The Haunting of Highgate Cemetery; the Entity Returns

Anthony Hogg · **Joined:** 05 Dec 2009 7:37 pm **Posts:** 315

Quote:

I couldn't agree with you more actually (above) and I appreciate you saying before that my book made was 'more believable' or 'made more sense' than another you've apparently read.
Well, I have been saying for many, many, years now that 'blood-sucking vampires' simply do not exist.

Uh huh...

Quote:

I have said that there DO exist different different categories of psychic entities, some more melevolent than others in that these have been known to 'attack' people psychically by draining them of energy and/or even having an hypnotic effect. Such entities are quite common; indeed, have been reported down through the centuries. But although these are said to take on 'vampire-like charasticics' (symptoms as just described), 'vampires' as portrayed in the Hammer movies, simply do not have any existence, except as myth.

Hahaha, that's right, Dave. Dismiss vampires as poppycock, but keep tooting your "vampire-like psychic entities" horn. Cos, ya know, they're not ludicrous or nothin' themselves!

claremonde,

Quote:

Thanks Anthony.Iwill try and get hold of the books you mentioned.This vampire buisness is obviously something you have given a lot of thought .

You're welcome. As I said before, it's tricky to get decent independent writings on the subject. Ellis' work takes a pretty good scholarly approach. I'd also suggest having a read of Rosemary Ellen Guiley's "Stalking the Vampire" chapter in her 1991 book, Vampires Among Us.

All up, not many writers take a serious, scholarly approach to the subject. Considering the questionable characters involved, that's probably not all that surprising.

Quote:

I try to approach it from a reasonably cynical viewpiont because there are so many people running around seeing ghosts and the devil everywhere.But im always hoping to be proved wrong.

I definitely agree with ya there. You gotta sort the "wheat from the chaff", so to speak. So, that's why other, "external" elements should be examined too. It's like a court case, really: hearsay is only as good as the people who recount it. And it gets pretty telling when they keep changing their story.

Quote:

Sean Manchesters book is certainly very odd. Perhaps he went through some kind of trauma as he seems to be 100 percent convinced it was real.

That's presuming that he didn't just make the whole thing up :wink:

After all, both sides of the fence have turned their so-called "experiences" into a cottage industry for the last forty years. One of them even named his three volume autobiography after it, which speaks for itself.

Quote:

If you wrote a story like that and knew it wasnt i doubt you could not end up a psychological mess.He believes he met a vampire and seems completely convinced.Meanwhile everyone wonders and there seems so much bad feeling and from what i have read outright insults.One wonders how it ever came to this. while there is so much backbiting can we ever really discover what it was that lurked in the cemetery.....

That's also operating under the presumption that anything but vandals lurked about there! :lol:

Concerning the supernatural, though, there's a few interesting items to note here.

Firstly, you-know-who's account of vampires is generally dismissed...on the sole basis that he wrote about something generally not considered to exist (ie vampires).

Yet, on the flipside, it seems to be perfectly acceptable to acknowledge the work of a "psychic entity with vampirelike characteristics" instead? :lol:

Am I missing something here?

I should also note, that before the two entrepreneurs started voicing their vampire theories, the other locals saw a whole variety of things at the Cemetery (presuming they weren't taking the piss, mind you).

As the Highgate Vampire Wikipedia page mentions:

Quote:

These ghosts were described as a tall man in a hat, a spectral cyclist, a woman in white, a face glaring through the bars of a gate, a figure wading into a pond, a pale gliding form, bells ringing, and voices calling ... Hardly two correspondents gave the same story.

Do have a read of the rest of that article. I think you'll find it quite eye-opening.

Archangel Michael · **Joined:** 21 Dec 2009 5:47 pm **Posts:** 21

Quote:

These ghosts were described as a tall man in a hat, a spectral cyclist, a woman in white, a face glaring through the bars of a gate, a figure wading into a pond, a pale gliding form, bells ringing, and voices calling ... Hardly two correspondents gave the same story.

The Highgate Vampire Wikipedia page article is written by Jacqueline Simpson, a close friend of Bill Ellis, who has exploited the happenings at Highgate Cemetery in at least two of her books. She barely knew anything about the case until the mid-1990s and pretty much had her mind made up, rather like her colleague Ellis, from the start.

The Lore of the Land (2005) is an encylcopedia of folklore written by Jennifer Westwood and Jacqueline Simpson who claim to provide "a guide to England's legends." Highgate Cemetery is dealt with exclusively by Jacqueline Simpson who is a member of the same International Society of Contemporary Legend Research as Bill Ellis whose infamously misleading "Highgate Cemetery Vampire Hunt" chapter in Raising the Devil (2000) first appeared in Folklore journal in 1993. The editor of Folklore that year was Jacqueline Simpson. It would seem that both Simpson and Ellis have an axe to grind. They are both wishy-washy Christians (just so long as it does not oblige them to believe in anything supernatural) with a sceptical approach and cyncial agenda you would expect to discover in the most hard-core atheists.

As far as I know, Jacqueline Simpson has met nobody connected to the case of the Highgate Vampire. She did not allow that prevent her publishing misleading and inaccurate allegations in The Lore of the Land (2005) for which she placed total reliance on Bill Ellis whose statements in Raising the Devil (2000) are even more bizarre and inaccurate. Press cuttings referred to in his book are sometimes wrongly attributed and his general argument is seriously flawed. Ellis claims to be a scholar, but he's not a folklore scholar.

Ellis received his PhD in English from Ohio State University in 1978. In that long-lost era, he says, students were told not to worry about the job market, so he didn't. He wrote his dissertation on the image of the mother in country music, drawing on Northrop Frye's theory of archetypes. It would take him six years to find a tenure-track job.

Meanwhile, he taught English as an adjunct, and met his wife, Carol Ann, who was then a graduate student at Ohio State. He found work preparing the annotations to editions of Nathaniel Hawthorne's letters and notebooks, which gave him some credentials as a specialist in American literature. In 1984, the family (now expanded to three) moved to Penn State's small branch campus in Hazleton, where, at the age of 34, Bill Ellis finally made the transition to a regular appointment.

It was not a position designed for a scholar. Most of the 1,200 students are freshmen and sophomores who, if they continue in higher education, will go on to Penn State's main campus in University Park. Ellis usually teaches two or three composition courses each semester. That means grading roughly one thousand pages of student writing per course. It is rare that he gets to offer an upper-division class, and rarer still that the topic is folklore, his so-called primary field of scholarly interest. As for conducting a graduate seminar, the possibility never comes up because the campus has no graduate programmes. At one point, he hired a placement service to look for a position elsewhere. Non-academic employers "were not especially interested in someone with my background," Bill Ellis revealed in an interview he gave Scott McLemee, "while academics saw me as an aging community-college teacher with marginal research interests."

He says he relies heavily on inter-library loans, and twice mentions his appreciation for finding a supportive scholarly community on line. "I started getting involved in online discussion groups in the early 1990s," he says. He refers to himself as a "lone wolf."

"Bill has never been part of the mainstream of folklore scholarship," says Gary Alan Fine, a professor of sociology at Northwestern University. "His work has always been quirky. How he's been as productive as he has while out there in Hazleton, I just don't know. It's a service school. They wouldn't care if he never wrote a thing."

Anthony Hogg · **Joined:** 05 Dec 2009 7:37 pm **Posts:** 315

Ah, Archy, I was wondering when you'd start showing your true VRS colours!

I was just surprised that you jumped in and defended Dave at one point. Maybe my cahoots theory isn't so off the mark, after all!

What was the point of giving that extensive Ellis bio? I mean, are you seriously contrasting his writing with that of the one who can't be named and Dave?

What kind of education do either of those guys have? :lol:

Quite tellingly, though, you don't refer to any errors in Ellis' writing, you just bang on about his academic background.

That speaks for itself, really.

Oh, and out of curiousity, Arch...which books do you recommend claremonde?

Archangel Michael · **Joined:** 21 Dec 2009 5:47 pm **Posts:** 21

Quote:

These ghosts were described as a tall man in a hat, a spectral cyclist, a woman in white, a face glaring through the bars of a gate, a figure wading into a pond, a pale gliding form, bells ringing, and voices calling ... Hardly two correspondents gave the same story.

Jacqueline Simpson, writer of the Highgate Vampire Wikipedia entry, states in The Lore of the Land: “Hardly two informants gave the same story.” This she concludes solely on the basis of readers letters' to a local newspaper in the early months of 1970. No research was carried out by her beyond a few press cuttings originally provided by Bill Ellis who later admitted in private correspondence to someone at the centre of the Highgate "flap" (as Ellis described it) that "contemporary press handling was often inaccurate, and that most subsequent discussions were even more distorted."

In his Acknowledgements to Raising the Devil, Ellis thanks the person to whom this correspondence was sent, but he did not meet him. In the same section of his book, Ellis describes himself as “a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America” and someone “who has taken leadership positions and on occasion taught adult Sunday school and led services.” Should anyone take the trouble to contact the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America they will tell you that they have never heard of Bill Ellis. The self-styled Christian Ellis defines exorcism as “a means of temporarily inducing an alternative personality … beneficial to some persons for whom conventional psychological or psychiatric therapy fails.” In other words, alternative therapy for failed psychology. Ellis can be found in magazines such as Psychology Today and Fortean Times. His Christian credentials take a bigger battering when you learn of the "logic" behind his dismissal of supernatural phenomena and satanic goings-on. His key word is ostension. He frequently uses that word in the way a psychologist or a humanist might, but not a Christian.

Asked by the Watchman Fellowship about satanic panics, Ellis answered: "The panic affected much of the English-speaking world from the mid-1960s to the early 1990s. ... the ideas they were based on had been recycled from earlier conspiracy theories in which the bad guys had been Communists, Jews, Masons ... the baby-murdering cult rumour can be traced century-by-century back into recorded history to the days of ancient Rome."

I think most of us can see where he is coming from; it is the classic conspiracy theory response, but not one expected from a Christian.

When asked how we might more critically interact with popular appeals to the occult, Satanism, and other urban legends and myths, Ellis responded: "Real alternative religions deserve to be studied objectively, not stereotyped as 'occult' or 'evil' ... It is otherwise too easy to deny the bit of evil that dwells in each of us by projecting it out into some stereotypical or shadowy social evil."

Ellis received his PhD in English from Ohio State University in 1978. Yet he falsely identifies his degree as being in folklore when being interviewed. This is how he replied to the Watchman Fellowship: Ellis claimed "I took my degree in folklore studies from Ohio State in 1978."

Ellis is about as reliable as his degree in "folklore studies."

Jacqueline Simpson's Highgate Vampire Wikipedia page is entirely gleaned from what she gathered from her American colleague. She could not even be bothered to check to see if the press reports she was quoting were accurate until after she had published The Lore of the Land and after she had written her Wikipedia entry. A disturbing number of her claims and attributions were incorrect, but it took a visit to the British Library to convince her. She amended her Wikipedia article accordingly, though it was too late to correct what was already published in The Lore of the Land. Like Ellis, Simpson is a New Age style "Christian" (she describes herself as belonging to the Church of England) who has no problem with syncretism. The trouble for her and her American colleague is that Christians who take their faith seriously do have a problem with it.

Archangel Michael · **Joined:** 21 Dec 2009 5:47 pm **Posts:** 21

"Membership in satanic sects, the participation in the rites introduced by them, the evocation of demonic entities, the personal and sole cult of the devil, and the affirmation of ideas deriving from the area of satanism, have assumed an unexpected dimension in today's society."

Giuseppe Ferrari
National Secretary of the Organization for Research and Information on Sects,
Editorial Director of the journal Religioni e sette nel mondo

http://www.ewtn.net/library/NEWAGE/SATAN1.HTM

"I don't think there's any compelling evidence that satanic cults exist," Bill Ellis, an associate professor of English and American Studies at Penn State University and past president of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research, told Fox News. This may come as a surprise to those who have heard about satanic cults from popular books and talk shows. But according to Ellis and other experts, organized satanic killings are nothing more than hysteria that surfaced in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/satanism/satanism84.html

Review summation on Bill Ellis' Raising the Devil:

It seems an intriguing study of sociology, folklore, and blood libel, worthy of acquisition by those interested in martyrdom, panic, scare, and witch-hunt phenomena, but of little value for those who wish to learn about Satanism as practiced by many individuals or groups. variable data on LaVey and Crowley also appears, including the amusing notion that the latter's definition of magick might be taken as "normative"!

http://www.satanservice.org/delusion/srabe.html

jabberwock · **Posted:** 26 Mar 2010 3:05 pm

Hey Tony, I am really ROTFLMAO on mikey's take. IMHO he is a monte python fan who thought he discovered how to take their off beat humor and spin it into his screed.

Tony, do ya recall this one?...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6D1YI-41ao

Since its all based on innuendo like this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZgwNutwK0Y

do ya get my drift here, this vampy biz as mikey projects it is just another wanna be monte python sketch, rejected by monte python as bein' too amateurish, yes?

clarmonde · **Joined:** 14 Mar 2010 12:40 am **Posts:** 71

Hello David. yes after reading all i can on the highgate vampire i find the whole subject completely fascinating.Like you i find the idea of a bloodsucking creature a bit too much to take.But i had a similar experience to you once in a cemetery.I too saw a strange tall creature that vanished and i for a few minutes lost all sense of time.Could it be that all cemeterys have some sort of guardian figure that watches over the place . PS.I have registered and been accepted onyour website but cant seem to get in,inspite of using the correct user name and password.Can you help.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

Thanks Clarmonde,

First, I am sorry you've had any difficulties registering on my Website. I understand this is because there have been quite a few of frivilous applications of late, and the organisors are anxious to get these sorted out. This would not affect yourself, but I must allow the Moderators a little time to do this.

In the meantime, you could always post on my Blog if you want to, and I could release your posts for answering.

Not quite sure about the 'guardian figure' you witnessed. perhaps you could give me a few more details? Then I would be in a better position to answer.

Thank you for your reply here anyway. And for your comments upon reading one of my books on the Highgate case. Please do come back if you would like to ask any more questions about that.

David (Farrant)

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

For Archangel Michael,

Well, now you see him, now you don't! But I kept him for propserity's sake; never know when he may come in useful!

I am not qualifed to answer all the points made about Professor Bill Ellis's academic career, and I do not attempt to do so. But there are a few points I feel people should know about his investigation into the Highgate 'vampire' case. I do happen to have first-hand knowledge about this as I was in contact with bill Ellis in early 2000 before he published his findings in "Folklore". He came to see me, and I can assure everybody he was not a 'sloppy' investigator in this direction, rather the victim of somebody who had received reams of fabricated material from a 'society' who clained to 'research' vampires (well more a 'one-man band' really) clearly ont to dupe him about the existence of a 'blood-sucking vampire'. I just set him straight, that's all.
But more later:

David Farrant

Caledfwlch · **Joined:** 01 Dec 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 200

clarmonde wrote:

... Sean Manchesters book is certainly very odd. Perhaps he went through some kind of trauma as he seems to be 100 percent convinced it was real. If you wrote a story like that and knew it wasnt i doubt you could not end up a psychological mess.He believes he met a vampire and seems completely convinced ...

Why is The Highgate Vampire book any more "odd" than most other non-fiction accounts of supernatural evil?

Is it because you reject the notion of there being any possibility of spiritual evil?

There are plenty of first-hand accounts of paranormal malevolence in print; many of them beyond belief even if you retain an open mind.

Why select this account for repeated criticism?

I would find it far easier to respect and acknowledge your position if you rejected everything allegedly supernatural out of hand, but I know you don't and that you talk about such things as "watchers" in graveyards etc. This pick and mix approach is completely illogical.

Why is "an entity with vampire-like characteristics" (which you have said elsewhere you find more "acceptable") more credible than a vampire?

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

"Hello David. yes after reading all i can on the highgate vampire i find the whole subject completely fascinating.Like you i find the idea of a bloodsucking creature a bit too much to take.But i had a similar experience to you once in a cemetery.I too saw a strange tall creature that vanished and i for a few minutes lost all sense of time."

May I can try and answer this for you Clarmonde (and I ignore any comments from anybody just trying to 'cash in' advertising 'vampire' books.

The entity seen in and around Highgate Cemetery from 1969 onwards which was witnessed by many independent people, was NOT a 'vampires' do not exist except perhaps on the gory screens of Hammer Horror movies. But there DO exist other kinds of psychic phenomemn that have been described as having 'vampire-like characteristics'. Thhi is NOT because they really are 'vampires', but more often than not just a tabloid description to describe their reported appearances. To employ such a description to 'prove' the existence of the Hammer Movie type then, is really a non-starter!

It is a complex subject (paranormal phenomena) and I would not attempt to go nto it all here. Simply, there is plently of evidence for the existence of the latter (world-wide), But you will find no hard evidence for the existence of 'real' vampires themselves. The only 'evidence' for the existence of those (and it is not real 'evidence', of course) are a few unsubstantiated claims by people either deluded, or more likely, just advertising such material for the sake of publicity.

Believe me Clarmone, 'blood-sucking vampires' simply do not exist. And you can take that from somebody who has been involved in psychic research for over 40 years!

David Farrant, President, BPOS

Caledfwlch · **Joined:** 01 Dec 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 200

clarmonde wrote:

... i find the idea of a bloodsucking creature a bit too much to take. ...

The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia; cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks and Romans had tales of demons and spirits that are considered the same phenomenon as modern vampires. The entity we know today is best identified with that found in early 18th century Southeastern Europe when traditions of the multi-ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by a victim being bitten by a vampire, though being bitten as a cause is considered the exception rather than the rule. Belief in vampires became so pervasive that in some areas it caused panics and mass vampire exorcisms where graveyards squelched with blood. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures, the term "vampire" was not popularised until the early 18th century following the influx of vampire reports from areas where vampire cases were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe, although local variants were also known by different names, such as "vrykolakas" in Greece and "strigoi" in Romania. Vampires are recorded in England as far back as the 12th century in Historia Rerum Anglicarum by William of Newburgh (1136-1208) which tells of "the extraordinary happening when a dead man wandered abroad out of his grave."

Evidence supporting the existence of vampires has always existed in our society, since the spawning of these demonic entities in corporeal form. They have simply been well-hidden from the public as have many things. Much speculation throughout the course of history has flourised about the existence of vampires. There are, of course, the total sceptics who say that there is no way such an incredible paranormal phenomenon could exist, but they would probably say that about everything deemed supernatural. There is nevertheless quite a lot of evidence to support the existence of these creatures. Among this evidence there are three types: physical, written historical, and forensic.

Any investigation into real vampires leads inevitably to the works of Montague Summers (1880-1948), whose research and writings in the 1920s established him as the subject's pre-eminent authority of his day. His study examines vampire lore in amazing detail, constituting a record of folk beliefs to equal few others in its sheer scope and depth. His works feature all the apparatus of an academic work, including footnotes and references to rare source documents, and it addresses such issues as how vampires came into existence, vampiristic behavior, vampiric ancient myths, and vampires in modern literature.

There are numerous accounts throughout historical texts that detail encounters with real vampires. And they go well beyond the clichéd stories of fiction. Sceptics will call these fiction, however, but the consistent depiction of these entities in corporeal form throughout history and in different cultures which have remained separate from one another would seem to more than suggest that the common thread demonstrates a grain of truth to it. If vampires exist in the records of European historians as well as Australian aboriginal oral histories and even in Native American and African records, how can it be possible that the concept of a vampire could have been created separately by all these cultures at different times?

In criminal databases there are examples of criminal profiles that match the habits of vampires. Acts of cannibalism, blood-drinking, and other depraved acts of violence have been known to be consistent with the style of attack by a vampire. In addition, medical examiner reports have contained examples of death by bites to the neck and the draining of blood.

The evidence certainly seems to substantiate that on balance vampires do exist. The teachings and the records of the past provide enough proof. Sinister things happen today possibly due to vampire activity. Humans are instinctively fearful of the truth and death, but human fear of the fact that some instances are caused by vampires leads folk to ignore the problem. Thus they nowadays tend to believe that vampires do not exist. Ignoring the problem has only made it worse. Those who study these arcane and occult areas owe it to themselves to become educated about vampires.

If the issue of vampires' existence is to be discussed, then the exact meaning of the word vampire should be clarified. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary defines a vampire as "a bloodsucking ghost or reanimated body of a dead person believed to come out from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep". This statement is also supported by the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English and Encyclopedia International. Dictionaries and encyclopedias usually give limited information, but in this case they actually gave an imperfect definition. First, vampires are not "believed..." to be; their existence has been demonstrably proven. Second, they do not just suck "the blood of persons asleep" but also of those who are awake. In short, the word vampire is applied to a dead and buried form which rises out of the grave at night, and goes about stealthily sucking the blood of whoever is available. Rudyard Kipling was absolutely correct in writing that "some of him lived but the most of him died".

"If ever there was in the world a warranted and proven history, it is that of vampires: nothing is lacking, official reports, testimonials of persons of standing, of surgeons, of clergymen, of judges; the judicial evidence is all-embracing."

- Jean Jacques Rousseau, “Lettre à Mgr. de Beaumont, Archevêque de Paris,” (Annex to the Contrat social) Librairie Garnier Frères, Paris, p489.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

"There is nevertheless quite a lot of evidence to support the existence of these creatures. Among this evidence there are three types: physical, written historical, and forensic."

The key words are "written historical" because that really covers all the rest of it.

How can you rely on the ignorant, and often barbaric, beliefs of abcient history: a time when it was also honestly believed witches could fly through the air on boorsticks, had pet anomals or reptiles to do their 'demonic bidding'; cause the failure of entire crops, or curse unfriendly neigbours by casting spells and fall ill or even die. Many innocent people were tortured or put to death for this; frequently with the full blessing of the Church who condemed their souls 'to the devil'. These were barbaric beliefs, and there is really no difference when such beliefs were applied to non-existent 'vampires'.

So lets see you quote some modern evidence for a change, without relying on the superstition beliefs form the times of ignorance.

I for one, would love to see it!?

So, exactly where is the modern evidence for the so-called existence of 'vampires'?

Over to you,

David Farrant, Prisident, British Psychic and Occult Society (BPOS)

damiana · **Joined:** 30 Nov 2009 4:40 pm **Posts:** 239

Do your sums

I f everyone ended up being a vampire and sucking each other blood and turning into vampires to suck each other blood soon there would be nobody left at all except vampires! Have you no common sense?Just do the mathematics.

damiana

Wombat · **Posted:** 27 Mar 2010 3:45 pm

Leaving the typo's aside this is the best paragraph you have ever written.
David Farrant wrote:

Quote:

How can you rely on the ignorant, and often barbaric, beliefs of abcient history: a time when it was also honestly believed witches could fly through the air on boorsticks, had pet anomals or reptiles to do their 'demonic bidding'; cause the failure of entire crops, or curse unfriendly neigbours by casting spells and fall ill or even die. Many innocent people were tortured or put to death for this; frequently with the full blessing of the Church who condemed their souls 'to the devil'. These were barbaric beliefs, and there is really no difference when such beliefs were applied to non-existent 'vampires'.

Spot on. I think we're getting somewhere.

10/10

More of this please. Can you extend it to orbs perhaps?

Regards to all

Wombat.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

For Wombat,

Amazing!

David

clarmonde · **Joined:** 14 Mar 2010 12:40 am **Posts:** 71

Thank you David.Firstly i find it hard to remember exactly all the details of the strange figure i saw in the graveyard.It was one of those moments in life that feels a little too real.this man appeared,dressed in black .He didnt have red eyes but there was something strange about his eyes.My mother,who was with me cried out,i was momentarily distracted then wheni looked again ,he had gone.He certainly had a very strange aura.The whole experience unnerved me.This wasnt in highgate .I am certain it wassome kind of entity.Next id like to say sorry if ive offended anybody.That was not my intention.Caledfwich,yes i do believe in the existence of some supernatural entities and not others.I do believe in all kinds of forces .But vampires? And the question of whether these forces are evil or not ? I dont know.As far as i am concerned both David and the bishop wrote from an entirely different perspective each.I dont believe in ghosts but there are plenty of photos of them.So at least i can accept i could be wrong. ive rarely seen any photos of vampires.Why did i single the bishops book out? well ,i can honestly say i dont think ive heard anything so strange.It intrigues me.

Willkinning · **Joined:** 13 Jan 2010 9:22 pm **Posts:** 7

How does the idea that a vampire can re animate seem to be so difficult for some people? How is this so different from the idea of christ re animating from his tomb. The hours of light and darkness are equal are they not, if it can be done by a powerful one of the right hand path shurely also by some one of the left.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

"How does the idea that a vampire can re animate seem to be so difficult for some people? How is this so different from the idea of christ re animating from his tomb. The hours of light and darkness are equal are they not, if it can be done by a powerful one of the right hand path shurely also by some one of the left."

When you state that, 'Willkinning', you are assuming a pair of opposites i.e. good and evil, Light and Dark - or however you may choose to describe them. That, at least, is a common belief shared by humanity in general.

That may be true; but only in the human scene. I have said consistently (not least, in many of my writings) that evil - or the 'devil' - is only a product of the human mind. Without the human mind, there could be no 'evil'. The most horrendous forms of evil - or accompanying 'devils' (or 'vampires') - only have a human mind to support belief in them. No human conceptions of evil - then no evil.

But I think you may have missed an essential point: have you considered that there may be states beyond the human mind which are just 'pure Being'? Which are not even aware of the 'human evils' of 'this world'? I think not, or you would not be trapped in the common belief that evil (or the so-called 'devil') exists as an external reality. It does not. Any 'evil' in this world, only has any existence at all because we fail to realise this one simple Truth. That it is that it is the human state of consciousness itself that creates 'evil' - without that, evil would not exist.

David Farrant

Caledfwlch · **Joined:** 01 Dec 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 200

damiana wrote:

Do your sums. If everyone ended up being a vampire and sucking each other blood and turning into vampires to suck each other blood soon there would be nobody left at all except vampires! Have you no common sense?Just do the mathematics.

Mathematics should be based on what we know about vampires and not fictional films and novels where the majority of victims automatically turn into vampires.

While it is true certain people contaminated in this way are likewise effected, the overwhelming majority are not. This is determined by factors in their own lives (eg probably inviting evil to enter by means of the black arts or falling under diabolical influence).

The vast majority of deaths caused by vampire attacks do not result in the victim becoming a vampire. On the rare occasion they do it has been recorded throughout history and some of that history is catalogued and preserved in Montague Summers' The Vampire: His Kith and Kin and The Vampire in Europe.

Caledfwlch · **Joined:** 01 Dec 2009 11:08 am **Posts:** 200

Wombat wrote:

Spot on. I think we're getting somewhere. 10/10 More of this please.

Senior bishops call for end to persecution of Christians in Britain
Christians in Britain are being persecuted and "treated with disrespect", senior bishops have said.

Six prominent bishops and Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, describe the "discrimination" against churchgoers as "unacceptable in a civilised society".

In a thinly-veiled attack on Labour, they claim that traditional beliefs on issues such as marriage are no longer being upheld and call on the major parties to address the issue in the run-up to the general election.

In a letter to The Sunday Telegraph, the bishops express their deep disquiet at the double standards of public sector employers, claiming that Christians are punished while followers of other faiths are treated far more sensitively.

Their intervention follows a series of cases in which Christians have been dismissed after seeking to express their faith. They highlight the plight of Shirley Chaplin, a nurse who was banned from working on hospital wards for wearing a cross around her neck. This week she will begin a legal battle against the decision.

Christians are also increasingly concerned that the Government is ignoring their views on issues such as sex education and homosexuality when introducing new legislation.

A group of 640 head teachers, school governors and faith leaders have signed a separate letter to this newspaper warning that compulsory sex education in primary schools will erode moral standards and encourage sexual experimentation.

They call for the dropping of legislation that will see children as young as seven taught about sex and relationships.

In their letter, the bishops urge the Government to stop the persecution of Christians.

"We are deeply concerned at the apparent discrimination shown against Christians and we call on the Government to remedy this serious development.

"In a number of cases, Christian beliefs on marriage, conscience and worship are simply not being upheld.

"There have been numerous dismissals of practising Christians from employment for reasons that are unacceptable in a civilised country."

In addition to Lord Carey, the letter has been signed by the Rt Rev Michael Scott-Joynt, the Bishop of Winchester; the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester; the Rt Rev Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester; the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis, the Bishop of Hereford; the Rt Rev Nicholas Reade, the Bishop of Blackburn; and the Rt Rev Jonathan Gledhill, the Bishop of Lichfield.

Mrs Chaplin will take the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust to an employment tribunal this week after she was told last year that she must hide or remove a small cross on her necklace if she wanted to continue working on hospital wards.

While the trust refused to grant her an exemption, it makes concessions for other faiths, including allowing Muslim nurses to wear headscarves on duty.

Mrs Chaplin, 54, has spent all of her career at the Exeter hospital and had never been challenged before over the necklace, which she has worn since her confirmation 38 years ago.

The bishops criticised the way in which Mrs Chaplin had been treated and stated that she should not be prevented from expressing her faith by wearing her cross.

"This is yet another case in which the religious rights of the Christian community are being treated with disrespect," they say.

"To be asked by an employer to remove or 'hide' the cross is asking the Christian to hide their faith.”

The bishops said that it was “deeply disturbing” that the NHS trust’s uniform policy permits exemptions for religious clothing, but appears to regard the cross as “just an item of jewellery”.

They also expressed surprise that the court has asked for evidence to be submitted to verify that Christians wear crosses visibly around their neck.

Mrs Chaplin is being represented by leading human right’s barrister Paul Diamond, who also advised Caroline Petrie, the nurse who was suspended for offering to pray for a patient. She was later reinstated.

Andrea Minichiello Williams, founder and director of the Christian Legal Centre, described the treatment of Mrs Chaplin as “scandalous”.

“This is yet another case of double standards for Christians,” she said.

“It would seem the Exeter Hospital would rather use its money to deny Christians their rights than using its scarce financial resources to treat patients.

“It is ridiculous that in our country with such a great Christian heritage the court requires evidence to prove that the cross is a Christian symbol whilst not applying the same standards to other faiths."

Lynn Lane, the human resources director for the Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Trust, said: "The trust has fully acknowledged that this has become an important issue for Mrs Chaplin which is why we offered her a number of different options in the hope that a mutually acceptable solution could be agreed.

"For the trust this has always been about compliance with our agreed uniform policy and the safety of staff and patients."

Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty, the human rights group, said: "Whether personal faith motivates the wearing of a cross, turban, head scarf or Star of David, it is fundamentally illiberal to require people to check such an important part of themselves at the workplace door for no justifiable reason."

"Freedom of thought, conscience and religion should protect people of all faiths and none.

"We look forward to the Supreme Court demonstrating this by overturning the Court of Appeal in Nadia Eweida's case against BA."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7531293/Senior-bishops-call-for-end-to-persecution-of-Christians-in-Britain.html

Sheila · **Posted:** 28 Mar 2010 10:55 am

Quote:

the bishops express their deep disquiet at the double standards of public sector employers

Case of the pot calling the kettle black... what about the double standards of bishops.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

I will get back to your comments on 'vampires' Calemaonde and Barbara.

But first, "Caledfwich", what has your nonsence about 'bishops' got to do with this thread?
Let me answer you, absolutely nothing! Talk about the paranormal, 'vampires' (about which you appear to know absolutely nothing) if you must, but why try and divert these topics into irrelevant remarks not connected with these subjects. In fact, by doing so you are only giving further proof to my comment yesterday which was, people all know who you really are! Stop hiding behind invented identities 'Caledwich' - especially if you are trying to introduce "Bishops".

David Farrant.

DavidFarrant · **Joined:** 16 Nov 2009 5:32 pm **Posts:** 458

"While it is true certain people contaminated in this way are likewise effected, the overwhelming majority are not. This is determined by factors in their own lives (eg probably inviting evil to enter by means of the black arts or falling under diabolical influence)."

Hi Barbara,

You know I just couldn't help laughing when I read this! I have never read so much amateurish bulldust in my life!

Its almost incredible that somebody could be so caught up of 'dark demons' and 'vampires' and then try and equate, or rather project, these onto the everyday world. My God, there's enough genuine evil in the world today without introducing imaginary 'vampires' as being any part of it. The only exisyence such demons (or 'vampires') have Barbara, is as figaments of the imagination of a person trying to project them!

David

damiana · **Joined:** 30 Nov 2009 4:40 pm **Posts:** 239

I did write a reply but it vanished,however from past goings on about this subject we know that all this baloney about vampires and whatnot, also religious stuff, is "sexed up" into a load of nonsence, as you say, but because the person writing it can write in a way that isn't totally illerate unlike some of his followers, it can have the unfortunate effect of making what he states sounds plausible to people who might sadly be drawn into his crazy web.

damiana

Arcadia Discussion Zone

The Haunting of Highgate Cemetery; the Entity Returns

Who is online