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ParanormalText: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son

Ip’s WitchesText: Basia Jazubowska, Kasia PajuertImages: Joke Duponcheel, Céline Gladiné

Telepathy MeText: Lies De Nyn

Phobia & MythText: Céline Gladiné, Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van SonIllustrations: Lies De Nyn

Demon on BoardText and illustration: Griet Beyaert

Scary PlacesText: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van SonImages: Céline Gladiné, Silvy Van Son

UFOText: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van SonImage: Silvy Van Son

Thank you!Text: Jana Goyvaerts, Silvy Van Son

Covers and lay-out: Céline Gladiné

INDEX

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Intro to the paranormalHaunted mansions, spooky pubs, scary forests and shivery incidents: we experienced it all during the short time we had to make this magazine. While we were travelling around in Ipswich looking for ghost stories and haunted mansions, our search for interesting tales sometimes turned into our own spooky story.

When we were in a gothic souvenir shop, The Purple Shop, suddenly a porcelain statue of a little girl fell of a high shelf and nearly knocked us out. No one had a clue how it hadhappened because nobody was tall enough to accidentally hit the shelf. While we were editing, something spooky oc-curred too. The door had been open all day and all of a sud-den it slowly closed. That was weird because the door was blocked with a doorstop and could not be closed without human help.

Despite of all these obstacles, we managed to finish our mysterious magazine filled with interesting articles. In this gazette you will experience the stories of white witches ofIpswich, the Black Shucks of Suffolk and we even have a big scoop for you: we spotted UFOs in Christchurch Park and we have got pictures to prove it!

Take this magazine to a forest at night or to a cold and moist dungeon for the ultimate experience of horror!

Sincerely,Your VXM team

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ips’

wit

ches History records that worship of

many gods, goddesses, and deities was viewed by people as impor-tant in worship. It was thought that everything had a spirit and was polytheistic, so people had gods and goddesses of the forest, sea, and all aspects of nature. From the interview with Adrian and Ria who both follow the religion of Paganism, we have found out that ‘it is about what you believe in and what you want to believe in’. To Ria, Paganism ‘is an old reli-gion and it is more to do with the changing of the seasons, also cel-ebrating them.’ Paganism is about everybody being equal. ‘There is no hierarchy’ meaning that men and women are treated equally. Not only celebrating the changing of the season but also ‘everything around you’. As like Ria, Adrian believes that ‘paganism covers a broad spectrum of different things’. Paganism is not like the ‘Holly-wood witchcraft’, but instead it uses natural herbs and remedies to help others. Adrian also confesses that ‘Catholic churches burned a lot of women, simply because they could heal people using natural herbs and remedies, and they saw

it as a threat to the church and they classed them as witches’. Both Ria and Adrian believe that paganism is a personal belief. Pagans believe in reincarnation, but they did not believe in the existence of heaven and hell. They use a range of dif-ferent equipment to see the energy and other powers of a person. Not only healing people, pagans also use spells to help others feel bet-ter on the emotional and social side. One of them is the love spell which is the most popular among other spells. it is used to bring back lost love, to strengthen an existing bond, or to attract a new lover.

Paganism

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Witchcraft began in 1609. The most obvious characteristic of a witch was the ability to cast a spell. To Chris-tianity and Islam, witchcraft came to be associated with heresy and apostasy, which was viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and leadership of the European Late Medieval period, fears about witch-craft rose to fever pitch, and some-times led to large-scale witch-hunts. Throughout this time, it was increas-ingly believed that Christianity was engaged in an apocalyptic battle against the Devil and his secret army of witches. In total, tens or hun-dreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were impris-oned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men. Accusations of witchcraft were often combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Waldensians.Since the mid-20th century Witchcraft has be-come the designation of a branch of contemporary Paganism, most nota-bly including Wiccan traditions, who claim to practice a revival of pre-Ab-raham spirituality

Witchcraft

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e Telepathy is the transference of thoughts or feelings between two or more subjects through Psi. Telepathy isn’t really from this time anymore. Originally it comes from Greece. (from the Greek τηλε, tele meaning “distant” and πάθη, pathe meaning “affliction, experi-ence”). The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, specifically to replace the earlier expression thought-transference.

Learning telepathyYou actually can train on telepathy, to become more sensitive for it.The first key to telepathy is to “Be present”, be “here” and be “now”. Do not think of any other place. Do not think of the past or the fu-ture. This is the hardest part of telepathy. It’s a bit like mindfullness.

Telepathic stories I know* One of the first stories I’ve heard is one of the most common things in telepathy, that you have the feeling that something is happenend with someone. There was a guy, he sets his house on fire with a si-garet, and he died. The police went to his sister to tell her the news, the moment she opend the door and saw the policeman she said: ‘my brother is death, isn’t he?’. She just dreamed about it, and she had such a strong feeling about what happened.

* The second story I’ve heard is about a girl that went on a trip to India, she had a little breakdown so she called her mom. Her mom said to her ‘be calm, you have money, take a plane to somewhere else and call me when you get there.’ On her way to the airport she met a group of roadtrippin friends and went with them to a hotel. She took a shower, and laid down on the bed to get some rest. Right on that moment the phone of the hotelroom goes over, she picks up the phone and it’s her mom on the other side of the line. Her mom just turned a random phone number to try to connect with her daughter, so you see telepathy does exsist. Or it is just luck on your side.

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Vampire!

Now it’s time for a Belgian story. Between 1971 and 1972, 3 women were raped and brutally murdered in Muizen. They all had one thing in common: Bite marks. It looked like a vam-pire had bitten them. The police couldn’t explain what these marks were until they found the murderer: His name was Staf Van Eyken and as soon as the police arrested him, he confessed everything. He bit his victims while he was harassing them and then strangled them. He was sentenced to life and he is still known as ‘The Vam-pire of Muizen’…

Aichmophobia (fear of needles)

Matt – “When I was younger, my brother needed syringes. So they had to stick a needle in his ear and I fainted. While falling, I hit my head on a trolley. Ever since then I can’t look when a needle penetrates the skin. I get lightheaded and a sick feeling. Even on television, I look away from the screen.”

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Cynophobia (fear of dogs)

Black Shuck!

In the eastern part of England there are a lot of spooky stories about Black Shucks. A Shuck is a big dog who attacks innocent peo-ple. There is a story situated in the church of Blythburgh. A large black shuck burst in during a church serv-ice. It made scorch marks on the church door and you can still

see them today. Another report was about a Shuck who harassed a couple of innocent men. They tried to hit him with a stick but that would not work because the stick passed straight through the dog’s body. There are many other reports about Shucks that haunt places. There even exists a legend about donkey faced dog that spooks around the area of Melton.

Tonia – “I did hypnotherapy to reframe my fear of dogs. I don’t recall being bitten by a dog when staying with a friend of a friend, but my mother said it did happen. My father hasalways been afraid of dogs. He grew up with dogs just being there for protection, not as a man’s best friend. They were wild animals. So whenever on a walk, he was really weary ofdogs and that infected me, I think. I try to rationalize the fear but the barking is what triggers it. My heart starts racing then and I freeze completely.”

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George – “There was one time when I felt trapped in the nar-rowest tower of a church. You can compare it with the places in castles where there is a small gap for shooting intruders. The tightness of the room was overwhelming and it felt as if my body took over this tightness. I couldn’t breathe anymore but wasn’t paralysed. So I got out of there as quick as pos-sible. When I was nine, my uncle and I were playing in the kid’s play area and we were chucking stuff upon stuff. I got under a pile and my uncle then sat on the top. I thought I wasnever going to get out. It felt like being buried alive.”

Claustrophobia (fear of closed spaces)

Living dead!

There once was an old lady who loved to wear her golden jewels. The lady died and was buried in a church while wearing her valuable rings. One night, a man broke into the church and looked for the grave of the lady, who was just buried. He intended stealing the ring so dug up her body, but he noticed that it was impossible to slide off the rings of the woman’s fingers. He decided to cut off the fingers and just when he was making the initial incision, the wom-an awakes. She was not dead at all and had been a victim of premature burial. The thief ran away screaming was never seen again. The woman walked over to her house, but she was not welcome anymore be-cause her fam-ily thought she was ghost. She could not do anything else but wandering around for years and years…

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d OUIJA BOARD

Although the Ouija board is of-ten used as a toy by children and teenagers, people who are already in touch with a familiar spirit say that using a Ouija board can be dangerous. Even though a Ouija board it’s relatively easy to use, there is always the possibil-ity of not understanding what the spirits are telling us.

On the board you find letters and words. You use a movable indica-tor called planchette, which is used by the spirits to spell out. The par-ticipants place their fingers on the indicator during the séance or spir-itual session; the spirits move the planchette to tell a message.

It is a tool to help us understand what they are trying to tell us. If you are open enough to the world of spirits, there is the possibility that other spirits will try to contact you as well. Then you need to try to establish who they are, for ex-ample by testing them by asking questions. You have to be sure that you are not in contact with a de-mon. So, how can I make sure that I do not get in touch with a demon?

A demon is a considered an un-clear spirit, a paranormal malevo-lent angel. Demonic possession is the control of a person by a demon. If you are possessed, you will have to exorcise the demon. Some sa-cred rituals are used for healing, for example praying.

The mainstream religions believe that the Ouija board is associ-ated with demonic possession. In 2001, fundamentalist groups in New Mexico burned Ouija boards, alongside Harry Potter books, as symbols for witchcraft and a tool of Satan.

When something weird happens during a séance, like a noise or a candle that snuffs, a demon is not always responsible for that. Be-cause you are scared, you do not react like you would normally do. You see everything in a different context.

Scientists did a lot of research on Ouija boards. They concluded that the participants make motions unconsciously, also known as the ideomotor phenomenon. In other words: because you think the plan-chette will move to the word ‘Yes’, your muscles instinctively move the indicator to that word.

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SOME FUN FACTS ABOUT OUIJA BOARDS:

• The live stage backdrop of Marilyn Manson’s tour in 1995 was a Ouija board. He experimented with the board as a kid and says he has had some weird experiences with it. He used it as a backdrop, because the board is a symbol of communication. His guitarist had aguitar with a body styled as Ouija board.

• It is said that the band name of ‘Alice Cooper’ was agreed upon after a ses-sion with a Ouija board. Vincent Furnier found out that he was the reincarna-tion of a 17th-century witch with that name.

• In 1917, Emily Grant Hutchings contacted author Mark Twain with a Ouija board to write her novel Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board.

• The name ‘Ouija’ is the combination of the words ‘Oui’ and ‘Ja’, which means ‘Yes’. Almost every Ouija board contains the words ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Maybe’.

• One of the inventors of the Ouija board, William Fuld died after complica-tions falling from the roof of his factory. He was 57 years old.

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ces The haunted Christchurch Mansion, built in 1547, is a large brick man-

sion situated in Christchurch Park on the edge of the town centre of Ips-wich. In 1995 there were stories about turning paintings and a Victorian woman walking through glass door.

An assistant at the Mansion, Steve Parkes, was featured three years ago in the local newspaper with his spooky story. While he was preparing a room for an exhibition he saw a painting lift off the ground and fly six feet across the room. He said that the painting moved as if someone had lifted it up and thrown it. A spokeswoman for the Mansions says that was not the first incident. A similar situation took place in the same room about 14 years before Steve Parkes’ experience.

The haunted stories of the Christchurch Mansion are supported by two firm believers. Two male visitors put a video on Youtube where you can hear a women whispering while the boys claiming that there is no one else in the room…

Christchurch Mansion

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WS Cowell’s, now the site of the But-termarket Centre: On this site there used to be a monastery. Apparently since one old monk couldn’t go to heaven, he’s still spotted on the site. Two women fainted, a few men fled during a night shift and phantom footsteps were heard inside the build-ing. Maybe the monk wasn’t allowed in heaven because he was a thief, because it is said that the occupants

hid their treasure in a well on the site when under attack, and until this day it hasn’t been found.

This pub might be the most haunted pub in England. People have noticed dozens of ghosts and strange sounds while hav-ing a beer. The most famous myth of this pub is the ‘heartbeat’: it is said that when you place your ear against the wall, you can hear a human heart throbbing from within. But this heartbeat isn’t the only shady sound you can hear: footsteps, slammed doors and barrels being moved in the basement are only a few of the

spooky noises heard in here. Furthermore someone saw a monk walking through the fireplace and on a wall nearby, there constantly appeared to be a shadow even though nobody was around. But since all of these have been seen in a pub, one can wonder whether these are genuine ghost appearances or they are just hallucina-tions by drunk people.

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PJ McGinty’s and sons

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0ufo

For our story about the haunt-ed Christchurch Mansion, our Creepswich reporters went to Christchurch Park to check if the site is really haunted (for the full story: check p 12). To recover from their ghostly experience, our journalists chilled a bit in the park and guess what they saw! All

of a sudden, a huge U.F.O. flew over! They grabbed their cameras and took a few amazing shots. The U.F.O. floated around for a few minutes and then suddenly vanished. What do you think? Are U.F.O.s real or not? Share your thoughts on twitter with #UFOipswich.

uFO

SPOTTED in ipswich

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THANK YOUBEDANKT

DZIĘKI

We want to thank everyone who supported us

with their knowledge and answered all our

needy questions. We learned a lot about the

myths and legends of Ipswich and met tons of

interesting and friendly people. A big thanks

to you all for this great adventure!