Lore Hunters

Many of us have seen movies about Poltergeist activity, but a surprising number of people don’t know how this specific haunting type differs from other types of ghosts.In fact, many don’t know that there are “Types” of ghosts at all.In the South, the southern United States, where Dedra and I were raised, we both grew up hearing stories of ghosts, as part of everyday life.It was relatively normal to hear a tale of a dead relative that still walks the halls at night, to still smell their cigar or pipe tobacco or the signature perfume of the former lady of the house. Hardly ever though, were stories about any of these ghostly entities malicious and are thought to usually be around to watch over - or still be in - their home with their loved ones or maybe even a beloved object.A poltergeist, as mentioned earlier is one type of manifestation that a spirit can take. The word actually means “noisy ghost”. The name actually described the most common manifestation of a spirit where mysterious sounds (like footsteps an

 Long ago, in ancient China, there were four magnificent Dragons: the Long Dragon, the Black Dragon, the Pearl Dragon, and the Yellow Dragon.  They lived in palaces under the only sea in China.One day, they emerged from the Sea to fly high above the clouds to see the beautiful world from above.  The Pearl Dragon heard the voices of the people and called upon his brothers to hear them. He heard them crying and praying desperately for help.An old woman held a young child close and cried, “Please bring us rain, so that our crops won’t die! We are starving, and if we don’t eat soon, we’ll also die!”The dragons felt sympathy for the people and decided to ask the Jade Emperor, the supreme ruler of Heaven and Earth, to send rain to them, but when they went to ask the great Emperor, he became angry that the dragons disturbed his fun.  He had been enjoying a performance and was enthralled at the beauty of a fairy dance that he was watching.The dragons respectfully asked for the rain to be sent for the people, to which

 Ghouls are not Ghosts and Ghosts are not Ghouls.  Many people combine these two types of Paranormal entities into a single description ...which is not correct.You may ask...What are the differences then?  In terms of Folklore, Ghosts are the spirits of the dead.  We will delve deeper into exactly what this means in a future episode but for all intents and purposes, they are apparitions that may or may not be able to interact or communicate with the living.  They have no form, no mass, and are ethereal.Ghouls, however, are usually associated with the undead (Zombies, Vampires and the likes).  It should be known that they are not technically undead creatures and should be more associated with demons or demonic creatures and in some cases, Jinn.  In modern fiction, the ghoul is treated as an undead creature that consumes the dead (usually humans) and is often seen hanging around graveyards or places where it can feast on corpses.Traditionally, the Ghoul comes from middle eastern, pre-Islamic folklore.  The firs

 Every person, at some time, has entertained the thoughts of having superpower or mutant abilities - like their favorite comic book characters.  The supernatural world is full of beings able to walk through wall, teleport or shift into various creatures.  The shapeshifters are a very popular sort of supernatural creature.Well, there's one kind of shapeshifter that may not be so popular. In Native American tradition, it actually considered taboo.Navajo legend tells of a creature, one that can appear as a Wolf, a Coyote, an Owl, a Fox or a Crow.  Some say that this creature can, in fact, be any animal form that they wish. The Skinwalker, or (Yeenal gloo-shi) Yenaldlooshi, as it's been called, has been around a long time, and there have been many sightings and encounters of this beast, but only by studying native culture and tradition can we know the story behind its existence. (Yeenal gloo-shi) Yenaldlooshi literally means, in Navajo language, "He who trots along here and there on all fours."---Dedra Stevenson'

 JinnFor thousands of years, they’ve been around…By some accounts, they were around 2000 years before man was created.Yet when Westerners think of them, they usually imagine a form consisting of a blue mist -- usually coming out of a bottle or an ornate oil lamp -- that forms into a friendly human-like creature that is eager to offers you -- three wishes.These are the Jinn, unseen beings from another dimension.  In fact, Jinn in Arabic means, “hidden”, to indicate their usual state of being, hidden from the human world.The lore surrounding the Jinn is mostly from the Middle East, Africa and Asia.  Although the Middle Easterners and Asians think that what a Westerner refers to as a “ghost” is nothing more than a Jinn.Ibn Taymiyyah, an Islamic scholar, believed the jinn were generally untrustworthy, and account for a great deal of the so-called "magic" perceived by humans, cooperating with magicians to lift items in the air while remaining invisible, delivering distorted truths to fortune tellers, and imitating

The legends that surround curses, especially those types of curses that cause a human being to be transformed into another creature -- is part of a narrative that spans history through oral traditions around the world.  The folklore surrounding these types of legends is varied and is usually deep seeded in the cultural traditions where these stories are told.In the southern United States, in the state of Louisiana, the Cajun people have tales and lore about such a curse.A man or a woman is said to start appearing sickly and weak to their friends and family.  They start to isolate themselves from friends and family and start to wander or just disappear at night.After a while, the stories of a wild man-like creature stalking the roads and bayous at night would begin to increase in frequency. Reports of attacks on people, walking home at night, working or hunting would become a familiar tale that you hear around the breakfast table or at the local diner.   Missing people, missing pets, and vandalism of various t