Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: This Is Real

"Ever wonder what you would do if you were kidnapped? This Is Real simulates a group abduction at a warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn." Image Source: Jessica Lehrman/NYT.

On 26 October 2016, the NYT reported on scary haunts organized for those seeking a fear-filled time on Hallowe'en. The most intriguingly unhealthy of their selection was This Is Real, a warehouse event in the neighbourhood of Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York City, where you can pay actors to treat you like a brutalized hostage in a psycho-torture film. [Although, in an update at the bottom of this post, the creators of the event corrected me on Twitter to say that they don't actually torture the patrons. They hire actors to pretend to torture each other, and then they chase the patrons through a Saw-like warehouse maze.]

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: Death in the Park

Image Source: Dan Bell/Twitter.

Today's post follows urban explorer Dan Bell again (see my earlier posts on him here, here and here), as he visited Gwynns Falls - Leakin Park, which spans 1,216 acres (492 hectares) in his native city of Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Leakin Park is famous as a murderers' dumping ground; it is estimated that some 80 people have been murdered there or their bodies have been abandoned there, and the number is probably higher.  The area is so heavily forested that it was the film location for The Blair Witch Project sequel, Book of Shadows (2000).

Baltimore’s Leakin Park : The Scariest Place in America / A Creepy Documentary Featurette (15 September 2017). Video Source: Youtube.

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: Thy Love to Me was Wonderful

Image Source: Alvin Lee Tribute Website.

In February of this year, it emerged in the UK press that the guitarist of Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, owned Hook End Manor in Oxfordshire, UK. Now abandoned, the reports were an invitation to UK urban explorers to go have a look. Youtube now boasts a number of urbex videos giving us a peek into a rock star's life from thirty years ago. The description for the video below was adapted a report from The Daily Mail:

"David Gilmour bought the manor in 1980 from Alvin Lee of the blues band Ten Years After. He recorded some of Pink Floyd’s 1987 album A Momentary Lapse of Reason in a studio at the house. Horn recorded the hit single Video Killed The Radio Star and masterminded the success of the 1980s group Frankie Goes To Hollywood.

He bought Hook End Manor in the 1990s before placing it on the market for £10 million in 2007.

The house - thought to have been built for the Bishop of Reading around 1580 - boasted a gym, heated swimming pool, croquet lawn and tennis court, pergola and terracing.

The 11-bedroom Elizabethan manor house, set in 25 acres, boasted a state-of-the-art recording studio where Spandau Ballet and Jamiroquai also recorded hit tracks.

The home - worth around £12million - was sold by record producer Trevor Horn in 2007 after his wife Jill Sinclair, 55, was struck by a stray pellet fired from her son Aaron’s air rifle in the garden of the mansion.

The pellet lodged in Jill's neck, piercing an artery and she was rushed to hospital, but despite prompt medical attention she had to be put into a drug-induced coma. She died in 2014."

The house is currently on the site of RPA Architects as a slated refurbishment project.

Images Source: Daily Mail.

In the video below, see urban explorers go though the abandoned mansion. In the basement, they found a morbid memento, the tombstone of a small boy: LITTLE JACK. April 17th 1909. THY LOVE TO ME WAS WONDERFUL. Morrissey, lead singer of The Smiths, stayed in the house and reported that he (and other visitors) felt a ghostly hand on their chests, waking them each day at 4:10 in the morning.

PINK FLOYDS ABANDONED MILLIONAIRE 1580s MANSION (EVERYTHING LEFT BEHIND) DAVID GILMOUR LIVED HERE! (30 September 2017). At 10:48 (here) in the video, the urban explorers find a tombstone in the basement. Video Source: Youtube.

See all my posts on Horror.
See all my posts on the Paranormal.
Posts on the Occult are here.
Click here for my posts on Ghosts.

Check out other blogs observing the Countdown to Hallowe'en!
Image Source: 4Chan.

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: The Highgate Vampire and the Hampstead Witch Hunt

These were the people in your neighbourhood: David Farrant's 1971 photograph of French occultist, Martine de Sacy, supposedly engaged in a Wiccan cleansing ritual performed at the scene of Necromantic rites in the Cory-Wright vault at Highgate Cemetery, UK. De Sacy's later comments on Farrant conflicted with Farrant's version of events. Image Source © David Farrant/Hampstead Christ Church.

One of the most disturbing political and social rumours to emerge in the past two years is the Pedogate story of worldwide child slavery, black magic, and ritual sacrifice. It was widely dismissed in the mainstream media as vicious disinformation, spread to bolster populism, nationalism, neo-fascism, and anti-Semitism. Indeed, it does revive the ugliest medieval anti-Semitic hoax, the blood ritual myth.

My interpretation does not consider Pedogate's counter-factual aspects to be true. That is, I do not believe in the anti-Semitic hoax. Rather, I consider more carefully how disinformation can be exploited and I have written here on the kernels of fact upon which the myths are based. I have argued that the Pedogate rumour has real underpinnings in the Internet's exacerbation of child porn and child sexual exploitation. And the rumour has had further practical applications in the new development of Internet politics. These stories are not without substance, as successive scandals demonstrate.

One aspect of this disinformation is a rage against, and dehumanization of, the upper tier of society in the post-2008 recession era. Today's example considers an incredibly damaging and frightening set of accusations leveled at the well-to-do inhabitants of Hampstead, London, from 2014 to 2017. The Hampstead case is part of the Pedogate moral panic, and concerns terrifying accounts of child abuse and Satanic practices. The locals in Hampstead have denied the whole story; all accusations remain unproven.

A Big Blog Thank You

S. Manon's photo of New York City's Central Park on a foggy fall night (2 October 2012). Image Source: Wiki.

This blog just passed 3 million hits! Thank you very much to everyone who has spent precious time here reading these posts. I am extremely grateful to all my readers. There will be a giveaway in November to thank readers who have helped the blog to pass this milestone.

Central Park on a foggy night. Image Source: Favim.

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: Psychic Vampires and Ambrosia's Blood Elixirs

Image Source: Etsy.

There is a disturbing subculture on social media which is devoted to teaching people how to siphon off the life force of others in order to gain power and control in society. Immersed in the dark occult, these self-proclaimed 'psychic feeders' and 'psychic vampires' like to go to public areas, workplaces, or social gatherings to drain the positive energy from young families, the negative energy from sick people, and everything in between. They use holiday periods such as Christmas to exploit the prana, 'chi' or 'qi' of others. They regard this ability as a honed skill. Even if you don't believe in any of this, there are people who do, and they are worth avoiding.

Image Source: Humans are Free.

You may not recognize them. Psychic vampires intentionally steal life energy from sexual interactions and will feign love or sympathy for people in order to partake of others' spiritual forces. They 'store' this energy inside themselves, or inside crystals and objects, so they may direct these forces later at other people. They are so malevolent that I will not embed their how-to videos, or link directly to their material, on this blog. However, you can see searches for their videos, with typical results, here and here.

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: Humanity's Tombstone

Image Source: Vigilant Citizen.

I try to address really strange conspiracy theories, which nonetheless have some larger importance, during the month of October. Special weirdness is reserved for a Stonehenge-like monument in Georgia, USA, which bears cryptic messages in English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian.

Brad Meltzer's Decoded: Apocalypse in Georgia Season 1, Episode 10 (3 February 2011) © History Channel. Video Source: Youtube.

The Georgia Guidestones outside Atlanta were erected in 1980 on the orders of man working under an assumed name, R. C. Christian. There are revelations of his secret identity here and here. The Guidestones have inspired fear and vandalism, because alongside their espousal of rationalism, they also declare that the earth's human population should be cut back to 500 million people.

Countdown to Hallowe'en 2017: The Famine of Memory

This is an early incarnation of the villain, Sauron, when he was known as Mairon. Image Source: The Land of Shadow.

One of the premises of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is that the characters live in a perilous time when real history has been lost. Thus, mortal danger arises not from the arch-villain, exactly, but from the abandoned vigilance of memory.

A later incarnation of Sauron, when he was known as Annatar. Image Source © Angel Falto/Tolkien Gateway.

Another conception of Annatar, who deceived the elves in the Second Age. Image Source © Alaïs/deviantART/Tolkien Gateway.