HE WAS A charismatic stage clairvoyant and mentalist who came to the attention of the Nazi Party during its rise to power in early 1930s Germany. Erik Jan Hanussen might have had genuine psychic gifts, but he used his fame and powers of persuasion to increase his own wealth and his standing in the corridors of political power. He might have even contributed directly to the early success of Nazi Germany. But in the end, one of his most startling prophecies would lead to his death.

STAGE STAR

Erik Jan Hanussen was his stage name. He was born Hermann Steinschneider on June 2, 1889, a Jew whose father was an actor and a caretaker of a synagogue. Hanussen abandoned his school education to join the circus, where he developed his showman skills as a knife thrower, fire eater, and the strong man.

It was during World War I as a soldier that Hanussen first began to demonstrate his psychic abilities. At one point, his company was cut off from its supply of water, and the troops were becoming desperate. Hanussen, without the use of a divining rod or any other apparatus, successfully dowsed water for his comrades. His entertainment background and charismatic personality eventually got him a transfer to perform for the troops.

When the war was over, Hanussen further developed his stage act as a clairvoyant and mentalist, performing at music halls across Germany and surrounding countries. One feat during one of his shows that brought him much attention was his revelation of details about a local murderer – details that only became known to the public when they were later published in a newspaper. It’s suspected now that Hanussen may have had a confederate at the newspaper or the police department that fed him the information, but at the time, many were impressed by this “prediction”.

REAL ABILITIES?

Hanussen wasn’t without his troubles with the law, however. But it was one arrest and trial that he was able to turn completely to his favor and elevate him to the ranks of stardom. It took place in Leitmeritz, Czechoslovakia, where he was defending himself against charges of taking money under false pretenses; that is, claiming to be able to predict the future. Hanussen’s defense was that the pretenses were not false at all; that his abilities were genuine. He then set about to prove it by correctly telling the prosecutor exactly what he had in his pockets and accurately naming the contents of the judge’s briefcase.

Not persuaded, the judge dismissed the feat as merely one of Hanussen’s stage tricks. So Hanussen offered a more impressive demonstration. He told the court that at that very moment, a man who had just robbed the Commercial Bank could be apprehended on platform #2 at the Leitmeritz train station. The stolen money, he told them, could be found in the briefcase he was carrying. The police dashed off to the train station and found the thief and the money, just as Hanussen predicted. The court had no choice but to acquit Hanussen, and the incident made him famous.

It seems unlikely that Hanussen could have staged the event to prove his innocence. And there was another significant case that suggests that he might have had genuine psychic abilities. Hanussen was performing at La Scala in Berlin. Seemingly out of nowhere, he told a banker in the audience that a fire was about to break out in his secured safe room, due to a wiring defect, and that 360,000 marks was at risk of being burned up. He advised the banker to get the fire department there as soon as possible. Fire trucks were rushed to the bank, and the firefighters found the faulty wiring just as Hanussen saw it.



BUILDING HIS REPUTATION

In 1930, Hanussen further capitalized on his fame and reputation as a mystic by starting a monthly occult magazine, Hanussen Magazin, and a bi-weekly paper, Bunte Wochenschau, in which he made predictions regarding politics and national finances. In one stunning prediction, he said that one of Germany’s three largest joint-stock banks would suffer a collapse. The prediction was fulfilled three weeks later when Darmstadt & National was forced to close its doors.

In July, 1932 he published a prophecy in which he saw “a river of blood flowing near Hamburg.” Several days later, Nazi Storm Troopers fought violently with Communist “Red Front” fighters in Altona, Hamburg’s neighboring twin city. Known as the “bloody Sunday of Altona,” the five-hour confrontation resulted in the city’s gutters literally running red with blood.

Was Hanussen merely adept at reading the times, or did he have informants in high places? In any case, he was now sought after by the wealthy, business leaders, and celebrities for private consultations.

THE NAZI CONNECTION

All this brought Hanussen to the attention of the rising Nazi elite. Despite his Jewish heritage, he became friends with Karl Ernst, commander of Berlin’s Storm Troopers, Edmund Heines, the S.A. Gruppenführer, and Count von Helldorf, another leader of Berlin’s Brownshirts. Undoubtedly, it was his connections to these men – as well as the other German elite and prominent people with whom he mingled regularly – that provided Hanussen with much inside information for his predictions. To the general public, however, his prognostications continued to enhance his reputation as a remarkable psychic.

It is unclear how much influence Hanussen truly had on the success of the Nazi Party in Germany and on the rise of Adolf Hitler, but it might have been significant.

Some sources say that it was Hanussen who recommended that the Nazi’s adopt the swastika as its symbol. It was an “Indian luck symbol”, he told them, that promised them good fortune in their ambitions. In his paper’s astrological advice columns, he always “predicted” that Hitler would be the winner of upcoming elections since planetary conjunctions were in his favor. “Vote with the stars,” he told his readers.

Most important was Hanussen’s direct influence on Hitler himself. Hanussen was introduced to the Führer by Hilter’s personal photographer, Heinrich Hoffmann. It has been claimed by several German journalists that Hanussen personally coached Hitler on his public speaking. With his formidable stage background and presence, he was able to teach Hitler how to gesture, how to emphasize phrases and dramatize his speech. They credit Hanussen – this mentalist and stage magician – with helping Hitler develop his phenomenal magnetic appeal and hypnotic rhetorical talent, which he used to lead his nation to war and delusional dreams of world dominance.

HANUSSEN’S ERROR... AND MURDER

Hanussen must have seen himself as virtually untouchable and leading a charmed existence. By 1933, Hitler was chancellor of Germany and Hanussen probably saw himself rising in stature and power along with his Nazi friends.

This confidence led to his own undoing, however. Using inside information from his Nazi friends, Hanussen made a “prediction” he shouldn’t have.

It happened during one of his many social gatherings at his villa in Charlottenburg. Always the showman, he feigned a trance-like state and began to speak: “I see a building, a great building, in our city ... it is burning ... flames are roaring high ... smoke is billowing ... ah, but out of the blaze there arises a bird ... a magnificent Phoenix ... bringing new light ... new hope ... from the ashes!”

Yes, the prediction certainly came true. On February 27, 1933, Germany’s parliament building – the Reichstag – was set afire. The Nazis blamed it on terrorist Communists, and the public was so outraged that it allowed Hitler to pass emergency laws that gave him virtually unlimited power. Of course, it is well known today that it was the Nazis themselves who burned the Reichstag in order to get Hitler in complete control.

Hanussen almost certainly knew this, which is how he was able to make his indiscreet “prediction”. Hanussen knew too much, and he had to pay the price.

As he was leaving a restaurant on the night of March 24, he was stopped in the doorway by two unidentified men and led out into the street. Hanussen was never seen alive again. His body was discovered thirteen days later in a wooded area outside Berlin. He had been shot in the head.

So ends the tale of the rise and fall of Erik Jan Hanussen, a showman who might have had genuine psychic powers, used his considerable abilities to gain wealth and power, might have had history-altering influence on Germany and Hitler, but whose compulsion to make startling “predictions” eventually brought about his death. His hubris, like that of Hitler and the Nazis, perhaps deserved only that inevitable outcome.

Paranormal investigators at a 15th century castle want volunteers to help them 'interview' resident ghosts.
Bodelwyddan Castle in Denbighshire is said to have a number of spooks who make their presence known.

But as castle records were destroyed by fire in the 1920s, no-one knows if the spirits are from a former school in the grounds or a wartime military hospital.

Paranormal investigation team member Laura Whitley said: "We use various divination methods, like an interview."

She added: "Once we establish there is someone there, we use the various methods to try and get a conversation going.

"We use a series of "yes - no" questions to establish who's there and what their story is.

"We don't necessarily have the records to attach names to whoever comes through, so there's a lot to find out."


Human bones were found in a chimney wall in the 1820s

The castle, set in 260 acres (105 hectares), has one verified gruesome incident to its name - the discovery in 1829 of human bones set into a wall near one of the chimneys.

The find was noted in the diary of Sir John Hay Williams, whose family owned the castle for around 200 years.

During World War One, the estate was used as a recuperation hospital and was last used as a private girls' school for more than 60 years.

The venue's marketing officer, Viccie Beech, said volunteers for the paranormal investigation team would help out with evening and overnight vigils attended by the public.

She claimed using an upturned glass - not an Ouija board - had proved the most successful method of allowing spirits to communicate.

However, other techniques were also used include dowsing rods, spinning crystals and an electronic detector.

From BBC News

Vital to a haunting is culture.

Whether this is historic culture such as an old building, or family culture – i.e. expression of a problem – all ghosts express themselves within a cultural form understandable to the experiencer.
Ghosts can often express information not known to the experiencer. However, this is not necessarily correct. Cryptomnesia – the ability to recall ‘forgotten’ information – can often be applied in such cases. The person reads, views or hears vast quantities of information unbeknown to the conscious mind. Memory recall during hypnosis has shown that this unconscious repository is vast.

Ghosts tend to be hallucinated.

This is not meant to imply mental illness involved in the viewing of a ghost. Rather, the mind always analyses information. When this is cut off or reduced by tiredness or other altered state, the mind naturally interprets from the information available.
Hallucination is therefore inevitable, and it is usually during ideal times for such ‘sensory decalibration’ that a ghost is experienced.

Possession can often be involved.

By this, I mean the taking over of the mind by an ‘entity’. However, do such entities come from ‘outside’ the mind? Split-brain research tells us that we can function both rationally and emotionally at the same time, the emotional element often seeming dislocated from the mind.
This allows inner information to be expressed as ‘separate’. Jung also gave us understanding of ‘archetypes’, which can be seen as ‘personality’ fragments at a species level, but shared by all. The terms ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ are not as definite as thought.

Some hauntings are shared by a group.

Usually a family, this is known as the poltergeist. However, it is known that hysteria can work on the communal level, prompting spontaneous similar action beyond the apparent control of the individuals involved. In particular, each person’s ‘suggestability’ is enhanced.
I view such phenomena as ‘psychodrama’. Usually beginning with a pubescent child, a problem is expressed, leading to abnormal behaviour. Possession can result, and the child becomes a ‘focus’.
Repeatability of behaviour leads to hysteria, rising to the point of mass hallucinations. In effect, an altered reality has formed around the group, with behaviour and experience expressed in terms of communality.
Ecology is about more than any single element of an ecosystem. Rather, it suggests an influence above any one part, providing ‘communal’ behaviour which expresses more than the sum of the individual parts.
Placing this idea upon a haunting psychodrama, I suggest a point comes when the various elements become more than the sum of their parts. Rather, shared cryptomnesia inputs information that manifests with the past, providing phenomena that would agree with classically understood interpretations of ‘ghost’ and ‘possession’.
The paranormal suffers from a lack of theories that show the repeatability of experience. The above is an attempt to address this problem.

© Anthony North, June 2008

Hi Guys,

Just to let you know i have just managed to confirm another extra special interview for issue 11 of HGC News.

Living TV's David Wells has agreed to do an interview for us. So make sure you ready for it, i've got a feeling it's going be a good one.

Let me know your thoughts on this.

If you wish to subscribe to HGC News please e-mail me through hgcnews@yahoo.com with the word "newsletter" in the subject.

Regards,

Matt

16:53 - 22 April 2008



A Cheddar Valley village and a community of friends and spiritualists were left saddened today (Tuesday) when news broke of a popular character's death.A life-changing experience 25 years ago put Blackford resident Bill Harrison on the path towards faith healing after he heard a voice speak to him from the other side.

But the former fireman ignored the call for about 10 years before ending his 23-year-career and joining the World Federation of Healers.

This led to him establishing an international reputation through both his travels and his popular healing weekend events at his Hozzard Lane home near Wedmore.



But on Monday afternoon police rushed to his home at 4.30pm where his body was found hanged.

Police are not treating Mr Harrison's death as suspicious and Somerset West coroner Michael Rose is awaiting postmortem results to see if an inquest will be opened.

Article from www.thisissomerset.co.uk

The healer is survived by two sons and their families.

Psychic Ability

What causes a house to be haunted or thrown into chaos with unexplained activity? Is it an infestation of ghosts? Is it the arrival of spirits that many call "demonic" through the invitation of a Ouija board? Or do the disturbances arise from the darkest, uncharted recesses of the human psyche? You can draw your own conclusions as Lauren A. recalls the frightening experiences that terrorized her, her family, and friends over many years. This is Lauren's story...

AS I WILL be moving out of this house in a few weeks, I figure now is as good a time as any to tell my story, and you'll know why I am leaving. I grew up in this house in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. I'm not exactly sure what plagues it – or me in particular (the activity seems to directly center on me, or when appearing to others in my family, it mimics me) – but it has been going on for a very long time. I'm nineteen years old now, and this has been going on for as long as I can remember, maybe even before then.

AN ODD OCCURRENCE

When my family first moved here, I was about two and my sister was a few months old. I'm sure it was my parents' dream house, as we didn't leave even after my father passed. I can recall one odd story that my parents frequently spoke of:

My dad had a large key ring, one with more than ten keys on it, and one morning it was just gone. He was a believer in the occult and firmly believed that a ghost or phantom of some sort took his keys. Needless to say, after having looked everywhere for these keys, they could not be found. Until three days later. Apparently, my sister and I complained about sleeping in our room, so we slept in our parents’ room. My sister would cry or something, and I would just panic and yell and scream until I was retrieved from the room, so they put up with us being in their room to get a good night's sleep. My mother went into the room to get us clothes to wear for daycare... and what do you know? In the center of the room lay the keys.

But there's more. The whole room was infested with ants! My mother immediately called the exterminator, but ten minutes later when she returned to the room to assess the damage, the ants were gone. The exterminators came and they drilled holes to find nests, but there were none! Very strange indeed. What's even stranger is that my mother swears the infestation was only in that room, and then it vanished completely.

THE VOICE AND FATHER’S GHOST

My mother isn't exactly a skeptic, but for the most part that is how I'd describe her. She has a hard time believing things unless they are presented to her in a fashion that she deems logical. And she believes in a lot of what happened next.

One of my earliest memories is a voice calling to me from the corner of my room one evening, just calling my name, over and over. I remember feeling compelled to go to it. When I found nothing in the corner except a heaviness in the air, I screamed and flew terrified down the steps. This is one of the things my mother says I dreamed. I disagree. Completely.

My father passed when I was seven, and then weird things really began to happen. Perhaps it was because I was getting older and remember more, or maybe his death genuinely worsened the house. My sister, my mother, and I all saw him after he died, sitting as plain as day in several areas of the house – and then he would vanish. I'm sure, though, that my father wasn't the only unearthly presence in the house. He might still be here, but I know he would never try to scare me.

PINCHING AND OPPRESSION

About a year after he died, activity really began to pick up. I was terrified of the dark, and not without reason in this house. I used to sleep with the light on next to my bed on. Before he died, the lights occasionally turned themselves off, but not so much. After he died, they switched off nearly every night, and I would wake up in a panic, cold, and feeling pinned to my bed. Sometimes I would feel something pinching my toes through the blankets. Other times I would just be cold and pinned to the bed.

One night, I recall, I saw a woman walk past my bed, and that was just not okay with me. I fled the room. After a few months of this, the situation was resolved by me sleeping in my mother's room. I would sleep in her bed next to her... and not go in my bedroom room at night. Under no circumstances.

I assume that any paranormal activity beyond that was specifically my own fault. Here's why.

THE OUIJA

When I was fourteen, I began my studies of the occult and went in search for a new religion. I had been raised a Christian, but Christianity never explained everything for me, so I began to study Wicca. It was in my studies of the occult that I came across the seemingly harmless "toy" known as a Ouija board.

One day, my friends and I decided to make one and use it in my house. This was not so smart. Not only did it begin to consume us, but it also began to divide us as friends.

It started harmlessly enough. We asked the Ouija silly questions, and it would give us answers. We began to ask it other things, things that no one in the group could know answers to. Specifically, I asked my father's last name before he changed it. When it answered correctly, we began to egg it on to show itself. It did not appear, but a shade in my room flew up on its own. That was almost it for me. I fled the room. With coaxing from my friends, I returned and we began to ask more questions.

I asked when the boy I liked would ask me out, and it said: "14 DAYS." Fourteen days later, the boy asked me out. We said our goodnights to the board, and that should have been it, but we were all fascinated, so we made Ouija boards to carry around with us. We even used them at school.

The board never gave us many specific details about anything when we used it at my house, but whatever was speaking to us seemed to possess the ability to read minds: When we asked questions in our heads, the board would answer. It also seemed to see into the future. We were completely obsessed.

We talked to it at each other's houses as well. On one of these occasions, it revealed itself as someone named Evan, who told us he was from Oklahoma. When things really heated up, my friends and I began to fight and became divided. It tried to separate us when we used the boards at home by saying that one of us was talking about one of us behind our backs, and things like that.

THE APPARITION

One night, my best friend at the time called me in a panic. She had been using her board and it told her that she would die soon. She also revealed to me that every night she swore she had seen a pasty figure with red eyes at the foot of her bed. She believed it was real. I had been sleeping on the floor of my mother's room, but had heard shuffling outside of the door, while our dog (who was being crate trained) was locked in the foyer downstairs. So I told my friend that I would sleep in my room and tell her what I saw. So I did.

That night, the door opened of its own accord, and I swear to this day I saw a figure standing there. I was unable to move. When I finally could move, I flipped on all my lights... and I do not believe I slept the rest of the night.

THE CLEANSING

The next day was simply awful. All our concentrations had been affected by this activity. I don't think any of us were sleeping well. One friend complained of hearing howling outside his window. I resolved to do the only logical thing: tell my mom. When you're being bullied by a kid, you tell your mom, so why not if you're being bullied by a ghost?

I told her everything about our Ouija obsession and the things we had experienced. Her response makes me think that what was haunting us was probably not a ghost. It turns out that my mother, although skeptical, knows a lot about the occult. When I finished telling her, she began to go upstairs, froze, then turned toward me and said, "Lauren, you did something bad." I decided right then, no more Ouija boards. My mother performed a house cleansing ritual, and things went back to normal for a few weeks.

THE "POSSESSION"

Two of my girlfriends who had been involved with the Ouija board wanted to spend the night. We all decided that this would be a ghost-free night, so we went up to the attic and got my glitter makeup kit. And that was when it happened.

The lights flickered and the one girl who had complained that she had seen the figure by her bed began to cackle. The other girl and I were freaked out and went downstairs, leaving her up there cackling to herself. I was terrified and grabbed the Bible. The girl with me was a big girl and pretty strong, and when the cackling girl ran down the attic steps grabbing at me with my Bible, the big girl grabbed her. The cackling girl, needless to say, was displeased and began to hiss, spit, and tried to attack the Bible.

Just then, my mother returned home with a pizza, and the restrained girl dropped to her knees in a semi-conscious state. She was revived and back to normal, and we thought that everything would be okay. But the rest of the night was a wreck.

We were all terrified, particularly because the cackling girl had no recollection of what happened that night. But soon things began to get better, and stayed better for a few years. We had to do many more house cleansings when the activity would pick up again, but everything was alright.

WILL IT END?

Today, however, the house has never been more active: foul smells, doors slamming, and strange whispering. It all seems to center on me, but my boyfriend has been struck a few times by something unseen, and my mother has heard my voice calling her when there is no one in the house. She swears it is me... and shouldn't she know her own child's voice?

Things have gotten even worse since my mother's boyfriend hit me. I've chosen to pack up my things and begin life on my own while studying to be a demonologist and a writer. I can only hope that it’s the house that was haunted... and that it's not me

Yvette fielding really is fearless - and to prove it, she and husband Karl Beattie have launched their own digital TV channel, Paranormal. It's the latest career move for the popular presenter, who has gained a cult following with her TV series Most Haunted and Ghosthunting With..., which has featured special Corrie and Emmerdale episodes.Stars including Jack P Shepherd, Katherine Kelly, Kym Ryder, Mark Charnock, Verity Rushworth and Joseph Gilgun have all taken part.Fielding, who had another brush with soaps during her days as an actress, almost landing a role in Corrie playing Rita's daughter, told The Sun: "It's a bit more terrifying than doing the pilot of Most Haunted - which we put our life savings into."It's a very nervous step to take and a big risk, but I think it's going to be worth taking it."She went on to reveal what we can expect from Paranormal."We've bought all the series of Arthur C Clarke, which people of my age and older will remember as kids and teenagers; Strange But True with Michael Aspel and lots of documentaries about UFOs, alien abduction and a drama called The Chosen."But there will be a fair share of new programmes, too, as Fielding enthused: "Antix Productions are making a show called Whines And Spirits, where Karl goes round Britain looking for the most haunted pub with a guest ghost investigator - a celebrity.

"We've also made a programme called Paul Ross's Big Black Book Of Horror, where Paul reads ghost stories to us every night. That's quite spooky."She added: "Then new for the autumn is Three Screaming Banshees, an entertainment programme. We travel the country in a camper van, like Charlie's Angels, in search of very horrible, haunted, scary places."

A QUESTION THAT ghost researchers often are confronted with concerns the fact that ghosts are most often seen wearing clothes. It is also a question that skeptics raise to support their argument that ghosts are figments of the imagination. But it’s a perfectly legitimate question. If ghosts are human spirit energy, why do their manifestations include the manufactured convention of clothing? After all, clothes are not part of our bodies, our spirits or our “souls”.

Or are they? I posed this question to a number of respected paranormal researchers.

TROY TAYLOR
American Ghost Society

Why do ghosts need clothes? No one really seems to know, but it’s possible that in most cases, ghosts seen wearing clothing are simply “residual” images – imprints or memories that linger on the atmosphere of a place like a recording.


A ghost of this sort would have no “personality” and is simply like an old movie that just keeps playing.

But what about ghosts that are not merely imprints? What about those which are true, traditional spirits who died and stayed behind? Many researchers feel that ghosts are made up of electromagnetic energy. This energy, inside of the body, forms what we call our spirit, soul or personality. Now, science cannot prove this energy or personality actually exists, yet we know it does. If it can exist inside of our bodies, then why can’t it exist outside of the body, once the body itself stops functioning? It’s possible that it does and that this electromagnetic energy contains our personality and is what we think of as our spirit.

It has been shown through scientific experiments that exposure to high levels of electromagnetic energy can cause people to have vivid dreams, nightmares and even hallucinations. In other words, people are seeing things as a result of exposure to this energy. If spirits have any sort of control over the energy they are now comprised of (or even if their personalities are somehow manifested in the energy), then I would think it possible for the witness to see the spirit as the spirit sees itself. If the personality really does remain, the spirit would visualize itself as it was when alive, appearing as a living person and wearing clothing.

This could be a totally unconscious effect of the energy on the living person, or it could be a manipulation on the part of the spirit itself, perhaps causing the person to see what it wants them to. To understand this, I suggest that you close your eyes for a moment and then visualize yourself in your mind. How do you appear to yourself? Most likely, you were wearing clothing in your imagination. With the idea that a ghost appears looking in the same way that he sees himself, this might explain why so many ghosts that are seen are not only wearing clothing.

RICHARD AND DEBBIE SENATE
www.ghost-stalker.com

Ghosts and the clothes they wear have long been a snickering question. It’s a sort of “gotcha” question debunkers use, and it tells more about the way ghosts are interpreted than anything about them. Ghosts appear as wearing cloths because that's how they appear to us. In our era, clothes are part of what we are. They are part of how we see ourselves and this mental image is the one projected and picked up. In fact, clothes can many times give us information about who the ghosts are and what lives they had. There are some reports of nude ghosts, but they are few and far between. Ghosts tend to be seen in the garments they are buried wearing. In many ways the clothing helps us to indentify who they are.

JEFF BELANGER
Founder of Ghostvillage.com and author of The Ghost Files

In many cases, a ghost is a projection of a person. Whether that projection is coming from our own heads, some intelligent energy swarming all around us, or imprinted on the location itself, I don't know. Consider this: If you were to picture yourself somewhere, it's likely you would envision yourself wearing clothes, looking comfortable, yet presentable, and maybe you'd even drop a few pounds in your "projection" (hey, it's cheaper than liposuction, so have at it).

Very few people would picture themselves naked (though there's usually one exhibitionist in every crowd). If you could project any image of yourself that you like, maybe you'd project yourself bleeding from the gunshot would you sustained in your last moments of life in order to make a point to whoever receives that projection. The apparition is always a representation of something/someone else. It's not an entity unto itself; otherwise it wouldn't be so fleeting.

STACEY JONES
Central New York Ghost Hunters

I believe that ghosts can show themselves in whatever form they want. If a spirit were more comfortable at a certain age, they may show themselves at that time. I'm not too familiar with any person who is comfortable showing themselves in the nude, therefore they wouldn't want to show themselves au natural in ghost from.

* * *

These are all very good points. If ghosts are manifestations of the energy of human consciousness, then that consciousness would include clothing since, as stated by others above, that is how we think of ourselves. Or as esoteric author Richelle Hawks put it, considering that humans are far more than just their bodies: Why wouldn’t they be wearing clothes?

The body of the popular Italian saint, Padre Pio, is to go on display in a glass coffin in southern Italy.

Padre Pio was said to have had stigmata, or bleeding wounds of Jesus, on his hands and feet.

His body was exhumed in March on the 40th anniversary of his death. He was canonised by Pope John Paul II in 2002.

More than a million people are expected this year to see his body, which is said to be well-preserved. But there is reportedly no sign of the stigmata.

Already, more than 700,000 people have registered to view Padre Pio's body, and more are expected to make the pilgrimage to the Capuchin friary in San Giovanni Rotondo where he will be displayed.

Sceptics

Padre Pio had a large following both before and after his death as a result of the stigmata he was reputed to have.

Taken from the BBC Website



How Padre Pio became an icon


Some of his believers also say he could foretell the future, as well as know people's sins before they had confessed.

Some viewed him as a fraud, however, and for many years the Vatican itself was sceptical and banned him from celebrating Mass in public.

One Italian historian wrote last year that he may have used carbolic acid to produce his wounds.

Despite this, his popularity grew in Italy and abroad and Padre Pio became something of a cult figure.

Before his death, the Roman Catholic Church said it was convinced the monk's claims were not false.

The monks who exhumed his body in March said it was in "surprisingly good condition," despite no special measures having been taken to preserve it when he was buried in 1968.

"We could clearly make out the beard. The top part of the skull is partly skeletal but the chin is perfect and the rest of the body is well preserved. The knees, hands and nails all clearly visible," said Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who led the service to exhume the body.

Since then it has been treated by a mortician to make the face more recognisable.

Sightings of cloaked ladies, freezing rooms in warm weather, and someone touching you, are just some of the spooky stories suggesting a supernatural presence in Amersham Old Town.
Bar staff at the 15th century Boot and Slipper pub in Rickmansworth Road, Amersham, are convinced a resident ghost brushes past them, mutters to itself and puts its hand on their shoulders.

Bar assistant Simon Kemp said: "Staff are too scared to go down to the cellar as there has been times when they feel something brush past and one guy felt a hand on his shoulder."

Such experiences appear to be happening on a regular basis in the Old Town.

Chris Hanscomb, the manager at the 500-year-old Chequers pub, in London Road West, Amersham, said he heard rumours about a ghost in his pub.

He said: "I haven't actually seen anything yet but I have woken up one evening when it was absolutely freezing in the room but warm outside. People have said they have seen it, I'm not sure what I would do. I'd probably order it a drink."

Landlady Sylvia Shippey is adamant the Elephant and Castle in Amersham Old Town is haunted. She said she had just moved to Amersham after living at the Queens Head in Chesham for 21 years, where she used to hear footsteps.

She said: "We had a sighting of the ghost before Christmas, my son saw it. He saw someone upstairs in the flat. The neighbour has seen it in her kitchen twice. The woman glides in top to toe in black, and must walk through the walls in to her kitchen."

Sylvia believes it's a saucy ex-publican as previous barmaids have complained of their bottoms being pinched down the cellar. She added: "We reckon it could be a lesbian ghost."

The barmaid at the pub, Michelle Rogers, said she was startled when she felt her bottom pinched but saw no-one around her.

She said: "I went down in to the cellar to get some drinks and then I felt my bottom being pinched. I had heard stories about it before I came to work here and I just dropped the bottles and ran out. I was a bit shocked."

Ghost expert Ciaran O'Keeffe, who was called in last year to search for the spirit of Henry VIII's fifth wife Catherine Howard at Hampton Court Palace, is well aware of Amersham's ghostly reputation.

He said: "The Chequers is reported to be haunted by a white hooded figure and there has been reports of cold spots and doors opening. A medium has investigated and said the ghost was called 'Auden' and he was around in the early 1500s before the pub was built.

"People used to be locked up there before they were taken to the Martyrs in Amersham to be burnt on the stake."

He added: "There are a lot of ghosts in Bucks. There are lots of villages and old houses, which still exist. A lot of ghost sightings occur, it could sometimes be that they think they have seen something because it is old and from the stories that surround it."

Housekeeper Margaret Wingrove, has worked at the Crown Hotel, Amersham, for three years. She said the hotel has five ghosts and gained another two when an extension was built.

She said: "I don't like all of them. One of the new ones shouts "Get out now" almost through the wall. The feeling is mutual, I just run.

"In room 16 we have an old Victorian housekeeper. She tucks young men into their beds.

"You get men at three in the morning running down the stairs. It is quite funny. She only appears around Eastertime, it is probably because most hotels are seasonal."

"I live in Penn Street and we have our own collection of ghosts and I can see and hear them. I have seen them since the age of five. Most children collected pets - I collected ghosts."

Mr O'Keeffe said that the Crown Hotel used to house the rich and famous like Dirk Bogarde and Oliver Cromwell, and people who stayed in the oldest bedrooms would wake up suddenly with an electric shock passing through them.