Legends Of Evil Spirit

An exploration of the wild spirits that once roamed the lands and inhabited the waters and the pagan rites used to gain their good will • Explores medieval stories and folk traditions of brownies, fairies, giants, dragons, will-o’-the-wisps, and demons • Explains the specific rites performed to negotiate with the local spirits and ensure their permission before building on new land • Shows how these beliefs carried through to modern times, especially in architecture Our pagan ancestors knew that every forest has brownies and fairies, every spring its lady, and every river malevolent beings in its depths. They told tales of giants in the hills, dragons in the lakes, marshes swarming with will-o’-the-wisps, and demons and wild folk in the mountains who enjoyed causing landslides, avalanches, and floods. They both feared and respected these entities, knowing the importance of appeasing them for safe travel and a prosperous homestead. Exploring medieval stories, folk traditions, spiritual place names, and pagan rituals of home building and site selection, Claude Lecouteux reveals the multitude of spirits and entities that once inhabited the land before modern civilization repressed them into desert solitude, impenetrable forests, and inaccessible mountains. He explains how, to our ancestors, enclosing a space was a sacred act. Specific rites had to be performed to negotiate with the local spirits and ensure proper placement and protection of a new building. These land spirits often became the household spirit, taking up residence in a new building in exchange for permission to build on their territory. Lecouteux explores Arthurian legends, folk tales, and mythology for evidence of the untamed spirits of the wilderness, such as giants, dragons, and demons, and examines the rites and ceremonies used to gain their good will. Lecouteux reveals how, despite outright Church suppression, belief in these spirits carried through to modern times and was a primary influence on architecture, an influence still visible in today’s buildings. The author also shows how our ancestors’ concern for respecting nature is increasingly relevant in today’s world.

In addition to this mountain is a mysterious place with a fierce name in the "real world", it seems that there are many incomprehensible mysteries around this mountain. On this mountain, birds and animals are extinct, but the traces of birds and animals in the mountains are not seen here at all.

A powerful, rage-filled entity throws a man across a room. An incubus heralds his attacks with the smell of burnt cookies. A demon disguises itself as a guardian angel and humiliates a woman to the point of madness. Vanquishing Ghosts and Demons explores more than thirty terrifying case studies of a spiritualist medium and her colleagues. The bizarre and horrifying true accounts in this book will have readers on the edge of their seats, aghast at what is "out there." Investigating reports of creatures from the astral plane who have entered our world through portals or by invitation, Sandrea Mosses has encountered treacherous spirits, other-dimensional beings, and full-blown demonic infestations. Having removed other-dimensional predators from people, places, and the land itself, Mosses is living proof that with the proper training and tools, dark entities can be beaten.

In Japan, it is said that there are 8 million kami. These spirits encompass every kind of supernatural creature; from malign to monstrous, demonic to divine, and everything in between. Most of them seem strange and scary--even evil--from a human perspective. They are known by myriad names: bakemono, chimimoryo, mamono, mononoke, obake, oni, and yokai.Yokai live in a world that parallels our own. Their lives resemble ours in many ways. They have societies and rivalries. They eat, sing, dance, play, fight, compete, and even wage war. Normally, we keep to our world and they keep to theirs. However, there are times and places where the boundaries between the worlds thin, and crossing over is possible.The twilight hour--the border between daylight and darkness--is when the boundary between worlds is at its thinnest. Twilight is the easiest time for yokai to cross into this world, or for humans to accidentally cross into theirs. Our world is still awake and active, but the world of the supernatural is beginning to stir. Superstition tells people to return to their villages and stay inside when the sun sets in order to avoid running into demons. This is why in Japanese the twilight hour is called omagatoki: "the hour of meeting evil spirits."This encyclopedia contains over 125 illustrated entries detailing the monsters of Japanese folklore and the myths and magic surrounding them.This book was first funded on Kickstarter in 2013.

'An energy, a pulse form of quantum physics perhaps, alive at the margins of sleep or madness, and more often in the whispering of a single unwelcome thought.' The Economist According to Islamic tradition, Allah created three types of beings: angels, made of light; humans, made of earth; and jinn, made of smokeless fire. Supernatural, shape-shifting, intelligent and blessed with free will and remarkable powers, jinn have over the ages been given many names - demon, spirit, ghoul, genie, ifrit and shaitan. Neither human nor immortal, they roam the earth inhabiting dark and empty places, luring humans to their deaths or demonically possessing them if harmed or offended. Despite the fact they cannot be seen, jinn are said to be strangely human-like - marrying, bearing children, forming communities and tribes, eating, sleeping, playing and facing judgement like any other human. They are ever-present partners in the human experience, causing endless mischief, providing amazing services and sometimes inducing sheer terror. Believed in by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world and from all faiths, jinn have played a particularly central role in the literature, culture and belief systems of the Middle East and the Islamic world. Legends of the Fire Spirits explores through time and across nations the enduring phenomenon of the jinn. From North Africa to Central Asia, from the Mediterranean to sub-Saharan Africa and beyond, this riveting, often chilling, yet reasoned book draws on long-forgotten ancient testimonies, medieval histories, colonial records, anthropologist's reports and traveller's tales to explore the different types of jinn, their behaviour, society, culture and long history of contact with humankind. It documents their links with famous figures in history such as King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba and illustrates the varied and vivid portrayals of jinn in world literature. In essence Legends of the Fire Spirits demonstrates the colourful diversity of human culture and the durability of faith and is a magnificent and indispensable portrayal of the rich folklore of the Islamic world.

50th anniversary edition of a perennial best seller. Tales from the oral tradition of the Indians in the Pacific Northwest.

There are places where the past lingers, making shapes in the moonlight and blowing in the curtains even as the air goes suddenly still. K. Hari Kumar, bestselling author of spine-chilling horror fiction, brings you the terrifying tales of some of India's most haunted places -- including Bhangarh Fort, Malabar Hill's Tower of Silence and Jammu and Kashmir's notorious Khooni Nala.Whether you read them at night or in daylight, these stories will remain with you long after you've turned the last page.