M.J. Rose

You might see this and say, hey, ANOTHER Bigfoot article? Who cares about Bigfoot anyway? Well, there may be more to it than you think (but not in the way that you think!)…

From The Atlantic,

Why Bigfoot Sightings Are So Common Across Cultures

Visions of hairy “man-apes” speak to something deep in the human psyche.

by Edward Simon

“Since the 15th century, and possibly earlier, there have been accounts of hairy, nude, and tremendously strong people living in the more obscure corners of the Caucasus. Called ‘Almas,’ the creatures are occasionally shot, sometimes domesticated (and, in one case, wed). Across the sunbaked Eurasian steppe and high in the Himalayas, there is the white-furred Yeti, the abominable snowman of hikers’ accounts. Six thousand miles away, the so-called ‘skunk-ape’ skulks among the swamps in between Florida strip-malls, refreshing himself with chlorinated water from the swimming pools of Miami-Dade County’s McMansions. The Dreamtime country of Australia’s outback has the ‘Yowie’; in Indonesia, there is the jabbering, tiny, orange-colored ‘Ebu Gogo,’ or the ‘Grandma who eats anything.’ And, of course, ambling among the redwoods in the misty forests of the Pacific Northwest is the most iconic crypto-zoological primate of all: the Sasquatch.”

I am agnostic on the scientific reality of Bigfoot, though the Florida skunk ape hiding among the cul-de-sacs of suburban Miami seems a tad unlikely. Most primatologists do not consider the existence of an unknown North American Great Ape, or a remnant of the Australopithecus or Neanderthal population, as likely. I have no reason to contradict them. Yet whether Sasquatch is real or not, people often seem to wish and believe that he was. Why has Bigfoot, and his associated permutations—the ‘wild men’—been such a frequent expectation? Why do we keep on seeing the Sasquatch that isn’t there?…”

For the rest click here.

Here’s some occult trivia with which to wow your devilish hoard on this All Hallow’s Eve….

From Munchies.com,

We Spoke to a Druid About the Occult History of Apple-Bobbing

By Nick Rose

“The apple, for all of its wholesome goodness, has a bit of a dark past.

The forbidden fruit at the root of humanity’s falling out with God is often illustrated as an apple. Cut an apple in half, and you will find a five-pointed star, or pentagram, often associated with Satanism and the occult. More recently, apples have been used in metal videos to convey images of creepy paganism.

Today, most trick-or-treaters who get apples are unaware of their dark past and discard them immediately, presumably because of their lower sugar content than the rest of their loot. Instead, we mostly enjoy them dunked in caramel or bobbed from huge vats of water by children with tied-up hands, in the popular Halloween ritual known as apple-bobbing.

And while apple-bobbing is widely considered to be a fusion of Roman and Celtic pagan traditions, there is evidence that the custom goes back way further, and some believe that it was part of an elaborate human sacrifice ritual…”

For the rest, click here.

Happy Halloween to our dear Museum-goers!

From news.com.au,

Mummified cats, ‘witch marks’ and children’s boots in your walls: The secret objects and hidden magic symbols used to trap evil spirits

by Candace Sutton

“IT STARTED off with the discovery of an old shoe and a lace collar hidden in the dark recesses of an 1830s house in one of the oldest parts of Sydney.
Next it was a tradesman’s boot in a chimney breast of a country house in the NSW town of Mudgee.

Soon Ian Evans was finding mummified cats, children’s shoes and anti-witch symbols known as hexafoils and merels, and ritually burnt marks hidden on and in the walls of homes and other buildings around Australia.

The Newcastle University historian knew he was on to a great hidden secret about an unspoken but widespread ritual of magic in Australia that has no recorded history.

But it was all confirmed by the spine tingling moment he was called to an isolated Tasmanian farmhouse where five members of the same family had died in a month in 1860, and the family had concealed 38 shoes, children’s toys and dolls clothes in the building’s voids.

“They were absolutely terrified,” Dr Evans said.

All the houses had been built before 1935 and secret marks and “ritual magic” objects were part of a terrible secret held by early Australian settlers.

They were deliberately concealed under floorboards, in roofs and the voids of houses by a population gripped with a fear that there was an underworld of evil spirits bringing death and destruction into their lives.

As part of a story which Dr Evans believes has its roots in medieval times, the objects were hidden and the symbols inscribed to decoy witches and devils….”

For the rest, click here.