Purgatory – Adventures of A Mage In Miami

Strange Visions in the Night (Holy Week Horror)

Jesus tempted by Lucifer
from Holy Rosary Church

Many of you are probably asking why I am posting this. It’s only partially religious. Also remember I am a Christo Pagan. It’s mostly paranormal. Some weird shit that happened to me last night.

But I should start from the beginning.

Santeria and Latin America

Santeria is a mix of the Catholic religion with traditional Yoruba religion from Nigeria. It isn’t Vodou per say, but it does have some things in common. Santeria also have deep connections to Spiritualism. Spiritualism and Spiritism actually. Especially those things taught to us by Allan Kardec.

In Latin America and in Santeria, magic is usually never practiced during Holy Week. The reason for this, is do to Catholic traditions. In which the crosses and altars are hidden from view during this time. White cloths are placed over the sacred items. And we Santeros and even Spiritualists and Spiritists do the same.

To honor Christ. A spiritualist once told me that during this time, Jesus re-enters the underworld. And he’s there to cross over innocent souls still trapped in Purgatory. Until he spiritually resurrects after Good Friday. In which case he goes back to Heaven with all of the souls he has saved.

So perhaps it’s not right to say we can’t practice magic. We can. But it’s a spiritual type of magic. We pray and study scriptures or spiritual things with our spirit guides. We just don’t burn candles.

Instead we allow the energy or power of God to do it all for us. So Holy Week can be a very sweet and spiritually fulfilling time. However, as I have mentioned before and will keep mentioning, everything has a dark side.

The Dark Side of Holy Week

It’s said that on the day Christ was crucified, there were all sorts of demons reveling. They had failed to stop him from accomplishing his mission. So they decided to celebrate that he was suffering and dying. A small “victory” for their side. And that has become a tradition ever since.

Demons tend to have their own celebrations at this time. And practitioners of black magic tend to perform rituals and honor to their own evil spirits as well. I say practitioners because not every evil sorcerer is a Satanist. But the main belief is that before, after, and even during a holy day or week, they celebrate. All in order to mock whatever higher power has a feast day.

This isn’t just a Christian thing. Similar things can be found in other faiths. Where black rites and evil spirits celebrating can be found during the feast days of other Gods. The point is to commit sacrilege against the holy. We see the same on other holy days.

We see it on Walpurgisnacht (Walpurga’s night) which was originally the Christianized Beltane festival. It was believed the Devil and his followers gather on Mount Brocken in Germany. To celebrate their own black rites. To dance, and drink, and make merry. For this reason the evening of April 30th to May 1st is sacred to most Satanic groups.

Granted, this arose from the Christian perversion of Nordic religion. Even calling Odin or Wotan a “devil”. Regardless of how it arose, in the 60’s Anton LaVey made Walpurgisnacht an official satanic holiday. So it is celebrated by many modern and traditional satanists. And even they say they believe the stories of Mount Brocken are true.

There are many people who think that Satan and his horde still hold court on that mountain to this day. To mock not just the Christian God, but the Pagan Gods as well. So it’s not just the Christians getting harassed by these dark powers. It’s us too. And something similar is found in Santeria.

It’s believed that no Santero, Witch, or Spiritualist will practice magic on this day. Except someone who is intentionally trying to work with the darker spiritual forces. This doesn’t always mean a Satanist though. A Santero might break the taboo. If they think that in order to help their client, they need the aid of darker forces.

Now let me clarify, Santeros and Witches in general don’t have a black and white mentality. We believe in using whatever we can get help from depending on a situation. So if we believe that we need help from the dark side, we will get help from them. That doesn’t mean that we will engage in Devil worship. Or that we will make it a habit of working with dark things all of the time.

But in order to help an abused woman. A child being violated. A person being harassed by a landlord. Or even someone who owes money to the wrong people, we won’t hesitate to dip our toes in the darkness for it. And that is a long Judeo Christian tradition.

Going back to Moshe (Moses) who often used dark arts to help his people. As well as King Solomon who learned to bind demons and employ them against his enemies. So don’t think that we are unholy for doing this. It goes back to Biblical times.

Strange Visions in the Night

” The Flying Head ”
from Iroquois and Wyandot religion, it’s considered a demon of cannibalism

Now I am not saying I saw a Flying Head from indigenous religion. I live in Florida. And we have totally different Native groups here. But I did see something and whatever it was decided to come fuck with me in the night. It was strange.

Technically, it started Sunday night. But I didn’t put two and two together until recently. On Sunday I felt….something nasty. It made me uneasy. In the middle of the night I felt that that deep primordial fear of something nearby. It wasn’t in my room though.

But whatever it was, made me feel like a child again. I was scared. I figured it was just a bad dream. Until last night. Because last night I had strange dreams and visions.

And one of them, was of a floating head outside of my window.

It couldn’t enter my room because my house is a temple. There are shrine-altars everywhere. And the home is specifically consecrated through a dedication ritual to block things out. And my room has the most shrines of all. Even on my window.

So it couldn’t enter.

But I felt it saying something in English. It said something about “gathering souls” to eat. It unsettled me. I couldn’t make out any features because it was just a large shadow outside my window. At this point I still thought it was a nightmare and forced myself to become more awake.

I didn’t think anything of it. Until I heard weird noises all around me. Then I heard a scratching sound on the front door of the house. But again, I have protection everywhere. I didn’t do any of my normal protection spells do to Holy Week.

” Skadegamutc or Ghost-Witch ”
from the Tales of Sage and Savant

So instead I slept with a blessed confirmation Bible under my pillow. I finally realized it was all real when I used my sight. I could see the shadow of a haggard old woman with native features. She was floating above the roof top of my house.

“What the fuck?” I shouted.

I was almost waiting for an answer. My friend had recently told me she noticed a lot of dark activity near my home. And that I needed to be careful. I live on a crossroads. Which are interdimensional portals.

But besides that, the lands here always had something off with them. There are good spirits here trust me. And the Land Spirit is good too. But there’s also a lot of weird shit here. At some point I had to do a Deliverance to get rid of the spirits showing up here.

Finally, I got fed up with this shit. I took the confirmation Bible in my hands. And I focused on the energies of the entities. And I put them together in one image in my mind. A mental representation.

Similar to a Voodoo Doll. And I said,

“In the name of Adonai Tzevaot (Lord of Hosts) I command you to leave me alone and go to Gehenna (Hell) where you belong,”

Then, I focused in the image in my mind. And I smashed it over the head with the confirmation Bible in my hands. I heard multiple voices shriek in terror and pain. And anger, as if they were cursing my name in another language. And they finally fled.

But it took a good five minutes before they left. If they didn’t leave I had a plan B. After I was satisfied they were gone I began to pray. In retrospect I should have from the beginning. I commended myself and my home to God and asked for our protection.

After that all I had was peace.

I am going to do a special protection prayer and cleanse my shrine-altars again. I have some protection oil my sister got from a Hoodoo store in Georgia. And I will combine that with prayers to the Archangel Michael. But I had the strangest feeling when I woke up this morning. It was actually a memory of a dream I had after this took place.

I heard a nasty, diabolical, voice tell me I was being tested. To prove that I am as good a man as I think I am. I guess whatever it is got pissed off I drove them away. All I know for sure is that whatever this is, it isn’t over yet.

I’ll keep you all posted, be safe everyone. Some nasty shit is out and about these days. And they don’t care what God or Goddess you follow. They just want to feed.

– M

Post Script : This is the continuation of what happened.

The Jade Buddha

I promised I would talk about this as soon as I had the chance. And I finally did. So what exactly happened the day I brought the Buddha statue and the Guardian Lions home with me? Something weird. I knew something was off. And in hindsight, I should have listened to my gut.

But I just ignored it as me being paranoid or looking too deeply into something. My friends always say that about me. And they constantly tell me to chill out. But as I tried to perform the cleansings on them, they kept being blocked. I just assumed that they had heavy residual energy from whoever owned them before.

The objects weren’t evil or impure or whatever. But they were Haunted.

The Old Neighbor

Old Woman Praying by
Matthias Stom Dutch

late 1630s or early 1640s

So according to my Aunt, she was friends with a wonderful older resident. A few years ago this woman died of natural causes. I think she said it was cancer. Before the woman died, she gifted the Jade Buddha and Guardian Lions to my great aunt. It was as a way of saying thank you for always looking after her.

Now my Great Aunt is a Christian and doesn’t believe. But she didn’t want to disrespect this woman and shun her gift. So instead, she kept it in her home in a place of honor. Kudos for my great aunt! But it looks like the older resident didn’t leave. Apparently that elderly old woman was still watching over my aunt from beyond the grave.

While attempting to cleanse the statues, I discovered her presence within them. I kept trying to force the energy out. But whatever it was, it would not leave. So I realized this wasn’t the standard run of the mill imprint. This woman was living inside of her Buddha and Guardian Lions.

I hadn’t sensed her because she was so dormant, that she might as well not have been in those items. It was only after I took them to my house and started trying to cleanse them that she woke up. She had been protecting my great aunt all this time. But eventually she “fell asleep” so to speak because there was no danger.

Communicating with the Dead

I communicated with her soul once I realized there was person in those statues. I explained to her that my great aunt gifted them to me because I study and partially practice Buddhism. And that she believed they would be better off with me. Instead of just being a home decoration. She agreed, but was worried about my aunt.

I told her I could cross her over. And that once in Heaven, she could become a powerful guardian spirit and could return to my Aunt’s house with greater power. And greater ability to aid her. She agreed and I performed a simple crossing over ritual with a candle. She entered the light.

And the next day, I confirmed with Bone Casting that she was well and now watching over my great aunt. Acting as her new spirit guide. All’s well that ends well right?

Family

Blood doesn’t always mean family. Sometimes family is the one you make. Your tribe, your people. Those whom you stand by and who stand by you. Even in death.

There is also an old Spanish Spiritualist saying,

“What my eyes can’t see, my dead see,”

Meaning what I can’t sense, they will. And they will tell me about it. My Christian Great Aunt has a new spirit guide officially added to her guides. Whether she believes that or not. Moving on, I was finally able to cleanse the statues.

And this time the ritual took. I then began blessing them and calling the spirit of the Buddha to enter his image and live there. I also did prayers for the Guardian Lions to enter their own statues. So now I have extra house hold spirits. Extra family to watch over me.

I placed the Buddha and his Lions upon my Buddhist shrine.

And for the elderly woman, I took several stones. I cleansed them. And enlivened them for her and put them on my shrines outside. That way whenever I do religious rituals, I am feeding her spirit along with the spirits and Gods I work for. That way she will never become forgotten or unnamed dead.

And she will grow stronger with each offering. As a reward for her kind heart and generous spirit. And now I keep this Buddha statue and the Guardian Lions. As a way to honor her good deeds.

Happy Hallowe’en Everybody! Special Random Links of the Day!

Hello everyone! Celebrating the Catholic Feast of All Hallows’ Eve as we approach All Hallowsmastide. November is the time of the holy souls in Purgatory. Remember that the Real Samhain isn’t until two weeks from now in November (you can thank the Gregorian calendar for that). So this is a Catholicised version of the holiday. So we are in the Catholic feast.

Not Samhain. I made a special post for links to everything from articles to Creepy pastas on YouTube and more! Enjoy!

The Demon Cat of Washington DC

Today’s Cars for Halloween : Light a Lamp in Remembrance

The Fear Lab

6 Cursed Objects (One of them is from here in Florida)

Cemeteries for the Stars

The Strange Tale of a Mother’s Love : The Grave with a Staircase (Grave of Florence Irene Ford)

Llyn Barfog and the tale of King Arthur killing the monster Afanc

Conjuring Kesha : The Ghost Tv series starring Kesha

The Hardy Tree of St. Pancras Old Church, London

Atlas Obscura Halloween!

Piglet & the Bacon Ghost! A Winnie the Pooh Halloween Story

The Devil’s Bridge in Spooky Lane, Hertfordshire

LA’s Horror Car Wash (Video)

Creepy Halloween Background sounds

Creepy Halloween Stories

Celtic Pagan Origin of Halloween

The Walt Disney Skeleton Dance

Strangeness in the Countryside

Horror Stories in the Snow

– M

Hallowed Tales : The Story of Gabriel Littlepage of Roan County

A rendering of Gabriel Littlepage based on descriptions. From American Mythology on YouTube

This is a new series I have created for the blog called Hallowed Tales. Which is for Hallowsmastide or the Catholic Halloween. Today we’re going to be looking at a historical mystery. At a local folk legend named Gabriel Littlepage of Roan County, West Virginia. I’m very sorry that we don’t know more about the man.

He’s fascinating to say the least. There’s not much I could say that isn’t already covered in this video. So sit back, relax. And turn the lights off. Maybe light a candle in the dark. And watch with delight.

And say a little prayer for old Gabe.

“And Qayn said to Adonai, ‘My punishment is greater than I can bare,’ ” – Genesis 4:13

Reports of a strange, Wolf like animal around that area. A phantom canine similar to the Wolf or wolf dog Gabe had, is still being reported roaming that area. And since this is Hekate’s Deipnon (Feast of Hekate) in which all dark souls to go the Crossroads to feed, I thought maybe Gabriel’s story would be an excellent addition. Pray for Gabriel and his Wolf Dog.

Have a good night 🎃

– M

It came with the Storm : A Wild Hunt During Hurricane Ian?

Hurricane Ian was the fifth most powerful storm in terms of speed to ever hit the US

The first time I had ever written an It came with the storm story was due to a hurricane that hit Honduras. The story was so fascinating and strange, I took time to transcribe it and translate it into English. I never thought I would end up creating a series on this. But here we are. And to make it stranger, it’s about something that happened here in Florida.

People say that “things” come with storms. That a storm is a doorway into another world. And spirits can hitch a ride on them to our world. That’s why the story from Honduras I translated didn’t surprise me. If anything it reaffirmed the old tales.

But most people don’t think anything like that could happen here in North America. The US and Canada are considered too modern for such superstitious fancies. Are they now? I’d argue there’s just as much strange activity in the Americas in our age as there is in our countries. And a series of such things happened during the Hurricane. So this is the story of, possibly, Florida’s Wild Hunt.

A Door Between Worlds

Some believe that storms or other weather phenomenon can bring things to this world. Picture.

For many years there have been stories of portals in the sky. Opening at odd times and showing strange lights. And that can happen even under normal weather. Storms can tear into the dimensional fabric even more. How this is possible is unknown.

Science dictates you would need the power of a small star just to power a small worm hole. Although a spiritual being is an entity of a higher universe. And in theory they could conjure up power at a greater level at their finger tips. Is that what’s happening here? Do they just call up a storm with their power?

Or do they hijack an already existing storm? We may never know.

What is known, is that many people have reported strange things happening in storms. Even seeing strange things. Specifically during hurricane or tornados. In Ancient Times, Gods and spirits traveled the skies on storms. Which leads us to the Wild Hunt.

The God, Arwyn Pen Annuvin (Arwyn of the Inworld or inner world) leading a Wild Hunt with his ghostly dogs. From the Celtic Oracle by John Matthews

Essentially, the Wild Hunt is a Supernatural Hunting Party. Sometimes in the sky, or sometimes even on Earth. Wild Hunts very. Some are led by Faeries, and other are led by the Dead. Some are led by Gods and Folk Heroes.

Everyone from Odin, Arwyn, and Arthur have led Wild Hunts. Sometimes they’re led on land with wild dogs.

Always led on Horseback

Some are on land

And others are in the Sky

Wild Hunts were normally considered bad by most non magical people. Because it was believed the Hunters were pursuing evil spirits. And people were scared that witches were astral projecting as spirits to join the Wild Hunt. (1) Not that there’s anything wrong with that. In fact it sounds like good fun!

And they appear in almost every culture. From Polytheistic religions to Monotheistic religion.

A Wild Hunt in Heaven, with Satan being cast out

The Hoofs on the Roof

But this time my family and I didn’t have to go through this. The storm went to Central Florida. A strange place to go to. The people there were so sure they would be missed, that even the authorities slacked off. Big mistake.

The Governor and local leaders didn’t bother issuing warnings to the populous until it was too late. And no one could do anything about it. And the storm roared forth. Like a giant wave of pain and darkness upon the land.

In addition to what you are seeing here, entire roads were either flooded or blocked by debris. But I won’t spend more time on this post on that. Instead I will talk about the strangeness. There was something weird about this storm.

Something the other storms never had.

The feelings in the air was just eerie. It wasn’t even Samhain yet and it felt like the dead were in the air. Some people think that when certain events are going to happen, spirits gather. Is that what was happening here? I wondered as I was throwing the trash out in the days preceding the landfall of Ian.

For many days we had all been feeling as if someone stepped on our graves. I prayed like crazy and left offerings wherever I could hoping we would be okay. In addition to all the weirdness we were all feeling in Miami, the storm seemed to be alive. I mean storms change courses all of the time. They are alive to a certain point.

But this was different. It seemed like it had a destination it was mapping out. And when it finally touched ground wreaking all that devastation, people talked about their experiences. A lot of people said it sounded like a freight train was hitting their houses. That’s to be expected.

Most hurricanes actually sound like that. Or they have this really deep whistle in the air. That’s how it was for me when I was a kid during Hurricane Andrew. It also sounded like the lightning was actually falling on the road. And it felt like a flood was about to crash through the barricaded front door of my house.

But then, weird stories started to come out of Central Florida. A few people were claiming that they heard what sounded like horse hooves running atop their houses. Now when I heard this, for some reason I felt this electric shock. Like that feeling you get when you know something. I felt like this was a sign of the Paranormal.

But just because I have a feeling doesn’t mean that I am going to come out and say “it’s the Wild Hunt,”. Obviously, that won’t ever be proven by science. What I can do is draw on my paranormal training to try and debunk what I believe. If I can disprove it then than means there’s at least a possibility that it’s nothing paranormal. And I would have to adhere to that unless I have proper proof.

I studied everything I could find online on storms.

*Jana Houser standing next to the Rapid X-Pol radar instrument, a new type of rapidly-scanning mobile radar system, during a storm chase on 8 May 2012. Credit: Jana Houser via AGU from this article*

I have been waiting since Ian and after Ian. I researched with the mind of someone who doesn’t believe in shit. Who believes there is a reasonable explanation for what happened. First I assumed it was that the storm sounded that way. So I looked up Hurricane sounds.

And while many articles and videos show that they can sound like freight trains or have those same whistle sounds I have heard, nothing about horse hooves. Nothing anywhere. And I used multiple search engines including DuckDuckGo. Nada. Zip.

Zilch. Next I tried psychology. And I tried to reason that because there is such a large farming community in Central Florida, people there reasonably associated storm sounds with sounds they might hear every day. Sounds they were used to. At first I went with that explanation.

But then I realized, that’s BS. We have many farms here in Miami. There’s a place called the Redlands. It’s an agricultural district with mostly wealthy families living there. Gigantic mansions and properties you couldn’t imagine.

Sometimes I just go there to watch the big houses and to buy fruit from the farms. And even in Miami, there are smaller farms and urban farms. Heck it’s not even outside of the normal to see random wild animals and farm animals in the city streets. I have a chicken that somehow made it into my apartment complex. We all feed her.

And I looked at the reports. None of the people who heard the horse hooves had farms. They were all regular people who lived in houses. I’ve probably been to more farms than they have. So it couldn’t be that.

And if living or being near farms would make us believe hear “horse hooves” in a hurricanes I would think we would associate those sounds the same way too. We have had hurricanes for years. And no one here or in any other part of Florida mentioned the hurricanes sounding like horse’s hooves. So that’s a bust too. After all this time researching and attempting to debunk it, it came up empty.

The only other explanation is Oh the Hurricane just happened to sound that way this time. Which is lazy thinking. I have heard half cocked bullshit explanations like that by skeptics and cynics alike. They always end up creating the most idiotic explanations and then pass them off as reasonable ones. I remember a Sheriff tried to tell a family that witnessed a UFO, that they had seen a large owl and became “hysterical,”.

And what’s worse is that the same BS is used by skeptics for that case. It’s a woman and her kids so they have to be hysterical. I am so tired of people who think that way. It’s a lack of intellect and just lazy reasoning. If you can even call it that.

Point is, there was nothing to debunk it outside of lazy reasoning and speculation. None of which holds up to scientific scrutiny. So it’s just as likely that it’s something paranormal as it is non paranormal. So debunking was a dead end. Time to do what I do best.

From the article *Lay That Ghost: Necromancy in Ancient Greece and Rome* by Daniel Ogden

As the description from the article says, the Gods of death, sleep, and dreams were considered Gods of Prophesy. Normally I call them and other beings to give me dreams to tell me about stuff. But right now I can’t. I lost a friend and am mourning his death. According to Greek tradition that means I have a 13 day mourning and purification period.

But my Druid Master has told me the Tuatha dé Danann have no such restrictions. But instead of a God, I decided to call the spirit of a Druid Seer. I thought this would be a nice concession to all sides of my magical life. After all, as a British witch once told me,

“Why call Gods to know or do things when your dead Aunt Tilly or one of the Fae can easily do the same? If not better?”

So I spoke to an old friend……Fedelm.

A depiction of Fedelm in the Celtic Oracle by John Matthews. She had blond hair that was braided, with black eye brows. And this was supposed to be what she wore.

Fedelm is a dead Druid poet and prophetess. She had exceptional powers when alive. And many people believed that her black eye brows were the sign of the triple iris. Showing that she was meant to be a Seer. Among her many powers is Imbas Forosnai.

A sort of trance state. Where one calls down the Gods to ask for answers to questions. I haven’t read about it in years. But I believe you need a triangular stone and raw ham and cheese that you chew in your mouth. Then you place the chewed up ham and cheese on the stone.

You put this behind the front door. And either sleep or enter a light lucid dreaming state. There you talk to the Gods and inquire what you will. Fedelm was a master of this ability, and probably didn’t even have to do this ritual all of the time to gain answers. She could predict anything at any time.

Even in death, a Prophet’s connection is strong. One would argue it’s even stronger. So I gave her an offering at my shrine for the dead. Invited her to come visit me. And went to bed.

My dreams were weird as fuck. It was like being in Woodstock. Sometimes in my sleep I was awake enough to know that I was talking out loud. Then I woke up and tried to piece together what I was dreaming. I remembered some bits.

*“Ghost Storm”* by Jeroen Van Valkenburg

I ignored the ones which were obviously my subconscious. But I paid attention to those things that were out of the ordinary. I dreamt of a tidal wave made up of people. But there was no water. Or rather there was.

They were hiding in the water.

In non-corporeal form. And yet they were still able to influence the physical world. I saw them rise up and create the storm from beneath the waters. They were restless. Some were just angry and wanted to destroy things.

And their faces were deformed. Some died of suicide and others of COVID. They were railing against the world. It’s not fair, I felt them saying. It wasn’t our time yet!.

And they just fused into this collective mass of dark water. And I could see lightning inside the water too. And hear many angry voices roaring from within it. And that’s when I woke up. My heart beating and me drenched in sweat.

I felt like I was there. Somewhere in the ocean. Like I had to be quiet so that I wouldn’t catch their attention. It was one of the most intense and fucked up visions I had ever had. Like these were people who died in 2020 and onward till now.

Or from the many suicides that happened in the pandemic. I waited, calmed down. And for the next few days I put it out of my head. And when I felt I was calm and centered enough, I tried normal divinations. And they all confirmed in one way or another what Lady Fedelm had told me.

Of course this is magical “evidence” for myself. I can’t expect any of you reading this to believe. And I’m sure other magic users in Florida have different opinions on the subject as well. But I know, and many of us here in Miami who felt it know, Ian wasn’t a normal Hurricane. Something did come with the storm.

And it’s wrath was terrible.

(1) The Wild Hunt by Frontier Partisans

Dark Souls : The Festival of the Lemuria & Friday the 13th of May 2022

Lemures or Larvae. The dark souls of the ancestral dead

As if the festival of the Lemuria wasn’t already chalk full of some strange, and often dark mystical energy. The Gods have chosen to make it more bizarre by making the final day of the Lemuria land on a Friday 13th. I have mentioned this holiday before. But I haven’t really gone into full detail about it started or why. So here we delve into the background.

First I need to apologize. The holiday started on Monday. But I couldn’t find the time to write. It’s on May 9, 11, and the final day being the 13th.

Romulus Haunted by Remus?

The Twin Boys destined for greatness, and tragedy sadly. Here with their adopted mother, the She-Wolf Luperca

The story goes back to Romulus and Remus. After they did all of their great heroic deeds, they decided to build a new city. It was their time. They wanted to prove that as with all things in their life, they built everything with their own two hands. They returned to the Seven Hills and went to work on building what would be Rome.

But soon after they began to quarrel. Romulus wanted to build the city on the Palatine Hill. While Remus wanted to build it over the Aventine Hill. When they couldn’t come to an agreement, they decided to let the Gods choose. Remus saw six birds that represented good luck.

But then his brother saw twelve. Which he claimed was proof the Gods choose the Palatine Hill. When he was creating the walls of Rome (some sources say a trench) his brother Remus criticized the work. Then obstructed the project. And finally, he skipped over the walls to mock his brother and the city.

Romulus entered a rage and murdered Remus.

By the time he realized what he had done it was too late. He buried his brother. But soon after the first Romans began celebrating a holiday called the Remuria. It’s believed that Romulus instituted the festival himself. Probably on the advice of Oracles.

Now I can’t back that up all of the way. That’s just speculation on my part with what I have read. But it makes sense. The whole holiday is about using an exorcism ritual to drive away dark ancestral spirits. He probably feared the return of his brother.

And as you will soon see, it’s also a holiday about removing guilt.

What are the Lemure?

A Lemure or Larvae is the angry spirit of the dead, every family has at least one. Toxic souls that are upset either because of how they died. Lack of proper funerals, burials, and/or rituals. Or lack of offerings by living relatives. They are similar to the Dybbuk of Jewish lore and the Causas (Causes) of Puerto Rican Sanse.

Or the Eggun Buruku of Santeria. Or even the Hungry Ghosts of Buddhism and the Preta of Hinduism. All of these are just names for the dark dead as we commonly call them in Santeria. Souls that go so deep into the darkness that some of them don’t even resemble humans anymore. The Preta for example are cannibalistic.

You can pretty much find a variation of a dark or mutated soul of the dead in every culture. Under different forms, species, and names.

Also being forgotten or unnamed can lead to them achieving this state. Some even due to the lack of funerary rituals. In Catholicism they have something similar called an Anima Sola (lonely soul). This is a person trapped in Purgatory as an unclean soul. Waiting for God to take them to Heaven. But without the proper rituals that could take an eternity.

In Latin American folk magic, these dark souls are called upon in magic. In exchange for prayers and masses done in their names, they will do favors for the humans who pray for them. It’s said that these purgatorial ghosts can tell you the locations of graves. Lost treasures. And they can grant certain wishes.

It’s not uncommon for women to call on female Anima Solas for love spells and magic. While male Anima Solas are usually called upon for financial security. All you have to do is to burn holy candles and do masses for them. This should be done before and after asking for their help. If you don’t, they will retaliate.

But you should always be careful when asking the spirits for help. Only work with spirits you trust. Who will never screw you up.

And spending so much time in Purgatory is enough to drive them insane. Those who do become insane, turn into the darkest and angriest spirits. And to make it worse, Purgatory is a giant oven of purifying fire to make your sins go away. To clean you before God. And it hurts as if you had gone to Hell.

Only special rosaries and masses can soften the purifying flame and eventually set them free so they can enter Heaven. Such a place would be the perfect grounds for an angry or dark spirit to be. And what all of the stories have in common are that these beings live in a dark world between worlds. A dimension where it isn’t exactly what Christians would call hell, but it definitely isn’t a paradise either. In some cases you could end up there if the wrong rituals are performed.

A fellow blogger had once told me a messed up story about how a Buddhist woman was trapped in a limbo like state. Because her Christian daughter gave her a Christian burial instead of a Buddhist one. The daughter had nightmares of her poor mother alone, in the darkness of an endless labyrinth. Until she spoke to a Buddhist Priest and the proper rituals were followed. Then the dreams stopped.

All of this is to give you a hint and a range of what dark souls are like. And how one can be violent while another is peaceful and scared. Sometimes even looking scrawny and hungry. Looking for help. Of course some of them are just evil bastards.

People who enjoyed hurting others and causing problems or sufferings. And they intentionally stay in places similar to a limbo or purgatory to avoid punishment (if you believe in that). Or maybe not punishment. But to avoid being sealed away in the spiritual world so they can keep haunting or bothering the living. Now as I said before, a Lemure is not always an evil spirit.

Just a dark one. Toxic due to its death or from some circumstance that keeps them in such a state. But each Lemure or dark soul or whatever should be judged according to four things :

1) What kind of dark soul they are?

Maybe instead of a Lemure they are a Jewish Dybbuk or a Preta.

2) Their intentions

Are they good or bad? Do they desire peace and help? Or do they want death and destruction?

3) Their culture

What is normally done to the specific dark souls and what do elders of certain traditions say about them?

And finally

4) The country they are in

If it’s a Preta in a country outside of India, chances are it’s connected to a local family or community. Maybe someone who recently passed away. Or someone who is ancient and follows a family where ever they move to. But either way, they’re in another land. There are rules they must abide by under the local spirits.

Indigenous spirits will always have more power than foreign spirits. And therefore the foreign spirit will have to keep their hauntings or activity in line with whatever local spirit rulers command. That being said, you can call on a local spirit for help battling a dark soul. This should help you gain the upper hand.

The Ritual

When the exorcisms were performed, the Father of the family placed his thumb between his fingers. And washed his hand with pure, clean water (maybe holy water). Then he placed uncooked black beans in his mouth and began spitting them all over the home.

Then in Latin he would chant,

“Haec ego mitto; his redimo meque meosque fabis,”

(With these beans I redeem me and mine)

So this ritual was one part expiation of sins and one part exorcism. He would do this nine times without looking back. The belief was the Lemures would take the beans and thus the sins. But they were in the house already and looking back meant they could attack. The next thing he would do is to beat on pots and pans and say,

“Ghosts of my Fathers and Ancestors, be gone!”

This would also be done for nine times which meant the ritual was complete. Only after the ritual was done could he look back.

The use of beans to confuse spirits or force them to count them until dawn is something still done today. And for more than just ghosts. Vampires and even the hag (demon witches) or werewolves of lore are also warded off by them. In some stories even nature spirits. But this ritual actually used them to remove sins as well. To cleanse away any reason the Lemures would have to be angry at the family.

And the use of noise to scare away evil spirits or spirits in general is another ancient practice. And still used today around the world.

Friday the 13th and all it’s rituals and magic

Now, as for Friday the 13th, no one really knows what the origin was. I have written about it maybe once when it coincided when John Dee’s birthday. Since I don’t really have any new information I won’t go into it here.

Plus I have given you an eyeful with this post.

What I will say though, is that many witches consider Friday the 13th to be a day of good luck. And more importantly, a day where our powers are actually stronger. My Godmother in Santeria dedicates this day to prosperity work. As well as to cleansing and removal of curses. I do as well.

Though in my case I do past life healings and other work for clients on this day. My necromancy is also stronger on this day. And I use it as a mini version of Halloween to be able to speak with the dead. And gain information as well as to pass messages on to others. All kinds of magic is done on this day.

I focus on the darker energies of nature for healing. Another great thing to focus on is the use of Magical Oils. Like Lucky Friday the 13th Oil which is used as a talismanic potion for good luck. There’s also Friday the 13th Banish Evil Oil which is used as an amulet against evil. Then of course my favorite : Black Cat Oil.

The ingredients being Black Cat hair, iron fillings, bay leaves, sage, and myrrh. This one is my favorite since it is multi use. And it uses the energy of a black cat for magic. The ingredients are simple. But effective.

Now because the Lemuria falls with Friday the 13th this year, it’s a good time to do karmic cleansing and expiation of sins. The added power of this day will grant an extra kick to all sorts of rituals. But especially to curse removals and negative energy removal. And healing in conjunction with Mercury Retrograde. Which happens for the purposes of correcting problems and mistakes.

Speaking of Astrology, we have some interesting astrological events happening as well.

Super Flower Moon & Lunar Eclipse in the Sign of Scorpio ♏️

Sunday May 15th will be the Super Flower Moon of May. The moon will become visibly red. This symbolizes the blood of the Earth. Fertility, sexual energy, birth, and did I mention sex? Yeah be careful. You don’t want to wake up pregnant.

Or find out you’re gonna be someone’s father before you’re ready to. Fertility is at its strongest now. May is always fertile. But this just adds more power to it. I can’t help but think of a woman’s period.

This is a time of both life and death. Negative energy removed so that life can be possible. To make that theme stronger, we have the Eclipse in Scorpio making an appearance. Eclipses reveal hidden things. Either occult secrets or secrets about ourselves.

Combine that with a Retrograde and the remnants of the Lemuria and Friday the 13th energy. And that’s a lot of occult power that may not entirely be controllable. This is a time for Talismanic magic. I mean that in the original Astrological term. Talismans were originally medals with zodiac symbols on them.

Charged with the signs powers through special ceremonies. That’s where the name comes from. From the Arabic tilsam which means “graven image”. Being the image of the zodiac sign. Those were the original talismans.

You can create your own talismans. Not with images but with charms that will absorb the power and energy of these days. That way you can use them for whatever magic you seek to use later. But beware, don’t over do it. Try doing your magic so that you charm specific items for specific days.

Don’t over do it and then get an over powered charm that will blow up in your face when you try to use it. For Friday the 13th and Lemuria I will charm the bones of my dead familiar spirit. From midnight until dawn the 14th it will soak up all that energy. Meanwhile from the 15th to the 16th I will be charming something else for that energy. What I still don’t know yet.

I’ll probably bless an oil or something. Well, letting you all know ahead of time so that you can plan and do your work now. I hope this was useful. I’m sorry it took me so long to write about the Lemuria. But I have been busy doing the rituals myself.

Plus there’s another Roman holiday that is in May and has to do with the dead called the Rosalia for dead soldiers. So yeah, busy as hell. See you all later.

– M

Sources :

1) “Romulus and Remus”, Crystal Links

2) “Friday the 13th is a Day of Magic and in 2022 these 4 Zodiac Signs are celebrating” Elite Daily Horoscopes

3) “Romulus & Remus” School History

4) “Lemuralia” Encyclopedia 2 Free Dictionary

5) “El Anima Sola” Sobrenatural : Una Recopilacion de Tradiciones Orales (Supernatural : A Compilation of oral traditions)

6) “El Anima Sola, una de los seres mas aterradora (The Anima Sola, one of the most terrifying beings) We Mystic

7) “Leyendas venezolanas: El Ánima Sola” (Venezuelan Legends : The Anima Sola) Otilca Radio

8) “Arabic Talisman Magic” Enochian.org

9) “El Ánima Sola” Colombia-Info

10) “Super Flower Moon & Scorpio Eclipse on Sunday” Cherokee Billie

Random Links of the Day : The March of the Future Dead on St. Mark’s Eve (And a lot of other weird shit)

On this night, starting at midnight the spirits come out

Boy, whoo! My ass is tired. If you’re an avid reader of my blog, then you know I’ve been writing almost non stop from these last two days. For Saint George’s Eve and also for Saint George’s Day. I’m too tired to write an in-depth expose on Saint Mark. But I can do the next best thing. I can do a random links of the day!

I haven’t done one of those in a long time. Essentially, sometimes I would get random information on strange things. The paranormal, or weird history. And I thought to myself that I bet my readers would love it. So what happened is I ended up inventing this type of blog post specifically to share articles.

Or even videos etc..

So today I’m making a random links of the day. All will be about St. Mark’s Eve and it’s Folklore. The main thing to know about Saint Mark’s Eve is that churches will have a parade of future dead people. You will see the Doppelgängers of people still alive marching to the doors of a church. And whoever you recognize from that march will die this year.

Sadly I can tell you this is true. I have observed the vigil myself. In 2020 I couldn’t actually go to a physical church due to COVID. But I performed a divination by casting the bones. And the person I knew who was going to die was my grandfather. And a few days after the divination he died.

So this is very real. The whole thing shocked me to my core. I wasn’t expecting it. The reason I tell you this story is 1) Be careful when doing this. Prepare yourself for the possibility it will be someone you know.

Beware of just sitting anywhere on the Eve of Saint Mark. You might see something you don’t want to see. From DeviantArt

And 2) There is an alternate way to find out who is at the procession. Moving on let’s start with my former articles on St. Mark’s Eve :

The Occult connections of Saint Mark and Saint George

My Divination on St. Mark’s Eve, the one in which I discovered my Grandfather would die

Now for the other links

The Mystery of St. Mark’s Eve | The Book of Days

St. Mark’s Eve by Robert D. Carter

St. Mark’s Eve and the Future Dead

St. Mark’s Eve Article from the Smell of Water WordPress blog!

English Folklore of St. Mark’s Eve

Spells for St. Mark’s Eve

The Wikipedia page of St. Mark’s Eve

Halloween in Spring : St. Mark’s Eve

St. Mark’s Eve – Tudor’s Society

The Legends and Mysteries of St. Mark’s Eve

The Doppelgängers of the future dead arise during this time

April 24, 2020 – St. Mark’s Eve

St. Mark’s Eve – Stephen Morris, Author

St. Mark’s Eve – Mysterious Britain & Ireland

Folklore : Divining Love & Death on St. Mark’s Eve

The Spooky Traditions behind St. Mark’s Eve

Does Saint Mark’s Eve rival Halloween as the Spookiest Day of the Year?

St. Mark’s Eve – Oxford Reference

When the Soon to be Dead Walk

Why did people spy on Future Ghosts on St. Mark’s Eve?

Watching for the nearly departed on St. Mark’s Eve

St. Mark’s Eve I missed it this year

The Saint Mark’s Eve Archives of the Tudor Society

It’s Saint Mark’s Eve! Fabulous Folklore with Icy Sedgwick Podcast!

English Residents prepare for the Spookiest Night of the Year

Diving who will die next

PDF’s on Saint Mark’s Eve

Confessions of a Teenage GhostHunter: Keeping the St Marks Eve Vigil and Looking for the Ghost of Sir Walter Calverley

St. Mark’s Eve – Faeries and all that stuff

Happy Saint Mark’s Eve everyone!

– M

The Mourner

I was supposed to have written this account last year. But I was so busy with everything that I couldn’t write a single word. So here I am finally committing words to blog. This happened to my baby cousin. And I was called in to help her.

What I am going to talk about is probably one of the weirdest experiences I’ve ever had. It even tops the Witch Bird case from a few years back.

Let me start by saying that the term Mourning Women is an umbrella term for a special type of spirit. They are the opposites of the Llorona or Wailing Women, they can be good or bad, human and non-human. The good or at least neutral ones, are always human souls.

Women who for whatever reason have decided to stay behind because they are mourning another person. And they decide they have to perform funerary vigils for that soul even when they themselves are dead. There’s one famous Mourning Woman in Mexico called La Dama Enlutada from San Luis de Potosi, who visits several churches just to pray for the souls of the dead. This class of Mourner are obviously good spirits, and they may even be psychopomps (guides of the dead) who cross them over.

A Mourning Woman ready for a soul. From the fake “Spirit Photography” of William Hope. Still cool though.

However, there’s a second class of Mourning Woman who are demonic. Either human souls that have been demonized in death, or pure demons that have never been human beings. For whatever reason, they enjoy the motif of a mourning woman.

They take this form as a way to mock their victims. These tend to be what Paranormal Investigators call “Soul Collectors”, evil spirits that capture the souls of the dead who have not crossed over, and enslave them. These poor souls from that point on, are bound to the soul collector until someone is able to bind the entity and free the souls. Unfortunately, this was the type of Mourner that was haunting my cousin.

For a few weeks, I started to get a bad feeling about my cousin. The dread slowly began to build. Until I finally decided to text her. I figured I was being silly right?;

“Hola Mama, ¿Cómo estás?”

(Hey Mama how are you?)

“Eh more or less. Hanging in there,”

“What’s wrong?”

“I keep seeing this woman dressed in black. I don’t know if it’s for real or if I’m going crazy. But I can barely sleep. She’s in my nightmares too,”

Now obviously when she said that, I said screw the texting and called her. I asked her why the hell didn’t she pick up the phone and call me. She said she wanted to but couldn’t seem to find the time for some reason.

It should be noted, these beings can manipulate humans into forgetting. Making us too tired to seek help, or making us second guess ourselves. I have no doubt that’s what was happening here. Especially with how fatigued she sounded over the phone.

I got all the details surrounding this spirit. Which wasn’t much. It was just that it appeared seemingly out of no where and didn’t leave. Then my Mom, who doesn’t practice, but has the gift said the name of a deceased family member. A nasty family member.

“It’s Leona, she’s there for some reason,”. Now this family member was a witch in life. A bad one. She was my great aunt. Despite all her claims of being an Evangelical Christian, she was well known in our neighborhood and in our family as being a black witch. My mother’s side of the family are full of practitioners. So they don’t go around calling people “devil worshippers” unless they mean it.

They really meant it with her.

In pretty much every culture, when an evil witch dies, they can become these demonic or semi demonic spirits in death, then haunt the living. Some hurt the living by feeding off of their vital energy. Others just seem to be happy tormenting and killing people in strange ways.

They gave her a Christian burial thinking that would be enough to put her to rest. But even before she was buried, she had been causing trouble. Her spirit returned to haunt my cousin’s mother. It had violently pushed her to the ground.

It kept making trouble in her house with Poltergeist activity, all this before she was even buried. My older cousin suspected it was Aunt Leona. But she pretended it wasn’t real. It wasn’t until I told her that the strange activity was was due to Leona’s presence that she finally admitted she wasn’t imagining it. Leona had raised her.

So she loved her, but she also wasn’t a fool. She knew what kind of person Leona really was. Still she had no idea why Leona was attacking her in death. I had to do a major reading and call some of my strongest spirits. In life I’d never dared gone against her.

In death she would be twice as powerful. I didn’t want to face her with just my normal spirits. I conjured some extra help. The spirits told me that Leona had made a pact with something nasty. It was never officially revealed to me what that was.

Not a demon per say, but something else. Maybe something that serves demons. Maybe some kind of mutated spirit. But whatever it was, it demanded one thing in exchange for the powers she sought. It wanted my cousin and her daughter.

At first, because she was my relative, my cousin asked me not to banish her. But to do special funerary prayers for her. Try to pacify her in death. For a few months it worked. But then she came back.

And this time she didn’t come back alone.

She had completely infested the house with scores of evil spirits. Some former humans and others were clearly never human to begin with. It was one room in my cousin’s house. A room, filled with Leona’s old things. It was shrouded in a dark field of energy.

As thick as pea soup even for my sight. I could not see through whatever was in that room. My cousin and her family was physically sickened just by being near it. Something attached itself to a teenage friend of my little cousin, and before you knew it she was being spiritually oppressed.

Again, it was fucking Leona whom I had seen there. With that nasty, smug, smile. Victory was practically written over her face. In death, she looked like she was in her twenties. Not the 80 yr old whom we buried months before.

The spirit was too strong to enter her friend’s body. But via oppression, it gave her enhanced strength. I had to call on the Hindu Gods and the Ancestors to force this entity to release her. She was finally freed. I told them they needed to dump all of Leona’s stuff on a crossroads far, far away from there.

That time, I had consigned Leona to hell in the name of Lord Shiva. I told her to stay there and be judged by King Yama, the judge of the dead. That time, I saw her spirit sucked into a vortex of infinite darkness. Finally she was gone. Or so I thought.

I finally know now why ancient peoples went to such extremes to keep the dead, dead. Putting boulders on their corpses. Placing blades around their necks to decapitate themselves. The whole nine. It’s because of people like her.

The dead who won’t stay dead.

My banishing and binding had worked for a few months to a year. But then, my older cousin died under mysterious circumstances. Without going into detail, we think foul play was involved. But an autopsy showed nothing out of the ordinary.

It was still a strange death though. We think to this day that it was murder. But we could never prove it with forensic evidence. So it was officially labeled an “accidental overdose” and the case was closed.

But soon after, her daughter, my little cousin began seeing that a tall strange women dressed in black mourners clothes was in her house. This happened out of the blue. It was always around her, she was afraid to sleep. Because when she did, this thing was in her sleep.

And as stated above, it was my mother who revealed the entity’s true identity.

Leona herself. But she looked so different. So different in fact that when I saw her in this form I had no idea it was her. I would never have known this was her. She had changed so much, looked so different.

When I saw Leona the first time as a ghost, she was in her younger form. She was 20 years old, dressed in a short black dress, with long reddish brown hair. She would have been beautiful if not for that sinister smile.

But that had been back when I banished her. This time was different. I had sent her straight to Hell where she belonged. Now I could see that the time spent in the abyss had perverted even more than before.

She was taller than she was in life. Unnaturally tall. Her face was covered by a black mourners’ veil. Human no more. Now she was something else.

I kept seeing her in my mind. And I couldn’t shake this horrible feeling. The feeling that if she lifted her veil, the face underneath would be something so ugly. So deformed, that it could scarcely pass as human. But then I had an even worse thought.

What if there’s no face under there? Not all Mourners have a face. The ones who are faceless, are the worst ones. More powerful for some odd reason. I think the ones who are faceless are given a higher authority. Maybe the lack of a face symbolizes the lack of humanity or compassion.

I know this sounds like a horrible thing to say about a relative. But I just wanted her to go to Hell and stay there. Permanently. So I called my cousin and we did a remote ritual together. First I sent her images of my indigenous spirit.

A near identical replica of the statue I have. I won’t take a picture of mine because the spirit inside doesn’t like it. This one was made by Samuel Lightfoot

He’s inside a statue. His soul resides there, I don’t actually know if he’s a warrior or not. I can’t tell. What I do know is he has powerful magic. He must have done many great deeds in life because he has many feathers in his headdress.

Regardless, he has never failed me. I sent an image of him and of a Animal Spirit that he has with him, a separate statue. I told her to look into his eyes and enter and accept him there with her. Moments later, she felt him and his animal appear.

The Mourner formally known as Leona was very angry. She started trying to attack my cousin. Which was a mistake. Both my spirits took the opportunity to absorb her attack and turn it on her. Restraining her in the process, but Leona wouldn’t leave.

Some power was allowing her to stay. So I needed to upgrade to an even stronger guide. I had them restrain her while I called him down. For this I used a sort of Jewish-Christian and Muslim ritual that I devised. All three religions worship the same God.

So I called on my Guardian Angel in the name of Jesus, Enoch, and Muhammad. I drew the symbols of all three faiths with Cascarilla chalk on the floor. And did separate prayers to God for each faith. Then I just sat kneeling and asking Yahweh for help. Yes, Yahweh.

The God El’s incarnation as a God of war. That’s the version of El that Christians worship. Hence why he’s kind of bloody in the Bible. But I digress. I beheld my Angel, he was cold and hot at the same time.

A warm heat on a cold day. But also a refreshing arctic wind on a hot day, an aura that reminds me of the aurora borealis. I told him the cliff notes version of what was happening, and he instantly departed.

When he did I heard my cousin give a huge sigh of relief.

This is the closest representation I could get to what he looks like. But his body is weird, he looks like a giant, like a human with the giant disease. That gives them a bigger frame.

His wings are golden and emit a kind of solar energy. But the center of his body emits a white and cold light. When he turns down his bioluminescence for me, I have seen that he looks like a dark skinned middle eastern man. His black hair slicked to the back. His eyes also glow golden.

“I can feel him,” she said as she sighed. “I feel so good right now,”. The Mourner tried to run. But even if my two other guides weren’t restraining her, she didn’t stand a chance. My Angel is too powerful.

My cousin said she felt his presence like a warm wave of positivity wash throughout the house. Like all the trouble and problems she had just washed away under that warmth. He removed her at once. This time for good. That’s what I should have done in the first place.

But I believed my necromancy and my banishing was strong enough to keep Leona down. No matter how strong in life she was. This time she wouldn’t be allowed to return. Since she had such fun in Hell and clearly had a lot of friends, we sent her somewhere else. I asked him where else in the afterlife could she be sent.

He replied.

“Her demonization must be lifted first. That will take some long time. And when it’s done, we can send her into the void of reincarnation. Let her live life times with her karma as judge and jury,”

So that’s where he took her. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Let her own sins become a burden to her when she comes back to Earth.

I also requested he stay with her for a week, healing her and removing all bad energy from her. She said she slept good for the first time in a long time. A few months had passed and she encountered another Mourner in her house. She thought it was Leona.

This one was weirder than Leona herself. But it wasn’t her. My guardian is too strong, and the place he sent her is sort of like Jewish Purgatory. Before she is to be reborn. See Jewish Reincarnation.

“The Curse of the Faceless Woman,” by Urban Legends Online

I interrogated the entity and discovered she was a familiar spirit to Leona. She told us Leona had worked with Mourner Spirits before. And that’s when they met. Shortly thereafter a pact was formed between witch and her new guide. But this guide like I said before, was strange.

Leona had ordered this familiar spirit to appear as her, to act like her, and to have all her memories. In case one day her spirit would be bound or banished somehow. It was interesting to hear this from her familiar.

That Leona had become so obsessed with immortality, that she ordered her Mourner to become a backup of her. Almost like a clone. Her mind and memories absorbed by another Mourner prior to death. And unleashed the moment Leona was taken out for good. I also learned that she kept setting her free every time I banished her.

Leona ordered her to hurt my cousin. To kill her in fulfillment of some pact. On the off chance that she didn’t finish it herself. I ordered her to tell me who the pact was made with and how to break it. And she told me the name of a Demon whose name I will not repeat.

But this entity is female and well known in Jewish lore. You probably already know just by that. She’s also a demon in ancient Sumer. So I called on the Angels Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf to empower my curse breaking ritual. It’s the same ritual for breaking generational curses that I wrote about here.

The curse was broken. But something still felt off. Turns out my cousin still had some of Leona’s belongings with her. A cross or a Bible that turned out to be cursed, can’t remember which. I told her to bury them in a separate crossroads.

After that, the hauntings had stopped. No more Mourners. Everything went back to normal. But that was one of the strongest entities I ever had to banish before and I hope to never see one again.

If you see a Mourner, know this; prayers and the normal stuff you use, won’t work. These are really nasty, and really powerful demons. Even protection spells can fall short here. Because these are the children of that demoness that I won’t mention here. But those three Angels can banish and bind her and her children.

The Mourners serve her, they are a type of hag or demon-witch hybrid like she is. So you’ll need to step up your game if you’re going to face off against one of these beings. That’s why since then I have tried to learn all that I can about fighting them back.

The names of those three Angels and also the names of Adam and Eve can be called to drive her out. Especially when written around a Star of David. Of all the Hags or demon witches I have studied, Mourners seem to be the top tier ones. I don’t know why, but they are.

I will keep you updated when I find better defenses against them. But for now, my cousin is better.

– M

Random Links of the day : Of the Full Moon & the ending of the year

I am celebrating a bunch of different festivals and learning from a new teacher! Some good goals to begin while this year nears its end. I have some things to share with all of you. I thought this would peak your interest.

An early story of Merlin that was hidden for centuries

The Tiny Town of Easley

The New York Library’s Hidden Treasures Exhibit

Strange Mystery Booms are still happening (This is new and updated as of today)

Seeing Fairies by Morgan Daimler (thanks for recommending her Teacher)

Fairies and Elementals also from Morgan Daimler

The Weird Darkness Radio Show is up and Running

The Sukkot Song for all of my Jewish friends (you’re gonna love this)

A Whale Saved my life (YouTube video about her experience)

The History of Purgatory (YouTube video)

Esoterica (YouTube channel) filled with all sorts of amazing stuff on the occult this was recommended to me by a member of my temple.

The Ohio Grassman (Bigfoot) and how he followed a young boy to his home

Chihuahua teaches Baby to howl before walks (so cute, YouTube video)

The Modern Wiccan Festival of Mabon (named after the Welsh God, Mabon Ap Modron) & the history of Harvest Festivals

Origin of the name “Celt” who were the Celts? From Greek Keltoi

And finally, some articles on the full moon. Here we have an article from Cherokee Billie on the autumn equinox and Moon. The Paradise Lost newsletter “Autumn Addition”. A video on the Pisces Full Moon from Pandora Astrology.

Happy full moon and autumn everyone,

Ghost Month 2021 : What are Dark Souls?

A Flame Mouth is a Hungry Ghost who cannot eat food because it will turn into fiery coal in their hands. From Best Price Travel’s article

I decided to take advantage of this festival to write about a little talked of subject : Los Muertos Oscuros. The Dark Dead. This is something that is universal amongst all traditions, both old and new. Even Reiki practitioners have talked to me about the use of Reiki to help or aid the dead. Especially those lost in the darkness.

But first, what is this festival about?

Today at Sunset, the Hungry Ghost Festival begins. For those who don’t know, this is when the dark or toxic spirits of the dead are released. Specifically those who died and went to Hell for their sins. Hell isn’t entirely a Christian concept. Many faiths have their own version of Hell under different names.

Or states of hell. Sometimes referred to as “reincarnating into the lower realms.” Although lower realms isn’t always hell. Sometimes it’s limbo or even reincarnation as an animal. Though I personally don’t believe reincarnating as an animal is “lower” at all.

It’s being a part of nature. Humans after all, are animals. Typically, Hungry Ghosts are classified into three groups : Needle Mouths, Flame Mouths, and Corpse Mouths. A Needle Mouth is when a hungry ghost has a throat that is so tiny, it’s like a needle. Which is why they cannot eat food.

Flame Mouths are people that cannot eat food because it will burn up or transform into coal. And Corpse Mouths are the very worst. Those are people who were so evil in life, that they become decomposing corpses. They can’t eat because their mouths rotted away. This is a testament to their very literal rotten character.

For many generations there was very little that could be done for such people. It wasn’t until the Buddha’s two disciples, Maudgalyāyana and Sariputta had to face the fires of hell to save their mothers. Both of them had selfish and greedy mothers, who when they died, went to Hell and became Hungry Ghosts. If you want to read the whole story, go to my 2018 Article on the origins of the Festival. This also covers the rituals needed to appease them and ease their sufferings.

In addition to Buddhism, the same entity exists in Hinduism, known as a Preta. Which becomes a flesh eating undead revenant.

In addition to not being able to eat because of their mouths, Hungry Ghosts have large distended bellies. This is for them to eternally starve to death without starving. Now, most religions also have what I call Dark Ghosts. Toxic spirits of the dead. They aren’t necessarily people who went to Hell.

Not everyone believes in Hell. But various religions have something akin to limbo or purgatory. And in this place a spirit with no light as we Santeros say, or divine energy, just keeps getting darker. And then more violent and nasty. Until they become something far removed from who they once were in life.

A soul that was put into a blender and so messed up that it’s unrecognizable as who it once was. In Santería we call this an Eggun Buruku. Literally the dark dead. In fact I believe the Shadow People mentioned in modern paranormal accounts are these types of spirits. Not demons but really dark souls.

Although at least some of them, do become demons according to certain folkloric beliefs. In Catholicism they are called Anima Solas or “lonely souls” that live in purgatory. In Ancient Roman beliefs they were called Lemures or Larvae. The root word meaning “mask”. Because their visage was so horrible that they were masks of fear to those who beheld them.

And of course we have the Jewish Dybbuk. The soul of a sinner who, unable to become one with God, is hunted and beaten by Angels for sport. So they must come down to our realms in order to escape. They are called Dybbuks because the root word in Hebrew is the word for “attachment”. They attach themselves to the living or outright possess them.

Whether they be animals or humans makes no difference to them. Symptoms of Dybbuk possession include speaking with someone else’s voice (dead person’s voice). Having any ailments or pains they had in life like back pain or anything else they had. Or total personality changes. In certain spiritual circles the belief of a deceased soul doing all of this to a possessed person is identical.

Dark, but not always Evil

Not all of these dark souls are evil or even punished by God through the Angels however. Some Dybbuks are just dark because of how they died. Such as suicides. And they stay in a state of constant purification until they are ready to become one with God, like the Anima Solas in Purgatory. A Rabbi once told me that such a spirit will be attracted to someone who acts like them.

So if a Dybbuk committed suicide, they will go to someone thinking of it. If a Dybbuk was a murderer, they will go to someone thinking of it. Once there, they possess and oppress the person. The person starts getting visions of this dead soul in life. And they relive all the things the deceased went through.

The person in theory, understands that killing themselves or someone else won’t give them peace. So they change their ways and live out their lives. The Dybbuk departs from the human. And they having fulfilled their duty, are fully purified. Thus allowed to enter Heaven.

This is just one of many ways that the dark dead are able to be purified. It’s not always about sin but more often than not, miasma. Negative energy from some event holding them back. And by being unable to release this bad energy, they stop themselves from going forward. Usually, what happens is that a descendant doesn’t remember their ancestors.

There’s this modern belief that the dead are automatically fine. That when they die, they go to God and that’s it. Some go to Heaven, others go to Hell, done. But it doesn’t work like that. Even in Purgatory, there are many different forms and dimensions.

Same with reincarnation. Not all reincarnation is the same either. But I digress. When people forget their ancestors, that’s a nail in their spiritual coffin. When they don’t give them offerings of food and money or drink or incense and candles etc.. the soul becomes like a homeless person.

Alone. Trapped. Always hungry and thirsting. Always cold or hot because they have no home to protect them. Always alone or in the company of spirits that make you feel alone.

This is why on Hungry Ghost Month Hades Money or Hell Money is burned. It’s a kind of fake currency that is charged with prayers or belief. Once it’s burned in honor of a specific person, that person has the spiritual version of it with them. And to them, it’s a real currency.

Here we back our currencies with gold or natural resources. Their, faith, belief, power, energy is what backs such a currency and makes it real for them. I knew one woman, who would burn the paper using a holy candle. The holiness of the blessed candle would be permanently infused into that money. So that the money would appear to the dead person she offered it to as a talisman.

It wouldn’t run out.

Warding

In many traditions we have some kind of altar or idol for the nameless and forgotten dead. In Yoruba practice, we have statues of Babalu Aye and Oro who are Orishas that have power over the nameless and forgotten dead. They are placed outside the house. And offerings are given to them to make sure these spirits are pacified and won’t harm the living. Special idols for Hekate are placed outside of household doors to ensure bad spirits stay away.

Or just plain using sea salt barriers to block anything or anyone from coming in. While everyone is in danger of being effected by them, the sick, the elderly, children, and pregnant women are most at risk. Animals should avoid being outdoors at night as well. If you keep them outdoors, you need to ward your front and backyards. As well as ward their places of sleep.

Bless their food and drink and ask the Gods to fill them with protective grace to ward off enemy spirits. By enemy I mean anything that could harm you, even if unintentionally. Do extra protections. These are some links with information with good advice on what to do during this month.

Staying safe through Hungry Ghost Month

While Vietnam had their own Hungry Ghost Festival on July 15, this is still good advice and applicable to this festival.

Ghosts and other Myths : How Vietnam celebrates the 7th Lunar Month

Hungry Ghost Month & the Star of Yin Gate (More Good Advice for this month)

Finally, if you do decide to give offerings this month you need to be very careful. The Hungry Ghosts congregate all around people giving offerings. You need to charge your food and drink for libations but ask the Gods to put a timer on when the energy can be released. So that once you put it outside, it won’t release the energy until you have left and are safe. And wait until you are outside and far from home.

Pray to the Gods and ask them to charge the food and water. And that even if it is devoured right away in the physical world, it may endlessly replicate into the spiritual world until morning. That way many souls will be free. Or alternatively for the blessings on the food and water to be a gigantic bomb that will liberate an entire night’s worth of spirits when eaten. Cleanse the whole home.

Hungry Ghosts, like most spirits will possess an animal to eat on their behalf. The Hungry Ghost eats the energy inside the food, and the animal eats the physical food. Give your home an extra strength blessing. Do it for your Cars in case you need to be out late. Wear a protective charm with you.

And anoint yourself with oil. Or holy water. Bless any food or drink you have before you eat it and pray for protection. That way you will be given divine grace to protect yourself. Don’t offer the food to them when inside your home.

Because that will be an open invitation to them. And next thing you know, you will have legions over running your house. So when you do this outside, first have protection. Cast a circle, or wear a protection around your neck, have a charm bag etc.. even a salt circle around your car will do. Make it large enough to walk inside of.

Choose a place far from your home. Then what you need to do is pray to the Gods to charge the offerings. Either to ascend or elevate whoever will eat them. And that in exchange for them being crossed, for more good spirits to enter our home instead. That’s my advice.

Also, for this month it is very good to offer incense to your Gods and spirits for good Karma. Have a good Ghost Month everybody.

– M