSG AV

Letter from reader

Hello and best of wishes to all the PRSG team !

Firstly, I'm one of the tetamu biasa kat blog ni and really impressed dengan apa yang you all published kat main page. Memula saya drop by kat page you all ni... well i thought that takde group selain 'Seekers' kat MY tapi ada gak group yang buat Pranormal research blog untuk dikongsi bersama researcher yang lain.. Well Done to PRSG. Kebelakangan ni banyak dokumentari about this kinda stuffs... you all tak keluarkan apa apa video ke? kalau ada leh gak beli...:) And nak tanya.. kalau I ada article yang minta tolong untuk publishkan macam mana plak caranya? is it just email to either one of the email?

Selain dari tu I juga pernah ke Miri Sarawak dalam tahun 2001, tapi tak tau plak ada tempat-tempat mistik dan misteri :) Dan artikel yang paling saya suka adalah mengenai WW2 remnants eg crashed japs plane, bomb's crater, bunker etc.. tapi sayang sama gak dengan tempat-tempat kat MY yang lain dimana semuanya tak dijaga dengan cara yang sepatutnya... kalau nak dikatakan tempat bersejarah memang pun... kalau ler dapat di preserve kan elok.

Artikel tentang paranormal entiti yang lain pun seronok tengok... and yang latest tentang lokasi tentera jepun pancung kepala tu... ada photo yang berjaya korang shoot and evp tak? tak sabar nak tengok ;)

So, that's all my comments and keep up the great works of yours and waiting for the latest findings from PRSG. Yeeha!


K-rules
Muar Johor


(Seperti yang diemailkan ke PRSG )

Canada Hill apparition

Canada Hill is the place where the first oil well in Malaysia which famously known as the Grand Old Lady Oil Well No 1 located. Based on local resource, there's few cases where visitors who came there at night to see the night view of Miri City, claimed to saw dark apparitions crossing the road towards the bushes near the ravine. In some accounts, witness also claim to stumble upon a mysterious tall apparition which known to the local as Hantu Tinggi (Tall Ghost) standing in the middle of the road towards the historical monument. The PRSG team when there to investigate the stories and manage to captured some photo with a nightshot mode near the road entrance. The investigation took about 4 hours starting from 2300 until 0200 am on 14th March 2008 in order to capture any evidence of paranormal entities, apparition and also evp's.


Team members on Site:

R Iskandar @ Ezan
Goh T S @ Tee Tee

Apparition of a face taken with a nightshot camera


A close-up of the face apparition. A set of fangs or sharp front tooth is clearly seen after enhancement

Hasnida
PRSG AV

ParaCrypt RSG WW2 Haunted Execution Field Project

Old local government residential ruins

Former British and Japanese WW2 HQ from the distance

The location where the team saw apparition of WW2 Japanese soldier standing
( Sentry position)

Location near the haunting site

The roads where we managed to captured various EVP recording during

our night research

Nearby field not far from the location

The small road heading to the cliff where numbers of walking headless torso were spotted

Brief background

Located at Tanjong Lobang Miri, Sarawak. The location was known as one of the Japanese HQ during WW2 and the cliff and field at the back of the HQ was the place the execution of POW and Shell high ranks staff was beheaded and shot took place. Investigation was done by PRSG team and night haunting research was conducted recently with a positive result thou there's some unexplained incidents of malfunction equipment after being left behind for several hour. The investigation is still going on in order to get a very impressive findings.

Recent findings were the sound of WW2 fighter airplane in diving and hovering the area (A WW2 Japanese Zero fighter wreck was found in 1960's at the foot of the hill at the back of KTDTHB (Kolej Tun Dato Tuanku Hj Bujang which now already missing due to the scrap metal collecting activities done by local), rifle shot, apparition of headless torso (POW) and full torso of Japanese soldier- clearly visible and saw by team members, footsteps and whistling.

A further PRSG investigation will be done soon in order to capture and record more audio visual.

Vampires

A vampire is a mythical creature who overcomes death by sucking the blood from living humans. The most common variation of the myth portrays the vampire as a dead person who rises from the grave at night to seek his victim from the realm of the sleeping. The vampire is a popular theme of film makers who have started with Bram Stokers's novel (Dracula) and added a number of variations to the theme, e.g., the ability to fly (like the vampire bat); a lust for beautiful women as victims who then become vampires upon being bitten; fear of the symbol of the Christian cross; the repelling power of garlic or garlic flowers; and death by sunlight or by a special stake driven through the heart, a fitting death for a character commonly believed to be based on the 15th century warrior, Vlad the Impaler. However, according to Elizabeth Miller, author of Dracula:Sense and Nonsense (Desert Island Books, 2000), Bram Stoker did not base his vampire Count on Vlad the Impaler. He borrowed Vlad's nickname (Dracula) for a vampire character he had already conceived (and tentatively named Count Wampyr).

Legends of bloodsucking creatures are found in many cultures throughout history. One of the more popular bloodsuckers of our age is the chupacabra. The vampire is also a popular literary subject. Hence, there are numerous descriptions of the origin, nature, powers, etc. of vampires. What seems to be universal about vampire myths is their connection with the fear of death and the desire for immortality. The ritual drinking of blood to overcome death has been practiced by many peoples. The Aztecs and other Native Americans, for example, ate the hearts and drank the blood of captives in ritual ceremonies, most likely to satisfy the appetite of their gods and gain for themselves fertility and immortality. Also typical were the rites of Dionysus and Mithras, where the drinking of animal blood was required in the quest for immortality. Even today, some Christians believe that their priests perform a magical transubstantion of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ to be eaten and drunk in the quest to join God in eternal life.

We might say we've made progress in our ritualistic quest to overcome death. First, we sacrificed humans and drank their blood to keep the gods alive and happy, or to join them in overcoming death. We later came to substitute bulls or other animals for humans to achieve our goal. Finally, we progressed to a vegetarian menu of bread and wine. Even so, the basic truth is depressing: for anything to live, something or someone else must die. Whether this truth sets you free or not depends, I suppose, on your place at or on the dinner table. Since we are deep into metaphors, we may as well note here that the vampire has become a metaphor for those who define and create themselves by destroying others. People whose lives center on destroying other people's lives by disempowering them, who reduce their victims to dependent subjects to be lorded over, have been called spiritual vampires. Some of the therapists, ministers and gurus I've written about elsewhere in the Dictionary could be called spiritual vampires, very aptly.

This cultural link between vampirism and the quest for immortality seems to have been subordinated in literature and film, where other themes, such as blood for blood's sake, fear for fear's sake, or entrance into the realm of the occult, seem to dominate. One sign of the cultural deterioration of our ancestor's noble quest for immortality can be seen in the modern secondary meaning of 'vampire': a woman who exploits and ruins her lover. Another example of deterioration can be seen in the numerous WWW sites on vampires which appeal to occult or New Age interests such as entering the so-called dark side of reality, gaining power, establishing a unique identity as a special person or selling commercial products and games.

Apparently, role playing and masquerading as vampires is not enough to satisfy the bloodlust of some people, and covens or cults of "vampires" have emerged among some occultists. They seek blood to give them power, a sexual rush, or to establish a unique and special fictional persona based on creating fear and mystery in others. Unlike our ancient ancestors, their power is not sought because of fear based on ignorance and misunderstanding of nature, but on ignorance and misunderstanding of themselves. Like other occult cults these vampire covens are attractive to the young and the weak. Just a few years ago, such "vampyres" would have been considered ill or evil. Today, they are said to have an "alternative lifestyle."

A vampire myths also go back thousands of years and occur in almost every culture around the world. Their variety is almost endless; from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent; from vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang, langsuir and pontianak in Malaysia and kuntilanak in Indonesia.

However, the vampires we are familiar with today, although mutated by fiction and film, are largely based on Eastern European myths. The vampire myths of Europe originated in the far East, and were transported from places like China, Tibet and India with the trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. Here they spread out along the Black Sea coast to Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania.

Our modern concept of the vampire still retains threads, such as blood drinking, return from death, preying on humans at night, etc in common with the Eastern European myths. However many things we are familiar with; the wearing of evening clothes, capes with tall collars, turning into bats, etc are much more recent inventions.

On the other hand, many features of the old myths such as the placing of millet or poppy seeds at the gravesite in order to keep the vampire occupied all night counting seeds rather than preying on relatives, have all but disappeared from modern fiction and film.

Even among the Eastern European countries there is a large variety of vampires.

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SLAVIC VAMPIRES:

The Slavic people including most east Europeans from Russia to Bulgaria, Serbia to Poland, have the richest vampire folklore and legends in the world. The Slavs came from north of the Black Sea and were closely associated with the Iranians. Prior to 8th century AD they migrated north and west to where they are now.

Christianization began almost as soon as they arrived in their new homelands. But through the 9th and 10th centuries the Eastern Orthodox Church and the western Roman Church were struggling with each other for supremacy. They formally broke in 1054 AD, with the Bulgarians, Russians, and Serbians staying Orthodox, while the Poles, Czechs, and Croatians went Roman. This split caused a big difference in the development of vampire lore - the Roman church believed incorrupt bodies were saints, while the Orthodox church believed they were vampires.

The origin of Slavic vampire myths developed during 9th C as a result of conflict between pre-Christian paganism and Christianity. Christianity won out with the vampires and other pagan beliefs surviving in folklore.

Causes of vampirism included: being born with a caul, teeth, or tail, being conceived on certain days, irregular death, excommunication, improper burial rituals etc. Preventative measures included: placing a crucifix in the coffin, or blocks under the chin to prevent the body from eating the shroud, nailing clothes to coffin walls for the same reason, placing millet or poppy seeds in the grave because vampires had a fascination with counting, or piercing the body with thorns or stakes.

Evidence that a vampire was at work in the neighbourhood included: death of cattle, sheep, relatives, neighbours, exhumed bodies being in a lifelike state with new growth of the fingernails or hair, or if the body was swelled up like a drum, or there was blood on the mouth and if the corpse had a ruddy complexion.

Vampires could be destroyed by staking, decapitation (the Kashubs placed the head between the feet), burning, repeating the funeral service, holy water on the grave, exorcism.

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ROMANIA:

Romania is surrounded by Slavic countries, so it isn't surprising that their vampires are variants of the Slavic vampire. They are called Strigoi based on the Roman term strix for screech owl which also came to mean demon or witch.

There are different types of strigoi: strigoi vii are live witches who will become vampires after death. They can send out their soul at night to meet with other witches or with Strigoi mort who are dead vampires. The strigoi mort are the reanimated bodies which return to suck the blood of family, livestock, and neighbours.

A person born with a caul, tail, born out of wedlock, or one who died an unnatural death, or died before baptism, was doomed to become a vampire. As was the seventh child of the same sex in a family, the child of a pregnant woman who didn't eat salt or was looked at by a vampire, or a witch. And naturally, being bitten by vampire, meant certain condemnation to a vampiric existence after death.

The Vircolac which is sometimes mentioned in folklore was more closely related to a mythological wolf that could devour the sun and moon and later became connected with werewolves rather than vampires. The person afflicted with lycanthropy could turn into a dog, pig, or wolf.

The vampire was usually first noticed when it attacked family and livestock, or threw things around in the house. Vampires, along with witches, were believed to be most active on the Eve of St George's Day (April 22 Julian, May 4 Gregorian calendar), the night when all forms of evil were supposed to be abroad. St Georges Day is still celebrated in Europe.

A vampire in the grave could be told by holes in the earth, an undecomposed corpse with a red face, or having one foot in the corner of the coffin. Living vampires were found by distributing garlic in church and seeing who didn't eat it.

Graves were often opened three years after death of a child, five years after the death of a young person, or seven years after the death of an adult to check for vampirism.

Measures to prevent a person becoming a vampire included, removing the caul from a newborn and destroying it before the baby could eat any of it, careful preparation of dead bodies, including preventing animals from passing over the corpse, placing a thorny branch of wild rose in the grave, and placing garlic on windows and rubbing it on cattle, especially on St George's & St Andrew's days.

To destroy a vampire, a stake was driven through the body followed by decapitation and placing garlic in the mouth. By the 19th century people were shooting a bullet through the coffin. For resistant cases, the body was dismembered and the pieces burned, mixed with water, and given to family members as a cure.

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GYPSIES AND VAMPIRES:

Even today, Gypsies frequently feature in vampire fiction and film, no doubt influenced by Bram Stoker's book "Dracula" in which the Szgany gypsies served Dracula, carrying his boxes of earth and guarding him.

In reality, Gypsies originated as nomadic tribes in northern India, but got their name from the early belief that they came from Egypt. By 1000 AD they started spreading westward and settled in Turkey for a time, incorporating many Turkish words into their Romany language.

By the 14th century they were all through the Balkans and within two more centuries had spread all across Europe. Gypsies arrived in Romania a short time before Vlad Dracula was born in 1431.

Their religion is complex and varies between tribes, but they have a god called O Del, as well as the concept of Good and Evil forces and a strong relationship and loyalty to dead relatives. They believed the dead soul entered a world similar to ours except that there is no death. The soul stayed around the body and sometimes wanted to come back. The Gypsy myths of the living dead added to and enriched the vampire myths of Hungary, Romania, and Slavic lands.

The ancient home of the Gypsies, India has many mythical vampire figures. The Bhuta is the soul of a man who died an untimely death. It wandered around animating dead bodies at night and attacked the living like a ghoul. In northern India could be found the brahmaparusha, a vampire-like creature with a head encircled by intestines and a skull from which it drank blood.

The most famous Indian vampire is Kali who had fangs, wore a garland of corpses or skulls and had four arms. Her temples were near the cremation grounds. She and the goddess Durga battled the demon Raktabija who could reproduce himself from each drop of blood spilled. Kali drank all his blood so none was spilled, thereby winning the battle and killing Raktabija.

Sara or the Black Goddess is the form in which Kali survived among Gypsies. Gypsies have a belief that the three Marys from the New Testament went to France and baptised a Gypsy called Sara. They still hold a ceremony each May 24th in the French village where this is supposed to have occurred.

One Gypsy vampire was called a mullo (one who is dead). This vampire was believed to return and do malicious things and/or suck the blood of a person (usually a relative who had caused their death, or not properly observed the burial ceremonies, or who kept the deceased's possessions instead of destroying them as was proper.)

Female vampires could return, lead a normal life and even marry but would exhaust the husband. Anyone who had a hideous appearance, was missing a finger, or had animal appendages, etc. was believed to be a vampire.

Even plants or dogs, cats, or farm animals could become vampires. Pumpkins or melons kept in the house too long would start to move, make noises or show blood.

To get rid of a vampire people would hire a dhampire (the son of a vampire and his widow) to detect the vampire. To ward off vampires, gypsies drove steel or iron needles into a corpse's heart and placed bits of steel in the mouth, over the eyes, ears and between the fingers at the time of burial. They also placed hawthorn in the corpse's sock or drove a hawthorn stake through the legs. Further measures included driving stakes into the grave, pouring boiling water over it, decapitating the corpse, or burning it.

In spite of the disruption of Gypsy lives by the various eastern European communist regimes, they still retain much of their culture. In 1992 a new king of the Gypsies was chosen in Bistritz, Romania.

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BATS:

No discussion of vampires is even thinkable without talking about bats. They are integral to the modern day concept of the vampire, but this was not always the case.

Many cultures have various myths about bats. In South America, Camazotz was a bat god of the caves living in the Bathouse of the Underworld. In Europe, bats and owls were long associated with the supernatural, mainly because they were night creatures. On the other hand, the Gypsies thought them lucky - they wore charms made of bat bones. And in England the Wakefield crest and those of some others have bats on them.

So how did bats end up becoming associated with vampires? There are only three species of vampires bats in the entire world, all of which occur in Central and South America. During the 16th century the Spanish conquistadors first came into contact with them and recognized the similarity between the feeding habits of the bats and those of their mythical vampires. It wasn't long before they began to associate bats with their vampire legends. Over the following centuries the association became stronger and was used by various people, including James Malcom Rhymer who wrote "Varney the Vampyre" in the 1840's. Stoker cemented the linkage of bats and vampires in the minds of the general public.

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EIGHTEENTH CENTURY VAMPIRE CONTROVERSY:

Today everyone is familiar with vampires, but in Britain very little was known of vampires prior to the 18th century. What brought the vampire to the attention of the general public? During the 18th century there was a major vampire scare in Eastern Europe. Even government officials frequently got dragged into the hunting and staking of vampires.

This controversy was directly responsible for England's current vampire myths. In fact, the word Vampire only came into English language in 1732 via an English translation of a German report of the much publicized Arnold Paole vampire staking in Serbia.

Western scholars seriously considered the existence of vampires for the first time rather than just brushing them off as superstition. It all started with an outbreak of vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Austro-Hungarian empire from 1725-1734.

Two famous cases involved Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole. Plogojowitz died at the age of 62, but came back a couple of times after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the next day. Soon Plogojowitz returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the other famous case Arnold Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who had been attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After death people began to die and it was believed by everyone that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours.

These two incidents were extremely well documented. Government officials examined the cases and the bodies, wrote them up in reports, and books were published afterwards of the Paole case and distributed around Europe. The controversy raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural people having an epidemic of vampire attacks and digging up bodies all over the place. Many scholars said vampires didn't exist - they attributed reports to premature burial, or rabies which causes thirst.

However, Dom Augustine Calmet, a well respected French theologian and scholar, put together a carefully thought out treatise in 1746 which said vampires did exist. This had considerable influence on other scholars at the time.

Eventually, Austrian Empress Marie Theresa sent her personal physician to investigate. He said vampires didn't exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies. This was the end of the vampire epidemics. But by then everyone knew about vampires and it was only a matter of time before authors would preserve and mold the vampire into something new and much more accessible to the general public.

Yulia

PRSG member