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I dare to suppose that she was having a way better time in there than he ever imagined...

- Colossal Squid (alive and kicking, from the many tentacles, maybe with a sperm whale, posing as buddies). - The Nandi Bear - The Thunderbird (the cryptid, not the Gibson bass guitar or any of the Tracy brothers).

Some friendships I have for more than 40 years were people that I met in bookshops or record stores. Bookstores are the home of the unexpected (be it on paper or humankind). I'm not sure you would be able to make friends on or because online shops. Or eBay. Or even OnlyFans. Good luck in...

Until I actually see it, I will keep my suspect that this is another case of I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock'n'Roll....

Quite true... Suddenly some places I lived in seem creepy...

Are there any records of ghostly farts... ? I mean, it could be a valid manifestation, like the smell of flowers, pipes, cigars, perfums...

For something like 10 years, the evangelical (neo-pentecostal) groups that assumed the control of the drug traffic in Rio de Janeiro are systematically invading, destroying candmblé temples and even brutalizing and/or raping their priests and followers. Let's hope this "historical reparation"...

Talk about synchronicity... The Dangerous Minds blog is giving a wink to La Bête today : https://dangerousminds.net/comments/could_be_worse_the_beast_of_gevaudan_and_the_french_werewolf_epidemic

An overall correct approach of the story. I agree with the conclusion that we'll never really know what happened. Some remarks : The creature killed by Chastel was reportedly analyzed by at least one naturalist, that confirmed the animal wasn't a wolf. This animal was embalmed and sent to...

I miserably forgot to add to my other post, sorry. :) https://www.librarything.com/publisherseries/Llewellyn%27s+World+Religion+and+Magick

As far as I can see, there are 14 books in the series, but there is another serie, Llewellyn's World Magic, that count with other 8. I never read one of them, so I can't give you an objectve opinion. On the subjective side, I guess they edit and compile other sources, it's difficult to guess how...

A GOOD prophet shoould foresee this...

Bats are mammals. Unless somebody finds a prophecy talking about "I will swept the mammals from the sky", I will remain unimpressed. And, yes, I would credit the phenomenon to climatic twists that seem to be so usual recently. To add a note, birds are still flying, quite undisturbed by the...

Just to clarify, British Electric Canberras had no defensive rear turrets or rear fire ports. It's important to pinpoint that, even during the last months of WWII, many bombers had gun turrets that weren't supposed to be manned, so there was no "rear window" on them. If one looks to a Canberra...

I think that @Mythopoeika care in approaching a subject that can evolve from volatile to explosive very fast is reasonable. The sheer multiplicity of silent readers all around generates an imprevisibility factor in discussions like this one. I also hope, like @Yithian, that the same way most of...

I still haven't read the new issue, but an article about John Dee in FT is something that I haven't seen for a long time. Concerning HPL, I hope the article have a good approach to his universe (or, as some prefer, the Mythos). Lovecraft is a very complex character, himself, and some of his...

Yes, but how were the disputes between beliefs conducted back then ? "Your god it's just a shallow idol, mine is the Real Thi..." and then the guy was grilled by a lightning... It's a little weak as a point, you see. How to overthrow a superstition with another ? With few speech and lots of...

You know that, sometimes, I have the pleasure to provoke an answer like this from you, just to learn a little more from your lucidity and your knowledge. And this is very far from me being ironic. :)

Unless DaVinci was slipping some mischief in the interpretantion of his painting, suggesting that a scrying tool was a reproduction of the celestial shere... :)

This is an interesting interpretation to Friar Tuck! In general, Benandanti, Bokkerrijders and Robin Hood (I promise to leave the meifumado alone...) seem to fall on a similar cathegory of rebellious disfranchised (one of the attributes that made the case of the Benandanti even more complex to...

An unintentional typo, indeed. And yes, a Ronin Wood would be a very interesting mash-up to develop on a story... :D It's true that Lone Wolf And Cub already cover this kind of character, a high rate samurai that takes the way of the meifumado, as outlaw samurai. I used to have all the issues...

Talking about similitudes, I would like to introduce you the Bokkenrijders... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckriders The Bokkenrijders are originated from Netherlands and Belgium, people that were supposed to fly (ride, rijders) on the back of goats (bokken, bouc, goat), by night. It was a...

@Frideswide , I can't answer for sure, I have never read Le Roy Ladurie (yet...), but it's very probable that they tap on the very same vein. For everything that I could re-read about Ginzburg and the Benandanti, I have the feeling that he tends to reject the cross-polinisation of the local...

There are many interest links to other subjects in the discussion of the Benandanti : the Fairies, the Wild Hunt, shamanism and even class struggle. It's a pleasure to find a subject so fertile in ramifications. Ginzbur insists that, when the Inquisition discovered the Benandanti, they were...

I guess we can't say for sure that the Benandanti are "extinct", once we can't say their origins. We can't even be sure the Benandanti are the only "evolution" of this source. I prefer to think that Benandanti (and their, say, peers) became just more discreet. And I'm not even putting in...

In general, the french are very cautious about this kind of thing (they even have the concept of "preventive archeological research"), but it's up to the workers an their supervisors to report something that they stumbled upon...

It's the infamous process of "gentrification": more and more housing projects advertised as a high-middle-class dream. Here in the suburbs of South Paris we are living a boom of projects like that : HUGE areas rebuilt, dozens of appartment blocks, with artificial lakes, commerce, schools...

I would suggest a song "The Death And Ressurection Show", for a start. It's a relatively recent song, but I guess it would be a good introduction. By the way, listen to it loud. :)

@Ermintruder , just to add some context and delimiter some perimeter, have you ever listened to Killing Joke, specially their two self titled albums (meaning... "Killing Joke") ou "Fire Dances" ?

I'm not saying that this is the answer, but I consider that it can be a good hypothesis. Phenphigus is common in central Brazil (known also as Fogo Selvagem). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemphigus Pemphigus (/ˈpɛmfɪɡəs/ or /pɛmˈfaɪɡəs/) is a rare group of blistering autoimmune diseases that...

It's, indeed, the case. His family name must be read as Prestes. "Filho" have the very same role as "Junior" in his name. It's very common in brazilian names to take the name of the father and add Filho in the end. My father was ia "Filho" once he had the very same name of my gradfather.

I had a few episodes of the "Exploding Head Syndrome". What I find curious is that, in my case, they were separated by years. The first time it happened it was the early 1990s (1991 or 1992, I can't be sure) : twice I woke up because of a sound of a small explosion or, more accurately, a...

Let's not forget that St. George is immensely popular in Rio de Janeiro too, where he is celebrated as the Warrior Saint. St. George is assimilated to Ogun, the Orisha of the war and the metals. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8bA_8NwvmE

In a certain manner, yes, it could be implicit but not necessarily negative. Take the case of the Benandanti : they were negative only in the christian context, but inside their own communities, they were necessary, even heroic characters. Isobel Goudie wasn't seen as a menace, except for the...

Well, as far as I remember, one of the most famous "witch" is Isobel Goudie, that was reasonably young. The women that died in Salem were not that old, neither. There is a difference between women that were tried and executed under the accusation of "witchcraft" and the older women, seen as...

It is, on its original context. But the word "karma" was reprocessed and recontextualized for so long on our languages and cultures, that we can assume that it's legitimate to associate it with less orthodox interpretations. We use decontextualized words all the time, like coffee and algebra...

Oh dear... Reddit links show very badly... Sorry.

Most of what I learned about Fleury, I read in French, from the digitalized documents of the BNF, the Gallica. It can be a rich source for those that can read in French : https://gallica.bnf.fr/ Besides, there are some material in English as well, like this small article...

Great image, by the way. About Dee and the obsidian mirror, it seems that Dee tried to use the mirror he had in his scrying experiments, but with no avail. It means that all the pratice with his three "mediums" (latu sensu), Barnabas Saul, Edward Kelley and Arthur Dee, used other kinds of...

Maximus, I think that some things should be taken in consideration about this patch : - The second picture doesn't give a good idea of the aluminium piece found in Nikumaroro. Is it consistent with the size and the dimensions of the patch shown in the first picture ? - Aluminium patches are...

I remember cleary to read this one on a Reader's Digest book about hauntings and haunting stories. Concerning the "Dead Of Night" film, I also remember cleary the scene. By the way, I love this film.

I always knew that Innsmouth was a name of akkadian origin....

Isn't this a depiction of the interaction of Babylonians with the Akpalos ?

There is a post by the Urban Prehistorian blog, from 3 days ago... https://theurbanprehistorian.wordpress.com/2018/12/03/how-old-is-a-piece-of-stone/

Master Enola, you know that I am a big fan of your Aristotelic ways (and this IS a compliment), but I suspect that the separation between categories of OBE (the Fortean phenomena, not the chivalry title) don’t take in account some moveable boundaries when we actually live this kind experience...

I rememeber this film and this scene in special quite well. The use of grainy videotape was sometimes very effective too. Very creative for its time. And convincingly spookey, too.

Ulalume, you made me think about your instant theory about the Southernmost and Northmost countries. My first reflex concerning the Southern States was “African heritage”, but the Northern States have them as much as the Southern ones. Nevertheless, it’s true that the African heritage on the USA...

There is a horrifying chapter on "The Painted Bird" about the Kalmüchen Kavallerie Korps.

Wonderful piece of brazilian history that you unearthed Tribble! It shows that the close relationship between fundamentalist religion, police and far right is quite old and well estabilished.

Yesterday I evoked something called the Orthoténie, and, because my ufologic memories are more than rusty, I attributed this theory/technique to Jacques Valée, when the correct is Aimé Michel. Michel was inspired, by the way, by another Jacques, Jacques Bergier, that showed him the significance...