Posts Tagged ‘Poltergeist’

News & Submissions 12/07/2010

Tuesday, December 7th, 2010

Reindeer ‘cruelty’ slammed by rights group
Reindeer are being tormented when slaughtered, according to the animal rights organisation World Society for Protection of Animals (WSPA).

WSPA released a video on Monday that shows reindeer in distress when herded and transported, and while at the slaughterhouse.

“The film that we are showing is particularly shocking now that Christmas is upon us, but it clearly shows the cruel reality that reindeer are exposed to,” Roger Pettersson, secretary general of WSPA Sweden, said in a statement on Monday. Read full story from thelocal.se

Mum’s poltergeist fears
A YOUNG mum is calling in an exorcist amid fears she is sharing her new home with a poltergeist.

Student midwife Holly Taylor and her two-year-old daughter Willow will no longer sleep at the apartment in Pemberton town centre after a terrifying series of events.

And few people the 22-year-old has told are doubting her because many have witnessed ghostly goings-on too. Read full story from wigantoday.net

French library finds Leonardo da Vinci manuscript
A coded manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered in a public library in the French city of Nantes.

The document was found after a journalist came across a reference to it in a Leonardo biography, the library said.

It was among 5,000 manuscripts donated by wealthy collector Pierre-Antoine Labouchere in 1872 and then forgotten. Read full story from bbc.co.uk

On 69th Anniversary, Pearl Harbor Survivors Remember
Sixty-nine years ago today, Japan attacked the U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor.

And though fewer of them are still with us, members of the Pearl Harbor Survivors Association don’t want to disband, association president Art Herriford tells the Associated Press. Read full story from npr.org

Resident challenges Christian prayers at Chillicothe City Council meetings
CHILLICOTHE –Chillicothe resident Rebekah Valentich formally has requested the Chillicothe City Council stop reciting Christian prayers at the beginning of every regular session.

“Myself and others have found that we are sitting in silence and being forced to participate in religious practices that I/we do not agree with,” Valentich said in her letter she sent council members by e-mail Sunday evening. “I am asking that this practice stop or be replaced with a non-sectarian prayer so as not to promote Christianity over other religions or non-religion.”

In 2008, the Chillicothe City Council conducted brief discussions on the role prayer should play in its meetings after the city of Greenfield received letters from the American Civil Liberties Union asking its council stop prayer at its meetings. Read full story from chillicothegazette.com

Healing thyself: Does psychedelic therapy exploit the placebo effect?
My last post talked about the depressing lack of progress in treatments for depression and other common psychological disorders. Talking cures and antidepressants alike are subject to the “dodo effect,” which decrees that all therapies are roughly as effective—or ineffective—as one another. The dodo effect implies that treatments harness the placebo effect, the patient’s expectation of improvement. Claims that one therapy beats all the others often reflect researchers’ favoritism, called the “allegiance effect”.

After reading the post one of my smart-ass students asked, “What about psychedelic therapies? Are those subject to the dodo and allegiance effects, too?” Good questions. He knew that, although bashing conventional psycho-treatments, I’ve written positively about psychedelics’ therapeutic potential. Does my reporting reflect countercultural allegiance to psychedelics and distrust of clinical psychology, psychiatry and Big Pharma? Maybe a little. But I’ve also pointed out the risks of drugs such as DMT and LSD as well as the role of suggestion in shaping psychedelic trips. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Volcanic Eruptions May Have Wiped Out Neandertals
A cave in the northern Caucasus Mountains may hold a key to the long-standing mystery of why the Neandertals, our closest relatives, went extinct. For nearly 300,000 years the heavy-browed, barrel-chested Neandertals presided over Eurasia, weathering glacial conditions more severe than any our own kind has ever faced. Then, starting around 40,000 years ago, their numbers began to decline. Shortly after 28,000 years ago, they were gone. Paleo­anthropologists have been debating whether competition with incoming modern humans or the onset of rapidly oscillating climate was to blame for their demise. But new findings suggest that catastrophic volcanic eruptions may have doomed the Neandertals—and paved the way for modern humans to take their place.

Researchers led by Liubov Vit­a­lien­a Golovanova of the ANO Laboratory of Prehistory in Saint Petersburg studied the deposits in Mezmaiskaya cave, located in southwestern Russia. First discovered by archaeologists in 1987, the cave once sheltered Neandertals and, later, modern humans. Analyzing the various stratigraphic layers, the scientists found layers of volcanic ash that, based on the geochemical composition of the ashes, they attribute to eruptions that occurred in the Caucasus region around 40,000 years ago. Because the cave preserves a long record of Neandertal occupation preceding the ash layers but no traces of them afterward, the team surmises that the eruptions devastated the locals. Read full story from scientificamericans.com

My Take: Who owns Jesus? Who owns yoga?
The recent scuffle over Christianity and yoga, initiated by remarks of the head of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Albert Mohler and picked up in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and here at CNN, has raised a series of questions far broader than whether Christian faith and yoga practice are compatible.

The most intriguing of these questions is: Who owns the stuff of a religion? When my Christian and Jewish friends adopt and adapt yoga postures are they stealing something? Who owns Christmas? Who owns the Buddha? Who owns Jesus? Read full story from cnn.com

WRIGHT WAY: Holiday lights and ho, ho — huh?
When I was a child the most enchanting thing about Christmas was the colorful array of lights that decorated the holiday season. The appeal of a fluffy, jolly old man who lived at the North Pole knowing whether I was bad or good also brought a sense of wonder to my winter wonderland.

Those displays of holiday lights combined with someone coming down the chimney with a bag of toys, however, were not as fascinating as the origin of those Christmas lights and who initially was on the rooftops of primitive little children.

For example, in his book “4,000 Years of Christmas,” Earl W. Count said, “The bright fires, the giving of presents, the merrymaking, the feasting, the processions with their lights and song — all these and more began in Mesopotamia three centuries before Christ was born.” Read full story from clevelandbanner.com

Corals Reefs Will Be Wiped Out By 2050, Expert Says
First the news was that if we don’t change our habits around fishing, all the world’s fisheries will be wiped out by 2050. Now, experts guess that if we don’t significantly change our interaction with the ocean, coral reefs will be all but wiped out by that same time. J.E.N. Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, writes that human pollution of the water, as well as human-generated carbon dioxide emissions which are causing ocean acidification and rising ocean temperatures are rapidly killing off corals. He notes that without a radical change in our behaviors and priorities, we will be left with a bleak future for the oceans, and consequently, ourselves. Read full story from treehugger.com

News & Submissions 11/24/2010

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Ross: Being thankful on Thanksgiving
Sometimes it’s simply about saying “thank you;” nothing more, nothing less.

The prayers went on forever. Actually, they lasted – usually – about 45 minutes, maybe an hour. It really did seem like they would never end, though.

And the worst part was that he knew what he was doing to us! He knew that it was torture – the smells, the sights, the waiting. He and grandma put all of the boiling meats and the red hot dogs and the sweets all on the little table with the yellow, vinyl table cloth on it – right there for all of us to see. We all knew that the potato salad was going to be good and mustardy, and we knew that we were gonna get some pop that was not warm Cragmont Cream Soda. And it was simply mean, what he was doing, gosh darn it – the smells were incredible! Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

Deputy: Woman Advised To Leave Gun On Grave To “Clear Her Spirits”
BOILING SPRINGS, S.C. –A gun was found sitting in a box on a grave in Boiling Springs after a woman says she was advised by a medium to leave something behind that was given to her by the deceased.

The Spartanburg County Sheriff’s Office says a .45 caliber pistol was found in a box sitting on a grave at Good Shepard Memorial Gardens Tuesday afternoon. Read full story from wspa.com

TIBET – CHINA Dalai Lama to retire in six months
Dharamsala – The Dalai Lama plans to retire from political life over the next six months, a spokesman said today, thus reiterating what the leader of Tibetan Buddhism said two days ago in an interview with an Indian TV network.

The 76-year-old spiritual leader, who fled Chinese-occupied Tibet in 1959, wants to step down in order to return to his homeland as an ordinary citizen. The current 14th Dalai Lama, who wants to die on the “roof of the world”, is not likely to convince the Chinese to grant him this wish. Read full story from speroforum.com

Australian Poltergeist Video
GT reader David S. contacted us about a “ghost hunter” from Queensland Australia who is said to have captured some compelling evidence of poltergeist activity.

NQGHOSTHUNTER is the ghost hunter’s username on YouTube. His videos show some interesting and clear shots of objects being tossed around and moved by unseen forces….or strings.

Check out the first clip. In this clip, we see lights being flicked on and off and some basic object movement: Read full story from ghosttheory.com

China says it is world’s top greenhouse gas emitter
BEIJING (Reuters) – China acknowledged on Tuesday it is the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases stoking global warming, confirming what scientists have said for years but defending its right to keep growing emissions.

China’s chief negotiator in international climate change talks, Xie Zhenhua, made the comment while spelling out his government’s position ahead of negotiations in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 over a new global pact to fight global warming. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy One
We spend billions of dollars each year looking for happiness, hoping it might be bought, consumed, found, or flown to. Other, more contemplative cultures and traditions assure us that this is a waste of time (not to mention money). ‘Be present’ they urge. Live in the moment, and there you’ll find true contentment.

Sure enough, our most fulfilling experiences are typically those that engage us body and mind, and are unsullied by worry or regret. In these cases, a relationship between focus and happiness is easy to spot. But does this relationship hold in general, even for simple, everyday activities? Is a focused mind a happy mind? Harvard psychologists Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert decided to find out. Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Illinois Christmas traditions vary
GALESBURG —There was a time when Christmas went uncelebrated at Knox College.

“It was seen as an unnecessary celebration,” said historian Owen Muelder, director of the Galesburg Colony Underground Railroad Freedom Center at Knox and a former administrator at the college.

The college was established by Congregationalists and Presbyterians who followed strict religious practices and codes of behavior.“They did not want to in any way have celebrations at Christmas that had to do with pagan tradition,” Muelder said. “The founders of Knox College didn’t celebrate Christmas the way we do. They didn’t celebrate in any way other than recognition of Christ’s birth. No parties. No Christmas trees. Read full story from galesburg.com

California Dreaming? The Golden State Takes the Lead in U.S. Efforts to Combat Climate Change
SACRAMENTO—Only two weeks after California voters turned back an effort to suspend the state’s program to combat climate change, a cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gas emissions saw its first trade, a swap of a climate-change pollution permit for 2012.

“While our federal government is sitting on its hands, California is moving full speed ahead to a clean-energy future,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said in his weekly address on November 19. “We are creating a consistent, long-term energy policy—something that has eluded Washington for decades. In fact, Washington should take a lesson from what is happening right now here in California.” Read full story from scientificamerican.com

Crazy Things You Didn’t Know You Could Compost (Plus, Some You Can’t), Holiday Edition
Fresh on the heels of the pizza box scandal, in which EcoSalon cleared up some mysteries with recyling, we’ve uncovered more items that you can’t compost — and some surprising ones you can. This being the holiday season, we enter a whole new level of composting controversy. Seriously, Santa, lay off the tinsel. Here’s how to navigate the festivities with an eye to the bin and the bucket. Read full story from treehugger.com

Pope raises possibility of resignation in book (Source cnn.com)

News & Submissions 3/8/2010

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Occult funeral for drug addict killed in ritual
A pagan rocker died at his drug-den farmhouse after a witchcraft ritual went nightmarishly wrong. Read full story from belfasttelegraph.co.uk

National Women’s History Project’s 30th anniversary brings new emphasis on women in history
Used to be, a woman had to wield a sharp instrument to get any respect in history class. Until the late 1970s, those who got the most ink in school textbooks were Betsy Ross, the widowed upholsterer who is said to have sewn the first American flag in 1776, and Carrie Nation, the hatchet-wielding, Bible-thumping temperance activist who broke up saloons in the early 1900s. Read full story from nj.com

Office Depot Foundation honors Navajo code talkers
BOCA RATON, Fla. – The Office Depot Foundation – the independent, nonprofit foundation that serves as the primary charitable giving arm of Office Depot – has recognized the legendary Navajo code talkers with the organization’s highest honor: the “Listen Learn Care Award.” Read full story from indiancountrytoday.com

He Who Casts the First Stone
Some protesters, mostly young men in their teens and early 20s, wore black hoodies and military fatigues. The men, Amarillo would soon learn, were foot soldiers of Repent Amarillo, a new, militant evangelical group that advertises itself as “the Special Forces of spiritual warfare.” Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the action. “We’re here to shine the light on this darkness,” Grisham told the Amarillo Globe-News. “I don’t think Amarillo knew about this place. This is adultery. This is wrong. There’s no telling how many venereal diseases get spread, how many abortions.” The goal, Grisham says, was not just to save the swingers’ souls, but to shut the club down. Read full story from texasobserver.com

Did Saint Patrick banish snakes from Irleand?
Legend has it that St. Paddy stood on a hilltop, dressed in his formal green attire, and waved his staff to herd all the slithering creatures into the sea, expelling them from the Emerald Isle forever. And low and behold, there hasn’t been a snake seen in Ireland since 461 AD (expect for the odd household pet and zoo creature). Read full story from irishcentral.com

Submitted Story: Vancouver Island Poltergeist
The following submitted personal story is about what happened to Karen M. Her encounter with a poltergeist was far more noisier than a typical ghostly knock. Sounding like “10 people with long sticks pounding the walls“, Karen’s poltergeist encounter has haunted her all these years. Read full story from ghosttheory.com

The Rosary of the Unborn
If you’re a Catholic and want to fight abortion, there is a NEW and POWERFUL method for you to combat abortion — and it doesn’t require explosives! That’s right, for a limited time only, you too can purchase a special rosary to ask Mary to stop those evil abortionists: Read full story from unreasonablefaith.com