I know there has been debate as to whether she is a prophet or a psychic, and the differences being that a prophet gets their information from God while psychics get their information for other source (and whose to say it isn’t God giving all the information).  Anyway, while that discussion is interesting, we’ll save it for another time.  Let’s focus on Anna, as she’s depicted in the Bible.

Anna is introduced at the end of the Birth Narrative (Luke 1:1-2:40) and she arrives at the Temple where the purification of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is taking place, traditionally 40 days after the birth of the firstborn son.  This tradition is based on the written law of the Lord and a sacrifice of a lamb, two pigeons, or two turtledoves is offered as well (Leviticus 12:2-8).

The family is first greeted by Simeon, an old man described as “righteous and devout” who was told by the Holy Spirit that he will not die until he has seen the Messiah.  Simeon takes Jesus into his arms, praises God, declares Jesus is God’s salvation and says, ““Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:28-32).  Simeon is now ready to die.  An extra note regarding Simeon, he very well may have been a priest since he held Jesus.

Anna then approaches the family, and Simeon describes her as a “prophetess” (Luke 2:29-32, 34-36).  These two individuals arrived separately, but scholars and Christians believe that divine intervention took place on this day.

Luke describes Anna as a woman who is deserving the honor that is bestowed on the elderly in the ancient Mediterranean world.

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. – Luke 2:36-38, New International Version (NIV)

Anna, as painted by Rembrandt

Anna is the only female in the Bible described as a prophetess.  It’s rather interesting to consider that Luke mentions her tribe (Asher) as well as the name of her father (Phanuel), but not her deceased husband.  Also, her dialogue is narrated, where Simeon is directly quoted.  Anna is described as someone who never leaves the Temple, she prays and worships night and day by fasting and praying, as well as being available 24/7.  It is clear that Anna is depicted as someone who listens to God and is devout.  She recognizes the baby immediately and knows who He is.  She prays as directed and fasts often, aware that it brings results.  She is depicted as being of very advanced age of at least 84 years old.

I’ve always found Anna’s depiction in the Bible very fascinating.  She’s a prophetess, but not a psychic, but yet she possesses knowledge that no one else knew and could identify the baby Messiah.  And finally, we don’t know much about her, her family, whether she had any children before her husband passed, and her life in the Temple.

Even if you don’t believe in God, or Jesus, or the Bible…it’s worthy to take a glance at Anna and how she is portrayed in a book and religion where consulting psychics was considered as dealing with the Devil.

APS wishes everyone a blessed holiday celebration!

There was probably no one else who loved Christmas ghost stories more than Charles Dickens.  In fact, majority of the Victorian Era brought forth a new fascination of ghosts, spirits, apparitions, and all things weird.  The rise of Spiritualism was also during this same time.  So it is to no surprise that the holiday season would have experienced a spooky twist.  Whilst in the reign of Spiritualism, by 1855 Dickens himself was a practicing mesmeric doctor, as well as a member of The Ghost Club (founded in 1862)

Dickens is most famous for his beloved novella, A Christmas Carol, first published on December 17th, 1843.  In fact, we are just a week shy of the book’s 170th birthday.  Considering the popularity of the tale of old Ebenezer Scrooge, there are seldom few who know of the moving story of a stingy old man’s change of heart after visitations from spirits, and they lessons they taught him.

Illustration by John Leech from the first edition of “A Christmas Carol”

It may be hard to fathom, but the Christmas that we know today, was not the Christmas that happened in the 19th century, especially in London.  While there were “12 days of Christmas”, seldom did people take the day off and many worked during the Christmas holiday.  Christians strictly followed the Bible, which believe it or not, didn’t condone the celebration of Christmas.  It didn’t have the Christian ties that it has today, and was often just a time for parties and sexual liberties.  The Puritans even attempted to ban Christmas during the 17th century.  But to bring the point home, the Christmas that Charles Dickens experienced was not like Christmas today.

In a sense, we can give regards to Dickens for inventing the Christmas that we know and love.  This is likely why A Christmas Carol became so popular.  While this classic tale certainly remains as Dickens’ most famous holiday work, it certainly was not the only piece of literature he wrote with spirits and the weird intertwined in the Christmas holiday. Many regard Dickens as the father of the Christmas tradition we know now.

In 1836, seven years before A Christmas Carol was written, Dickens wrote a short story for The Pickwick Papers called, The Story of the Goblins Who Stole a Sexton, and it tells the story of a man named Gabriel Grub who drinks and works on Christmas day as a caretaker and gravedigger.  He is then kidnapped by goblins and taken to an underground cave where they show him his fellow humans, including a small boy belonging to a poor family that dies.  One could say that Gabriel Grub is Scrooge and the small boy was Tiny Tim.  The goblins also beat Gabriel mercilessly, and the next morning, he is a changed man.

Cover of “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain”

In 1848, Dickens wrote his final Christmas novella called, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain.  Unlike its predecessor, Haunted Man was a much more grisly tale.  It tells the story of a chemist named, Redlaw.  For him, and many others, Christmas is a grim reminder of lost loves, hurts, and regrets.  He is then visited by a Phantom who offers to cancel out his hurts.  Redlaw is amazed and intrigued as to how this visitor can erase such a thing.  But Redlaw soon learns that in order to forget the past hurts, he has to let go of the treasured people who caused the hurts and regrets in the first place.  And the lesson becomes that you can not forget one without affecting the other.  It’s truly a moving tale, and if you would like to read it for free, just click on the following link: The Haunted Man.  Charles Dickens wrote several more Christmas ghost stories for The Pickwick Papers as well as other publications.

After Dickens published A Christmas Carol, he began a tradition of publishing works each Christmas after.  In 1859, Dickens wrote The Haunted House, in collaboration with several authors, for the weekly periodical All Year Round.  Once again, this was a Christmas ghost story that featured the spiritual and the weird.  There are numerous other Christmas ghost stories written by Charles Dickens that are available on the web for free and very enjoyable.

If you would like to buy a book called, Christmas Ghost Stories with A Christmas Carol, The Story of the Goblins who Stole a Sexton, The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain, and The Haunted House, you can purchase it on Amazon here for less than $15, and it qualifies for Prime shipping.

Sources/Links of Interest

• Christmas According to Dickens
• Why Did Charles Dickens Write Ghost Stories for Christmas?
• Ghoultide Greetings: The Ghost Stories of Charles Dickens
• The Victorian Web: Featuring The Haunted House

You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout….not because Santa Claus will put you on the naughty list, but because you’ll get a swat from a scary incubus with claws, known as Krampus, and possibly dragged into hell in a basket.  Depending on where you live, the holidays may not be all about holiday cheer and positivity, but instead, a rather terrifying one if you weren’t a good boy or girl this year!

If you’re from Germany or Bavaria, or any Alpine region, the legend of Krampus may be a familiar one.  In fact, December 6th marks a day known as Krampusnacht (Night of Krampus), also regarded as the “night before St. Nicholas”.  To celebrate, people will have parties featuring men dressed as the holiday devil himself.  Costumes include sheepskin, claws, horns, and switches so that they can swat unsuspecting children and maybe a few ladies.   Other costumes will also include witches, devils, wild-men, and other scary get-ups while bearing torches and copious amounts of alcohol and an event called Krampuslauf (Krampus Run).  In fact, these men are encouraged to terrorize the children.  Interestingly enough, the Pennsylvania Dutch culture has a figure very similar to Krampus called, Pelsnickel or Belznickel.  So some traditions stayed after the migration from Germany to North America.

Krampus means, “claw”, and he is the darker counterpart of Saint Nicholas.  While Santa Claus will reward nice children, Krampus will swat naughty children, terrify them with his cloven hooves and monstrous tongue that would make Gene Simmons blush, and tying them to baskets with chains and taken down to hell.  If that’s not motivation to behave, I don’t know what is!

The belief and lore of Krampus is actually older than Jesus.  Krampus was born from an Alpine Pagan tradition during winter solstice that dates back to pre-Christian times.  In fact, the origin of Krampus has a performance element to it due to villagers dressing up as mythic creatures, animals, wild-men, and devils and performing in parades and plays (known as mummery).  It is believed that this was one of the early inspirations for Halloween.  And here’s another fun fact, the common figures in these rituals was Old Man Winter and a horned Goat-Man.  Sound familiar?  Santa actually has more pagan roots associated with winter solstice than our traditional Christian-themed Christmas holiday.

It’s not only the men who get to have “fun” during this season, women can also have their share as well.  Many women will wear masks and dress up as the Nordic goddess Perchta, otherwise known as Frau Perchta.

It would have been a sin to deprive you of this image of Krampus and Santa riding it SOA style.

One of my favorite parts about the Krampus tradition is the Krampus cards, holiday greeting cards with a humorous and dark twist featuring our favorite holiday devil.  These booomed in the mid-1800’s as Christmas cards became popular in Europe.  Of course there needed to be balance between the good and evil, light and dark, grim and cheerful…right?

In the last 10 years, Krampus has been featured on the series, Supernatural, and has even paid a visit to The Colbert Report.  Monte Beauchamp has played a large role in resurrecting Krampus in American culture by reintroducing the figure in his books and shedding light on the vintage art.

Here’s a video of a Krampusleuf from 2010:

If you want to learn more about Krampus, take a gander at these websites:

Krampus.com

Krampus: Devil of Christmas

10 Fun Facts About Krampus

Written by Founder and Mid Atlantic Director:

Alex Matsuo

Coming from a Christian background and working in the paranormal, I’ve learned to be much more open-minded to other religions and deities.  This has led to a fascination of other religions, and when possible, I’d like to spotlight other gods and goddesses for educational purposes, which hopefully you will all find not only enlightening, but respectful and informative.

Today marks the festival and feast of Hecate Trivia, which is a day that honors Hecate as a goddess of the crossroads, hence for the Latin term trivia, which means the place where three roads meet (tri + via). The celebration of Hecate started a few weeks back and today is one of many in terms of festivities.  In Ancient Greece, altars to Hecate were often placed at crossroads, and people who were traveling at night would often leave offerings at crossroads for safe passage in return.  She is known as a triple goddess who celebrates the phases of life including birth-life-death, full-new-dark moons, past-present-future, earth-heaven-underworld, earth-air-water, just to name a few.  This is the time of where Hecate is worshipped starting in October and throughout the winter while everything is dead and dormant, allowing time for personal reflection.

Hecate originally started out as the goddess of women, childbirth, and the beginnings of life.  In our modern time, she is known as the goddess of change, witchcraft, magic, life, death, crossroads, and psychic abilities.  She is also associated with truth, the dark moon, and fertility.  Hecate is known as one of the dark goddesses who rule over what we perceive as the darker elements of life such as magic, rebirth, death, spirits, ghosts, and the Underworld.

In the Greek myth of Persephone, Hecate is known as the keeper of the key to the Underworld, and keeps Persephone company while she is spending her time with Hades, as well as leading Demeter to Persephone due to her psychic abilities and the only one being able to hear and find Persephone in the Underworld.  Because of her involvement with Persephone, Hecate began to be associated with death.  During the Hellenistic period, Hecate became known as the triple-faced goddess of witchcraft and magic.

Whether you are Christian or practice some other religion, it is worth looking into other beliefs and religions for your own spiritual fulfillment.  If you find yourself at a crossroads, whether metaphorically or literally, remember to give a nod to Hecate.

Sources:

Cult of Hekate

The Hippie Witch

Festival of Hecate – Paperblog

Nov. 30th: Hecate Trivia

Alex Matsuo is the founder of the Association of Paranormal Study, author of the upcoming book The Haunted Actor, and host of ParaNation Radio which air every other Sunday @ 6pm PST/9pm EST.  She can be followed on Twitter at: @alexmatsuo

Written by SoCal Team Member:

Shannon Arrant

Dubbed the United States’ first ‘paranormalist’, Charles Hoy Fort was more a collector of extraordinary stories and artifacts than what we would consider a paranormal investigator by today’s standards. Even to this day, over 80 years after his death, Mr. Fort’s life still has an effect on the paranormal community.

Born in Albany, New York in 1874, he left home as soon as he turned 18 to escape the abuse of his strict, overbearing father, using it as an excuse to “put some capital in the bank of experience”’ via a world tour. After contracting malaria in South Africa, Mr. Fort returned home and married Anna Filing, a girl he had known from his childhood. He held many odd jobs during his life, especially when money was tight, but the ones he always seemed to go back to involved writing. He even spent some time as a journalist for a local newspaper.

Fascinated by stories of the strange and unexplained, Charles spent much of his life doing research in the libraries near wherever he called home. If it hadn’t been for his wife forcing him out to the cinema on a regular basis, he likely would have remained a hermit for much of his adult life. Most of his research centered around articles published in local newspapers which he then in turn collected and compiled into books.

Although Mr. Fort was a prolific novelist, only one of the ten fiction novels he wrote was ever published. While The Outcast Manufacturers received positive reviews, it was a financial flop, causing Charles to burn all of his notes and several other completed manuscripts in a fit of severe depression. His sincere love of writing won out in the end however and he soon began work on the novel that would change his life.

The Book of the Damned, published in 1919, was the first of four books in which Charles Fort compiled the stories of strange occurrences he had collected through his research. It was shortly followed by New Lands in 1923, Lo! in 1931, and Wild Talents in 1932. In each of these books, Charles wrote about such topics as poltergeists, UFOs, aliens, psychokinesis, and even teleportation, a term Fort is credited with coining.

He was particularly interested with UFOs and aliens, coming up with several theories to explain why aliens do no visit us earthlings. According to Mr. Fort, a war for Earth was fought ages ago by alien races with the winner claiming us as ‘property’. There is no need for other races to visit us as we belong to another and our masters are content to watch from afar.

Of particular interest is the book Wild Talents. Literally written up until his death from leukemia and published posthumously, the book discusses such advanced topics as the government using people with supernatural gifts as soldiers to fight in future wars. Considering the United States’ government has admitted to trying to use remote viewing to spy on other governments, Charles Fort was literally a man before his time.

Adored by his friends, Charles Fort was remembered as a kind of shy, brave, gentle giant with a booming laugh and quick wit. His wife, Anna, was so devoted to him that she lived a scant five years after his death before joining him in the afterlife. During his life, Mr. Fort considered himself a ‘true skeptic’. He neither believed nor disbelieved that anything was possible. He approached life and the many wonderful events he read about with a completely open mind, often trying to come up with reasons why these strange occurrences happened in the first place. Charles had a very vivid imagination, causing many of his invented reasons to be quite outlandish, such as his belief that there was something called the Super-Sargasso Sea in the heavens into which all lost things go. He was fond of attacking the scientists of his day for their narrow- mindedness, believing the scientific methods and theories they used to be too strict to accommodate all of the weird happenings in the world.

After his death, his friend, Tiffany Thayer, created the Fortean Society in his honor. By publishing the over 30 boxes of notes he left upon his death, Ms. Thayer hoped to inspire others to follow in Charles Fort’s footsteps and to embrace life with a completely open mind and a sense of wonder for what is possible.

Links of Interest

Fortean Times Magazine

A Few Fortean Societies Around the World

International Fortean Organization

Edinburgh Fortean Society

North American Fortean Society

London Fortean Society

London Fortean Society – Facebook

Centre for Fortean Zoology – Canada