The Black Book is said to hold within its pages all the magical practices which are in opposition to the divine. The idea regarding the existence of such a book is very old and it appears briefly in...
Margaretta Peter was a Swiss woman who lived during the 19 th century. As a child, Margaretta was considered to have been a prodigy and was particularly noted for her religious zeal. As she grew up,...
Flying through the skies on a broomstick, the popular image of a witch is as a predominantly female figure – so much so that the costume has become the go-to Halloween outfit for women and girls...
Hallowe’en, a shortened form of "All Hallows' Evening" is an echo of Celtic harvest festivals of pre-Christian Europe. Observed now in several countries around the world, it is the evening before ‘...
The great goat-headed, horned and winged beast towered over them all. Seated on a throne, with children gazing at him adoringly, as if waiting for his words of wisdom, Baphomet made his very long-...
Hidden beneath 19th century stalls in Bath Abbey, Somerset, England, ‘bewildered’ restoration archaeologists discovered a pair of coins depicting a horned and hoofed, trident-wielding devil and the...
Exorcism is again in the news, as the Vatican announces a new training course will be held to meet increased demand for deliverance ministry. So, what does this actually mean, and should it be a...
A group of elite forensic scientists from the University of Dundee, has reconstructed digitally the face of one of Scotland's most notorious “witches”, Lilias Adie. The only documents that helped...
After 341 years, a mysterious jumble of archaic script allegedly written by an Italian nun possessed by Satan has finally been unraveled. Scientists have accomplished the feat through the use of a...
For Christians, the Devil is God’s opponent. He tricked Adam and Eve to eat the Forbidden Fruit, causing humanity to lose its place in the Garden of Eden. In Christianity, this being is the cause of...
Buddhism and Christianity arose independently of each other, separated as they were by almost 3,000 miles and at least 500 years. In terms of religious belief systems they are even farther apart...
St. Margaret of Antioch is a Christian saint venerated in both the Churches of the West and of the East. In the latter, she is known as Saint Marina the Great Martyr. Little is known for certain...
A group of researchers studying 7700-year-old DNA found in a remote cave in Far East Russia suggest that the two women were related to people who live in this distant and bitterly cold corner of Asia...
“There are also others who say that they see women and girls dancing by night whom they call elvish folk, or faeries, and they believe that these can transform both men and women or, by leaving...
“When the Wa-Gas first arrived on this continent they handed down the traditions to us that it was inhabited by a giant race of people when they first came. These giants were represented by the Wa-...
Many of Mount Shasta’s strangest tales have yet to be told. Ancient Native American legends speak of a fallen race of prehistoric giants who once inhabited the Pacific Coast of North America...
A ‘Doom’ is a remarkable survival of a type of church decoration once common in the Middle Ages but largely destroyed during the iconoclastic excesses of the English Protestant Reformation during the...
Demons have existed in myths and legends since ancient times. In the hierarchy of evil, as laid out in grimoires and occult texts, each demon has a name and a precise function. In medieval times,...
Witch bottles (known also as ‘spell bottles’) are apotropaic devices (things believed to have the power to avert evil influences). These objects are believed to protect their owners from the negative...
Romanian folklore records two atypical versions of the western vampire. These are the strigoi and the moroi which, even though they resemble the western image of the vampire, are very different from...
The legends of world mythology are full of tales about infernal pacts. In the case of such a pact, the individual gives up his or her own soul in exchange for service to the devil or demons. However...
Romanian mythology and folklore present a more comic image of the Devil. Also, in many cases, the Devil is fooled by clever humans who manage to escape him by means of various tricks. One example of...
In ancient times, a dark, hairy, horned beast was said to show up at the door to beat children, and carry them off in his sharp claws. The Krampus could be heard in the night by the sound of his...
The Salem witch trials, which began in 1692 in Salem Village, Massachusetts bay colony, are one of the most well-known and notorious witch trials in history. Yet, this was not the only case of these...