Antichrist (PG)

"1 John chapter 2 refers to many antichrists present at the time while warning of one Antichrist that is coming. The 'many antichrists' belong to the same spirit as that of the one Antichrist. John wrote that such antichrists deny 'that Jesus is the Christ', 'the Father and the Son', and would 'not confess Jesus came in the flesh'."

头 七

Caught a glimpse of this evening's Lianhe Wanbao, which reported the supposed sighting of deceased crooner 岳 雷's specter by his close friend in the first seven days of his death. The Chinese have this belief that the dead will visit the living within the first week of its demise...or should it be the first forty-nine days? In any case, I won't be the one to dispute such a claim.

Cheating Death

Of course, this is only a farcical cari-cature, but can we really cheat death? Play a game of chess with the Grim Reaper? Or trick Persephone like what Sisyphus did?

Heaven's Prisoners

How can a religious group convince, coerce or even compel its members to take their own lives? By that, I'm questioning capability, not morality. There must be some sinister or even supernatural machinations involved. On March 26, 1997, 39 followers of the cult Heaven's Gate died in a mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California - believing that they were 'exiting their human vessels' so that their souls could go on an adventure aboard a spaceship trailing comet Hale-Bopp(!). And they were all wearing Nike sneakers at the time of their deaths. By comparison, Scientology now looks like Sunday school.

Gates of Hell (Opening Soon)

Dear towkay, it's been exactly 49 days since your torturous death. Time to regroup your soul and seek revenge on your ruthless tormentors.

Spells & Curses

It's bad enough to swear in someone's face or even curse behind their backs, but to put an actual hex on them? That's downright gypsy (think Mrs. Ganush)!

Immortality

Depending on one's beliefs, there are differing concepts of immortality. In some religions, the spiritual notion of afterlife is a fundamental tenet. In science, however, physical immortality can be achieved via biological enhancements such as cryonics and cyborgology. Wonder what Marilyn Manson makes of all this...

Djinn

Don't mistake him as the genie in Christina Aguilera's bottle or that jolly blue fellow in Aladdin's magic lamp. This Djinn, in Arabic context, is "a supernatural creature which occupies a parallel world to that of mankind, and together with humans and angels makes up the three sentient creations of Allah". I learn something new every day.

Channeling the Dead

Dearly departed, this is the psychic medium speaking. I know there are a lot of grievances (and winning lottery numbers) that you wish to convey to the living. Occupy my body. Let me be your vessel. But please be intelligible.

Reanimation

Q: What do Michael Jackson, Stephen King and George A. Romero have in common? A: They'd all dabbled in the un-dead. Jackson in Thriller, King in Pet Sematary, and Romero in the DEAD series. While bringing a corpse back to life per se requires a stretch of the imagination (and abandonment of disbelief), it's known that Haitian voodooists can turn humans into 'zombies' by means of poisons and live burials (ref: THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW).

Witchcraft

From THE CRAFT to THE CRUCIBLE, Hollywood, it appears, is piqued by witchcraft and witchery. Bitches on broomsticks, after all, have been the subject of great fascination and disputation for ages. Is it the spells and symbols? Or the curses and cauldrons? Must be something, since Hermione and Ginny didn’t exist back then.

养 小 鬼

Ever heard of some Chinese occultists who keep stillborn fetuses in jars of formaldehyde as a form of devil worshipping? It's been said that these 'pets', which are far from dead, can bring forth love, beauty and untold fortune to their owners as long as fresh human blood is fed to them every day. Did I get the myth correct?

Faith Healing

Skepticism and scenes from THE JERRY SPRINGER SHOW inevitably overwhelm me whenever one mentions faith healing. In some religions (and Spiritualism), these 'miracle cures' have been employed by so-called 'faith (fraud?) healers' to eradicate sufferers of bodily ailments ranging from blindness and paraplegia to AIDS and cancer! Wow, so why haven't all the GPs and surgeons in the world lost their livelihood to Benny Hinn (pictured above) and others yet?

Demonic Possession

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Whether it's Regan or Emily or that young Muslim girl on YouTube, demonic possession is only as real as your belief in Go(o)d and (D)evil. Let's be honest, you can't have one and not the other. If there's a Heaven, then there's a Hell - no two ways about it.

"Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve." - Luke 22:3

Shadow People

It's there (by the clothes stand behind me) when I'm at my desk typing on the computer. It's there again (in the mirror before me) when I'm on my bed doing sit-ups. A shadowy flicker from the corner of my eye that's never in the light, yet never out of sight. What is it? Spooky is what. "Shadow people are supernatural shadow-like creatures of both modern folklore and traditional native American beliefs. According to folklore, they appear as dark forms in the peripheries of people's vision and disintegrate, or move between walls, when noticed". Seen one lately?

P/S: That's precisely why I sleep with the light on.

Angels

Do you believe in angels and miracles? Many people apparently do. It's been reported that in times of great peril (e.g. near-death experiences) angels often manifest themselves and deliver sufferers from danger. These 'guiding lights' have been seen and felt by receivers from burning apartments to sinking vehicles, and are said to be life affirming. God, indeed, works in mysterious ways.

End of Days

Did biblical prophecies foretell the end of the world and the Second Coming of Christ? What had Nostradamus to say about Arma-geddon? If the stars really rained on the earth on December 21, 2012, as portended in the Mayan/Aztec calendar, can our nuke-proof bomb shelters keep us safe?

Tulpa

As much as I've read up quite a bit on the otherworldly, I must admit Tibetan mysticism is something entirely new to me. I first came across the term 'thought-form' on where else but P&M. After doing some research online, I learnt that thoughtforms are manifestations of mental energy created through sheer willpower. That's, like, WOW! In Tibet, it's called 'tulpa' - and wouldn't it be so cool to summon one of these mofos to do our bidding?

That Creepy Gnome

The Sun of the U.K. in March this year published an 'exclusive' report (picked up from Argentine national newspaper El Tribuno) about a possible prank...we mean, gnome sighting in General Güemes, Salta, Argentina.

According to perpetrators...we mean, eyewitnesses (namely teenager Jose Alvarez and his nocturnal hang-out homies), the midget creature, which the locals allude to a duende*, approached them outdoors at approximately 1 a.m. – ambling sideways a la a crab while simultaneously barking and pelting stones.

*A duende is a fairy- or goblin-like spirit common in Spanish and Latin American mythology, congruous to the Irish leprechaun.

Werewolf

Amongst mythological creatures, I'm least intrigued by vampires and werewolves (you can, hence, understand my apathy toward UNDERWORLD and VAN HELSING). Personally, I feel lycanthropes and their folkloric 'friends' are too ingrained in our popular culture - what with the familiar crucifixes and silver bullets - to be interesting. There may be a way to reinvent the myth, so to speak, but until that day...