Enoch: A Bigfoot Story

I really considered giving this blog another title but, in the end, I decided I could not.  This is a post about the book by Autumn Williams and my thoughts on what she and her witness “Mike” had to say but I want to state, up front, that this is not a review.  This book was written back in 2010 so some of the information in it may be outdated but I do not think that what I gleaned from the work will be effected by the age of the book.

First of all, I want to offer belated congratulations to Ms. Williams for what is a very well written first book.  She does an excellent job of blending her internal dialogue and struggle with the stories and opinions that “Mike” is sharing with her and I think that she handles the narrative like a professional journalist.  I had just completed Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air previous to reading Enoch: A Bigfoot Story and I think the two compare favorably.

That is as close to a review as I will get though.  Anyone who has been reading the blog for a while knows that I am of the opinion that Sasquatch is not a native of this particular plane of reality.  Looking back at the archives, there are so many articles with bits and pieces of my thinking on Sasquatch that I can not cite just one that outlines my feelings on the matter.  I think that, given some of the witness reports, at least some of the giant creatures that are being seen out there are more on the paranormal end of the spectrum.  “Flesh and blood” creatures do not disappear in a flash of light when shot at, for example.

Regardless of my opinion though, I read Ms. Williams and Mike’s words with great interest.   It is quite obvious to me that Mike is either the mother of all tale tellers, weaving a story so complex that I, a fiction writer of sizable novels, would need Evernote to keep track of what happened when, or he has had an ongoing set of experiences with something.

Is his interaction necessarily with a giant ape / relict hominid?  No.  I could very easily make the case that Mike has stumbled on or close to a portal to the Otherworld and he is dealing with manifested creatures from that realm.  There is no reason why a Sasquatch in entering our realm could not bat Mike into the swamp and Mike’s behavior : leaving food offerings, being, for the most part, very deferential of Enoch and others of his kind, not overstaying his welcome, developing a loving friendship with the being  and a willingness to go into a really wild place to interact with the being(s) could just as easily describe the life of a Faerie Seer as it could a Sasquatch witness.

Long story short, though, whether he was interacting with a giant ape, a relict hominid or some species from the Other Side, his experiences are valid and instructive.  Ms. Williams’ small appendix at the back of the book giving advice to people who think they might have Sasquatches on their land could be a primer for people seeking to interact with the spirits of their land but that is not really the point I wanted to make in this blog.

I have taken the spirit view of Sasquatch for some time but I have always said, too, that I am willing to be surprised.  What I found most pleasant about this book was the repeated advice from the author to would-be witnesses not to chase these creatures.  I have said on more than one occasion, and Ms. Williams supports this on almost every page of her book, that the person most likely to view a Sasquatch is going to be living like a Sasquatch.  Why do you suppose that hunters seem to see these creatures all the time?  Because witness testimony seems to indicate that the Hairy Ones are hunters.  If I am looking for deer and the Sasquatch is looking for deer then chances of our paths crossing increase exponentially.

Mike, of course, really did create the perfect storm of opportunity to see and interact with one of these creatures.  He basically plopped himself down in a swamp and stayed there for long periods of time, not running around hooting and hollering and banging on trees, but simply living.  As he and Ms. Williams both note, his temperament was such that extended separation from humans did not bother him and it shows in the way that he took himself out to camp and simply stayed.

Once he learned his lesson about technology and the Sasquatch, he also quit trying to film the creature and simply relaxed and enjoyed his company.  I agree with Ms. Williams wholeheartedly that all the tech in the world is not going to ‘prove’ that Sasquatch exists.  Nothing, short of a body is going to ‘prove’ to the scientists and other skeptics that these creatures are real and such a scenario would be a nightmare for the creatures and for the human who brought the creature in (not that I think that a human with a gun could manage it).

In Native cultures, the Hairy One may be scary monsters used to keep children in camp but they may, just as easily, be seen as guardians of the woods.  The First Nations folks see these beings as a separate people, a spiritual people, in much the same way that Europeans, a little more than a century ago, understood the Faery to be a people who lived side by side with them and sometimes interacted with them (and even interbred with them – try that without some sort of physical interface).  In Iceland, to this day, there is tremendous respect for the elves who are believed to live in stones and other natural features of the land.  There is a common theme here; it is a theme of relationship.

As I said earlier, the Celts and other European peoples, not so long ago, behaved toward the “Little People” much the same way that Mike behaved toward Enoch.  They offered food on a regular basis, spoke about them with respect (and obliquely so as not to draw too much attention), interacted with them when given the chance but always kept in mind that these were a strange and powerful people that you did not want to anger.

I have hammered at the idea of respectful interaction with spirits in these pages and I would like to take this opportunity to extend my urgings to the creature known as Sasquatch.  Folks, I do not care whether the Hairy One is a giant ape, a relict hominid, a spiritual creature or some combination of the above or none of the above, interacting with such a being would be a sheer privilege and that privilege should be treated as such and not squandered in the provision of some concept of ‘proof’.

 

 

 

Missing 411: Faery Led?

I have finally gotten copies of David Paulides’ Missing 411 books and am making my way through them slowly (lots of other reading to do). I am finished with the Eastern United States book and will be going on from there. I realize that Mr. Paulides has now moved into some city cases so I am a little behind the times but I felt a need to get down some thoughts and impressions that I have had since I last wrote about this subject.

First of all, I will state right away that I am not attached to any one solution for this mystery and, furthermore, that I do not feel that there is a universal explanation of the cases. As I have said in the previous writings just linked, there are multiple causes for these disappearances. My own psychic experiences have only enhanced this opinion.

Here are some of the other things that have come out as I have investigated in my own psychic and magical way:

1. A spirit with whom I have a very close relationship got very uncomfortable when I brought up these cases. Now understand that this being is very protective of me but the spirit warned me outright that some of these cases are the results of predators that “are not of this world” coming through and taking people. I asked specifically if this was related to what humans call ET abduction and the spirit showed me that these ‘predators’ were simply alien and not necessarily in the sense of being off planet.
2. In one shamanic journey that I took, I asked to be shown the site of a recent disappearance. I was transported into a wooded area (sorry, I am not sure where exactly this was – the vision could have been entirely symbolic) and shown a path that led by a huge boulder in what looked to be old growth forest. At first, I did not notice anything amiss but, as I walked around the area in spirit, I became aware that the feel of the place seemed ‘off’. I changed my angle of view and realized that there was, for want of a better term, a hole in the pathway. I approached carefully as the animal guide with me was not happy about any of this and noted that, when I looked directly into the hole, my perception was of looking into space. I believe that anyone who walked into the hole would not likely be seen again.
3. As I read the Missing 411 book noted above, it became obvious that, in many instances, the person missing could not be tracked by dogs and left little sign behind for human trackers. In those cases where tracking did work, the subject behaved in a completely uncharacteristic manner – wandering off of safe trails, out of back yards, away from the safety of homes – only to disappear and either never be seen again or to be recovered later under mysterious circumstances. As I read, I could not help but recall the faery lore of Europe where those Faery of the ‘Unseelie” variety, the ones who view humans as prey or, at best, subjects for cruel sport, would attract the attention of a human and then lead them away into the Otherworld. Often this dastardly deed would be accomplished by the appearance of lights that led the subject into a swamp or marsh (geography that appears often in the 411 cases) or by the use of glamour to make the person believe they were following a trusted companion or by the use of glamour to seduce the traveller into following. In any event, the person who was Faery led generally disappeared completely (or sometimes drowned in a swamp) and was only ever seen again if the Faery released him or her, often through the exigency of a concerned relative who knew the lore of recovery.

Given my own impressions of heavy Faery activity in an area not far from one of the Missing 411 clusters (I lived for a while in the Catskills, near the Adirondacks) and the discomfort expressed by both spirit helpers above, it certainly seems likely that some of the predators not of this world are Faery in origin and, if we look with eyes to see, we understand that there is a large body of lore that bears on the Faery kidnapping humans, particularly children.  I would note, too, the prevalence of bad weather following these events; The Fae certainly have the ability to effect local weather patterns and have been known to do so when locals aroused either their affection or ire.

Hellhounds of Meridean Island

It seems that Wisconsin, Manwolf hunter Linda Godfrey’s home state, is just rife with mysterious canids. Monsters and Mysteries in America, Season 3, Episode 6, aired on 25 February 2015 and included a fascinating piece on the ‘hellhounds’ of Meridean Island in Wisconsin. I’ve done significant research on the Phantom Black Dog most commonly seen in Great Britain and found this segment, which begins around 29:00, quite fascinating.

I am not entirely happy with Monsters and Mysteries – too much effort, in my opinion, to overstate the case for the phenomenon that they cover and to be ‘spooky’– but the show has done a good job of trying to find fresh stories that may not have seen coverage in other paranormal shows. This hellhound case in Wisconsin is a good example. It seems to me that I might have run across it in some of my digging (I would have to go back and look through notes) but it is certainly not a site that I am familiar with.

The hellhound segment of the show featured two sets of witnesses: a couple, Shelly Touchstone and Chris Wiener, who were reportedly just looking for a secluded spot for some time away from the kids, and two young paranormal enthusiasts, Mike Bagozzi and Jeremy Stark, who actually went to check out the purported sightings at the boat landing on Meridean Island. Of course, we have no way of really evaluating these witnesses but, in the show, they appeared sincere and I found it telling that their stories had some striking resemblances: the fog, anxiety and the limits of the chase.

Both sets of witnesses stated that, before there was any manifestation of the devil dogs, a dense, cold fog enveloped them. I find this quite telling since fog and other suddenly occurring weather disturbances can be a signal that a door to the Otherworld has opened. I have personally stood on a hilltop while a puja (Buddhist offering rite) was in progress and watched storm clouds ‘bend’ around the area where the rite was occurring, leaving a rain free hole right above the area where we stood. In addition, I have seen fog and mist form, seemingly out of nowhere, during the invocation of certain deities and in the presence of what we might term the Faery. A cold, dense fog might certainly form naturally in the vicinity of a river but the timing of these fog event seems a little suspect given the subsequent events.

I also noted something that I have written about in another blog post – that feeling that something is amiss. I have stated before that often a gut feeling that something is wrong is a good sign that it is time to vacate the premises or, at least, be prepared for a paranormal action. In this case, both sets of witnesses had some intimation that all was not well before their encounter. The young couple, distracted as they might have been by having some alone time together, still alerted at some point before the event and began to feel anxious. Mike Bagozzi, one of the young would-be investigators, stated that he actually became anxious five miles before he and his team mate got to the boat landing. His anxiety was such that, according to him, he refused to turn their vehicle off, left the vehicle in drive and had cut the wheels so that they could make a hasty getaway if needed. Intuition is a tool that is much needed but often discounted in today’s paranormal investigation scene.

While Touchstone and Wiener never actually saw anything, only hearing the phenomenon, Bagozzi and Stark reported seeing an apparition of Mary Dean (the ghost who supposedly haunts the isle) as well as a ragged looking black dog with glowing red eyes that then gave chase. In both incidents, however, the human response was clear; both pairs of witnesses fled for their lives. Interestingly, once the witnesses had driven at ridiculous speeds up the dirt road that led to the boat landing and gotten back onto the paved road, the pursuit ceased as suddenly as it had begun. This seeming limitation on the hellhound’s range is something that we see repeatedly in the English stories of the Phantom Black Dogs (PBD) where the creature will materialize and walk alongside a wagon or vehicle from point A to a clearly defined point B, where it turns aside or simply vanishes.

The hellhounds of Meridean Island bear a strong resemblance to the classic PBD of English lore. Those who have seen them describe them as being “big as a bear” with glowing red eyes while the English stories tend to describe the PBD as the size of a calf, again, with glowing red or yellow eyes the size of saucers. Extensive folkloric examinations of the PBD have shown them to often be associated with water, such as the Chippewa River where Meridean Island is located. In addition, the lore of the PBD associates these interlopers from the Otherworld with death and the dead, a theme we see with the story of Mary Dean and reported hauntings throughout the Carysville, WI, area.

While Monsters and Mysteries in America would have us believe that the hapless witnesses would have been snacks for the terrible beasts if the humans had not gotten to their cars quickly enough, I doubt that this would have been the case. Even in cases where the PBD has caused harm, such as the incident at Bungay, it did not do so by eating its prey. The PBD, in those rare cases where it was the proximate cause of death, seems to just strike its victims dead and leave them. In most of the lore, however, the PBD is simply a spooky reminder that the Otherworld is only a coursing black dog away and, in some of the more sinister stories, may be a harbinger of death in the family of the percipient.

Short Follow Up: Alert – Cryptid Roaming Denver Suburbs

I caught this report on Phantoms and Monsters this morning after my own blog posted. The being described in this post sounds very similar to the thing that I saw snatching people off of pathways in the vision reported in my blog this morning. I think that this percipient is quite lucky that he did not become one of the missing and I will be interested to see the witness’ sketch.

In my own psychic impressions, I thought this being might be some predator out of the Faery realm (as I have often mentioned, the Faery can be entities of great power and not all of them take kindly to humans) but, in some ways, the speed and ‘shiftiness’ of the being remind me of the many skinwalker reports from the desert Southwest. The short black fur over black skin reminded me of the manwolf reports specific to people seeing the beings in their homes (this would be the ‘Anubis’ sort of manwolf).

In any event, I would not assume that this being and entities like it are harmless. Remember that some astral entities have the ability to wrap themselves in etheric substance as they come through and are therefore able to cause real physical harm. If you see something like the being described in the Phantoms and Monsters post, do exactly as this witness did, do not run (may invoke the predatory response) but move carefully and quickly away from the entity and out of its sight. Only try to record the event if you can do so safely. A spectacular video is not worth your safety.

Spirit Talk: Missing 411

Readers who have been following my blog for a while know that I have a serious interest in the Missing 411 outlined by David Paulides in his several books.

Briefly, Mr. Paulides proposes that people have been going missing in U.S. national wilderness areas (and he is now getting cases from other countries) under very mysterious circumstances. Common aspects of these cases, other than people simply vanishing never to be heard from again, include:

*Victims with disabilities or very high intellects

*Canines
– the victim disappears with a dog
– dogs can’t or won’t track the victim

*Those that are found are often found near water/creeks/rivers and the missing tend to go missing in those locations

*Geographic clusters : mountains and water (see the map from Mr. Paulides’ web site above)

* Victims were often picking berries esp. huckleberries

* Victims often disappear or are found in swamps

* The missing who are found can not remember time away

* Those who are found are semi-conscious / unconscious
– missing clothes / shoes

* Victims are often found in locations previously searched on multiple occasions and “impossibly” far from where they disappeared

* Bad weather is often associated with disappearances

* The cause of death is often undetermined or head/facial trauma

Mr. Paulides details stories of people going missing from the end of climbing ropes and vanishing within a matter of seconds, with witnesses only losing sight of the victim for a moment. There are many podcast and Youtube interviews on this subject and I encourage my readers to look one up and listen to what this individual has to say. In the end, it may end up saving you from a lot of heart ache.

I worked as a volunteer in wilderness search and rescue and have a good idea of the things that can go wrong out the bush. I know that lack of preparedness and sometimes just plain bad luck can kill people in the wild but I also know that people who meet such misfortune do not simply vanish. There are traces left behind and those traces can be followed by a skilled tracker and/or tracking dogs. In these cases, it is as though the person stepped into the void, never to be seen again, and that the National Park Service, for reasons of its own, has decided that missing persons cases do not merit tracking.

Today (19 March) as I sat to meditate, I became aware of the presence of one of my spirit helpers. I had recently finished another book on missing persons (review soon to follow) and must have had the plight of these people stirring in the back of my mind. I asked the spirit to take me shamanically into one of the cluster areas described in Mr. Paulides’ work and was told in no uncertain terms that this would not happen since I was not “dressed for battle”. Given some of my experiences while “out”, in dreams and vision, I thought it best to take the spirit’s word.

Nevertheless, this helper was more than willing to discuss this phenomenon. He showed me, in a sort of mini-vision, a wooded area and then, in rapid succession, a series of events that could befall someone and make them disappear. Honestly, the “download” came so fast that I could not keep up but here are but a few of the things that could have befallen the missing. This list is not, by any means, exhaustive.

* It is well documented in Faery lore that there are entrances to the Otherworld on the face of this planet, most often located in wilderness areas. Some of the missing could have wandered through one of these portals, which are notoriously hard to see and then to escape from, and been lost to the Otherside. In some cases, victims may find their way out (or be ejected) some time later and such persons would certainly be confused and unable to recall exactly what happened to them, just as a person may lose the memory of a dream or vision.

* I was very clearly shown one of the Intruders, moving from the astral, through the etheric, gathering form and seizing someone from a trail and pulling them back to the Otherside. While the being I was looking at had a specific form, I was given to understand that, just as in our world, there are ambush predators of varying sorts that have the ability to enter our world when circumstances are right.

* The spirit tells me that some of these disappearance are human in origin. He would not say much about this other than to point out a strange dream I had a while back about secret government bases in the forest. I am not a big conspiracy buff but we can not ignore the fact that governments sometimes prey on their own people and that there are camouflage and cloaking techniques available that make people able to walk in the forest in near invisibility . . . and that is just the tech that we know about.

* Finally, I was reminded that, not only do the woods house humans who have gone feral, so to speak, but that there are human predators out there (serial killers) who are very crafty, very careful and quite willing to steal people when they can get away with it.

Mr. Paulides, in his various appearances, has recommended that people not hike alone, that they carry an emergency transponder and that they actually arm themselves before going into the woods. I think that this is all fairly good advice, though I have reservations about the use of firearms. I think it is important to note something here though.

If you are taking some or all of these precautions then you have established a mindset. You are not going into the woods unaware but are cognizant of the fact that there might be things, both Otherworldly and human, that could harm you. That awareness and your preparations take you out of any sort of unaware or victim mental status and, in my view, go a long way toward preventing an incident. All of the predators above, human or otherwise, seek to work in stealth. Your focused awareness makes you less susceptible to interference as well as increasing your enjoyment of the outdoors.

A Lesson In Manners

I have been reading Kenaz Filan and Raven Kaldera’s interesting book Drawing Down the Spirits: The Traditions and Techniques of Spirit Possession.

I will likely write a full review of the book once I have finished it – it is quite interesting reading and does serve to set the modern spectator religion paradigm on its head – but, in the mean time, I was struck by this quote from the book:

Those of us who want to world-walk for real need to get over the idea that Otherworlds exist for our own edification and amusement. They do not, any more than the denizens of foreign cities exist to help you find your way around, teach you the native arts, let you invade their homes to gawk, and politely ignore your rude and crass ignorance of their manners and customs.

Now, I have, on a number of occasions in these pages, noted that spirits should be approached with at least the level of courtesy that one would use when approaching a stranger for the first time. I have argued that these Otherworldly beings are very real and that, if offended, some of them are quite able to do damage, either psychically, psychologically or even physically. The Golden Rule is not simply a Christian platitude; it is good advice to live by, especially if one finds oneself dealing with the denizens of the Otherworld.

The authors cited above, though, make an excellent point. The Otherworld is not some froo-froo place that one goes to in imagination that is full of rainbows and sunshine and Care Bears. The Otherworld is not there for the convenience of humans, it is not there for human learning and it is certainly not there to entertain the members of our species.

Whether one is looking at the various god myths of many cultures, the Middle Eastern stories of the djinn, Celtic stories of the faerie or Japanese stories of the kami, one thing should be immediately evident to anyone who looks at these stories as anything more than colorful tales. In all these stories, the denizens of the Otherworld are as real as we are, they live in a world that overlaps (for want of a better term) with our own, they have the ability to walk into our world under certain conditions and, most importantly, they operate by a set of rules that may be quite different from the ones humans attend to.

In addition, anyone with even a passing knowledge of these tales knows that residents of the Otherworld, even the gods, can be angered and will cause endless suffering to the people who tick them off. Filan and Kaldera tell the amusing (to me) story of a group of Wiccans who ‘drew down’ the goddess Athena. They did not, apparently, do their research or they would have known that this goddess is notoriously modest. Since this group worked skyclad (naked), when the Lady appeared and descended into the skyclad priestess, she was quite offended to find herself unclothed and departed in a huff.

I would be interested to know what sort of consequences this group faced as the result of their ill planned venture. I shudder to think what might have happened if they had done something to offend a being like the Norse Odhinn. I have heard stories of his followers going blind in one eye just from having contact with him. I shudder to think what might happen if a group angered the Old One.

Before we humans can effectively work in and with the Otherworld, we have to be able to set aside any preconceptions we have about “how things should be” in that realm. There are beings of great power and beauty in the Otherworld, beings who can and will take a human in hand and teach them but that is not going to happen if the human keeps trying to shove that being into a box that the human is carrying around in their head. I have seen this time and again in certain circles where people want to be associated with a certain god, as an example, simply because their conception is that this being is ‘cool’ or because they think that, since the god has association with something they do in their lives (art or music, say), then this must be the god for them.

Sometimes this kind of thinking works out, since the person is responding to an inner impulse toward that deity, but, often, the human ends up being either frustrated (why won’t this god respond to me – as though the gods and other denizens of the Otherworld have some compulsion to respond to anyone who calls on them), delusional (they convince themselves that the god has come through and loves all the things that they love) or fearful (the god really does come through and was absolutely not what they were expecting).

The Otherworld is not a playground. The sheer number of ‘monsters’ reported running around our realm should give us pause and make us wonder why people keep seeing impossible things walking calmly through our forests, along our roads and even, at times, in our homes. I am not asserting that every monster sighting is a result of an Otherworld incursion but, if even a fraction of them are, this should give us some indicator of the diversity of life on the Otherside.

I know that not all my readers are even interested in the Old Ways or in exploring the Otherworld. Many of you are more interested in the things that go bump in the night right here on this plane. Remember, though, that often you do not know what you are dealing with when you come across one of these beings – whether we are talking ghosts, Sasquatch or Black Dogs. My counsel is, as it has always been, that a little respect goes a long way.

Getting out of the Box

I recently encountered this interesting addendum to a classic “UFO” case while perusing my news feeds. I found myself wondering why the site, which has a resident wizard who writes a column there, did not turn to that person when this information came up.

I have a great deal of admiration for Fortean and Paranormal field investigators. These folks spend their leisure time and hard earned money to seek out witnesses and try to document high strangeness in whatever way they can. They write up notes, record witness interviews, take videographic and photographic evidence, cast any prints etc. so that they are left with a mass of data about a sighting at the end of their field experience. If they collate enough of this data and find it unique, they will write an article or even a book and, at some point in their writing, speculate about the cause of the high strangeness they are documenting.

What puzzles me, given the strangeness that they work with regularly, is the unwillingness of most investigators to think a little outside the box in terms of determining causation. How many times have you heard of an investigator hooking up with someone who has experience and credentials in remote viewing, for example, to get their view on a case? I, as someone who thinks that boxes are for packing household goods, would be most interested in hearing what such a person had to say. Obviously, this information might be apropos or it might be way off base but it would be something additional for the investigator to think about.

While some investigators do not consult with remote viewers or other practitioners of ‘occult’ arts’ because they feel they already know the answers (Sasquatch are unknown bipedal apes, UFO’s are the vehicles of extraterrestrials), I believe that most investigators simply never think of such things. Despite their continued exposure to high strangeness, I feel that a lot of investigators have a subconscious (or perhaps fully conscious) desire to bring some ‘legitimacy’ to their field. As a result, these investigators tend to approach their cases using mundane tools and scientific instruments and avoid any hint of the ‘woo’ (psychics, magicians, witches, medicine people, etc). Basically, they are trying to document phenomenon that tend to be ethereal and hard to pin down using the tools of scientific materialism.

While the good old who, what, where, when, why and maybe how approach is certainly a good basis for beginning an investigation and documenting people’s perception of what happened, using some of the other tools in the arcane arsenal can and should be a recourse for the investigator who finds him or herself looking at something that does not appear to be a hoax, misidentification or hysterical incident. I will give an example from my own experience.

I had an opportunity, about three years ago, to work with a paranormal investigator who also happened to be a very “out of the box” thinker. As an experiment he asked me to do a series of etheric projections to sites that he gave me and to write up reports on what I saw while I was there.

Etheric projection is somewhat like the more familiar astral projection except that it operates in the “layer” of reality that immediately overlays the physical. It is more risky than astral projection since the etheric body is more “solid” than the astral and can bring damage back to the physical if the practitioner encounters something hostile. Also, the etheric projector, in order to maintain a cohesive projection has to move somewhat like a person in the physical world. Unlike astral projection, the traveller can not simply think of a place and be there but has to actually make his or her way there. I use Google Earth and a good map program to home in on the coordinates when I do this (although I can ‘fly’ in the etheric body which makes things a little easier).

On my first projection in this series, I followed the directions to a forested hill in the midst of flat farmland. Immediately upon arriving, I felt uncomfortable and kept looking at the sky. This discomfort was such that I actually took cover under the tree canopy. As I made my way into the denser brush, I had a feeling that I had disturbed something and caught a glimpse of what I took to be a Sasquatch making its way quickly away from me and then disappearing. I stayed in the cover of the trees for a period of time, aware of nature spirits around me wondering what the heck I was doing there, and waited to see if anything further would happen. Time passed and eventually I decided to return to my body as nothing else developed. I documented my findings and sent them to the investigator, wondering what that was all about.

The investigator in question got back to me shortly thereafter. It turns out that the coordinate area was known for UFO sightings (thus the discomfort from above). The area was also known for several hairy hominid sightings so the information about the Sasquatch did not surprise him either. Interestingly, he had not received any reports from the area in some time so the information I got came from an old trail.

I would be very interested in trying a projection into a fresh investigation site. I think it would be quite interesting to drop into the middle of a fresh Missing 411 case or something like the incident described in the case that I led off with. There are no certainties in this sort of work (I have had instance where I went to a place and got very little, almost as if they were blocked off) but I suspect that, given a chance to check out a site that had received a recent incursion, I might see/encounter all sorts of interesting things. Such a project though would definitely require an investigator who was willing to think outside the box and take whatever I could produce as just another piece of the puzzle.

Centaur Sightings

My 06 May blog covered a Beyond the Edge (BTE) Radio appearance by the leaders of Crypto 4 Corners, J C Johnson and Chief Leonard Dan, and the extraordinary variety of reports that this team investigates in their area. To quote myself:

Listening to the podcast, Crypto Four Corners has investigated reports of the Furry Ones (Sasquatch), skinwalkers, giant rabbit-like ‘rodents’, mini T-Rex, ‘Night Stalkers’ (gargoyle like creatures), little people, centaurs, gryphons, winged hominids and dogman/manwolf. I know, from other reports that I have seen elsewhere on the Internet that J C Johnson has also reported a sighting of a dire wolf or something similar while on a San Juan river expedition.

I noted in that blog that I disagreed with Mr. Johnson’s belief that all this high strangeness did not result from a window or portal in his research area. Given the amount of Fortean phenomena reported in that area and the long tribal history of magical/shamanic practice, I posited that it was almost inevitable that some weak spots might develop in the Veil in that area, particularly since there is also a long history of rogue magic users (skinwalkers and ‘witches’) as well. The gods alone know what those folks might have called through and how well they practice the magical hygiene of opening and then closing the Ways.

One of the phenomenon that seemed to pop up a good bit during the course of the BTE interview was the investigation of centaur sightings in the 4 Corners area. In all the cases reported, witnesses stated that they had seen the classic centaur, half man and half horse. In one case, the witness reported having to stop his car while several of these beings crossed the highway in front of him or her. These types of reports leave even true believers scratching their heads, especially when the witnesses report actually being able to hear the hooves clop as the centaurs go by.

Oddly enough, I found a possible solution for these sightings in a work on Faery lore. Orion Foxwood is an author who has, so far, written two excellent books on the Faery Seership tradition and one book on Southern Conjure. He comes from a line of Appalachian folk who have the Sight and has trained in Alexandrian Wicca, traditional witchcraft as well as his family tradition of conjure. He also studied extensively with noted Faery Seer, R J Stewart. In Mr. Foxwood’s book, The Faery Teachings, he makes the following observation on p. 73:

. . . It is important to note that the Fay may not appear in human form at all. They may appear as an animal, a human or any mix thereof. They can take an entirely foreign shape, even of a species of being that seems right out of a science fiction movie. They can also be seen as balls or streams of light or shadow . . .

Now, most people, when they think of Faery at all, think of the Celtic lands but really we may define the Faery as those spirits who live ‘within’ a specific land. There is a strong interface between the Fay and ancestors (who quite literally live ‘in’ the land when they die) and all these beings live in what Foxwood terms the Sea World, the world that lies ‘beneath’ or ‘within’ our physical world (The Stone World, in Foxwood’s parlance). In the Faery tradition, it is recognized that there are places on the face of the planet where the Veil between our world and the Sea World is quite thin and it is, therefore, easier to interact with the Faery beings in those places.

It is also well known in Faery lore that those thin places in the Veil can be sites of extraordinary activity. There are multitudinous stories of persons accidentally or intentionally crossing over into the Land of Faery and of those, like Thomas the Rhymer, who are pulled into that Other World by Faery beings for initiatic purposes. The lore also indicates that the cross over can occur in the other direction. The most famous instances of this happening are the stories of the Faery Rade, witnesses swearing that they saw ‘the Shining Ones” riding forth from their mounds and hills and trooping across the landscape. Most people, encountering such a rade, would simply put their faces to the ground and wait for the Faery to pass, afraid that, if they looked, they might be swept up and taken off to the Land of the Fay. Witnesses to these events described the ringing of the bells on the horses’ harness and the clopping of hooves. To them, at least, the manifestation was quite real.

Now, we have been discussing this in light of the Celtic Faery folklore with which I am most familiar but I should note that, though I am no expert, I do know that the indigenous people of the United States have their own stories of ‘little people’ and I can certainly recognize the Faery in some of the spirits with which Native shaman work. I think it quite likely that sightings of centaurs and other mythological creatures could be sightings of what I would call Faery.

I can not say with any certainty whether these sightings are physical manifestations or not. It certainly seems to be the case that Faery can manage physical manifestation since there are records of people being struck by them; however, the Faery are also highly skilled at the magic called glamour in which they make something appear to be something else. It is entirely possible that these witnesses are experiencing exactly what the Faery want them to experience – clopping hooves and all – and that the ‘reality’ may be something completely different.

The Bones of a Hellhound?

I ran across this wonderful story in a web search the other day and just had to share. I am almost as fascinated by the Black Dog phenomenon as I am by shape shifters.

Now, first of all, let me say that I imagine that had the discovery of this dog’s bones occurred anywhere else in the British Isles, the archeologists would have shrugged, cataloged the find and gone on. Since the find occurred in proximity to the churches at Blythburgh and Bungay, however, the legend of Black Shuck almost had to raise its head. This is the sort of find that sends debunkers and so-called skeptics into paroxysms of delight since now they can point to a “real” cause for the “overwrought” stories of that day in 1577.

For those of you unfamiliar with giant breeds, yes, a dog that stands seven feet tall on its hind legs and weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 196 pounds is quite large. However, I have been the proud keeper of an Irish Wolfhound that was almost that big so I do not find anything at all unusual about this reported find. It is well known that the peoples of Europe were known for breeding large hounds for hunting and we see this in their modern ancestors – the Irish Wolfhound, the Scottish Deerhound, the Great Dane and the Russian Wolfhound, to name a few. This does not even take into account large breeds, like the Newfoundland, bred for other purposes.

So, the discovery of a large dog skeleton anywhere in Europe is not an exceptional find except that it happened to occur within a few miles of one of the most famous Black Dog incidents of all time. I will leave it to the reader to check out the text box summary of the story in the highlighted article. Briefly, a large ‘hellhound’ is supposed to have burst into two separate churches during a raging storm and to have killed some of the parishioners in each of the churches before disappearing back into the storm. Of course, the discovery of a large dog skeleton in a monastery not too far from where this occurred would go a long way toward ‘explaining’ this tragic occurrence.

I think not. If a hunter, a person who has been hunting since they were small and has an intimate familiarity with the local flora and fauna, is walking in the woods and reports seeing a bear then everyone assumes that there must have been a bear in the woods. If, however, that same individual claims that they saw a Sasquatch, they are mistaken, deluded, lying or all of the above. In the same manner, historians are perfectly willing to accept stories from medieval peasants about their daily lives, agriculture, local flora and fauna, etc. but, as soon as the topic strays to something which is ‘impossible’ in the modern paradigm, then the tellers of the story suddenly become superstitious people who can not tell the difference between a tale they heard next to the winter’s fires and real life.

For myself, I am inclined to believe the peasant, the individual who has lived off the land for his or her entire life and knows that land and the creatures on it. It is doubtful that the local nobility were praying in the church during that storm. Rather, it would have been the people of the village, most or all of whom derived their living from the land. Something terrible happened in those churches back in 1577 and, while the writers of the time may have exaggerated, if it had simply been a large dog that ran through those churches, perhaps driven frantic by the storm, then that is the basic story that we would have gotten.

You will note, too, that the clergyman who describes the ‘hellhound’ states explicitly that the creature killed two parishioners by wringing their necks. When have you ever seen a dog do that? Dogs and wolves kill by immobilizing their prey, often by hamstringing it, and then either opening the intestinal cavity or grabbing by the throat and shaking to either break the neck or cause exsanguination. Wringing a neck is what a farmer might do to a chicken that was going to serve as dinner. We also have the interesting detail that, when the dog exited one of the churches, it left behind scorched claw marks on the door which are supposed to be evident to this day.

I think that the people of Blythburgh and Bungay might have had the misfortune of encountering a real and dangerous paranormal phenomenon. I don’t know what, exactly, it was but there are any number of legendary creatures that might fit the bill ranging from the hounds that accompanied the Wild Hunt to the Cu Sith of Faery lore which were known to travel with the lord of Annwn. Note that both these creatures are associated with death – the Wild Hunt was said to collect the souls of the dead who had passed during that year and Annwn is the Celtic Underworld, the place to which the dead repair once they leave this mortal coil. Churchmen and monastics of the time were also known to study magic when no one was looking; it is quite possible that someone in the area summoned something that they should not have and it got loose.

Whatever the case, people died and the Phantom Black Dog got a significant blot on its reputation. I am not convinced that this was actually a PBD though since very few Black Dog stories cast the creature as a direct threat to the person. Rather, it is the PBD’s association with death that causes the fear of the witness, and, in fact, the PBD sighting does seem to be an omen of impending death for some. This is a far cry from the savagery indicated in the 1577 stories though so while I am not at all convinced that this was simply a large hound wreaking havoc in the neighborhood, neither am I convinced that this was a Phantom Black Dog episode.

Shape Shifting: The Real Scoop

Shape shifting is one of my areas of interest and one of the under explored areas in the occult, in my opinion. If I had the time for ritual and experimentation, I would write my own book but, in the mean time, here is a little primer for those readers interested in the topic.

First of all, let us set aside the topic that always comes up when the issue of shape shifting arises: is it possible for an individual to physically assume another form. While I am loathe to say that anything is impossible, the power outlay for a transformation of this sort would be enormous, in my opinion, and would require the interference of a major Power or tapping into an energy source of almost unlimited potential such as a major ley line. So, while I will not say that physical transformation is completely impossible, I think that power issues as well as the practicalities of returning to the original form make it practically impossible.

Nevertheless, there is very clear lore, throughout the world, indicating the idea of people turning into animals and animals turning into people. How do we explain these stories? Why is this such a wide spread belief? As I have indicated, one could write a book on this subject but here are some brief thoughts:

1) The Faery and other beings of the Otherworld. The beings of the Otherworld, particularly the Faery, are known for their ability to shift shape. Some of the shape shifting legends clearly derive from encounters between humans and Otherworld entities over the course of history. The Irish legend of the Selkie comes to mind – a seal that removes its skin and becomes a lovely woman or handsome man.

2) Astral Experiences. Some of the legends of shape shifting may actually derive from dreams and/or out of body experiences. One of the easiest ways to experience another form is to learn astral projection or one of the various forms of shamanic soul travel and then decide, once you are “out”, to move in the body of an animal. This may take significant practice on the part of the dreamer or out of body traveller or it may happen spontaneously according to events in the dream/journey. In either event, in cultures where the dream time is taken seriously and such movement from one form to another is common in dreams and out of body experiences, these episodes would be shared with others and settle into the legend and myth of the tribe or clan.

3) Glamour. Magicians, throughout time, have been known for the power to cloud human minds and make them see things that are not there. Star Wars fans will recall the famous “these are not the droids you are looking for scene”; Obi-Wan Kenobi could just as easily have made those storm troopers think that they saw the droids walking off in the distance and caused them to speed off in pursuit. Likewise, a strong telepath, using magical enhancement of his or her ability, might cause other humans to think they were seeing a human turning to an animal or part animal. Reasons for doing this might range from mischief to distraction so that the mage could escape a dangerous situation. Obviously, as Obi-Wan noted, these tricks work best on the weak minded.

4) Mental Shifting. Some people have such a strong affinity with an animal that they actually seem to be able to take on aspects of the mind of that animal. We see some connection to the idea of glamour here since people in the presence of this type of “shifter” will often report perceiving changes in the shifter’s appearance. I theorize that the person’s identification with their animal is so strong that they give off strong telepathic/magical energy that actually alters people’s perception.

5) Etheric Shape Shifting. There are a number of levels to the human energetic body. The level that is closest to the physical is called, in many esoteric traditions, the etheric. Think of the etheric level as the template on which the physical hangs, sort of an energetic lattice work that allows the physical to have and maintain a certain form. Magicians through the ages have been able to work with the etheric level by learning to project the etheric body, change its shape and even shape the etheric and use it as an overlay to their physical form. Interestingly, the etheric can even be “hardened” so that it looks and appears solid. Thus, the Northern legends of warriors who fought in semi-animal form and inflicted terrible damage with both their weapons and their claws/teeth.

6) Possession. In Voudou, the faithful are sometimes possessed by their Met Tet, the Lwa “of their head”, the ‘god’ that walks most closely with them and is their patron. I see no reason why an individual with a distinct shamanic bent who worked with animal spirits on a regular basis might not actually allow the spirit of a totem or power animal to possess them. Again, given the powerful energies involved, one wonders what the perception of an outsider witnessing such an act might be. We know that those possessed by the Lwa certainly change aspect and are capable of performing actions that an ordinary humans could not.

So, the next time you read a story about a skinwalker speeding across the Arizona desert or hear of a report of a werewolf trolling a forest in England, don’t be so quick to dismiss.