Santeria – The saint of good health, St Lazarus

In the Santeria religion in Cuba, St Lazarus is widely worshiped, and he is one of the most worshiped saints in the religion.

St Lazarus appears as a fragile old man with a ragged appearance who may resemble a beggar.  He is covered in cuts and other wounds, walking with crutches, dressed in rags and clothes made from sackcloth, and followed by dogs.  His day of the week is Wednesday, and his day of the year is the 17^th of December, and many people make him a ceremony and give him offerings on this day.

St Lazarus is highly worshiped because he is believes to be a spirit who controls everyone’s health.  Devotees praise him and give him offerings with the belief that he will grant them good health, cure them of their current health problems, avoid any future medical complications, and curse their enemies by giving them ill health.

People can worship St Lazarus for various reasons such as, to ask him to bless them with good health, to undergo a religious initiation in order to overcome big health problems, or to become a santero (a spiritual priest) and consult and heal other people.  There may be slight differences to how people worship St Lazarus, but the objectives tend to be pretty much the same.   

Those who make a promise to St Lazarus may do things such as, promise him an offering, grow their hair for a prolonged length of time, or dress in clothes made from sackcloth.

Offerings for this saint include things such as a sacrificial meal such as a male chicken or goat, aguardiente rum, dry wine, coconut cakes, cigars, toasted corn, dark and sweet coffee, water, sugar water, and other sweets and treats.  It’s also good to light white candles and ring a small bell when you are going to say catholic prayers and spiritual prayers dedicated for St Lazarus.  All of these things are supposed to call the saint so that he will listen to you talking to him, and it will also give strength to him, and appease him so that it can then have the power and the will to help its you accomplish your goals.

People who seek the help of St Lazarus may have a statue of the saint which has been blessed, which they may dress with a purple or brown cloak, a Santeria leleke (bead necklace) which would be white with blue stripes.  A little container or plate may also be put beside the statue so that spare change may be placed into it in order for the saint to give people good luck and money, or it can also be used as a way of saving up money for food and rum for the saint.  People may also buy and prepare a bead necklace or bracelet which they will put on in order to have health and protection.

St Lazarus is a vary important saint because he blesses you with health, and as people say in Santeria in Cuba "When you pray and ask god or the saints for anything, always ask for good health before anything else, because with good health you can have the power to achieve anything that you want, but with bad health you can't do much." and I personally think that this statement is true because there is no point of having everything in the world, but being ill and unable to use any of it.  What do you think?

The Vengeful Ghost of Carl Pruitt

In Kentucky, June 1838, a carpenter named Carl Pruitt arrived at his house and he caught his wife having an affair with another man.  The other man managed to run away and escape by leaping out of a window, but carl went into a blind rage and he choked his wife to death with a metal chain.  When Carl's rage subsided, he then realised what he had done and that his life was ruined, so he decided to take his own life.  Unlike many couples who die, Carl and his wife were not buried beside each other.  They were not even buried in the same cemetery.

A few weeks after carl had been buried, residents noticed that a discolouration was developing at the top of his headstone and it looked like the shape of a chain.  Some of the locals suggested that it was a bad omen and that the headstone should be removed and placed somewhere else, but officials disagreed with the idea and they chose to let the headstone stay.  A month or so passed and a group of boys were passing past the grave on bicycles, and one of the boys named James Collins, stopped and threw rocks and chipped the supposedly "cursed"gravestone, probably to show that he wasn't scared of all of the hype that the grave had gained.  On his way back home, James lost control of his bike, as if it were being manipulated by an unknown force, and it began to pick up speed until he eventually crashed his bike into a tree.  To everyone's surprise, the bicycle chain not only came off of the bike, but it also managed to wrap itself around James's neck, strangling him to death.  News of the incident spread quickly, and when residents went to investigate the gravestone, they noticed that it was unharmed, despite James's friends saying that James had thrown stones at it. This event began to fuel rumours that Carl's Ghost was responsible for the boys death.

As expected, James's mother was heartbroken that she had lost her son.  A month after, she went to the graveyard with an axe, and enraged, she hacked away at Collin's gravestone until it lay on the floor in numerous pieces.  The next day, she was hanging her washing outside on a washing line made of chain instead of wire or rope, and she slipped and got entangled with the chain.  despite all of her struggling and her best efforts, she was unable to break free and she choked to death on the chain.  After her death, Carl's gravestone appeared to once again, be undamaged.

Rumours continued to circulate, and shortly after the incident, a farmer and his family were riding past the graveyard on their horse-drawn carriage.  The farmer began to boast how he wasn't afraid of ghosts, then he pulled out his pistol and began firing shots at the gravestone, damaging it.  The horses that were pulling the carriage got spooked and they began to run faster and faster.  The family managed to jump off to safety, but the farmer stayed on and tried to stop the horses from running.  The horses ran too fast round a corner, resulting in the farmer being thrown off of the carriage and getting his neck caught on one of the chains on the traces.  The farmer's neck was broken, and once again, another victim was claimed and the gravestone remained undamaged.

The police were eventually called to the cemetery to try and investigate the gravestone and all of the misfortune that it had caused, but there was nothing that they could actually do, and one of the officers laughed at the gravestone and at the townspeople's superstitions.  The officers eventually got into their car and began to drive away.  The officer who had laughed was driving the car and he glanced back towards the graveyard.  He saw a light rising from the graveyard and quickly fly towards the police car.  The officer suddenly lost control of the car and it began to pick up speed.  The car went off of the road and crashed between two posts and began to roll around.  The officer who was sitting in the passenger seat was thrown out of the car, but he only suffered minor injuries. The officer managed to get to his feet and he went to check on his partner.  His partner had been killed, but not due to the impact of the car crash itself.  There had been a metal chain hanging between the two posts, and as the car crashed, the chain broke off through the car's windshield, and wrapped around the officer's neck, and it almost took his head off!

After this incident, most of the residents became afraid and they decided to avoid the cemetery altogether.  One man named Arthur Lewis wasn't afraid and he was adamant that everything was superstitious gibberish, and he was determined to prove it to everyone.  He told his wife what his plans were before he left to go to the graveyard at night with a hammer and chisel.  Arthur began to chip away at the gravestone, and everyone who lived nearby could hear the noise.  Suddenly, the noise of the chiseling was replaced with a spine-chilling scream.  A group of men with lamps ran towards the cemetery where they found Arthur's dead body lying at the cemetery gate with the gate's chain wrapped around his neck.  Despite countless witnesses having heard the gravestone being chiseled, it remained undamaged.

Eventually, the graves from the cemetery were moved to somewhere else, but Carl's grave remained and was forgotten under weeds.  In the 1950s, a strip mining operation took place in the area, and Carl's grave was destroyed in the process.  No more deaths had happened as a result of this, but the 5 previous similar deaths still remain to be mysterious and unexplained.

Do you think that all of these related deaths were just caused by random unfortunate events, or do you think that they were caused by dark forces at work?  Let me know by commenting in the comments section.

The Milk Drinking Vampire from Brazil - The Jaracaca

The jaracaca is a vampire from Brazil, and isn’t quite like your everyday vampire.  The jaracaca usually appears in the shape of a snake, and it loves to drink blood and breast milk!  The vampire slithers its way between a nursing mother and her child while the mother sleeps, and then it puts the end of its tail into the baby’s mouth in order to keep it quiet, so that it can then drink the mother’s breast milk undetected.  This vampire prefers milk to blood, and will only drink blood from anyone if there is not enough milk available for it to drink until it is satisfied.  The jaracaca doesn’t only pose as a danger by drinking your blood, but it can also secret venom into its victims, which then results in the victim going crazy.  Waking up crazy isn’t something that most of us plan every night before we go to bed!

The Vengeful Ghost from Indonasia - Sundel Bolong

A Sundel Bolong is a ghost from Malaysian and Indonesian mythology.  The ghost is of a woman with beautiful long black hair, and dresses in a white dress.  She has a hole gaping from her back, and her name means “prostitute with a hole in her back” and this refers to the hole in her back and her method of catching her victims, which tend to be male.

In folklore, there are several variations surrounding the life and death of the Sundel Bolong, but it is supposed to be the ghost of a woman who was forced into prostitution and eventually because pregnant.  The woman later either died and gave birth in her coffin; or died during childbirth and by some strange phenomena, the baby came out of her back instead of the usual process, resulting in the big hole in her back which she hides with her long black hair.  Legend has it that she roams the world looking for her baby, and she is also said to take revenge on men by seducing them with her beauty and scent of perfume.  She then shows the men the bloody and maggot infested hole in her back, and the scent of perfume changes to that of rotting flesh.  If a man is put off by this, she will castrate him, then kill him and devour his organs.

I know that sometimes, times are hard and a man can't be too picky with his women, but it would be a long time in hell, before I hook up with a woman with maggots coming out of a hole in her back! Castration and a grisly death would also be pretty bad, but I could probably escape while she looks for a big enough knife....  What option would you rather pick? Let me know in the comments section!

The Brahmaparusha Vampire from India

The Brahmaparusha vampire is the brain-eating vampire from India and it is creepier than many other vampires. The Brahmaparusha is a male vampire who has a strange habit of collecting its victim’s intestines as trophies and wearing them around its head like a turban, as a sign of power to show off how powerful he is. Pretty messed up right? This vampire’s ego doesn’t stop there because it would also pour its victims blood into a skull cup which it carries about for drinking blood.  Once the vampire had drunk its victim’s blood, it would proceed to crack the victim’s skull open, then feast on the brain, which happens to be its favourite part. Finally after the vampire would be done eating, it would tear open the victim and rip out their intestines which he would then wrap around his head and neck and wear them as a trophy. The vampire also has a big appetite and it would take more than a few victims before it got its fill.

It is unknown how these vampires were created. Some believe that it’s a demon who possesses a corpse or living person in order to keep feeding, and it begins to eventually destroy the host body from the inside. Unfortunately they are very fearsome and the only way to prevent being eaten is to run away and hide somewhere and hope that it doesn’t get you.

Mossi Dolls - An African Fertility Fetish

Many Mossi women and children carry dolls throughout a big portion of their early life.  These dolls are made from wood and they are carved to show hair, faces, and patterns which symbolise a rite of passage into adulthood.  These dolls are given to young girls, and they are treated like small babies, being given food, carried around, washed, and tended to as if they were a real baby.  These dolls are given to girls so that they can practice taking care of a baby, for when they eventually grow up and have their own.  The doll is also used as a way to help its owner with fertility so that they can have many children throughout their life. The doll is also believed to be a way to communicate with ancestors and spirits whom may be called upon by a woman who is married but unsuccessful in having a baby, so that she can be blessed with fertility.  While a woman is unable to successfully have a baby, she may also use the doll as a substitute for a child, so that it may grant her fertility.

Mossi Dolls stay with their owner into adulthood, and it is believed that the better that the doll is looked after, the better that the woman should be at looking after her babies when they are born.  If the doll is looked after properly, when a woman has a child, the doll is supposed to make sure that the newborn baby and it’s soul are properly bound together. The mother first feeds the doll by dropping some of her breast milk onto it, before feeding her baby for the first time.  The doll can then be passed down to a younger female family member, and she will then take up the responsibility of looking after the doll.

50 Strange and Interesting Phobias

1. Haphephobia

This is a phobia which causes people to feel afraid when touching someone or being touched by someone else, and it may even include people whom the sufferer knows well.

2. Autodysomophobia

This is a phobia in which a person is afraid of vile odours, and smelling bad.

3. Nomophobia

This is a modern phobia in which the affected people are afraid of losing their mobile phone contacts.

4. Sociophobia

Sociophobia is a phobia in which those affected are afraid of being judged by society.

5. Syngenesophobia

This phobia involves being afraid of all of your relatives. Sufferers of this must hate Xmas and family gatherings.

6. Ecclesiophobia

While in movies, evil cannot enter a church, sufferers of ecclesiophobia don’t fall too far behind seeing as this phobia causes the sufferer to have a fear of going to and entering church.

7. Ornithophobia

While some people are afraid to be blessed with good luck by birds, sufferers of this phobia are primarily afraid of the birds themselves.

8. Anthophobia

While many people suffer from hay fever, those who suffer from anthrophobia suffer from the fear of flowers.

9. Heliphobia

If it’s one thing that vampires and sufferers of heliphobia have in common, it’s the fear of sunlight.

10. Spectrophobia

The story of Snow White would have been very different if the Evil Queen would have suffered from spectrophobia which is the fear of seeing your own reflection in the mirror.

11. Gelotophobia

This is the fear of being laughed at. I guess that a job as a stand-up comedian isn’t such a good idea anymore for sufferers of this phobia.

12. Selenophobia

While werewolves and other creatures of the night seem to love the moon, sufferers of selenophobia definitely do not.

13. Asymmetriphobia

This if the fear of having mismatched items such as earrings and socks and other asymmetrical objects. Losing a sock in the laundry basket must be scarier to some than to others.

14. Ereuthophobia

This is the fear of red lights which may be due to the colour warning of dangers such as red traffic lights, stop signs, and laser beams!

15. Automatonophobia

This is the fear of man shaped figures such as wax figures, dummies, and animatronics.

16. Aulophobia

This is the fear of flutes, because who knows when that scary Pied Piper will show up again!

17. Dextrophobia

Sufferers of this phobia do not like having objects situated to their right.

18. Linonophobia

While string is very useful for many things, sufferers of linonophobia are not too fond of seeing it.

19. Papyrophobia

Sufferers of Papyrophobia are scared of paper in various shapes and forms from rolled up balls of paper to paper sheets which they can relate to dangers such as injury, cuts, and a paper airplane to the face.

20. Tachophobia

Sufferers of tachophobia are those who are afraid of speed. They may be afraid of riding vehicles such as cars and trains.

21. Arithmophobia

  

This is the fear of numbers, but it can also refer to the fear of maths, certain numbers, and calculations.

22. Hagiophobia

In movies, the dark unholy creatures of the night usually have a fear of holy crosses, figures and other holy things and ideas, but this is also the case for people who suffer from hagiophobia.

23. Ablutophobia

Although washing and taking baths or showers is a good way to keep clean and relax, those who suffer from ablutophobia sadly don’t enjoy this much due to having a fear of washing and bathing.

24. Agyrophobia

Although it’s always good to take some extra care while crossing the road and looking both ways to make sure that you are not going to be hit by any cars, people who suffer from agyrophobia may still be fearful of crossing the road, even if there are no cars present.

25. Ergophobia

This is the fear of work or functioning, but sadly we all can’t use this as an excuse to take a few days off of work.

26. Mageirocophobia

Cooking can be a source of fear and anxiety for those with mageirocophobia.

27. Scriptophobia

Although it is fairly reasonable to understand why many people are scared to talk in front of people in public, people with scriptophobia are actually scared to write in public.

28. Sitophobia

People who are afraid to eat suffer from sitophobia, this can become dangerous and may lead to serious health problems.

29. Ephebiphobia

People who are scared of teenagers suffer from ephebiphobia. 

30. Iatrophobia

Although most of us rely on, and trust doctors to make us feel better when we are ill, those who suffer from iatrophobia are actually scared of them.

31. Coprastasophobia

Constipation isn’t the best of experiences, but those who suffer from coprastophobia are terrified of it.

32. Didaskaleinophobia

If you have run out of excuses to say for every time that you miss class, you should tell your teacher that you suffer from disaskaleinophobia, which is the fear of going to school.

33. Lipophobia

Those with a fear of becoming fat suffer from lipophobia.

34. Sesquipedalophobia

Those who suffer from this are actually afraid of very long words.

35. Pteronophobia:

Those who have a big fear of feathers suffer from pteronophobia.  I guess a pillow fight is out of the question?

36. Optophobia

Sight is something that we shouldn’t take for granted, but sadly, those who suffer from optophobia are scared to open their eyes.

37. Turophobia

Eating pizza won’t really be much of an option for those suffering from turophobia, which is the fear of cheese.

38. Somniphobia

Those who suffer from somniphobia are afraid to fall asleep, and this may be caused by things such as the fear of constant nightmares, the fear of losing time while sleeping, and even the association of sleep with death.  Insomnia is bad enough for many people.

39. Coulrophobia  

Those who are afraid of clowns suffer from coulrophobia, and it is a very common phobia, especially with small children.  Clowns in movies also have a reputation of being evil and scary, especially since they have strangely painted, smiley faces that disguise their true feelings underneath.

40. Hylophobia

Sufferers of hylophobia are scared of trees, wood, and forests.  This fear may have been caused during childhood by watching movies where forests were depicted as dark and ominous places.

41. Uranophobia

People who believe in heaven, usually think of it as a nice and peaceful paradise where everyone who is good in life goes to when they die, but those who suffer from uranophobia fear the sky and the heaven, possibly because they are scared of being judged when they go there.

42. Triskaidekaphobia

Many superstitious people associate the number 13 with bad luck, but those who suffer from triskaidekaphobia, have a great fear of the number, and they try to avoid it as much as they can.

43. Alektorophobia

This is an unnatural fear of chickens.

44. Batrachophobia

People who suffer from batrachophobia have a big fear of amphibians such as frogs and salamanders.

45. Chaetophobia

Those who suffer from chaetophobia have a fear of hair.  Some people fear humans and animals with an excess amount of hair, while others only fear detached hair, and many of these people can also fear the hair on their own bodies.

46. Globophobia  

This phobia causes people to have a great fear of the loud sound which is created by balloons popping, or they can fear the balloons altogether.

47. Oikophobia       

People who have this phobia, are scared of all of their household appliances such as their freezer, oven, and microwave.  Being a chef may not be an appropriate profession if you suffer from this.

48. Domatophobia       

This is the fear of houses, and being inside a house. 

49. Chronophobia

People who suffer from Chronophobia are afraid of time. 

50. Phobophobia

This may arguably be the worst phobia of them all.  People who suffer from phobophobia have a fear of phobias or a fear of developing a phobia in general.