THE SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD

( taken from an exorcists chronicles) A book in preparation.

Lea Bridge Rd. in Leyton, east London, was the venue of a bizarre incident which ranks as a text book case of a most macabre haunting, in the early 1970s. Just past the rail station on the bridge itself stood a batch of early Victorian houses, These houses had been empty for some time having been purchased by the council in a road widening scheme. The end house was the ?Jailhouse ?, rock and roll club, and was a magnet for motorbike lads from a wide area, and it was these lads that informed me that a house next door had a peculiar and scary feel to it. On entering this house like a lot of houses of this age the smell of must and damp tickled the nostrils, this can be attractive to certain types of spirit, but walking the house I made the assessment that if it was haunted it was of a very minor category say a 2 or a 3.. Stopping outside to look back at this large old house which must have been an impressive building in its day, I noticed that like the others it was a 3 storey building, and for some reason I had seen over only 2. Going back and searching upstairs I could find no sign of a third storey, so I then began tapping round the walls and came across a hollow sounding panel, which felt like it was plaster boarded over with a flowery wallpaper on top. The houses were due to be demolished anyway so I put my foot through the hollow sounding false wall to be amazed by a small upper staircase standing behind. After mounting the stairs and assessing the wallpaper as perhaps pre-war, which gave an indication of age, I felt it would soon give up its secrets as to why someone would block off a whole top storey. Standing at the top of the house and taking in the fact that I was the only person to be here for decades and looking at newspapers strewn over the floor for the dates on them, they were all discoloured wartime papers, and I listened to what I thought were the increasingly noisy pigeons in the loft. It was then that I realised that this room also was smaller than it should have been and obviously there was a false wall here too. Very suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed my hackles on the back of my neck felt as if there was a cold hair dryer blowing up and down my back, my legs went weak, and I almost lost control of my bowels, my aura quickly drew in very close as in situations of great danger, the feeling that there was a wild animal threatening was quite similar, the knowledge that hate filled eyes were watching me from a walled off room overtook my curiosity, the noise from the so called pidgeons in the roof rose to a crescendo, my only feeling was of utter terror. As I ran down the newly discovered stairs and did not stop until I reached the street to analyse my feelings, the thought dawned on me with deep humiliation that here was I who was regarded as an expert in these matters , who gave talks the length and breadth of the country, brought in to placate and understand things such as this and I ran away in great fear, and cowardice. The correct procedure is to re-enter the haunted property say the lords prayer, while burning certain herbs and grasses, throw holy water and get out quick, while arranging a rescue circle to come in later to clear up any infestation. But on no account as I threw up my dinner in the street outside was I prepared to go inside again. It was actually several weeks later when a couple of demolition workers who had been knocking down the houses for the road widening scheme, told me excitedly that up in the sealed off top of the house, had been found a skeleton of a man sealed into the wall, and I was presented with the ancient handcuffs that held his wrists together, which I have to this day, and as my own children remind me when they were small and naughty they would have to spend one whole minute in the handcuffs, which now adorn my fireplace. Funnily enough visitors to my home are instantly drawn to them, yet all say they still have a sinister feel to them. I heard a story going round some time later that during world war two, Winston Churchill emptied the prisons to serve on the Russian convoys, because the British had broken the German intelligence codes, we knew which of our ships would be sunk, so Churchill in his wisdom bought at great cost an out of date first world war fleet of battle ships from America, solely to act as decoys for the German U. boats, thus keeping them off the ships he wanted kept safe. Anyway the upshot was that it was believed that several of these criminals had escaped, not wanting this appointed fate, and one had come to find his mother who lived locally, made demands for her savings to get away, and ended up in the wall. For the spirit of a man to remain with the body, shows that usually fear of having to pay for ones sins prevents the soul from passing through what the bible refers to as ?the second death?. I do feel in this case that the attendant sense of solid evil, which is not that normal in matters such as this, is telling inasmuch as this soul refused to go on perhaps because it needed a Christian burial, some times people who have led crime ridden lives, on realising that even at death they must face their actions, which can be spiritually indigestible, and can strike cold fear into the hardest heart , so exorcism should be primarily a healing experience. Souls such as this need closure, to progress, how they sustain themselves in this twilight zone, between worlds for sometimes many years, is one of the secrets of vampirism. But the tale of the hunt for the Waltham Cross vampire is another story. What skeletons do you have in your cupboards?

copyright T.Stokes 2001

THE HAUNTED COUNCIL HOUSE A tale of modern sorcery. One always imagines that haunted houses would be ancient buildings, but surprisingly that is not often the case. Some years back, in the late seventies in London?s Hackney, the Borough Council was renovating its council house stock, these were family homes built after W.W.II, and gave cheap housing to both the many British families, and the newcomers from other countries too. It was a sunny summers day and I was looking forward to finishing work, when the boss called me over saying I had a visitor. I did not recognise this visitor who had a sense of urgency about him, in his painters and decorators overalls, but he explained that one of these council houses just could not keep its tenants, no sooner were they settled in than they wanted to leave, all claimed the place was haunted, the council took a dim view of this officially, and normally put it down to some other reason. He went on to explain that this house had new tenants every 3-4 months on average, and the council had this man and his team in again to decorate through, he exclaimed they knew this house well, and the men felt uneasy there and would I come and look at it, I said I would need a good reason to do so because as I was becoming well known for my expertise in the subject, the amount of hoax attempts were increasing. I then learnt that the decorating team had been forbidden to talk of the houses problems, but they had gone through quite thoroughly this time and had found under the wallpaper in one room, a painted picture of the Goat of Mendes in an upturned pentacle, with Hebrew lettering, despite strict instructions from the council to paint over this, the man had decided he wanted someone outside to see it. To save time on the journey back to the house the decorator to his credit did fill me in with the houses history, just the usual toxic building syndrome, of families breaking up, arguments and unhappiness, a cot death, and one families aged father taking an overdose of his sleeping tablets. I said probably students before a party paint this sort of thing, and it perhaps meant nothing, but when we got to the room, the picture was very well done, whoever did this had an extensive knowledge of demonology and primitive witchcraft, and the picture which was on a matt black wall, was very accurate. The floorboards underneath the picture had a black tarry stuff sploshed onto a small area, we took a decorators trowel and scratched off a piece, this covered a protective pentacle drawn on the floor, with staining which looked very much like blood stains to us, with signs that 3 boards may have been up a while ago. I apologised to the decorator as I did think until then it was a hoax,- but the chilling feeling in that room particularly, meant I may be very wrong. Then a chap in a suit and tie, with a clipboard and a hard had , marched in and said, ?who?s he? I gather the decorators were told not to tell anyone of this, and this foreman looked angry, I said I will wait outside and let me know what you want to do, a few minutes later I was asked in sworn to secrecy and told to just get on with it. This was no place for an ordinary exorcism, every indication was that elemental forces were invoked and would have to be dispersed, very carefully, I explained that I would need the keys to come back later that evening with several others to conduct a thorough analysis, before a cleansing through, I was told angrily this was impossible only the foreman could have the keys and he thought I was a crackpot, and believers in this stuff should be locked away. We said, ?just you be here to let us in and to shut us out afterwards?, and this he agreed to do. So that night after ritual bathing fasting and meditation, our group of 3 arrived to be let in by the foreman, We had the boards up to find several partly decayed bodies of small animals, I shone the torch round carefully as statistically those who kill animals gravitate to children, Relief must have shown on my face, as we collected up the bodies into a black bag, There was also a picture of Lucinda, sometimes known as Juno, or Diana the roman god of childbirth, this can also symbolise birth into the next world, and this added to my concern as to the use and purpose, of the animal sacrifices. The life force in the animals as a rule is used to bring into this dimension, some lower entity which can from the protection of the pentacle- be projected at an enemy, and this procedure can be utterly terrifying in the extreme, the sacrificial site was further complicated by what appeared on the animal remains to be removed hearts and livers. The repulsive eating of these organs in front of the Goat picture, is believed by some demonic schools to bolster spiritual powers, and form an inner allying to a demonic beast. A similar form of Necropophagy or flesh eating and blood drinking is seen in the Christian mass, where a priest or magician turns the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ , and the communicants go on to consume it. This crime of Necropaphagy is the basis of all black magics. The passage in Leviticus 53:2-5 then god said take your only son Isaac, Whom you love and go to the region of Moriah sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains? That the Jews follow the Old Testament and had deep knowledge of the black arts is beyond doubt, and the sacrifice of children is an escalation to that of animals, each synagogue has a ?Genizah? or place for special books, and this can be fully researched here, and although extremely rare such occurrences are on record. So accepted was this that as little children we were taught that; ?God loved us so much he sacrificed his only son for us? Jewish scholars tell us that Rothschild?s refusal to buy the release of the German Jews Was a form of this Old Testament sacrifice. However, the house needed all the doors and windows left open in the sunshine and scrubbing through with antiseptic and bleach, to achieve what is known in these circles as ?Terrafah,? the Greek/Yiddish word for spiritually clean. While our teams devout Muslim Samnan, an expert on ?Jadooka? or Indian sorcery, And Semitics, said his prayers and blessings, we also left a small container of herbs smouldering in each of the corners, and splashed lavender and tee tree oil at the picture and the entrance door. Some days later, I rang the decorators to ask if there had been any problems , and he said there had not. The relief for our team of 3 was palpable, we expected from the sacrifices that the life force, would be transmuted into another dimension to bring in something unpleasant from the elemental kingdoms into this one, and often a lingering essence can mean very bad vibrations left for some time. We asked to be allowed back a few days later to observe, and this was refused, However my boss at work said the decorator and his boss came round about 3 weeks later and dropped in a large bottle of wine and an envelope containing ?20. I rang his office to thank him in the morning to be told; ? there must be a mistake, the council does not allow exorcisms on any of its properties? So that was it, a big build up to nothing happening, we were very relieved T Stokes copyright 2003 paranormal studies lecturer Taken from the original notes of Samnan Hussein, Richard Colt and David Tyndall.

THE HAUNTED BEDROOM ( taken from an exorcists chronicles ) a book in preparation word count 548 This was indeed a strange case, a large house in Goodwins Rd. in the town of Kings Lynn, which is known to locals as the ?armpit of England?, which is how it looks on the map. It was the home of third generation medium Shirley Pearce, and on occasion her mother would speak of her friend, the famous Helen Duncan who was imprisoned during W.W.II for accurately predicting the truth on British shipping losses. When our own government was lying to us about it. Shirley the present householder, would often tell of the houses previous occupant now long dead, a certain Mrs. Ambrose, who would walk the house and move things about, and be a general spirit nuisance. So accepted was this ghostly Mrs Ambrose that Shirley would chat away to her on a regular basis, while doing her housework. The house was a regular drop in point for all the local spiritualists for a chat, cup of tea and if you were lucky, a slice of her home made ?ucky cake? made from an old Scottish family recipe, whose secret formula she would never divulge. One day a knock on her door had brought several large policemen, who asked if they could use her small back bedroom to watch from the window, which overlooked a house frequented by the usual crowd of strange odd-bodds, the general unwashed socialist brigade, football obsessives, small time drug traffickers, and an estate agent type. When she exclaimed that this was the room of the dead Mrs. Ambrose, the policemen stifled back a laugh, however she agreed that one could stop over on a ?nightwatch.? All went well until a large new policeman arrived at her door and was a little dismissive when she told him it was the dead Mrs. Ambrose?s bedroom, and not to upset her. Some time into the night a large shaken, upset and very white looking policeman emerged quickly from the room and blurted out that he had been watching in the dark from behind the curtains when he became aware of a deep rasping breathing just behind him in the dark, and was frightened he had angered the ghost of Mrs. Ambrose, so with his knees shaking and white in the face, he had rushed to ask about the scary breathing he heard in the room. Shirley the medium tried to pacify him without success, until finally she took him back into the room and showed him ?spot? Spot was her large tabby cat who was often to be found sneaking in to any open bedroom to sleep on the bed, and he tended to have a loud snore. On learning that he had in fact been haunted by ?spot the tabby cat? The large shaken policeman was not amused, and expressly forbad her to tell any of the other policemen, lest he would never live it down. But after some tea and ?ucky cake? he said he saw the funny side of things, but the moral of the story is always first to look for a rational explanation first, The good news was that ?spot the cat? became the hero of both the local spiritualist church, and the police station. T.Stokes copyright 2001 paranormal studies lecturer

Thanks Ann

This is # 1 in a series of true stories about strange happenings in my life; I will try to present them chronologically... The first inkling that I was a "different" child occured to me when I was 12 years old... My family and I lived in a 3 bedroom house on a dirt road; it was not any diffrerent from any other house on that road, or any older, so I cannot account for what happened as being part of the house's history... My two sisters and I shared one large bedroom, as my father had knocked out the wall between two bedrooms to make one large one (he was always doing that stuff). I was assigned one end of the bedroom, while my sisters got the other end. The only door to the room was at their end, on my left as I slept; it opened up into the hallway. One night, about 3 days after my grandmother passed away (I never knew if this had anything to do with this incident), I awoke from a deep sleep with a start, and looked directly at that door. I saw a white form glide in the doorway, and head directly for my bed. It was very bright, so that I could barely look at it without wincing. For some reason, I was not at all afraid. It reminded me of the pictures of the Virgin Mary that I had heard about; I could not see the face, but it definitely had a long flowing robe, and long hair, and appeared to glide, rather than walk. My middle sister had awoken during this, and called out to me, then hid under her covers, shaking. So I was left to deal with it on my own. It came over to the side of my bed, and gently took my right arm, looking at me. It said to me "come with me", but I did not hear spoken words. I only got the "impression" of the request in my head, if you can undertand this. I got the feeling that she was trying to show me something. At this point, I began to be afraid, and jerked my arm away, refusing the request. My sister was still over in her bed, shaking and peeking out from under the covers. Then whatever it was looked at me very sadly, and turned and glided thru the wall to outside. When she looked at me, I felt an overwhelming sense of sadness coming from her, that I carry to this day when I think of what happened. I went back to sleep directly, without speaking to my sister, whom I dubbed :"the chicken" from then on. The next morning, we looked at each other silently, and she blurted out, "I saw it!." This is not the end of the story. Much later in my life, and trying to recover from a very emotional divorce, I went on a group retreat for some solace. We were broken down into small groups at one point, and the team leader asked our group to talk about a life changing event in our lives. I think he got more than he bargained for. One of the team members proceeded to tell a story, and it was just what happend to me! Then another one told the same story! Then I told my story! This happened to all of us at the exact same age, and under the exact same circumstances. We later got to be very good friends; there was a special bond between us...

Ok I wasn't really sure to put this in the dreams or strange but true category but here it is.

First off I am the editor of this site and yes I too have strange dreams etc. About three or more years ago I had a dream, I know what you're thinking, how could I remember a dream after three years, well the only reason I did is because from time to time I like to use my dreams as inspiration for paintings. Anyway In my dream I was looking from New Jersy towards New York from accross the water at all the buildings etc. and in front of the view still on the New Jersy side was a huge cage full of people and surrounding the cage were some crocodiles with WINGS, on top of the cage was either myself or somebody else "not sure" and that person was trying to unlatch the gate of the cage to set the people free. Under any other circumstances this dream may not seem so signifigant but since Sept.11,2001 it really made me think........ Have a good look at it and tell me what you think.

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