The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

The secret life of libraries...
01:58 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 462




They have always had a dusty image – and never more so than now – but libraries are at the heart of our communities. With the axe about to fall, Bella Bathurst reveals just what we're about to lose



You can tell a lot about people from the kind of books they steal. Every year, the public library service brings out a new batch of statistics on their most-pilfered novelists – Martina Cole, James Patterson, Jacqueline Wilson, JK Rowling. But in practice, different parts of Britain favour different books. Worksop likes antiques guides and hip-hop biographies. Brent prefers books on accountancy and nursing, or the driving theory test. Swansea gets through a lot of copies of the UK Citizenship Test. In Barnsley, it's Mig welding and tattoos ("I've still no idea what Mig welding is," says Ian Stringer, retired mobile librarian for the area. "The books always got taken before I could find out.") And Marylebone Library in London has achieved a rare equality. Their most stolen items are The Jewish Chronicle, Arabic newspapers and the Bible.



But the figures show something else as well – that among all communities and in all parts of Britain, our old passion for self-improvement remains vivid. Unlike DVDs or CDs or Xbox games, books removed from public libraries have no resale value. Unless they're very rare or very specialist, even hardbacks aren't worth anything anymore. So the only reason to take books is to read them.



Even so, theft remains a sensitive subject. "If someone suggested the idea of public libraries now, they'd be considered insane," says Peter Collins, library services manager in Worksop. "If you said you were going to take a little bit of money from every taxpayer, buy a whole load of books and music and games, stick them on a shelf and tell everyone, 'These are yours to borrow and all you've got to do is bring them back,' they'd be laughed out of government." But theft – or loss, or forgetting – is not a new thing. During the 1930s, supposedly a far more upright age, 8.8m books vanished from the library system every year.





Sign up to our Bookmarks newsletter

Read more

There are 4,500 public libraries in Britain, as well as almost 1,000 national and academic libraries. As local authority budgets are reduced by the government's cuts, up to 500 libraries around the country will have to close. Librarians – traditionally seen as a mild, herbivorous breed – are up in arms. Partly because public libraries are often seen as a soft target; partly because they say local authorities consistently undervalue the breadth of what they do; and partly because the cutting will be done during a recession, which is exactly when everyone starts going to the library again.



But the cuts also underscore a deeper confusion about what libraries are: what they do, who they serve, and – in an age where the notion of books itself seems mortally flawed – why we still need them. What's the point of buildings filled with print? Isn't all our wisdom electronic now? Shouldn't libraries die at their appointed time, like workhouses and temperance halls?





The old clichés do not help the cause, given that libraries are meant to be austere places smelling of "damp gabardine and luncheon meat", as Victoria Wood put it, and librarians are either diffident, mole-eyed types or disappointed spinsters of limited social skills who spend their time blacking out the racing pages and razoring Page 3.



In Worksop, Peter Collins radiates a love both of libraries and for the infinite variety of people who use them. He's 33 and "always defined myself by being a librarian. I'd say to girls: 'Guess what I do for a living?' Admittedly, they were the kind of girls who might be impressed when I told them I had an MA in librarianship, but I was just so proud of it, so in love with what I did. When I first met my future wife, she got a tirade about the magic of libraries."



Collins believes that libraries are just as vital now as they were during the 40s, when Philip Larkin complained of stamping out so many books in a week that his hand blistered. Even so, he spends much of his time in a ceaseless game of catch-up. "Libraries are always trying to prove themselves because what they provide is so intangible. How do you quantify what someone gets from a book or a magazine?"



Attempts to do so often end up in trouble. "The council once asked us for an assessment of outcomes, not output," says Ian Stringer. "Output was how many books we'd stamped out, and outcome was something that had actually resulted from someone borrowing a book. So say someone took out a book on mending cars and then drove the car back, that's an outcome; or made a batch of scones from a recipe book they had borrowed. It lasted until one of the librarians told the council they'd had someone in borrowing a book on suicide, but that they'd never brought it back. The council stopped asking after that."



The great untold truth of libraries is that people need them not because they're about study and solitude, but because they're about connection. Some sense of their emotional value is given by the writer Mavis Cheek, who ran workshops within both Holloway and Erlestoke prisons. At Erlestoke she had groups of eight men who so enjoyed the freedom and contact of the writing groups they ended up breaking into the prison library when they found it shut one day. Which authors did they like best? "Graham Greene," says Cheek. "All that adventure and penance. His stuff moves fast, it's spare and it's direct."



Greene might seem a surprising choice, but then what people choose to read in extremis often is. In London during the Second World War, some authorities established small collections of books in air-raid shelters. The unused Tube station at Bethnal Green had a library of 4,000 volumes and a nightly clientele of 6,000 people. And what those wartime readers chose were not practical how-to manuals on sewing or home repairs, but philosophy. Plato and his Republic experienced a sudden surge in popularity, as did Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, Bunyan and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy.



Ian Stringer worked in Barnsley just after the 1980s miners' strike. "Library issues doubled during the strike, they were the highest they've ever been. A lot of ex-miners wanted books on law because they wanted to challenge the legality of what the government was doing. Or they needed practical self-help stuff like books on growing your own, or just pure escapism." The same thing is happening now.



Paul Forrest used to go out with the mobile library around the deprived areas of Edmonton, north London. "It was quite shocking how isolated people are sometimes. At times, books or talking books are the only connection to the world they've got. And the mobile librarians really know their customers' interests – not just that they like romances, for instance, but romances with a bit of spice, not too much sex, a bit of history. Those books are almost a form of medication; I reckon we save the NHS a fortune in antidepressants."



For many years, Ian Stringer worked on Barnsley's mobile libraries. So potent was the South Yorkshire service that at one point during the 1980s, "we had four couples leaving their spouses for each other. We ended up calling it the Mile Out Club." What was going on? "I think it's because you used to have two people going out, usually a man and a woman, in the van sometimes for nine hours at a stretch. Often it would be an older man and a younger woman, and I reckon some of the younger women had married young, and this was the first chance for them to see what an older man could be like. And some of the spots they'd get out to, like the farms, they'd be quite secluded. Not that anyone ever delayed the service, of course." By the time the fourth couple got together, the erotic charge of the vans had grown so great that "all the relatives ended up having a fight on the loading bay, everyone pitching in, all chucking boxes of library tickets at each other".



Inevitably, libraries are also used as a refuge by many who never had any intention of mugging up on the latest literary prize shortlist. It's an odd thing that libraries – by tradition temples to the unfleshly – can sometimes seem such sexy places. Perhaps it's their churchiness or the deep, soft silence produced by so many layers of print, or simply the hiding places provided by the shelves. "There's a big following on the internet for sites on librarians and people with library fetishes," says Kerry Pillai, manager of Swansea library. "I don't know why. But we do have a lot of attractive staff here." Has she ever been approached? "I did get sniffed once," she says. "In the lifts."



"In the 60s, before the Lady Chatterley trial," says Ian Stringer, "you used to get block books – literally, wooden blocks in place of any books the librarians thought were a bit risqué, like Last Exit to Brooklyn. You had to bring the block to the counter and then they'd give you the book from under the desk. So of course you got a certain type of person just going round looking for the wooden blocks."





There are other uses for libraries. In Marylebone they take a lenient view of sleepers. "As long as they're vertical, it's all right," says Nicky Smith, senior librarian. "If they're horizontal or snoring, then we wake them up. Mind you," she adds cheerily, "we were always told to wake people well before closing time, because if they turn out to be dead, then you won't get home before midnight." Marylebone has particular cause to be vigilant; it has the unusual distinction of being one of the few libraries in Britain where someone has actually died. Edgar Lustgarten was well known as a TV personality during the 50s and 60s. He presented an early version of Crimewatch, talking the viewers through the topical murder- mysteries of the day. On 15 December 1978, he went to the library as usual and was found some time later, dead at his desk. What had he been doing? "Reading the Spectator."



Worksop has a resident book-eater. "We kept noticing that pages had been ripped from some of the books," says Peter Collins. "Not whole pages, just little bits. It would always be done really neatly, just the tops of the pages. And then we'd see these little pellets everywhere, little balls of chewed paper cropping up in different parts of the library. Eventually we figured out who it must be. None of us wanted to say we'd noticed him munching away at the books, so I approached him and said something like I'd noticed 'tearing' on some volumes. He said he didn't know anything about it, but we've never seen him back."



"And we had a streaker once," Collins continues. "In Tamworth. He got into the lifts, and somewhere between the first and second floors he managed to take off all his clothes, run naked through Music and Junior, and then vanish out the front doors. The library there is right next to a graveyard, so goodness only knows what happened to him. Still, all part of life's rich tapestry."



He says that reading seems to be becoming an increasingly alien concept for children. "The pace of life is different now, and people expect art to happen to them. Music and film do that, a CD will do that, but you have to make a book happen to you. It's between you and it. People can be changed by books, and that's scary. When I was working in the school library, I'd sometimes put a book in a kid's hands and I'd feel excited for them, because I knew that it might be the book that changed their life. And once in a while, you'd see that happen, you'd see a kind of light come on behind their eyes. Even if it's something like 0.4% of the population that that ever happens to, it's got to be worth it, hasn't it?"



The libraries' most powerful asset is the conversation they provide – between books and readers, between children and parents, between individuals and the collective world. Take them away and those voices turn inwards or vanish. Turns out that libraries have nothing at all to do with silence.

THE RED JUICE IN RAW RED MEAT IS NOT BLOOD April 20, 2010 Daven Hiskey
01:55 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 463




Today I found out the red juice in raw red meat is not blood. Nearly all blood is removed from meat during slaughter, which is also why you don’t see blood in raw “white meat”; only an extremely small amount of blood remains within the muscle tissue when you get it from the store.



So what is that red liquid you are seeing in red meat? Red meats, such as beef, are composed of quite a bit of water. This water, mixed with a protein called myoglobin, ends up comprising most of that red liquid.



In fact, red meat is distinguished from white meat primarily based on the levels of myoglobin in the meat. The more myoglobin, the redder the meat. Thus most animals, such as mammals, with a high amount of myoglobin, are considered “red meat”, while animals with low levels of myoglobin, like most poultry, or no myoglobin, like some sea-life, are considered “white meat”.



Myoglobin is a protein that stores oxygen in muscle cells, very similar to its cousin, hemoglobin, that stores oxygen in red blood cells. This is necessary for muscles which need immediate oxygen for energy during frequent, continual usage. Myoglobin is highly pigmented, specifically red; so the more myoglobin, the redder the meat will look and the darker it will get when you cook it.



This darkening effect of the meat when you cook it is also due to the myoglobin; or more specifically, the charge of the iron atom in myoglobin. When the meat is cooked, the iron atom moves from a +2 oxidation state to a +3 oxidation state, having lost an electron. The technical details aren’t important here, though if you want them, read the “bonus factoids” section, but the bottom line is that this ends up causing the meat to turn from pinkish-red to brown.



Bonus Facts:



It is possible for meat to remain pinkish-red all through the cooking if it has been exposed to nitrites. It is even possible for packagers, through artificial means, to keep the meat looking pink, even after it has spoiled, by binding a molecule of carbon monoxide to produce metmyoglobin. Consumers associate pink meat with “fresh”, so this increases sales, even though the pink color has little to do with the freshness of meat.

Pigs are often considered “white meat”, even though their muscles contain a lot more myoglobin than most other white meat animals. This however, is a much lower concentrate of myoglobin than other “red meat”, such as cows, due to the fact that pigs are lazy and mostly just lay around all day. So depending on who you talk to, pigs can be considered white meat or red meat; they more or less sit in between the two classifications.

Chickens and Turkeys are generally considered white meat, however due to the fact that both use their legs extensively, their leg muscles contain a significant amount of myoglobin which causes their meat to turn dark when cooked; so in some sense they contain both red and white meat. Wild poultry, which tend to fly a lot more, tend to only contain “dark” meat, which contains a higher amount of myoglobin due to the muscles needing more oxygen from frequent, continual usage.

White meat is made up of “fast fibers” that are used for quick bursts of activity. These muscles get energy from glyocogen which, like myoglobin, is stored in the muscles.

Fish are primarily white meat due to the fact that they don’t ever need their muscles to support themselves and thus need much less myoglobin or sometimes none at all in a few cases; they float, so their muscle usage is much less than say a 1000 pound cow who walks around a lot and must deal with gravity. Typically, the only red meat you’ll find on a fish is around their fins and tail, which are used almost constantly.

Some fish, such as sharks and tuna, have red meat because they are fast swimmers and are migratory and thus almost always moving; they use their muscles extensively and so they contain a lot more myoglobin than most other sea-life.

For contrast, the white meat from chickens is made up of about .05% myoglobin with their thighs having about .2% myoglobin; pork and veal contain about .2% myoglobin; non-veal beef contains about 1%-2% of myoglobin, depending on age and muscle use.

The USDA considers all meats obtained from livestock to be “red” because they contain more myoglobin than chicken or fish.

Beef meat that is vacuum sealed, thus not exposed to oxygen, tends to be more of a purple shade. Once the meat is exposed to oxygen, it will gradually turn red over a span of 10-20 minutes as the myoglobin absorbs the oxygen.

Beef stored in the refrigerator for more than 5 days will start to turn brown due to chemical changes in the myoglobin. This doesn’t necessarily mean it has gone bad, though with this length of unfrozen storage, it may have. Best to use your nose to tell for sure, not your eyes.

Before you cook the red meat, the iron atom’s oxidation level is +2 and is bound to a dioxygen molecule (O2) with a red color; as you cook it, this iron loses an electron and goes to a +3 oxidation level, and now coordinates with a water molecule (H2O). This process ends up turning the meat brown.

Blood-Red Sangria Cocktail...
01:27 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 464






Prep Time10 MIN Total Time45 MIN Servings1

This citrusy martini gets its striking layered appearance from drops of sangria-inspired simple syrup made from red wine and dark sweet cherries (after all, “sangria” means “bleeding” in Spanish!). An “impaled” cherry adds the finishing touch.

Ingredients



Sangria Simple Syrup



1

cup sugar

1

cup red wine, such as Merlot or Zinfandel

1

cup dark sweet cherries, stemmed, pitted and halved

1

stick cinnamon

Strips of orange peel from 1 medium orange (orange part only)

Sangria Martini Cocktail



Ice cubes

3

tablespoons (1 1/2 oz) citron (citrus) vodka

2

tablespoons (1 oz) clear orange-flavored liqueur

2

tablespoons (1 oz) sangria simple syrup, chilled (above)

1

dark sweet cherry on a cocktail pick

Directions



1 To make simple syrup, in 1 1/2-quart saucepan, mix sangria simple syrup ingredients. Heat to boiling over medium heat. Simmer 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat; let cool 30 minutes. Strain mixture through fine mesh strainer; discard solids. Cover and chill sangria syrup until ready to use. Makes about 1 1/2 cups.

2 To make cocktail, fill cocktail shaker with ice. Add vodka and orange liqueur to cocktail shaker; cover and shake. Strain into martini glass. Drizzle sangria syrup into cocktail in glass. Garnish with cherry.

The Black Widow Martini...
01:25 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 465

Black Widow Martini



Prep Time10 MIN Total Time10 MIN Servings1

Do you dare to try this devilishly spirited cocktail? Black rum and crème de cacao, plus a bit of black food coloring, combine for a darkly delicious drink.

Recipe by Angie McGowan

Ingredients



1 1/2

oz black rum

3/4

oz crème de cacao

1

cup ice

Black food color

1

tablespoon brown sugar

Directions



1 Add black rum, crème de cacao, ice and 1 or 2 drops black food color to a martini shaker.

2 In small bowl, add brown sugar and 1 drop black food color. Mix with fork until all sugar is black. Wet rim of martini glass with water. Dip rim into sugar.

3 Strain martini into glass, and serve.

Cucumber-Dill Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes
01:23 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 466




Prep Time45 MIN Total Time2 HR 45 MIN Servings24

Blend snippets of fragrant fresh dill into cream cheese for an easy cherry-tomato filling.

Ingredients



24

cherry tomatoes

1

(3-oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened

2

tablespoons mayonnaise or salad dressing

1/4

cup finely chopped, seeded cucumber

1

tablespoon finely chopped green onions

2

teaspoons chopped fresh dill or 1/4 teaspoon dried dill weed

Directions



1 Remove stems from tomatoes. To level bottoms of tomatoes, cut thin slice from bottom of each. Starting at stem end and using small spoon or melon baller, carefully hollow out each tomato, leaving 1/8-inch shell. Invert tomato shells onto paper towels to drain.

2 In small bowl, combine cream cheese and mayonnaise; blend well. Stir in cucumber, onions and dill; mix well.

3 Fill tomato shells with cream cheese mixture; place on serving platter or tray. Cover loosely; refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to 24 hours before serving. Store in refrigerator.

The Vampire Drink...
01:19 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 469

Vampire

By RecipeNut 4.5 (6)





TOTAL TIME

1min

PREP 1 MIN





Dark & sweet

INGREDIENTS



SERVINGS 1 UNITS US

1 ounce Chambord raspberry liquor

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce cranberry juice





DIRECTIONS



Combine ingredients in a shaker over ice.

Serve as shots in a highball (rocks) glass.

Vampire Party... How to...
01:16 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 470




If anyone is getting VIP status these days, it's vampires. Look around—they're everywhere: in the bookstore, on television, on the big screen. Suddenly everyone is willing to overlook their party fouls (biting, blood-sucking, etc.) and embrace the craze. Here's how to slay your own vampire party in forbidden.



Set a Vampy Vibe

This "bloody good" Evite will set the tone for a vampy night, as will starting the party after dark. Create a creepy entrance by placing a fog machine near the front stoop. Inside, dim the lights, break out the candelabras and cover all the furniture with white sheets. Keep everyone on their toes by hanging a few garlic wreaths or braids around the house or placing some garlic bulbs in inconspicuous places (near the bathroom sink, along the windowsills, etc.).



Curate Creepy Details

Make your vampire guests feel at home with some ghoulish touches. Glue plastic spiders to toothpicks for appetizers or freeze them in ice cubes. You can also purchase fang ice cube trays. Cobwebs and decorative bats and ravens can be purchased at any party store to help set the scene. For added ambiance, play vintage vampire movies on mute and set Pandora to vampire movie soundtracks.



Feed Them Red

A vampire menu is simple to set. Just stick to red foods: tomatoes, cranberries, roasted red peppers, beets, etc., then add a dark twist. For example: Set out tomato soup in plastic takeout containers labeled "true blood;" serve beef tenderloin in a blood-red Merlot sauce; use red gel icing to decorate red velvet cupcakes with bight marks.



Put the Blood on Ice

Blood-red beverages are essential to any vampire party. Red wine can easily stand in for hemoglobin. Soak the wine bottles in warm water to remove their labels, then affix your own labels with the various blood types: A, B, AB, and O. You could also offer spooky sangria in a punch bowl smoking with dry ice. During cocktail hour serve our Smokey Bacon Bloody Mary in test tube vials for a killer pre-dinner shooter.

Goth girl, 15, found 'murdered' after posting her profile on vampire website By RICHARD SHEARS FOR MAILONLINE UPDATED: 16:41 EST, 19 October 2009
00:07 Mar 30 2016
Times Read: 475






Murdered: Carly Ryan's body was found by a swimmer on an Australian beach in 2007

Murdered: Carly Ryan was found dead in 2007 after posting her details on www.vampirefreaks.com

With her long dark hair and love of black Gothic clothing, it was no surprise that teenager Carly Ryan was attracted to a 'vampire' website.

But when Carly, aged just 15, posted her own photograph and personal details on the site, events took a fatal turn.

Now a father and son are accused of setting a trap that led to her alleged murder after her body was found by a swimmer on an Australian beach in 2007.

To this day, the website www.vampirefreaks.com features young women in provocative poses, amid photos that display items such as a black 'sexy psycho dress' and a 'sleeveless bondage dress', along with a music album called Zombie Girl - Blood Brains & Rock 'N' Roll.

Its members call themselves names such as PoisonedBeauty, Bloodthirsty and Psychosocial.

Carly is believed to have begun an internet romance through the website with a fictitious teenager called Brandon - who was actually the father and son who are now accused of murdering her.

Her body was found by an early morning swimmer in Horseshoe Bay, South Australia, in February 2007.

The father and son, who have not been named for legal reasons, appeared before the South Australian Supreme Court today.

The father said he pleaded 'guilty to manslaughter', while both he and his son pleaded not guilty to Carly's murder.

Prosecutor Tim Preston said the Crown did not accept the father's manslaughter plea - then went on to outline the case against the 50-year-old and his 18-year-old son.

Mr Preston said Carly's killers had seen her profile on the Gothic website vampirefreaks.com and the father had then concocted a 'cyberspace alter ego' called Shane.

The make-believe Shane wrote on the website that he was the father of an adopted teenager called Brandon, said Mr Preston.

Paradise Lost: Horseshoe Bay in Australia, near where Carly Ryan's body was found by an early morning swimmer in 2007

Paradise lost: Horseshoe Bay in Australia, near to where Carly's body was found. A father and son are accused of setting a trap that led to her alleged murder

As a result of his posting, internet contact was made between the father and son and Carly - the prosecutor telling the court 'that dialogue continued right up until her death'.

Carly, it was alleged, began to profess her love for Brandon over the internet - 'and she believed he loved her,' said Mr Preston.

'But Brandon was fictitious, an internet construct, the cyberspace alter-ego of the father, the son, or both of them.'

Carly believed the father was going to buy a property in Adelaide, South Australia, for her and Brandon to live in, said the prosecutor, and in January 2007 he travelled from his home in neighbouring Victoria to visit Carly.

With him he brought gifts for her - hundreds of dollars worth of clothing, including a corset and lingerie.

Mr Preston said the father had a sexual interest in Carly. He had allegedly told the teenager: 'I love you, I would never let anything happen to you - you are beautiful.'

But Carly told her mother that the man had 'touched her in a sexual way' before he returned to Victoria.

Weeks later, the court heard, the father and his son returned to Adelaide, where they were seen with Carly on the coast on February 19, 2007.

The following day, her body was found floating in shallow waters at nearby Horseshoe Bay.

The trial continues.





Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221429/Goth-girl-15-murdered-posting-profile-vampire-website.html#ixzz44Ku6Wg14

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Link to the first Book of Atlanteans...
16:34 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 491

https://sites.google.com/site/tribesofatlantis/Home/wisdom-of-the-first-book-of-atlanteans

Queen of Atlantis By Sarah Rees Brennan
16:30 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 492

The poison tides came in one burnt evening in late summer, and everybody knew it was time for the princess to be sacrificed.



Princess Mede knew it as well. She had learned at her old Nurse’s knee to count the seconds of summer as they slipped by, to measure the growing chill in the air until the day arrived when the tide rushed on the shore like an invading army, black as ink and filled with stinking debris. Those who dared go down onto the black and ruined beach reported seeing things as strange and disparate as swathes of rotted silk, dead dogs with bloated bellies and dolls’ heads. The waters brought death to everything they touched.



The princess had to be sacrificed or the tides would keep coming and the harvest would be lost.



Mede was quite looking forward to it. She’d never been sacrificed before.



On the morning of the day when she was due to be sacrificed, Mede almost forgot all about it. She wasn’t used to being the princess. She’d always been a princess, of course. Her parents were the king and queen, she lived in the palace and Nurse called her ‘Your Highness’ in an accusing tone whenever she caught Mede daydreaming.



Her sister Genia had always been the princess, the one who people meant when they said ‘our princess.’ The courtiers dressed up in hunting robes and hid in the gardens around the palace in order to catch a glimpse of Genia without blinds and folding fans in the way. Genia was effortlessly gracious, wrote flawless poetry on blossom-white paper and had a sad, noble beauty that people always remembered. They carried a picture of her face away in their minds and woke to thoughts of beauty in the night, so she was far more beautiful in memory than in reality.



Mede was younger and much less impressive, which meant she was free to spend her time in the gardens without many people asking for her. She sometimes resented Genia and sometimes admired her, and usually loved her. Now Genia was in a far country married to a king rich and important enough to deserve her beauty, Mede missed her.



As a child she’d dreamed of miraculously becoming more important than her sister, of being the princess who unveiled and rode in parades. Now she was that princess, and the parades bored her.



Mede was able to lose all Genia’s former ladies-in-waiting and escape over the crest of one green hill. She was pruning a hedge when she looked up through the tiny leaves, veiling her vision like soft green lace, and in the distance saw the sun blazing high over the sea. That was when she remembered she was due to be sacrificed that afternoon.



She picked up her skirts and ran, worried that she was going to be late, and Nurse told her off as she scrambled into her golden gown. The ceremonial dress was gold-embroidered and the iridescent sleeves fell to her feet in layers that gleamed with all the colors inside a seashell. It did not flow over her body as it had over Genia’s but stayed in stiff folds, as if it was not used to her and could not get comfortable.



When it was time to go Nurse was still trying to put her hair up in the elaborate gold combs without wisps escaping. Mede was trying to remember everything Genia had told her about the ceremony.



It wasn’t meant to be very difficult. Her father would say the ceremonial words, offering his virgin daughter as a living sacrifice to the sea. All Mede had to do was agree and climb into the boat, then wait to be drifted back to shore. It was just a symbolic offering and for some reason it made the poison tides stop. It was nothing.



It was the first useful thing Mede had been asked to do for her country, a chance to be a real princess. And she was already late.



Everyone was gathered at the harbor, wearing bright clothes and standing solemn as if they were in the temple. Her father looked relieved when she appeared and her mother gave her a kind smile directed slightly to one side, as if Genia was still standing next to Mede and she felt she should divide her smiles equally.



Mede stood between her parents and smiled around at her people. They filed past her one by one, acting as witnesses. An old woman Mede bought seeds from gave her a kiss.



“Bless your sweet face,” she said.



Mede crushed down the uneasy urge to hide behind her fan and smiled for the crowd.



The vague idea she had of her people coalesced into the sight of these faces, some familiar, all approving. Beyond them the sea stretched in a glittering sheet of light. The sun made her gown sparkle so it looked like she was wearing a piece of the sea.



Her father took the golden cord and wrapped it around her wrists, tying them tight.



“In the sight of my people and for the love of my land, I hereby commit our princess to the sea.”



He gave her bound hands a reassuring shake, teeth gleaming in his beard, a private smile. As he continued the ceremony Nurse took a firm grip on Mede’s shoulders and corrected her posture as she had done a thousand times.



“Remember you’re a princess,” she said. “Do this with a little grace.”



Her father turned to her again. “My daughter, do you go a willing sacrifice into the sea?”



Mede held her bound hands out to the people and bowed her head. “I do.”



Her mother bent close, perfume sweet and breath warm against Mede’s face. “You’ll be home before teatime, my darling.”



Her father led her to the boat and helped her lie down on the bottom, head fitted inside the curved prow. The shape of the boat cradled her, the planks sun-warmed and time-worn beneath her. She felt the surge of the waves beneath the boat and the impact as it was launched.



She heard the cheers of her people like music or the sound of bells, distant already, the sound rising clear into the sky.



Then there was nothing but the shushing noise of waves as they lapped the small boat. Mede lifted her head, tried to snatch a last look at the harbor and home, but all she saw was the dazzling movement of light on water. She rested her head back against the bottom of the boat, closing her eyes. Afterimages of that light lingered in buttery streaks against the blackness behind her eyelids.



She crossed her hands over her breast and let it all wash over her, the light of the sun, the rocking of her boat and the sound of the sea all coming together in one great rush of sensation. She turned her head, resting her cheek against the warm wood at the bottom of the boat, and was lulled into drowsiness by the peace and the thought of going home having achieved something, served her people, been a true princess. Like Genia.



Everything was calm.



#



Mede woke and everything was chaos.



She sat bolt upright and grabbed for the side of the boat, feeling the lurch and hearing the rasp of the bottom against rocks. She’d woken sick and breathless, she must have been shocked out of sleep when the boat hit—



Splinters pierced her palms as she clung to the side, the wind freezing and the sea spray stinging her eyes. The sound of the waves had become a threatening roar and she could see nothing.



Her hair was in her face, a sodden veil that obscured the world. She blinked frantically, trying to focus, but then she felt the crunch of the helm against stone, felt the terrible tip of the boat and knew that it was too far gone.



The boat flipped and she hit the water with a smack, knowing nothing but icy shock for a moment before she realized that she was not drowning but on her hands and knees among the rocks.



The sea was stinking and the water felt oily, clotted with filth. Disgust dragged her up, so she was on her feet and staggering onto dry land before she could see.



Mede splashed through the water and stumbled onto dry land. Only when her knees buckled did she realize she had torn them open on the rocks earlier. She staggered but stayed on her feet and pushed the hair out of her eyes. Her hands stung as she did so and she stared down at them: the first thing she saw in this strange land was her own blood.



The rocks must have ripped the skin off her palms too. She curled her fingers over the open wounds and stared around. For a moment all she could see was blackness. Then she blinked a few times and began to piece the nightmarish fragments she could make out into some kind of sense.



The heaving darkness behind her was the sea and the darkness filled with pale wisps like ghosts torn to shreds must be the sky. In front of her loomed a still and unrelieved darkness. For a moment she took it for cliffs, but the shapes were wrong.



They were buildings. No matter where she had washed up, on what filthy poisoned shore, there must be some help to be found.



Mede strode forward and felt one of her wet, trailing sleeves catch on something. She did not stop to wrestle with the material, just let it rip away. The silk unraveled layer by layer past her elbow, leaving one arm naked, filthy and bleeding. She shivered in the cold and strode forward, and thought grimly that nobody would ever believe she was a princess.



#



The wind ceased howling as soon as she left the shore. Mede found herself on a broken road, breathing dead air.



The air smelled as horrible as the water, stinking as if the whole city was dead.



The city looked dead. The curving road looked like a smile full of broken teeth. Mede stumbled through the gaps and gazed desperately into every window she passed. They were all dark. There was no sign of light or movement in the entire city.



The buildings were porous stone, covered in a screen of slick black filth until they looked like they were made of rotting mushrooms. The silence seemed to lend the foul air a dense quality: Mede found it hard to take proper breaths, and even harder to see why she kept walking through these streets.



There was no hope to be found here. Nobody could live in this city. She was walking through a wasteland.



She did not turn around because there was nowhere to go but back into the sea. These deserted, crumbling buildings were no good to her, but up ahead there were the looming dark walls of a palace.



It was nothing like the palace back home, no graceful structure with curving roofs and surrounding gardens. It was a vast pyramid-like mass squatting like a giant black toad in the ruined city. The walls were covered in the same patina of dirt as the other buildings, but they were whole and promised shelter. She could rest there until morning came.



The gates to the palace were open. One gate was so open it was lying on the ground, half-hidden beneath the enveloping dirt. As Mede walked in she stood on it and the iron was so rusted that it crunched into something like ash beneath her feet.



The door to the palace was open too. It was a long narrow rectangle that made her think of a coffin.



She stepped inside and was engulfed by the stench of death.



The domed hall of the palace and the wide staircase might have been impressive once, but now it was all covered with the same greasy filth as everything outside. Now the hall looked like a dark cavern and the staircase like a pile of blackened bones.



All around her was that terrible smell, as if she was in the belly of some dead beast.



Mede touched her face and felt an unpleasant layer of coolness on her skin. The stone of this city was corrupt: what would happen to flesh and blood in this stinking air?



In that air a sound rang out, making Mede spin and almost fall. She clenched her fists and told herself not to be stupid. A sound was a good thing. It meant there might be help, even here.



The noise rose from a dark opening which Mede looked at and thought vault, and then told herself no, cellar.



The steps down to the cellar were dark and narrow. She tried to go down carefully, but when she missed her footing and grabbed at the wall to support herself her hands slid and found no purchase on the stone. She landed on her face in wet rubble, pulled herself up on her hands and knees and saw a rat scurrying away under a pile of fallen rafters and stones.



A rat. Mede gave a dry little laugh, strangled as soon as born.



“So,” she said aloud. “You and I are the only ones alive in this place.”



“That’s not quite true,” said a voice behind her.



Mede scrambled to sit up, to turn and see who was speaking, and her movement must have startled the rat. It streaked out of its hiding place and Mede saw its left side for the first time: saw the fur hanging like an open coat to show a flash of bone, the empty twisted blackness where an eye should have been.



The voice was dark and low, like polluted water running underground.



It said: “The rat’s not alive.”



#



Mede reached out in the oily water and grabbed a rafter. She stood with the rotten log grasped in both hands, and turned ready to swing.



He was standing at the bottom of the stairs.



When he moved she fled, running through the water to the wall. She braced her back against the stone and told herself she’d moved because she couldn’t leave herself unprotected on all sides.



The real reason was that she couldn’t bear for him to come any closer.



He moved in a terrible, liquid way, as if he no longer had muscles and sinews. He reminded her of an eel winding through mud.



He was more or less the shape of a boy, though all the details were wrong.



With every smooth, boneless step he took towards her, the smell of corruption grew stronger. She wanted to be sick, and then cry.



“You’re planning to hit me?” he asked softly.



Mede tried to sound braver than she felt. “Not if you leave me alone!”



“So I’ll leave you alone,” the monster said. “Then what?”



He sounded mildly curious. Mede swallowed, tasting bitterness.



“I don’t—I don’t understand.”



“You’ll be alone,” the monster said. “The storm will go on. There will be no way home. We’re all being quiet for you now, but once I tell them you won’t even speak to me my people will begin to stir. You will sit in this cellar alone and alive, listening to the sounds of the dead moving among you. No food grows in a dead land. You’ll starve here. Maybe you will go mad before you die. If I leave you alone.”



She thought she might go mad if he didn’t leave, that she might prefer to die alone rather than look at his face for another second.



He was talking sense, though. Even coming from the lips of a monster in a nightmare city, Mede could appreciate that.



“If you don’t?” she asked. “Then what happens?”



He coughed, a terrible sound that made her think of the possibility of—things wriggling, dislodged, in his lungs.



“Listen to what I have to say. Then the storm will pass and you can go home.”



“How do I know you’re not lying?” she whispered.



“I don’t lie!” he shouted, storming towards her, and his hideous eel-like grace and every dead, discolored detail of his face filled her vision, hit her like a punch to the stomach, knocked her down so she was crouching, sick and trembling, in that cold water.



She was still holding onto the rafter. She’d hit him if he tried to grab her, she thought with a kind of mad calm. She’d hit him and hit him until he was dead twice over.



She waited for the monster to try.



The monster said, a little awkwardly: “I’m—sorry.”



Mede froze, staring at the greenish black color of the hand at her eye level. Rotted lace hung across the back, like an old wet spiderweb.



“I lost my temper. Doing this again… It’s not your fault.”



“I want to go home,” Mede said, very low.



He sounded angry again, though trying to control it, as he answered: “You will.”



“Then I’ll,” Mede swallowed. “I’ll listen to what you have to say. I’ll—trust you.”



“You can,” the monster told her almost gently. “Your sister came back every time, didn’t she?”



All the breath left Mede in one quick, shocked gasp.



“Genia! She never said—”



“She wouldn’t have.”



The monster offered Mede his horrible hand. It was so clearly a courtier’s gesture, a gentleman ready to help a lady to her feet, that Mede was more startled than horrified. She stared at him with her mouth open and he snatched his hand away.



He stepped back, and she thought that was truly gentlemanly. He could see she did not want to be close to him and he was obeying her wishes without a word or a look of reproach.



Mede hesitated, then uncurled her stiff fingers from around the rafter and let it slip away into the water. She rose and stood unarmed before the monster.



“Come with me,” he said.



#



The monster led her into the domed hall and then up a winding staircase. There was an iron railing fixed in the stone wall that might once have been beautiful, a rendering of an iron vine trailing tiny iron flowers, but now it was blackened and parts were missing. Mede did not touch it. She just took care as she climbed.



Looking at the monster’s back was much better than looking at his face. One shoulder was higher than another and his hair hung in lank damp locks, but that wasn’t so bad. If it hadn’t been for the smell, she could have pretended he was alive.



“What’s your name?”



“Mede,” she said cautiously.



“That’s a nickname like Genia. Is it short for Medea or Andromeda?”



Mede actually had forty-seven names inscribed on a scroll in carmine and gold. She tried to visualize it, but it had never seemed very real to her. She did not need a piece of paper to tell her what her name was.



“I don’t know. Does it matter?”



“It might,” the monster said quietly. “The names belong to very different stories.”



Mede did not care about stories. She cared about her sister.



“Genia,” she said hesitantly. “Why would she not have warned me?”



“Because she is ashamed of her country and ashamed of herself,” the monster answered.



“Because she knows why the poison tides come in.”



They reached the top of the stairs and Mede found herself facing a huge window. Outside the barren lands spread black and ruined before her sight, the city of roads like shattered teeth and broken towers like stumps where limbs should have been. The lands beyond might once have been fields and were now a putrid swamp.



She clung to the crumbling windowsill. “What happened?”



Mede was desperate enough to look directly at the monster. He was standing to one side in the shadows, looking out the window. His head was slightly bowed, his face in profile: it was not so bad.



“There was war between our countries, once,” he said. “We were alive then, and your country was different too, young and fierce. It was all—so long ago. I don’t remember what it was about. All I remember is that both our countries were weak and ruined by war, and there seemed no way for either side to win.”



He inclined his head and Mede was shocked again by how courtly the gesture was. She might have been standing on a palace balcony with a noble who knew her well enough to make his ‘Shall we go?’ a silent question.



She went with him down a long gallery, the walls lined with frames that seemed at first to contain dark mirrors.



On closer inspection, they were portraits. This was a royal gallery, like a sad ghost of the one at home. Mede studied the pictures as they passed rather than looking out the windows. She was dreading the end of the story.



The monster did not seem eager to continue, either. He stopped and looked at the picture she was looking at. It might have felt like she was a guest being shown around a strange palace, if she had shut her eyes.



She glanced at his shoulder, not able to force her gaze up to his face, and nodded at him.



“A peace treaty was drawn up,” he said softly. “A marriage was arranged.”



Mede had expected an account of a cataclysmic battle, the blood-soaked conclusion to the story. She almost laughed with relief.



“Oh, a marriage!”



The monster’s voice sounded a little startled by her laugh, a little relaxed by it. “Yes, between the crown prince of my land and the eldest princess of yours. The princess was very beautiful,” he added, as if wishing to be fair.



It was a small thing: that the story was turning out well, that the monster was prepared to be pleasant, but it felt as if someone had opened a door a chink and let light in on utter darkness.



Mede was so glad she felt a little silly.



“What was the prince like?”



“Oh.” It was strange hearing a monster laugh. “He wasn’t so bad.”



She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and saw him nod towards the picture before them. Mede examined it more carefully and saw that it was a young man.



The painting wore a veneer of filth and a tracery of fine lines, but under the veil of time and decay she was just able to make out a face.



He had shadowy eyes and rather a sweet smile. The artist must have been good, Mede thought, to have captured a face that usually kept its secrets in an unguarded moment and left an impression of how fleeting that moment had been. The details of the scene were lost, but the prince seemed to be striding long-legged through a green wood with a peregrine falcon on his wrist. The falcon’s wings were spread open, ready to fly, and the prince’s long dark hair had fallen curved across his face, lifting in a long-gone wind as if it was a wing too.



“He wasn’t so bad,” Mede agreed. “So what came next? Tell me what happened to the prince.”



The monster leaned in a little too close. He was not near enough to be inappropriate for a gentleman but too close for a monster, his cold cheek almost brushing hers and sending shocks of horror down her spine.



There was no more laughter between them now. He whispered in her ear, his voice chilly and terribly gentle, so low it seemed intimate. It gave her the feeling of a dead hand stroking her hair: it tied her stomach in knots.



“Should I?” the monster murmured caressingly. “Do you really want to know?”



Mede looked up at him in fear, and knew.



It was some trick of dim light or moving shadow cast by the tattered, tossing clouds in the stormy sky. It smoothed the monster’s straggling hair and his rough skin, cast a faint gleam on his dull dead eyes. Under the puffy, discolored skin she could make out high cheekbones, and a look: all hope lost and all secrets kept. She recognized a certain tilt to his unsmiling mouth, the curve of his face.



“Oh no,” Mede pleaded.



“Oh yes,” said the prince.



Mede turned away from the picture and the monster, leaned against the stone wall and swallowed a few times, her throat aching with no way to ease it. She knew what she should have realized from the start, that the monster’s story could have no happy ending.



“The princess,” she said, her mouth dry. “What happened to the princess?”



“Come. I’ll show you.”



Mede looked around and saw he had stepped back all the way across the room, and pushed open a door. A dark flight of steps lay beyond it.



He gestured toward the door and she was surprised for a moment without knowing why. Then it came to her: a gentleman would have held the door for her and ushered her through. He had offered her his hand in the cellar, shown her into the gallery. She had come to expect he would act like a gentleman.



He obviously knew what a violent contrast his portrait presented. He’d seen the knowledge strike her like a blow.



Like a gentleman, he was holding aloof so as not to distress her further.



Mede looked at him directly, and did not look away. He was staring at the floor and there was no light softening his face, but she kept looking and pieced together the fragments of what he had been: a knife-bridge nose, hooded eyelids. He’d been well-made once, and was still tall.



Pity went through her like a blade, scything away horror.



“Won’t you,” she said, the words tumbling suddenly out of her mouth. “Won’t you give me your arm?”



His eyes snapped up to her face. She thrust out her hand abruptly, before she could lose her nerve under that dead gaze, and gave him an encouraging nod.



“If you please,” she said breathlessly.



He straightened up and smiled at her, the smile from the portrait undimmed by horror or the years. It was slow and bright, a little crooked, tentative more than shy. It lit up his face like sunlight turning a ruined city to gold.



“Of course, my lady,” said the prince.



He made her a sweeping bow and offered her his arm. She took it at once, not allowing herself to hesitate, and held it tightly. She refused to let herself flinch.



It was not like touching living flesh, but his shoulder was a broad solid support behind hers.



There was comfort as well as terror in this.



They climbed the stairs of the tower together.



#



At the top of the tower there was a room, and in the room there was a bed, and on the bed there was a princess.



The room was high above the dead city and untouched by its corruption. The walls were white and softly curved: pearly, and the bed was draped with gauze and silk flowers. It was a boudoir for a royal bride, and amid the veils and roses the royal bride lay sleeping.



The dust of years was grey on her face. There would be no waking from this sleep.



“She looks like—my sister,” Mede whispered.



“Yes.”



The prince moved to the window, gazing out at his city. He didn’t seem much interested in the dead princess. Of course, he would have had his chance to look his fill at her.



“The heralds said she was beautiful,” he remarked, and Mede understood him a little better.



The indifferent lounging against the window was about as real as his careless stride towards her in the cellar. His shoulders were hunched in a little, his face averted because he did not want to look at the princess.



This mattered to him.



“I was happy to hear it. I was—nervous about the wedding, about being tied to someone who had been brought up to hate my people, but I liked the idea of a beautiful barbarian princess.”



The short, cynical laugh was obviously forced. “I wasn’t half as nervous as I should have been.”



“What happened?” Mede asked. “Tell me the end of the story.”



The prince slanted a look over his shoulder at her, secretive and almost amused. She could not tell if there was any possibility of sympathy in that look.



“Oh, like all good stories, it ends with a wedding.”



“Oh, you—you married her?” Mede said. “Oh.”



The prince hesitated, and then used her name for the first time. “Yes, Mede. I married her.



“I said that she would be part of my country and that watching over her would be the duty of everyone in the land, and my duty most of all. She promised she would be part of my country and that as she prospered or failed, so would the land. She kept her promise. We went up to our wedding bower and—I remember the precise moment. My people were cheering outside the window. There was blossom in the air. She was lying on the bed. I was—unlacing my shirt. She said a spell. She damned herself and my country with her. She killed herself and left my people, dead, to watch over her, dead. She spoke words I did not understand and suddenly everything was death. And since then, every day, everything has been death. Nothing has ever changed.”



Mede looked out at his city of the dead and then back at the princess’s still, lovely face.



Genia had returned from her first sacrifice more beautiful than ever, as if her beauty had been through a fire of pain and come out tempered into something finer. Mede thought she understood that now.



“We sent our princess to destroy your people,” she said slowly.



The prince inclined his head. “I used to hate you all for that. But it was all so long ago. Your country was different, then. It’s beautiful now, isn’t it?”



Mede thought of the light through the leaves in her garden.



“It’s beautiful. But the poison tides still come.”



“Everything changes in time,” said the prince. “Everything but us.”



“Because of us,” said Mede. “And every year the tide comes from your country to mine to—to claim a sacrifice who will hear the story and bear the shame for her people?”



The prince held her gaze in silence and, at last, shook his head.



“Why would we need a princess as an audience? The tides come to claim a promise. They come to claim me a true bride.”



Mede stared at his face, feeling horror flood her as if she was seeing it for the first time.



“You?” she whispered. “A bride?”



“Me,” the prince whispered back, in a faint terrified voice that was a bitter mockery of hers.



Then he looked down, the corner of his mouth turning down too. “I’m sorry.”



“Oh no, it’s not—” Mede began, and stopped. Her only alternatives were to insult him or lie.



“What use would a bride be?”



The prince coughed, a wet rasping sound that made her uneasily aware of all the decay within him. She wanted to laugh at the sheer macabre idea of it, a bride, for something like him. She wanted to cry.



“The theory is that a true bride would break the spell. Make these dry bones live,” said the prince, and stared at his slimy cuffs. “Or make sure the city sinks under the waves and never rises again.”



“Those are very different things!”



“I don’t know. Life or death. Either one would be an answer.”



“It would be a help if you knew which one was the r-right answer!”



The prince gave her a single look. There was a quality of stillness about him, like one of the artificial pools in her garden. She hung lanterns over those pools, and nothing living ever disturbed the smooth bright surface of the waters.



His look held her still too.



“Why?” he asked. “Would you be willing, if you knew which it would be? Every year the tides come to you, and a princess comes to us, and every year a princess turns away.”



“My sister,” Mede said. “She always did the right thing.”



“She always said the right thing,” the prince said. “She looked the part, but she couldn’t play it. She was just like all the others: she came, and she saw, and she did nothing!”



“Have you,” she started, and her voice cracked and broke on her dry tongue. “Have you ever been tempted to keep one by force?”



“Yes,” murmured the prince.



His voice was soft, at a safe remove, but in one swift terrible movement he came toward her. He seemed to be faster than sound for an instant, so his voice was still pleasant and distant while his face was inches from hers and his cold hand was clamped on her wrist.



“We have been betrayed. We have been doomed to a rotting eternity. And every year I have to watch girls like your sister turn away!” The prince’s eyes burned: they almost looked alive.



“So yes,” he whispered. “I’ve been tempted.”



His grip on her wrist tightened. She felt the chill of his fingers deep in her bone. She wondered, thought balanced on the edge of panic, what he was going to do to her.



He lifted her trapped hand and bowed his head over it. “I do not have much. But I like to think I have some honor left.”



He released her wrist and stepped back.



Mede took a faltering step towards him, then bowed from the waist. “I beg your pardon!”



“I’m sorry,” the prince said. “You have been very courteous to me. It was unforgivable of me to scare you.”



They stood for a moment silent and apart. Mede looked at the prince and thought about her sister, Genia the beautiful and noble, the one true princess. She had heard his story and turned away.



A princess of Mede’s own country had sworn an oath and broken it, and the poison tide came to them because of that. The tide would keep coming, tainting their land with death and dishonor every year. She thought of her beautiful serene country, of her rolling hills and perfectly designed gardens. The evening glory was dying in her garden now, but there would be firebushes throwing out blazing colors soon.



Her country would never be free of shame because no princess would be true. No princess would make a real sacrifice.



“You can go home now,” the prince said. “The storm is dying. The boat will be waiting.”



Mede thought of the calm safe promise of harbor and home, and thought she understood Genia. All she had to do was walk away. Nobody would ever know, except her and the dead.



Everyone would welcome her home and tell her she had done her duty.



It would be a lie, though.



“Wait,” Mede said, and found her voice was too shaky to go on. She felt as if she was trying to stand up in her boat during a storm, already dangerously unsteady and about to be knocked off her feet and hurled into dark waters. She took a deep breath and tried to find a calm center, a place in the storm of her own fear where she could stand and think.



There was no such place. Her voice was still wobbly when she went on: “I haven’t given you an answer.”



The quality of the prince’s silence changed. It had been the quiet of obviously familiar despair, but suddenly there was no possibility of gentleness about him. His body was tense, his gaze hooded and intent.



“The poison tides would never come again. And we—we might live.”



The prince nodded once, carefully as if she was a wild animal who might bolt at a sudden word.



Mede took a deep breath of bitter air.



“Then for the love and duty I owe my land, I come to you a willing s-sacrifice.”



She had meant to sound so dignified and resolute. She hated herself a little for the way her voice trembled on that last word.



The prince hesitated, hair fallen in his face, and she saw his lowered eyelids, heard the quick intake of breath and realized he was shy. She moved towards him before she remembered he was a monster.



“You could go now,” he said, speaking very quickly. “You could go and live and—you could come back next year. You’re very young. You don’t have to do this now.”



The idea of going home was like a drop of honey spilled on her tongue, filling her mouth with sweetness and her mind with longing. She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined her garden.



“If I turn away once,” she said, very low. “I won’t come back.”



Mede thought of her sister’s sad face. Perhaps Genia had meant to return and do the right thing.



She opened her eyes and the vision of her garden was lost. The monster’s face was before her. She thrust out both her hands.



“I am for you,” she said. “Tell me what I have to do.”



The monster did not touch her, but there was a look on his face that she thought might mean he would have liked to.



“Wait,” he said, and turned away.



He walked towards the bridal bed where his sleeping princess lay and Mede watched with a strange feeling in her chest she could not quite make sense of. Surely it was impossible to be jealous of the dead, and ridiculous to be jealous about the dead.



The prince stooped over the bed, brushing back a tress from the princess’s face gently, as if he was afraid she might wake. He slid the ring from her finger as he touched her lips with his own. Once he had taken the kiss and the ring he drew back just a fraction and watched her as if at some time, long after death, bitterness had suffered a sea change into something painful and patient.



“Goodbye.”



Under the weight of their stares the princess crumbled to dust. Soon all that was left of her beauty was the dull shine of dust on her bridal bed and the gleam of a ring in the prince’s dead hand.



There were three cups on the end of the bed. The prince picked up the tiny tray and brought it to her. There had probably been sake in these cups once, but now there was nothing but dust.



There would be no priest to perform a purifying ritual for them, shaking his staff over all present. There would be no chance to present offerings to the sacred tree. It was just the two of them in this dead city. It felt like a nightmare of two children pretending to get married.



She pretended to drink three times from each cup, and so did he. The taste of dust clung to her lips.



The tips of their fingers almost touched reaching for the cups, but not quite.



She held herself braced for his touch, feeling like a soldier going into battle, determined not to betray her country. A soldier should not show fear. A bride must not show disgust.



She expected his skin to be as slimy as the castle walls but his hands were dry, if rough. His touch felt as impersonal as the slide of the metal ring onto her finger.



She crooked her finger to keep it on and looked up to find him still bowed over her, and felt a jolt in her chest when she realized what was about to happen.



When he touched her again, it did not feel impersonal. He held her arm where it was covered with cloth, still being a gentleman, and the fact she could rely on him to be courteous made her relax. She put her hand on his shoulder, feeling her face grow a little hot. She had never been this close to a man not related to her before.



He lowered his head very slowly and she knew he was trying to be polite, that he pitied her and she pitied him too. She thought the mutual pity had formed a connection between them, had become warm enough to be called sympathy. She turned her face up to his and met his lips, shivering at the thought of the monster stalking her in the cellar, the prince smiling in his picture frame, the smell of corruption in her nostrils and the comfort of his supporting touch on the dark stairs to this room. And this touch, now.



He did not have to breathe, but she did. She came to the realization that she needed air at the same time that she realized that her arms were around his neck.



She stepped away quickly. He did not try to stop her.



“Is that—all?” she asked. She could not look at him, this time out of shyness rather than horror. “Are we—”



“I think so,” the prince replied, and hastily added: “Thank you.”



She had never heard him sound so young. It made her smile.



She stopped smiling as she asked: “When will we know if—what’s going to happen?”



“Sunrise,” the prince said. “It shouldn’t be long.”



“Oh,” said Mede.



She remembered Nurse’s stories of monsters and brides and curses. It occurred to her that these stories never mentioned a long wait, or the awkwardness of being newly married to someone very strange.



Mede did not feel entirely steady on her legs, so she went and sat on the bridal bed. She froze amid dust and lace when she thought of how that must look.



He was still a gentleman. He sat on a chair by the bed, and they looked at each other a little desperately. Looking at him from a distance and dispassionately, she could not quite believe what she had done.



She looked down at the embroidery on the bed, and curled the fingers that had clasped his neck into her palm.



“What things did you like to do when you were…” she began.



The question seemed ridiculous, but she had to ask. She’d married him, after all, and if everything went well the country would be healed and he would be beautiful and what, oh, what would they talk about?



“I had a falcon,” the prince said slowly, as if trying to remember. “I liked to go hunting. Not to go hunting—not to kill—but to have some time on my own, to be quiet. If—I could show you how to carry a falcon on your wrist.”



Mede’s hand was restless on the embroidered sheets, moving across the silk without her own permission.



“I like gardening,” she said. “If I’d been a man and not a princess, a master gardener told me, I could have been apprenticed and designed my own. I know the names of every plant in my garden.”



The prince saw what she was trying to do. He reached out and lightly took her hand.



“You might like to help rebuild the gardens here,” he said. “We could go out to be on our own. You could teach me all the names.”



Mede smiled without looking up. “I might like to carry a falcon on my wrist.”



He told her, his voice still slow with the effort of recollection but becoming faster and more certain, about takagiri and tiercels. She told him about the crape myrtles still flowering at home, about how she always looked forward to winter and plum blossoms. They held on to each other’s hands and she had the thought, small and hopeful as a blossom in winter, that there might be a happy ending to this story after all.



The first pale fingers of the rising sun came through the window as they were talking, and Mede looked up at his face.



She was braced to see someone she did not know, to see the prince from the portrait, and for a moment she was relieved to see her prince’s familiar face. Then she realized what that meant.



They held hands more tightly than before as they looked out of the window at the rising waters. The sunrise was tinting the waves and the black ruins of the city were transformed under the glittering ocean: the city was turning into gold.



The city would lie at the bottom of the sea forever now, all the nightmares washed away. The dead would become pearly bones and the palace would be a shadowed cavern full of treasures and mysteries. The poison tides would never come again.



Mede was so scared.



“Your parents,” she whispered, thinking of her own parents, of leaving the harbor and her mother telling her she would be home in time for tea. “Do you want to say goodbye to them?”



Her prince’s voice did not waver. It stayed to the end a gentleman’s voice, promising protection and keeping his promise.



“Do you think I would leave you here alone?”



“No. Thank you,” she murmured, her ears full of the whispering of the waves, her eyes almost blinded by gold.



This was being a princess: paying the price of someone else’s treachery, making the best of a strange marriage, going down with a city.



Remember you’re a princess, said Nurse’s voice in her mind. Do this with a little grace.



Mede reached out and took hold of her prince’s arm, tugged him towards her and onto the bed. She sat leaning against him for a moment, breathing in and finding a moment of peace. She could accept this.



She spoke quietly, her voice almost drowned by the sound of the sea.



“It’s our wedding day,” she said. “Kiss me again.”

Sarah Rees Brennan is the author of the acclaimed Demon’s Lexicon trilogy, which concludes with The Demon’s Surrender in 2011. She was born and raised in Ireland by the sea, where her teachers valiantly tried to make her fluent in Irish (she wants you to know it’s not called Gaelic), but she chose to read books under her desk in class instead. After living briefly in New York and doing a creative writing MA and library work in Surrey, England, she has returned to Dublin, Ireland, to write. Her Irish is still woeful, but she feels the books under the desk were worth it.

10 Lost Underwater Cities of the Ancient World...Safia Banu
16:25 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 493

10 Lost Underwater Cities of the Ancient World



Sufia Banu 0 Comments





We’ve all heard of the legend of Atlantis – the once great city, submerged under water, unseen yet eerily compelling. But unlike this fictional island there are several real lost cities buried under layers of water waiting to be discovered. Today we bring you 10 lost underwater cities of the ancient world that were once lost in time but has been discovered and are being explored.



10. Canudos, Brazil

Canudos, Lost Underwater Cities

This small Brazilian town has got a quiet a history. There were suspicions that a preacher named Antonio the Counselor was organising an uprising with poor farmers and slaves against the government. After about a year of struggle with a few successes impressive resistance, when the uprising came to an end on 5th October 1897, story goes that there was only one child, one old man and two adults left. Decades later a dam was built near the town to deal with droughts but in the 1970s it ended up flooding what remained of the place. Today the revolutionary town lies at the pit of a man-made lake.



9. Tyno Helig, UK

Tyno Helig, Lost Underwater Cities

Regarded as Wales’ Atlantis, Tyno Helig is sometime considered part legend and part of it is based on reality. The story goes that a lord’s daughter fell in love with a common man. The man wanting to be with his love and he made a plan. He stabbed a nobleman on his back and stole his gold collar. He came before the lord and told him that he won the collar in a fair fight and married the woman he loved. On the night after the wedding the noble man’s ghost came and cursed the couple. Generations later the curse started to take effect when the waves slowly gulped the castle where they lived. Today some say the castle tops are sometimes seen peeking out from the water.



8. Willow Grove, USA

Willow Grove, Lost Underwater Cities

Located in the murky depths of Dale Hollow Lake, the once thriving town – Willow Grove got its name from the trees that bordered the area. The town had everything you’d expect to see in a town, church, grocery store and apparently one of the largest schools in the area. During the World War most of the men went to the frontiers and died. Soon the government set their eyes on the picturesque place and began building dams. Later the area got flooded and today bows the Willow Groves sit in the bottom of a crystal clear lake.



7. Dunwich, England

Dunwich, Lost Underwater Cities

Dunwich was a port city and was once a religious centre where Christians came to set off for the Crusades. Now a tiny fishing village with only over a 100 people, Dunwich was once the 10th largest city in England almost as big as London today. For long the city had been dealing with rough weather and at one point it resulted in serious erosion. By the 15th century the once thriving city with its cathedrals, houses, and port structures was washed under water.



6. Doggerland, North Sea

Doggerland Lost Underwater Cities

In ancient times, the Doggerland was home to Mesolithic tribes in the North Sea. Now a mere speck, once they were a continuous mass of land joining England with Europe about 20,000 years ago. Historians call the Doggerland the north’s Garden of Eden where life (both human and animal) was on its full swing, until the sea level started rising and swallowed large chunks of the land masses. Before the flooding, Doggerland was largely occupied with fishermen and hunters.





5. Baiae, Italy

Baiae, Lost Underwater Cities

An ancient Roman city that was something like the vacation homes of the rich and fabulous. Sitting on a series of volcanic vents, the city had a number of hot springs and this constant source of water was partly responsible in making the place popular. When the water started to rise, fate of Baiae kind of became inevitable. Its visitors found new cities to splurge their golds on. A great number of ruined monuments are found including the Pisonian villa which Emperor Nero had seized in the first century BC from a family who had been plotting to kill him.



4. Atlit-Yam, Israel

Atlit-Yam, Lost Underwater Cities

A number of Neolithic settlements located along the Carmel coast are called the Atlit-Yam. A sprawling site built between 7,550 and 8,000 years ago there still remain foundations of houses and roads and wells. The city was wiped out when a sudden Tsunami caused by a volcanic eruption swept the whole city away. In the middle of the city there is a devotional place where supposedly the water spirit was worshipped. Around 65 skeletons an remains of men, women and children who died from tuberculosis which is believed to be one of the first mass deadly disease to sweep the ancient civilisation.



3. Gulf of Cambay, India

Dwarka Gulf of Cambay

A fairly recent discovery, the Gulf of Cambay was discovered quiet accidentally when an organisation was testing water bodies for water pollution. Following its discovery historians are rethinking if this is the oldest city on Earth, older than the Harappan and Mesopotamian city. Human skeleton and teeth had dated the Gulf of Cambay nearly 9,500 years old. Some even believe that the founder of Harappan civilisation were actually descendants of Gulf of Cambay who left the city before it went under the sea.



2. Pre-Incan Ruins in Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

Lost Underwater Cities

Lake Titicaca has got quite a mysterious air about it and many locals consider the place sacred. Sitting at the bottom of the lake among other things is a temple, terraces, roads around 1,500 years old pre-dating the Incas. According to Incas lore the city was called Wanaku and was kind of a deposit bank for stolen gold and treasures by Spanish kings but the treasures were lost in time. After making around 200 dives, the divers from the Akakor Geographical Exploring have recovered several artifacts like stone statues and vessels, gold fragments, bones etc.



1. Shicheng, China

Shicheng, Lost Underwater Cities

The foundation of the city was laid over 1,300 years ago and the place thrived for the next three hundred years. The city is believed to have belonged to the Ming and Qing dynasties who started ruling China from 1368. Interestingly the city began to decline after efforts were made towards progress. After the Xin’an Dam and a huge hydroelectric power station were installed. Today sitting beneath 40 meters of water the city walls, gates and statues are magnificently well preserved.

Best wines for your health by Stephanie Miskew
12:10 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 500




Cheers to your health. Which wine should you be drinking?

Whether you’re looking to slim down for the summer or just keep your heart ticking like a fine timepiece, there’s a wine for that! Here’s your go-to guide to wine and health:



Weight Loss



If you’re looking to whittle your waistline in time for summer but don’t want to sacrifice your daily glass or two, reach for a dry, light white wine like an Alsatian riesling or a sparkling wine like prosecco. A 5-ounce glass of either (for more on standard wine pours, click here) has approximately 90-120 calories, considerably less than red wine, which ranges from 130-175 calories, depending on forbidden and grape variety.



Recommendation: Domaine Zind-Humbrecht Riesling, Alsace, France, 2012



Reducing Alcohol



If you’re seeing double after two glasses of your favorite California zinfandel, it’s probably due to its high alcohol content. Bigger, bolder red wines have much higher alcohol (15-16 percent) than whites (9-12 percent) or lighter reds (13-15 percent). Also, wines from warmer New World regions (the U.S., Australia and South America) have higher alcohol content than those from cooler Old World regions (France, Italy and Germany). Warmer temperatures increase ripeness at harvest, which results in higher grape sugars, which are converted to alcohol during fermentation. So if you’re trying to minimize your alcohol intake, trade in your zinfandel for a zweigelt.



Wine Recommendation: W. Glatzer Zweigelt “Riedencuvee,” Carnuntum, Austria, 2014



Cardiovascular Health



If heart health is your primary concern, wines with higher levels of antioxidants like resveratrol should be at the top of your list. Studies have linked resveratrol, a polyphenol found primarily in grape skins, to health benefits that include a reduction of inflammation, blood clotting and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, as well as offering protection from certain types of cancer. Since red wines are fermented in contact with the grape’s skins, they have the highest concentration of these compounds.



Wine Recommendation: Alta Vista Premium Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina, 2012



Sulfite Sensitivity



Sulfites – chemical preservatives – are found to some degree in all wines. If you’re sensitive to them (symptoms include headache, rash and swelling of the mouth and lips), steer clear of white wines, which have much higher sulfite levels than reds. Adding sulfites protects white wines from premature oxidation and bacterial spoilage. Red wines, unlike whites, have tannins – natural preservatives that are imparted through contact with grape skins and oak barrels. Keep in mind that you’ll find significantly higher levels of sulfites in grocery store staples such as dried fruit and lunchmeats.



Wine Recommendation: Swanson Vineyards Merlot, Oakville, California, 2010



Organic



If overall health and supporting more sustainable farming practices are your goals, organic wines should be at the top of your shopping list. Organic certification of wine is government regulated, unlike terms such as “biodynamic” and “sustainable,” which have no legal definition. In order to achieve organic certification, a winery has to meet strict criteria: The wine must be made from organic grapes, in a certified organic facility, with no synthetic additives or added sulfites (although naturally occurring sulfites will still be present).



Wine Recommendation: Domaine Carneros Estate Brut Cuvée, Carneros, California, 2010





Stephanie Miskew is a certified sommelier, wine educator and proprietor of The Wine Atelier, an online wine boutique. She also runs the The Glamorous Gourmet, a website dedicated to wine and entertaining.

Red Wine Burns Fat And Lowers Blood Pressure, Plus 5 Other Health Benefits For Winos Feb 8, 2015 05:13 PM By Samantha Olson
12:00 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 501




Wine Benefits Run Deep

Red wine has several benefits beyond just a buzz. Photo

Cheers to weight loss, courtesy of your favorite glass of cabernet sauvignon. Researchers at Oregon State’s College of Agricultural Studies took a closer look at the benefits behind the buzz, and published their findings in The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.



Overweight Americans can raise a toast to a road of health and happiness and for possibly having a secret solution to weight loss. When researchers discovered the benefits from a glass of wine could lead to weight loss last year, they wanted to understand what exactly was going on inside the grapes and the body.







The team spent 10 weeks feeding mice a high-fat diet. Once they were chubby enough, half of them were given extracts from red wine Pinot noir grapes, while the other half had a general blend of “mouse chow.” The wined-and-dined mice not only stored less liver fat, but they also had lower blood sugar. It turns out ellargic acids inside a vineyard’s grapes have the power to delay the growth of fat cells and slow the development of new ones.



“The high-fat-fed mice developed fatty liver and diabetic symptoms — the same metabolic consequences we see in many overweight, sedentary people,” said the study’s co-author Neil Shay, a scientist at the college’s agriculture research lab, in a press release. “If we could develop a dietary strategy for reducing the harmful accumulation of fat in the liver using common foods like grapes, that would be good news.”



The study’s confirmation of red wine’s benefits gives drinkers reassurance with each sip. Although, you could also just eat a handful of red grapes and gain the same benefits as a glass of merlot, but a little buzz puts the mind at ease, and adds several other bonuses.



5 Buzz-Worthy Benefits Of Red Wine:



Memory Protection Against Alzheimer’s Disease: The powerful antioxidant resveratrol protects against cell damage and prevents age-related mental decline.

Mimics Gym Time: Resveratrol is also responsible for heart-healthy benefits, including improved physical performance and muscle strength. It also mimics cardiovascular enhancements similar to exercise. But the benefits are limited, so don’t always trade in your cardio for cabernet.

Cancer Treatment: Researchers aren’t exactly sure how, but another active antioxidant in red wine known as quercetin works against cancer cells, according to the American Cancer Society. It helps to induce natural cell death in certain types of cancers, most often colon cancer.

Promotes Long Life: Red wine drinkers have a 34 percent lower mortality rate than beer or vodka drinkers, according to a 29-year-long study. Resveratrol is the polyphenol that could be responsible for its longevity benefits. But researchers think any diet rich in polyphenols, which are known to protect against the development of chronic diseases — they're found amply in red wine — could be why.

Lowers Risk Of Heart Disease and Stroke: Red wine tannins, which are what make red wine the color red, contain procyanidins — known for protecting against heart disease. Resveratrol also helps to remove chemicals responsible for causing blood clots, which is the primary cause of coronary disease. A daily dose of red wine cuts blood clot-related stroke rates by 50 percent.



Source: Shay N, Okla M, Kang I, Kim DM, Gourineni V, and Chung S. Ellagic acid modeulates lipid accumulation in primary human adipocytes and human hepatoma Huh7 cells via discrete mechanisms. The Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry. 2015.

10 Benefits of Embracing Silence Listly by Craig Daniels
00:17 Mar 25 2016
Times Read: 504

Slow down you're thinking too fast. Can you relate to "thinking too fast" or maybe "thinking too much"? Sometimes it seems like we just have to talk or our minds will explode, and often the need to talk happens while someone else is already explaining or sharing what's important to them.



Ask yourself am I really listening, am I really understanding what the other person is saying? Is it more important for me to be heard than it is to hear others?



1 Using silence as a communication tool



Have you ever heard the expression "You have two ears and only one mouth so you should listen twice as much as you speak"? What about "Silence is Gold"? It doesn't matter if you have never heard these expressions, you will still be able to take advantage of this under-utilized ability.





2 Silence is one of the great arts of conversation



What does that mean? To me, it basically says "Shut up already!" We know that you can't have a conversation with both (or all) of the people talking at the same time. So somehow we have to take turns. There are some social conventions that help with this turn taking, but it doesn't always work as well as we might hope.





3 Reflection Is the Most Important Part of the Learning Process



The results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey: “We do not learn from experience … we learn from reflecting on experience.” … In fact, these beneficial effects seem to be lasting.





4 The Benefits of Silence



In the August issue of Ode magazine, Tijn Touber wrote, "Being silent means more than just holding your tongue. It means listening for the softest, most subtle sound of all - the sound of the soul." Last April, I was forced to keep vocally silent for a week after minor surgery on my vocal chords.





5 Quiet Calm Consideration will Untangle Every Knot



At the end of this post I'm hoping that I will have convinced you to view a video of a song from the Gilbert and Sullivan, Comic Opera, 'The Gondoliers'. Not generally my everyday listening, but please persevere. Recently I listened to Tony Quinlan from Narrate talk about how the patterns we have established in...





6 10 Ways to Embrace the Power of Silence



"Let your beauty manifest itself without talking or calculation. It says for you: I am. And comes in meaning thousand fold, comes at long last over everyone." From the moment we rise in the morning, we are engulfed in external noise - the alarm clock buzzing, music blaring, coffee pot beeping.





7 Tactic: Silence is Golden When Negotiating



We are not used to quiet. Your cell phone rings and chirps with calls, emails, texts, and social media updates. Your office is a constant whir of people tapping on their keyboard, conversations, and the hum of the ever so pretty fluorescent lights. Your home has the fridge running, the washing machine churning, the dishing...





8 Solitude: Where Your Life is Waiting



"Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world found." - Hans Margolius - It's no secret that we are bombarded everyday with countless messages. In America alone, advertising is a $412 billion/year industry that is constantly telling us what to watch, where to go, and what to purchase.





9 The One Thing You're Not Doing That Will Completely Boost Your Focus



For many of us, true silence only comes when we close our eyes and turn in for the night. Even when we're "listening," our minds churn an inner dialogue: We're deciding what we'll say next, contemplating the way the speaker's mouth is moving, thinking about what's for lunch.

10

If you have ever thought about taking a vow of silence and wondered what you might need to consider, then you've landed on the right heli-pad. So let's jump right in, shall we? First things first...Why would anyone want to stop talking?The answer is simple: to awaken awareness.Most of us fall through our days in a kind of trance-like state.

What Dating After 40 Is Like for Men...
23:59 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 507




I love men. People ask me all the time whether I offer dating and relationship coaching for single men. I don’t. But I tell them that I help men by helping women. (It really is ALL about you!) One of the most transformational ways I support women is by helping you better understand GROWNUP men. Just like women, the men you’re dating have lived and learned. So I thought I’d tell you about the experience men have when they’re trying to “date like a grownup.”



If you’ve read my eBook, you know that I believe strongly that empathizing with men is absolutely essential to your dating and relationship success. The definition of empathy is “the power of understanding and imaginatively entering into another person’s feelings.“ So the only way you really can empathize is to know their side of the story.



Men and women are different in many ways, but we’re more the same than you may think. And this is especially true as we get older. We all have dating disappointments and horror stories. Just like how you’ve dated your share of challenging types of men like the Pinger, the Couch Potato and the older-and-balder-than-his-profile-guy…men also meet and enter into relationships with less-than-impressive types of women.



I’ve talked to countless single men over the years about their experiences with women, especially those in their 40s, 50s and beyond. In the following days I’m going to give you some of their stories of dating after 40 and relationships. (Guys, if you’re reading this…get in touch if you want to share!)



Just like we can meet the same types of guy over and over, men can do the same with women. Here are some of the types of women men deal with as they date and relate.



The Princess The Princess is confident, well put together, and very attractive. She easily lures in men. She still follows “The Rules” and requires that her man do what she wants, when she wants. He needs to make all the right moves. She’s a scorekeeper, and she alone decides when he’s given enough to satisfy her…or when he hasn’t and is history.



The Princess has an “I deserve it” attitude and has little or no concern for how she can make the other person happy. She insists he give and give with little or no reciprocity; after all, he’s the The Man and she’s his prize!



The 18 Year Old The 18 year old dates – sometimes a lot – but she doesn’t have relationships because “she doesn’t want the men who want her, and the men she wants don’t want her.” She doesn’t know what will make her happy and has not yet learned how to communicate and relate to grownup men. By default she clings to the same type of guy she wanted in high school or college. He’s often the “Bad Boy” because he excites her. (See the Wow Me Woman below.)



The nice, relationship-minded men get quickly discarded by the 18 year old. Try as he might, the 60-year-old fabulous guy can’t measure up to her expectations because she’s looking for a man who doesn’t exist. She gets stuck in affairs with men who never commit, and it’s often the nice guys who are interested in her who bear the brunt of her hurt and anger.



The Scaredy Cat The Scaredy Cat has been emotionally wounded by men in the past, and she can’t let go of it. She mistrusts men and often blames herself for the rejection she’s felt, believing that she just wasn’t good enough. She says things like “I need him to say he wants a relationship, and then I’ll open up,” or “Once he gets to know me, he probably won’t like me.”



The Scaredy Cat may put her guy through lots of tests before she feels confident that he’s truly interested. When he passes those tests or shows he has feelings for her, she questions it and might up the ante. She picks fights, picks the wrong guys, or maneuvers relationships to end because it gives her control.



This “I’m never going to find a good relationship” gal leaves men unable to get any traction during courting or in a relationship. The wall she has erected is just too high for him to climb in order to get to the other side. Since trust and affection are what men yearn for from women, he usually does her a favor and leaves…hence rendering her “right” once again.



The Wow Me Woman The Wow Me Woman is a midlife gal who still thinks that excitement is the key to judging if a guy is a good match. She’s looking for her guy to be interesting, keep her laughing, ask her all about herself, and give her butterflies…all on the first date. If she’s not swept away, there won’t be a second.



The Wow Me Woman leaves many good men in her dust. Men sense her quick judgment, which leaves them feeling deflated, unattractive and powerless. That man then makes a poor impression (understandably), and the date is chalked up to another “he just wasn’t right for me” experience. The Wow Me Woman is often single for a very, very long time.



The Bitter Gal The Bitter Gal is angry — usually about everything, but especially about men. She’ll find fault with every man she meets. A guy never has a chance, even he is the nicest guy in the world and really likes her. (Which usually doesn’t last very long since, no matter how pretty and smart she is, she is no fun to be around.)



The truth is that The Bitter Gal has been playing the victim for most (if not all) of her life. Her life isn’t going the way she wants and she just can’t figure out why. With men, she might complain that they just “don’t get her,” but the truth is that she’s giving them every reason to head for the hills with her off-handed comments and negativity. She hasn’t mastered the life skill of introspection, so she’s blinded by her bitterness. It doesn’t occur to her that she might be the problem even though every date and relationship seems to end the same way. Though a nice guy might try to break through and prove her wrong about men, he will give up out of exhaustion.



The Sexpot The Sexpot is all about putting out the sex vibe. She believes her sexuality is the only way she can attract a man, or she wants this point in her life to be a series of sexual experiences. Either way, she’s not connecting with men. She posts a provocative picture on her online dating profile, invites him over to her house on the first date, shows too much skin (especially for a woman over 40), and is overly familiar with her affection.



The Sexpot offers herself up on the first date and is offended if her date doesn’t partake. Men who are looking just for sex will say yes. Relationship-minded men may also say “yes” even though they may feel somewhat emasculated or turned off by her aggressiveness. (They are men, after all.) She won’t get a call from either of these guys and forever wonder why since she thinks she gave him what he wants.



You know that dating at this stage of life (Or any, for that matter!) is not exactly a rose garden every moment. When you appreciate the same is true for the men you date, it will go a long way toward building compassion and, therefore, building relationships.



Most every man has his set of dating bumps and bruises.

The Delightful Difference Between Dating Men and Boys
23:58 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 508

If you are a single woman in her 40’s, 50s or beyond, I have a question for you: When you look at yourself today, are you the same person you were in your 20s or 30s? Have many of your priorities changed? Has experience taught you new life skills and shifted your perspective on things you previously held as absolute truth?



And what about when it comes to dating and relationships? Have you updated your “checklist” for the 55 year old men you are dating; choosing not to judge them like you did 35 year olds? Have you learned that your worth is far more than whether a man wants you, and that you are okay with yourself; whether or not you have a partner?



If you’re like me, the answer is probably a resounding “yes” to these questions. You’ve probably opened your mind to new ideas, and perhaps closed your mind to others. You’ve learned life skills that have brought you success, both at work and at home.



In fact, you’re probably feeling damn smart at this point in your life. And you should! You have achieved a lot, and gained a ton of knowledge and skills over the years. Together, this has rendered you one wise woman.



Well, like us, men change and evolve. I can hear you shout “I know that!” (I’m even tempted to throw a “duh” in here.) But in my work as a Dating and Relationship Coach for Women over 40, I often help women who say they know this, yet still tend to make assumptions about men based on stereotypes and expectations that originated in their teenage years and lingered.



Like you, men in midlife and beyond have experienced, matured and created good lives for themselves and these men can make fantastic partners. Yes, there are some outliers, just like there are women dating like they are still in their 20s. But if you make the mistake of assuming all men are childish, it’s likely the grownup good guys are going to pass you by.



Here are three common misconceptions about men that are based on when we were dating boys:



Misconception#1: Men love to chase.



Even if they once were “that guy,” most grownup men — especially the confident, accomplished guys you want to date — no longer see the value and have dumped the challenge of a chase as a hobby. Why? First, the woman-to-man ratio is now in their favor and they don’t have to compete like they did in their 20s. Also, their hormones have mellowed and they have broadened their vision of themselves; reducing the need (and sometimes ability) to rack up sexual conquests.



Finally, the grownup men who have achieved success in life know how to how to get what they want. If they think you are unattainable, uninterested or you don’t have space for them in your life they will move on. They won’t waste their time on something (or someone) they can’t win. Would you?



What that means to your grownup girl: When you meet a man you are interested in, you need to let him know! It’s not about being aggressive like asking him out or jumping into bed with him. It’s simply about giving him a clear signal that, if he asks, you will say Yes. It’s giving him a “come hither.”



Tell him you very much look forward to talking with him again sometime. Tell him that you had a great time and would like to do it again. Look him in the eye and smile. Ask sincere questions about things he’s interested in. Compliment him. Receive graciously. Have fun with him. Laugh. These are all ways to show clear interest.



“The rules” is out, sister. Making him chase you not only doesn’t fly with grownup dating, it turns off the smart, commitment-minded men you are probably trying to meet. These men are not into playing games or climbing your wall of “I dare you.” They just want to meet a nice woman, have an easy time getting to know her and hopefully meet a wonderful partner to share the rest of a great life.



Misconception #2: Men won’t/can’t communicate their feelings.



Like you, men have many years of professional and personal circumstances that required them to develop effective communication skills. You can talk to men and they will talk back; and even listen! This is good news.



What that means to your grownup girl: You can be open, honest and direct with the men you date and have relationships with. There is no need to play games. Tell him what you want, what you don’t want and your true feelings. When you do so with loving kindness, good timing, and effective communication (the opposite sex does require a special language), you will find that this actually this strengthens a good relationship. If he’s the right guy for you he won’t run away like the uninterested, unwilling, scardey cats you dated twenty years ago.



Just remember that he may be willing but unable to share his needs and feelings and mistaking the two can be fatal. Unlike us, most men don’t have experience puking out their feelings or sharing their trials and tribulations. You may have to help him, but the right man will be willing to learn.



Misconception #3: Men will pick you because “you are there” and they can get sex.



The ego and libido of a man can be very powerful, indeed; especially men in their 20s and 30s. However, for the most part, the men you’re dating today have figured out that being with the wrong person is way worse than hanging out with themselves.



Make no mistake: men want sex! But not so much as to play the games they used to play to get us in the sack. Like you, most grownup men want intimacy with the right person. If Halle Berry showed up at their door naked would they say “no?” No way. But the days of trolling for sex are over. Grownup men want companionship, support and acceptance for who they are…just like you.



What that means to your grownup girl: If you meet a man that seems to enjoy you yet you don’t hear from him again, don’t take it personally. It’s likely that he knew something about himself or his life that meant you weren’t meant for each other. He’s probably doing you a favor.



With respect to sex, no need to feel pressure to “give him what he wants.” If you seem like the right woman, most men will be patient (as long as they know it will happen sometime). Most of all, drop the “all men want is sex” nonsense. It only serves to make you mistrust men. Inevitably that creates a wall between you and the men you meet which never results in good relationships. (Or even second dates for that matter.)







If finding love with an adult, interesting, committed man is on your dream list, consider opening your mind to see him as such. If you like him, show him, and let him know there is room in your life for the right man. Help him understand what you want and need so he can make you happy. Trust and honor him for the mature man he is. Do that, and the right man will love you for it. And you just might love him back!

Why You Should Never Settle For Less When Dating by Brendan Marshall
23:52 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 509

Visitors to Elite Daily are generally in pursuit of something more – something greater than their current state. Its loyal readers are searching for a spark to ignite the passion that it takes to succeed. We are each on a personal path with destination unknown, and often times there are decisions that need to be made along the way, but one rule remains constant: never settle for less.



These decisions will set the course and it is important to consider something before committing: do not settle.



There are various areas of life that will tempt you to choose the easy option. The first that comes to mind is what we encounter when choosing whom to date. When romantic relationships and experiences build, a picture is continually painted of what is attractive and what is not. A time will come with a significant other that you must ask, “Is this person really worth my time and energy?” Do not settle.



We all hope the answer is yes, but carefully consider any doubt that enters your mind. Encourage trust in your instincts. It is perfectly natural to side with normality and avoid the fear of the unknown. Remember, though, that a person never fully grows without venturing outside of their comfort zone.



No one will be able to fulfill your every need and if you remain in a relationship because it is the easier of the two options, the long-term implications could be much worse. Do not allow yourself to ask “what if?”



A second area to consider is how we make a living. This, arguably, is more complicated than being in a romantic relationship because money is involved and there is increased pressure to adapt and conform quickly.



The goal after college is to pursue a career path that interests you, convince someone to pay you to do it, and start a life you can call your own. So often we see young, ambitious job seekers jump at the very first offer that comes their way.



The idea that someone is interested in your value and potential is positive feedback, but ask yourself: is it a good fit? Is it the right choice? Do not settle.



Finally, there is the idea of housing and relocation. You get to know someone best while working with them, but living with a person will paint a pretty clear picture as well. Be sure you are choosing a roommate and taking on rent for the right reasons.



There are few people who regret saving enough to eventually purchase a home. The point is to consider all options before jumping at the first prospect that crosses your path.



Likewise, it is easy to come back home. Whether that means the house where you grew up or the city at large, there is comfort in familiarity. If the chance to venture to another city for the right opportunity ever emerges, take time to seriously consider it. The idea of moving may terrify you, but courage overcomes fear and builds character.



If uprooting is exactly what you had in mind, use that as motivation to find a place that you will want to call home for years to come. It could be the best decision you have ever made.



No one strives for second best. Those in search of true accomplishment will be able to recognize and react to settling for less. There is a line in Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” that speaks volumes to the message I hope to convey in this article: “Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war / for the lead role in a cage?” Did you take the easy way out? If the answer is yes, I hope you at least learned something from it.



Brendan Marshall

17 Best Cocktails for Ladies... Amanda Brown...
23:41 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 512

Are you going out with the girls or hosting a party of your own? Then this post is for you! Here are my 13 all time favorite cocktails you've simply got to try (if you haven't yet - you've been missing!).



The flavor, the aroma, the colors - you'll love them for life! But before you try these heavenly drinks, make sure you've eaten something too, otherwise, you won't be able to try many of those :))



For a party I'd suggest you stock on Baked! Lay's and Smart Food Popcorn Clusters (as both are delicious, light on calories and have 0 grams trans fat). And if you are heading for drinks straight from work, snack on some Sun Chips on your way. I just love their taste and how easily they fit in my purse. Oh, and did I mention those are only 100 cals per pack?



Well, enjoy yourself, Ladies!





1. THE COSMOPOLITAN



Also known as the Cosmo, is an established leader among top-ranking alcoholic cocktails. It is believed that the Cosmopolitan first gained approval among the posh party-goers of South Beach, Florida, and was further popularized by the stylish women of television's "Sex and the City".



The main ingredient of the Cosmo is vodka, preferably, a high-quality variety (my personal choice is Finlandia). Take 2 measures of vodka, add 2 measures of cranberry juice, 1 measure of Triple Sec liqueur (the best is made of sun-dried skins of oranges and my advice is to use gourmet Cointreau made in France), and a generous squeeze of lime or lemon juice. Mix the ingredients well and serve in a large martini glass "straight up" - without ice. Garnish with wedges of lime or lemon.





2. MARGARITA



The sharp and delicious, Margarita is the best known tequila-based cocktail. To make it, you will need good tequila (I recommend Añejo, which is an aged variety with a rich and distinctive taste), Triple Sec liqueur (always keep some of it in your cocktail drawer alongside with wines, vodkas, flavoured liquors, chocolate, and other yummy goodies to indulge in during long autumn nights), and fresh limes or lemons (limes go better). A good rule of thumb is to mix 7 parts of tequila with 4 parts of Triple Sec and add at least 3 parts of lime juice. Enjoy your Margarita in a large cocktail glass with a salt rim around the edge, either blended with ice (a "frozen Margarita"), on the rocks, or just with some ice cubes added.







3. THE MOJITO



The Mojito is a tropical cocktail that is extremely popular at sunny resorts and exotic vacation destinations around the #world. On a cold and gloomy fall evening, mix strong Cuban or Philippine rum with sugar cane juice (brown sugar will go, too) and club soda, and finish with freshly squeezed lime juice and some mint sprigs. Pour the mixture into a tall glass with a few ice cubes, and pretend you are on Laguna Beach... If your Mojito is strong enough, it can really work! ;)



4. THE PEAR MARTINI



The Pear Martini is a real delight and is one of my own favourite cocktails. Take about 2 oz. of a good quality pear vodka (Swedish Pear Absolut is the best), a splash of fresh grapefruit juice, and a squeeze of lime juice. Mix all the ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker, and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish your Pear Martini with lime peel and a slice of dried pear. Enjoy!



5. THE MADERA EGGNOG



This hot and deliciously rich cocktail is ideal for chilly autumn or winter nights. Although it takes some time to prepare, the cozy taste of the Madera Eggnog is well worth the effort! In a saucepan, whisk together 1 egg, 2 tbs. of sugar and a cup of milk, and bring the mixture to a boil. Add 2 oz. each of Madeira and brandy; do not boil. When frothy, pour into a mug, sprinkle with grated nutmeg, and serve hot. It's the best! :)



6. STRAWBERRY DAIQUIRI





The daiquiri is a very popular drink in many restaurants that can be made with many different flavors. Strawberry daiquiris are a hit during the Summer and can be made at home with non-alcohol mixes that can be found in the grocery store. They are so easy to make; just add rum, blend it up and you're ready to party!





7. SEA BREEZE



When I turned 21, the Sea Breeze was one of my favorite drinks. I asked the bartender what was fruity and popular and in two shakes I was drinking a sweet, flavorful cocktail. What's great about this drink that most women love, is the calorie count at only 180, compared to drinks like the daiquiri and margarita that can add up to 300 #calories! If you have cranberry and grapefruit juice in your fridge then you have half of this drink made already! Just add vodka and you're good to go.





8. SANGRIA



If you're hosting a big party this cocktail is a great one to mix up that everyone will enjoy. You can serve Sangria right away, but if you really want to boost the flavor, have it sit overnight so the fruit wedges get a good soaking. For this recipe you'll need a bottle of red wine, a shot of brandy, 1 lemon cut into wedges, 1 orange cut into wedges, 2 tbsp of sugar, and 2 cups of ginger ale or club soda. You'll pour the wine in a pitcher, add the wedges after squeezing the juices from them, add in the brandy and sugar, and let it chill overnight. If serving right away you'll add in the ginger ale or club soda, though if you do let it chill, don't forget to add in this last ingredient before serving.



Show More



9. MALIBU BAY BREEZE



The Malibu Bay Breeze is another favorite drink of mine, it's fruity and easy to make just like the Sea Breeze cocktail. If you're in the mood for a good Summer drink then you'll love this cocktail too. Pick up some pineapple (2 ounces) and cranberry juice (2 ounces) plus some coconut rum (1 1/2 ounces), add to a glass of ice and enjoy!



10. MUDSLIDE



Are you looking for a thick and smooth cocktail that will #compliment a slice of chocolate cake, then you need a mudslide! Take a 1/2 ounce of Kahlua, 1/2 ounce of Baileys Irish Cream, 1/2 ounce of vodka, and 1 ounce of milk, pour over ice, stir, and well you know rest! If you're vegan, use coconut milk and Jameson Irish Whiskey instead.





11. PINA COLADA



Well this popular cocktail couldn't be any more perfect for a great Summer taste! If you love coconuts and pineapple juice then you'll really enjoy this fresh drink. For this #recipe you'll need 2 oz of rum, 2 oz of pineapple juice, 1 1/2 oz of coconut cream, plus a pineapple wedge and cherry for garnish.



12. MINT JULEP



Mint is not just a popular color that is trending on the runway, it's also part of a popular Southern drink! To really make this cocktail pop use fresh mint leaves in the drink and extra leaves for garnish. Take the mint leaves from 4 sprigs, 2 sugar cubes, 2 1/2 oz of bourbon, and muddle the mint and sugar together, then add the bourbon and ice for a refreshing drink.





13. IRISH COFFEE



I made the mistake of ordering an Irish Coffee before I really knew what it was! If you really need a strong cocktail that will put some buzz into your day, then try this, "Wow this isn't just coffee" drink! Mix together 2 oz of Bailey's Irish Cream, 6 oz of hot coffee, and Irish Whiskey for a mid-day wake me up.



14. THE MIMOSA



Sure this is seen as a brunch drink, but I love them any time! They're so delicious and easy to make that it's a no brainer that you'll want to drink them when you want them, not just in the morning. It's best to use equal parts champagne and orange juice, but make sure that you pour the champagne first and then the juice. Of course you can alter it depending on how much alcohol you plan on consuming.







15. THE DIRTY SHIRLEY



How much did you love Shirley Temples when you were a little girl? They were absolutely delicious and now you don't have to give them up! If you're craving something delicious, nostalgic, and that will give you a buzz this is the drink for you. All you need is 1 oz of vodka, 5-6 oz of Sprite, and just a dash of grenadine syrup. It'll be delicious and has a nice kick to it.



16. APPLE MARTINI



I remember the first time I had one of these, I was shocked by how delicious and strong this drink was. What you'll need is 1.5 Oz Apple flavored vodka, 1 Oz Sour apple liqueur or apple flavored schnapps, Dash Midori, 1 Oz Pineapple juice, 1 Oz Apple juice, 8-10 Ice cubes, and a shaker. Pour all of the ingredients into your shaker and shake them together well. Once you've done that strain your drink into a glass and enjoy! Trust me, you'll enjoy it.





17. NUTTY APPLE COCKTAIL



This is the perfect Fall drink, but can be enjoyed at any time of the year! You'll need 1 ounce Frangelico Hazelnut Liqueur, 1 ounce Butterscotch Schnapps, 1 ounce Kahlua Coffee Liqueur, 1/2 ounce 99 Apples Liqueur, 2 1/2 ounces International Delight French Vanilla Creamer, and ice. Mix your ingredients together in a glass and enjoy the delicious Fall flavor in your mouth any #time of the year.



What are some of your favorite cocktails, did they make our list?



This article was written in collaboration with editor Lydia Sheehan and Only in a Woman's World.

The Darker Side of the ‘Love Hormone’ By S Craig Roberts, University of Stirling
23:23 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 517

A decade ago, a revolutionary paper showed that a hormone called oxytocin can actually make us trust other people. This spawned a flurry of research that revealed oxytocin’s potential to boost social interactions. Now a new study has shown that the hormone is actually very similar to alcohol, a well-known social lubricant. However, just like alcohol, it has a dark side.



In the first study, published in 2005, volunteers were asked to invest money in an anonymous trustee whose honesty could not be guaranteed. People who received a dose of oxytocin chose to invest more than those given a placebo – they were more trusting. Subsequent experiments have shown that oxytocin also leads people to become more empathetic, generous and cooperative. They become better at reading social nuances and facial expressions, believe others to be more approachable and become less fearful and anxious in social situations.



Not only this, it seems that oxytocin may help to promote fidelity. Evidence for this comes most clearly in two intensively studied and closely related rodent species. One, the prairie vole, is monogamous; mated couples form close pair bonds and share nest-building and parental duties. In the other, the meadow vole, males leave the female with the babies and will try to mate again.



The two species vary in their sensitivity to oxytocin. However, experiments that increase the effective sensitivity to oxytocin by increasing hormone dosage or blocking receptors in the brain can actually change pair-bonding behavior, making it easier for female prairie voles to choose a partner and turning previously promiscuous meadow vole males into monogamous, caring dads.





Oxytocin in Humans



In our own species, oxytocin has been shown to inhibit men already in relationships from approaching other attractive women; enhance activation of the brain’s reward systems when they see their partner’s face compared to other attractive women and help couples deal positively with conflict.



Along with other functions, mainly in the formation of mother-infant bonding, the rosy glow of the “love hormone” seems to know no bounds – and its potential application for helping to cement and maintain loving relationships is clear. Its effects on facilitating social interaction have made it an appealing possible therapeutic tool in patients who struggle with social situations and communication, including in autism, schizophrenia and mood or anxiety disorders.



Even better, it is very easy to use. All the human studies on it use intranasal sprays to boost oxytocin levels. These sprays are readily available, including through the internet, and appear safe to use, at least in the short term – no one yet knows whether there is any long-term harm.



Adverse Effects



In the past few years, however, concerns expressed by some researchers have begun to rein in the enthusiasm about the potential applications of oxytocin as a therapeutic tool.



Recent studies are showing that the positive effects can be much weaker – or even detrimental – in those that need it the most. In contrast to socially competent or secure individuals, exposure can reduce cooperativeness and trust in those prone to social anxiety. It also increases inclination for violence towards intimate partners. Although this is seen only in people who tend to be more aggressive in general, these would be the same people who might have most to gain from such a treatment, were it available.



These apparently paradoxical effects are hard to explain, particularly since the brain mechanisms responsible are still poorly understood. But a new study may help to provide the answer. A team from the University of Birmingham decided to tackle the issue by comparing studies on the effects of oxytocin with those of alcohol and were struck by the incredible similarities between the two compounds.



Alcohol and Oxytocin



Like oxytocin, alcohol can have helpful effects in social situations. It increases generosity, fosters bonding within groups and suppresses the action of neural inhibitions on social behavior, including fear, anxiety and stress.



But, of course, acute alcohol consumption also comes with significant downsides. Aside from the health implications of chronic use, it interferes with recognition of emotional facial expression, influences moral judgements and increases risk-taking and aggression. And as with oxytocin, the increase in aggression is limited to those who have an existing disposition to it.



The researchers argue that the striking similarities in behavioral outcome tell us something about the biological mechanisms involved. Although oxytocin and alcohol target different brain receptors, activation of these receptors appear to produce analogous physiological effects. Indeed, they also note similarities with how other compounds work, including benzodiazepines, which are commonly used to treat anxiety. Our understanding of how one chemical elicits its effects might thus help us to understand the action of the others.



But, if this new interpretation is correct, it may presage further bad press for the love hormone. It may be that the darkening clouds that threaten to tarnish its reputation are only just beginning to gather. At the very least, it should give us cause for careful evaluation before we rush into using it as a remedy.

Discover The Dark Side Of Your Zodiac Sign...
23:19 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 520




Aries



Aries tends to demand things impulsively and is the most impulsive of the bunch. If an idea isn't theirs, they really don't care about it, and they tend to be immature.

Related: Discover Your Biggest Fear Based On Your Zodiac Sign



Taurus



Taurus is possessive, materialistic, and sometimes vain. They sometimes need to be forcefully taught the golden rule. They're stubborn and can be overly self-indulgent and lazy.



Gemini



Gemini are like a few different personalities rolled into one. A real grab bag, if you will. You never know what you're going to get. They enjoy tons of different interests and tend to consider themselves the master of all of them.



Cancer



Cancer is the crab for a reason. They're moody suns of guns. Cancer doesn't leave their comfort zone all that easily and they tend to be easily offended. Sorry, Cancer.





Leo



Leo tends to be charming and lovable, but they often charm and love themselves the most. They demand attention and will try to be the center of it at all times. For Leo, everything revolves around them.



Related: What Are Your Intimacy Issues According To Your Zodiac Sign?



Virgo



Be careful when you're hanging out with a Virgo, because they tend to be much more judgmental than the other signs. They're perfectionists, so even so much as a crooked smile can set them off and have them gossiping.





Libra



Libra is indecisive. They spend a lot of time preparing and studying for every little thing. They're the kinds of people who stand in the grocery store with two bottles of ketchup carefully examining the labels. God just pick a f*cking thing and move on.





Scorpio



Hell hath no fury like a Scorpio scorned. They're passionate but tend to be manipulative and fiery. For them, bad moods are a baseline. Down is the only direction from there.





Sagittarius



Sagittarians are well known for being blunt, and their bluntness borders on tasteless at times. They tend to be know-it-alls.





Capricorns are controllers. They don't really go with the flow. They often use people for their own benefit and thrive on gossip and negativity.





Aquarius



Aquarius thinks they're so logical and smart, meaning they're quick to judge others. They spend a lot of time living in their own heads and seem detached. They often give good advice but almost never follow it.



Pisces



Pisces lacks direction. They tend to be space cadets and accidentally aloof. They're supposed to be the oldest and wisest sign, but they tend to be gullible.

5 Reasons Why Most People Never Discover Their Purpose Living and working with purpose is a process of self-discovery--and one most of us never let ourselves undergo. BY SHELLEY PREVOST
23:16 Mar 24 2016
Times Read: 521




"The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself." Soren Kierkegaard



After my last post on How to Know if You're Working (and Living) with Purpose, I had the opportunity to hear from a handful of readers about their fear that the path they've chosen isn't the right one.



We are lured into thinking that the purpose of life equals upward social mobility, establishing a career, accumulating wealth, competing (and winning), and holding power.



Even if we can admit to ourselves that we aren't fulfilled with success' trappings, all too often we cling to our illusions because they're all we know.



Here's what I'd like to propose: Maybe our purpose has nothing to do with what we do for a living. Maybe our purpose is really about living authentically and discovering who we really are.



Most people will never be able comprehend this perspective.



Here's why.



You live from the outside in, not the inside out.



People are taught from a very young age to look to others for guidance. Social norming is an important part of childhood--you figure out how to act in relation to everyone else--but the problem begins when you extend that process to include something as personal as your life purpose.



Some have earned our trust and the ability to help us find our unique purpose. If that's you, consider yourself lucky!



But most people, even the well meaning, opt instead to fit us into a slot that makes more sense for them. To gain their approval, you willingly slide into the slot. To maintain the approval, you learn to chronically deny who you are.



In too many cases, you live the script for someone else's life.



You look for a career before you listen for a calling.



Our society has reduced success to a list of boxes to be checked: graduate from school, partner up, have kids, settle into a well-defined career path, and hang on until retirement checks can be collected.



This well-worn path pushes people in the direction of conformity, not purpose.



We're so busy avoiding self-induced fears of not being [fill in the blank] enough--smart enough, creative enough, pretty enough--that we rarely stop and ask, "Am I happy and fulfilled? And if not, how should I go about changing things?"



Finding your purpose is about listening to an inner calling. In "Let Your Life Speak," Parker Palmer says that we should let our life speak to us, not tell our life what we're going to do with it.



A calling is passionate and compulsive. It starts as an inkling ("I'd like to try that") then swells into a mandate that you just can't shake.



A calling isn't an easy path, which is why most of us never know it. We fear the struggle, the foolishness, the risk, and the unknown.



So we choose a career because it matches the boxes we've been told to check.



You hate silence.



We live in a society that does not value silence. It values action.



But living without silence is dangerous. Without it, you end up believing that your ego--and all that it wants--is your purpose. If you play this scenario out, you know it doesn't end well.



Live a life where Ego is in charge and you're left with burnout--and a burning question--"I have a great life. Why am I not fulfilled?"



Silence muffles the noise and creates a space for authenticity to surface. In silence, you can ask yourself questions about how your life and work are really going and pause to wait for the answer. In silence, you give the data of your life the time to converge into a few lessons.



Typically, though, before the lessons have time to sink in you're off to the next distraction.



You don't like the dark side of yourself.



Carl Jung called it the shadow.



It's the underbelly of your personality that you'd rather others not see. It represents your deficiencies, your failures, and your selfish drives. Most of us flee before anyone has the chance to see this side.



But here's the thing: the part of you that's darkest has the most to teach you about your purpose.



If discovering your purpose is really about self-discovery, your darkness shows you where you most need to grow.



More importantly, it shows you from whom you most need to learn. And it's the people you like least who have the most to teach you about yourself.





But most ignore the dark side. Instead, you seek comfortable relationships that reinforce worn, stale images of yourself.



You devalue the unconscious mind.



In "The Social Animal," David Brooks takes aim at the bias in our culture that "the conscious mind writes the autobiography of our species."



Like Brooks, I believe our culture has a relative disdain for the unconscious mind and all that is represents--emotion, intuition, impulses, and sensitivities.



To discover your purpose, you must get comfortable with the non-logical mind. You must become accustomed to not having the answers. You must tolerate ambiguity and get OK with struggling. You must allow yourself to feel--deeply feel. Thinking your way to a purposeful life will never work.



But this is a tall order for most people. One that they deny, scoff at, ridicule, or downright ignore.



Which is why most of us will live our lives having never known our true purpose.



The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.



PUBLISHED ON: AUG 29, 2013

Vampirism & Energy Work Research Study http://www.suscitatio.com
01:39 Mar 23 2016
Times Read: 530




Vampire & Energy Work Research Survey (VEWRS)

An Introspective Examination Of The Real Vampire Community

Authorized Edition v1.0 - 22 March 2006

http://www.suscitatio.com/images/VEWRS-Survey.pdf



Advanced Vampirism & Energy Work Research Survey (AVEWRS)

Examining The Intricacies Of The Vampiric Condition

Authorized Edition v2.0 - 1 August 2006

http://www.suscitatio.com/images/AVEWRS-Survey.pdf





The Vampirism & Energy Work Research Study is a detailed sociological and phenomenological study of the real vampire community conducted by Suscitatio Enterprises, LLC. Two surveys were released in 2006 that were answered by nearly 950 individuals from all paths within the vampire community and throughout the world. The first was the Vampire & Energy Work Research Survey (VEWRS) with 379 Questions in March 2006; and the second was the Advanced Vampirism & Energy Work Research Survey (AVEWRS) with 609 Questions in August 2006. From 2006 to 2009 a combined response total (VEWRS & AVEWRS) reached over 1,450 surveys or over 670,000 individually answered questions; making it the largest and most in-depth research study ever conducted on the real vampire/vampyre community or subculture.





Response Data & Analysis



The following data is representative of the specific sample collected by this study. All data found in the charts below, while within negligible margins of error or difference on the whole for the questions represented, is classified as preliminary since we've yet to publish our official findings. To view the updated and larger format charts from the thumbnails below please contact us at research@suscitatio.com or visit our primary research website at http://www.suscitatio.com

How To Date A (Real-Life) Vampire by Joseph Laycock
01:20 Mar 23 2016
Times Read: 532




These days, it seems, everyone wants to bed a vampire. Forget Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, a hideous foreigner intent on taking the life and the virtue of nineteenth-century English ladies. Today's vampires, like True Blood's Bill Compton and Twilight's Edward Cullen, are portrayed as crush-worthy hunks. Their combination of unearthly beauty, perfect chivalry and dangerous nature make them irresistible to women.



Bill, Edward and co. are the stuff of fiction, but there is, in fact, a community of people who identify as vampires and existed long before the current pop culture craze. So what's it like to date a real-life vampire? To talk about that, first you have to know a little about vampires.



Understanding Vampires

Most real vampires believe they were born with a "vampiric nature," meaning they have to feed in order to maintain their physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. There are two main types of vampires: sanguinarians, who feed on actual blood, and psychic vampires, who feed on energy.



Sanguinarians consume the blood of other vampires, the blood of regular people (called "mundanes" in the vampire community) and sometimes animal blood (usually cow blood). Sanguinarian vampires distinguish themselves from "blood fetishists"—those who are aroused simply by seeing, touching, and smelling blood. Vampires define their feeding as a health requirement, distinct from sexual pleasure. (On the other hand, blood fetishists occasionally make good donors!)



Psychic vampires feed on the vital energy of others, either through physical contact or by soaking it up like a sponge. Ordinary people will do, but some seek out "spiritual types," artists, or other vampires. Psychic vampires describe feeding on each other as a "cycle" that refines and purifies their personal energy. Spiritual Sex: 10 Erotic Commandments



Anshar, a 29-year-old psychic vampire from Truckee, California says, "If I don't feed I get terrible migraines, dizziness and nausea. With the migraines comes terrible photosensitivity and irritability." These symptoms completely disappear after feeding, either from a donor or his partner Shade (also a vampire). "I feel warm, content," explains Anshar, "At times I break out into laughter depending on the amount of energy I've taken."



The vampire community emphasizes ethical feeding. Sanguinarians, as well as many psychic vampires, only feed on consenting donors. In fact, the community has created a donor's bill of rights along with other ethical guidelines.



Real vampires don't believe they're immortal or that they can turn into bats. They don't usually sport fangs, although some wear prosthetic, pointed canines made by "fang-smiths" to establish their identity—but not to feed. By all accounts biting is the most painful and least sanitary way of drawing blood. Like Anshar, some vampires describe being photosensitive. Many also believe they have preternatural intuition or psychic abilities. They call themselves "vampires" because the vampire legend, they argue, is the simplest way to describe their condition.



The process of discovering that you have a vampiric nature is called "Awakening." Arentele, 25, of Danville, California, began experiencing fluctuating energy levels when he was 16. Contact with others left him either charged or drained. After waiting to "outgrow" this condition, he eventually found the vampire community through the internet and discovered he was not alone. For Arantele, Awakening has been "exhilarating," but also, "confusing, disorienting, and painful." His advice to others: "Take what you can from it…trying to fight it is useless."



No one knows exactly how big the vampire community is, but the Atlanta Vampire Alliance (AVA) estimates that there are thousands of vampires living in the United States and more around the world. The AVA completed The Vampirism and Energy Work Research Study (VEWRS), an extensive survey conducted from 2006 to 2009, and received survey responses from all fifty states and from forty different countries.



While you'll find vampire clubs complete with dark, industrial music in Los Angeles and New York, there are also vampires who live in the Midwest and go to church every Sunday. You could live next door to a vampire and never know it. Many vampires use aliases within their community, both to express themselves and to protect their identities. Their community exists both offline and online, and sites like meetup.com have made it much easier for vampires to find one another.



Dating A Vampire

It takes a great deal of trust before a vampire can be open about their identity with an "ordinary" person. Potential romantic partners sometimes dismiss their date's vampirism as "just a phase," or even a mental illness. 10 Questions To Ask Your Guy About His Past



If you're interested in courting a vampire you should know that there is no "typical" vampire sexuality. "I know vampires in wonderful long-term marriages, vampires who change partners almost every month, some in polyamorous relationships, and still others who simply are shut off from seemingly all sexual interest," says Merticus, 31, of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance. Because vampires frequently embrace alternative lifeforbiddens and sexual practices, the only constant is that they rarely pass judgment on others.



The AVA found that approximately 40 percent of vampires have some interest in BDSM or kink. By comparison, studies place that number between 5 and 15 percent for the general population. While BDSM represents a distinct subculture, many vampires describe having "an inner predator" or a primal nature that comes out in BDSM play. Vampires are also quite accepting of the GLBT community. While researching this article, I spoke with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transsexual vampires. In the VEWRS, only 55 percent of vampires identified as heterosexual. S&M For Beginners



Feeding is not inherently sexual, but it can certainly have an erotic element. The VEWRS found that while many vampires have a romantic or sexual relationship with their donor (or donors), even more find donors among trusted friends or social networks. Donor-vampire bonds often reside somewhere between platonic friendship and romantic relationship.



Crystalis, 32, from Phoenix, describes herself as a "hybrid" vampire, meaning that she can feed on either blood or energy. According to her there are, "a surprisingly high number of people that are enthralled by the concept of being fed from." Vampires do not take on new donors lightly. Blood feeding, in particular, requires a great deal of trust, and donors must first get screened for diseases.



Diss, 35, is a blood donor from Switzerland who shares a romantic relationship with her vampire. She explained how the vampire/donor relationship creates vulnerability for both parties. "The vampire trusts the donor with sensitive knowledge about them, and the donor trusts the vampire to injure their body with blades or needles."



Diss became interested in sharing blood with vampires while reading Anne Rice. She later found out about real vampires through a television documentary. Diss found her way to the community and became Cynsanity's lover—even though she never expected to be anything more than a donor. She described blood as the most carnal—literally of the flesh—of gifts. Cynsanity, 25, from Austria said of their relationship, "It is very weird to be with someone who actually wants to be cut and fed from. Honestly, it's freaking me out a bit."



According to Diss, taking blood can run the gamut from essentially a medical procedure to a profoundly erotic experience. Vampire/donor couples use knives or razors for a more sensual experience, while less personal methods of feeding involve little physical contact and may include medical equipment such as lancets or syringes. Some vampires believe vital fluids such as semen, menstrual blood and breast milk can serve as a substitute for blood. Vampires that feed in this fashion rarely have a detached relationship with their donors.



Unlike sanguinarians, psychic vampires can feed without the donor ever realizing it. Through a technique called "ambient feeding," psychic vampires simply soak up energy from the environment. Even ordinary people experience a buzz of collective energy at social events like parties, concerts, and some religious services—for psychic vampires, these are ideal locales for ambient feeding.



Most psychic vampires feel it is unethical to take energy without the donor's consent. Consensual psychic feeding can include physical contact similar to a sensual massage. Sex is also an good source of psychic energy. Many vampires describe this as "tantric feeding," because the union it creates is seen as mystical. Tantric Sex 101



Romance with donors can often lead to complications. Although she's currently involved in a romantic relationship with her donor, Cynsanity commented, "Frankly, the best donors I ever had were those who were in no way sexually or romantically interested in me." Heather Corus, 26, from Pittsburgh, is an energy donor who believes she has an overabundance vital energy. She made a similar comment about the vampire/donor relationship. "My personal rule," she said, "is Don't Date The Vamps, especially if you're feeding them."



I also spoke with Enafae, 54, a Wiccan from Michigan. She was married to a sanguinarian vampire and was his donor for several years. Her marriage ended in part because she learned her husband had other donors she didn't know about. "My husband was not an honorable man," says Enafae. Despite this, Enafae maintains strong friendships in the vampire community. "I have dated other vampires," she says, "But I also date mundanes, witches…you get the idea."



Vampires also date one another. Cynsanity suggested this could be a risky undertaking, as vampires tend to be territorial and hierarchical. "Dating another vampire is like putting two kegs full of TNT next to one another," she said. On the other hand, Crystalis is dating a hybrid vampire named Sabastian DeCavalier, 43, and they seem to be enjoying their vampire/vampire romance, particularly because they sustain each other through tantric feeding. "At the deepest level during such a feed," Crystalis explained, "it becomes difficult to tell where your own soul ends and your partner's soul begins."



Some vampires believe vampirism is genetic. There are families of vampires with vampiric children and even grandchildren. Many vampires have traditional weddings, but some prefer Pagan rituals known as handfastings, a ceremony that can include classic marriage elements like an exchange of rings, and less traditional ones like jumping over a broom. "Vampire ceremonies" involving drinking one another's blood from a chalice are not unheard of. There are even vampires who are licensed ministers.



Those seeking the love of a vampire should remember that they are people first and vampires second. Diss encouraged those entering this community to "lay aside all that they think they know about vampires or donors, and remember that they, that we, are first of all people." Enafae reinforced this, adding, "a relationship with a vampire takes communication, work and love, just like with any relationship." This is sound advice for anyone who imagines that their problems can be escaped by running away with the tall, dark, and fangsome.



Written by Joseph Laycock with YourTango. Buy his book, Vampires Today: The Truth about Modern Vampirism, at Amazon.com.

20 Conversation Topics for Couples - Talking to your Partner by kalyani10
01:13 Mar 23 2016
Times Read: 533

When two people start falling in love, they feel that it would never be possible to run out of things to say to each other. But sooner or later, a time comes when even the most devoted of couples may begin to wonder what else to talk about. Which is a pity really, since conversations are one of the most natural ways to know more about each other. So if you are raring to discover more about the new person in your life or simply need to break the monotony of years of marriage, here are a few conversation topics to get you started.



Go back to the early days of your relationship and rediscover what drew you to each other. If you were the one to ask your partner to a date, ask your girlfriend or wife what made her say yes. Or if you were the one to agree to the date, ask what prompted him to choose you to go out with.

TIP: According to a recent UK survey published in The Guardian, falling out of love is the single most important reason for divorce. Having interesting and stimulating conversations greatly contributes to the strength of a marriage. The path-breaking book from Amazon, 'Tell Me Honey...2000 Questions for Couples' has 2000 questions across 75 categories including love, romance, sex and relationships that couples can ask each other, to come closer and keep the marriage strong. Reading this book will keep the magic alive as you discover new sides to each other. It's also available as an instant download ebook.





Hobbies are one of the most dependable topics of conversation, no matter how long you have known each other. If you are new to the relationship, discuss hobbies that your partner loved as a child. On the other hand, if you have been married for several years, explore the possibility of doing something new with each other – like going for a hike on Saturdays or taking a salsa class for couples every Wednesday night. Pursuing mutual interests may help you to come closer to each other while doing something fun at the same time.

Vacations comprise one of the most remembered memories among humans. Ask your partner what was the best vacation he/she took before meeting you and why it was fun. You may be surprised to know that some of the most enjoyable vacations may have been weekend trips and not necessarily spent at exotic destinations. Moreover the conversation might offer you valuable pointers on what your partner likes doing best on holidays.

If you are taking a walk at the park, discuss the possibility of having pets someday and if you may, what would you choose to keep. Again if you are already the proud owners of a Labrador or an African parrot, you may think aloud on how having a pet has made a difference to your lives. The topic might seem mundane but it really sounds out issues of home, commitment and role of family in your lives.

Ask about your partner’s day after he/she returns home from work. They may be too tired to say much but the very fact that there is somebody to ask after them may speak volumes of your love and support.

Discussions on future make very interesting conversations, though you may need to tread lightly on touchy issues like kids or finances. Rather ask your partner to name five new things he/she would like to learn before turning forty/fifty/sixty and so on.

If you share common culinary passions, you are unlikely to ever run out of delicious things to say to each other. Discuss a new recipe that you may have come across a magazine or vow to try out the new Lebanese-themed restaurant in town on your next date.

Pore over old albums with your partner and you are certain to have a lot to talk about. Pick up clues from your partner’s attitude on what photos bring back happy memories and then ask him/her to tell you more about the time it was taken.

Choose one aspect of your partner’s physical make-up and compliment him/her on it. If you love the way dimples form on her cheeks when she laughs, say so. Or if your find the small arch of his lower back insanely attractive, tell him that. Your partner will not only be pleased with your words but the conversation could veer to what else you love about each other – something of which no couple can ever have enough.

Inject some fun into your conversations by having him/her tell you about the yuckiest thing they ever had to do. It may be something from their high school chemistry class or the first time they got completely sozzled with friends.

Invite your partner to talk about his or her family. Most people will fondly remember an autumn fishing trip with dad or counting starts on a late summer evening with mom. However if you know that your partner had an unhappy childhood, steer clear of this topic.

Ask your partner about the best teacher he/she had and why. It could be because the teacher could make the subject come alive like no one ever did or because the teacher taught the most important life lessons your partner ever came across.

Spice things up between you two by discussing an erotic fantasy or a crazy thought. However remember to keep it light and fun and don’t bring an element of stress by expecting the other person to act anything out.

Sharing pleasant memories about childhood can also make great conversation between couples. Tell your partner about the first time you spent a night away from home and whether it was a sleepover at a friend’s place or a school trip.

If the two of you could just drop whatever you are doing and do something fun, ask your partner what would it be. This would be an interesting way of knowing what your partner enjoys doing most, especially in your company.

Life goals and values evolve over time and something or someone which you thought your partner considered important may not be so any more. So ask your partner if there was one historical event that he/she could change, what it would be. If this is not the first time you are asking this question, you may be surprised by a different answer compared to the last time.

Talk about what you need to do more to make your partner feel loved and valued.

If you are sharing a home, discuss what material things are important to each of you. Prioritizing future purchases, especially expensive ones, might not seem a very romantic topic of conversation between couples but its lack can create problems in a relationship. So tackle these issues when there is still time.

If you want to know more about the values and ideals your partner holds high, ask about the kind of causes he/she would like to support and why.

Finally, don’t forget to tell your partner how much he/she means to you and about all the ways their love and mere presence has enriched your life.

Top 10 New Relationship Topics to Avoid MEGAN DOUGHERTY | APRIL 8, 2011
01:10 Mar 23 2016
Times Read: 534




Ahh, the blissful honeymoon phase of a new relationship. The tingles in your tummy as you think of your next date. Your faint blush as you remember the pretty complement you received on the last one. The singing in the shower. The rose-colored glasses making everything in your life seem just a little bit nicer.



You do not want to screw this up. So don’t do so by starting a conversation that could end in fighting, tears, recriminations or, worst of all, extended awkward silences.



Read on to find the top 10 worst things to talk about too soon:



New relationship topics to avoid #10

How much you hate anything

You’ll just be showing off how negatively you see the world. Negativity is a turn off, much like bad breath and ugly sweater-vests. No one ever wants to spend an entire evening listening to their dinner partner sound off about how they get no appreciation, live in the worst part of town, or just can’t get through to their mother. Avoid this. A few light-hearted, maybe deprecating comments here and there don’t hurt, but let’s not rant. Okay?



Instead: Talk about some of the challenges you’ve had at work, home or with the family – and how they ended well for you. Or at least some funny stories that make good anecdotes!



New relationship topics to avoid #9

Religion, politics, lifeforbidden choice

These things are all very important to discuss in a relationship. You’ll want to be with someone whose views you can at least respect, right? Of course. But the first few weeks of dating are for feeling out your new partner, and determining if they’ll be open to your viewpoint.



Don’t wait too long to find out if your date is a Scientologist, but approach the subject carefully and with tact. Even if it doesn’t work out – you never know if this person will pop up again in your life, and you don’t want to go down as the guy who dissed her religion.



Instead: Talk about food, music, books, movies, and local happenings. You’re just getting to know them after all – and it’s nice to have some of the above in common, too.



New relationship topics to avoid #8

Your terrible past

We’ve all screwed up. That’s a given. But why don’t you give your new gentleman or lady a chance to get to know the ”you” that you are now, instead of the brain-dead, drug-muleing, gang-indoctrinated 23-year-old you were?

Again – you’ll want to bring this up before things get too serious – full disclosure and all, but give yourself a fighting chance. Some potential mates will be open-minded about this sort of thing from the get-go. Others won’t. Remember: you’re still in the fact-finding stage of your relationship.



Instead: Tell some good tales about college hijinks, or that one time you thought you’d successfully snuck out of your bedroom window.



New relationship topics to avoid #7

Non-threatening medical conditions

Your potential new mate doesn’t need to know what brand of hemorrhoid cream you use. Nor do they require the intimate details of your toenail fungus. Ditto for your chronic ingrown hairs. Let’s try to keep the magic alive, at least for a few weeks, okay people?



Instead: Talk about some cool new medical advance you’ve read about. A cure for peanut allergies? Good topic. You’re friend who’s in Doctor’s Without Borders? Great topic. (Disclaimer – if your relationship is sexual at this point, you are morally bound to disclose any and all STIs. No excuses.)



New relationship topics to avoid #6

Your financial woes

This may seem shallow, but there’s some good, solid reasoning behind it. Most people have a fair amount of trouble and stress in their day-to-day lives, and they are not looking to take on any extra by dating.



Complaining about how you never have enough money to do anything will either send your partner running for the hills – or give them the idea that they’re going to have to take on the full financial burden of your relationship.



Besides, if you’re having trouble making your rent or mortgage payment – are you really even in a position to be dating?



Instead: Talk about your plans and dreams for the future. Someday you’ll have a chalet in France, or your own island. You’re partner can get in on the day-dreaming too!







New relationship topics to avoid #5

Your sexual resume

While being good in bed is a plus for any long-term relationship, most partners like to maintain a pleasant and comfortable illusion that they are the most, if not the only, memorable bed-mate you’ve had.



Talking about score after score, and wild night after wild night shatters this image completely. No one will seriously be imagining that they are your first partner – but there is no need to rub in their faces that they’re number 48. It’s just kind of nasty.



Instead: Mention some funny dating peccadillo that a movie or television character got into that made you laugh until you peed your pants. (Only, maybe don’t mention you peed your pants. See #7)



New relationship topics to avoid #4

Your bizarre fetish

It must be kept in mind that bizarre is a relative term. What is regular, day-in, day-out behaviour for some may seem the height of psycho-sexual insanity to someone else.



You wouldn’t invite your new, conservative lawyer girlfriend to a foam party with a bunch of anime characters, now would you? Not that partying with anime characters covered in bubbles is wrong – no, I don’t judge – but remember that she might, and it would be totally reasonable of her to be freaked out by this invitation.



Proclivities such as this, or any other “outside-the-norm” thing you’re into, such as sex toys, cross-dressing or smashing bananas between your toes, are subjects that should be broached tentatively, and after trust has been established.



Instead: Anything really. Maybe a book. Or how much you like linen sheets.



New relationship topics to avoid #3

Things about your partner that annoy you

So he keeps his socks on when he’s sleeping. Or leaves the toilet seat up. Or she chews salad with her mouth open. Yes it’s barbaric and gross – but only a few weeks in isn’t the best time to bring it up.



Sometimes a person is fabulous enough to forgive these indiscretions and foibles – but you haven’t been with them long enough to find out yet, now have you?



Instead: Think of a few things that that annoy you (that your partner doesn’t do) and mention it as a pet peeve. Think of other, non-personal pet peeves. If you have a few in common, you’ll get past your annoyance, and grow closer by bitching about how frustrating other people are.



New relationship topics to avoid #2

Your awesome ex

This is right up there with discussing your sexual history in its entirety. Your new boyfriend or girlfriend quite simply doesn’t want to hear the details. It will be taken for granted that you’ve dated others in the past. It will also be taken for granted that your new partner is superior to all others in the past. Whether or not this is true – let it ride.



Instead: Bring up some things you like about your current date. Maybe mention how they remind you of someone cool you used to know, or have some trait you admire. Think positively about the person you’re with now – and share those thoughts – men and women alike will enjoy hearing them.



New relationship topics to avoid #1

How much your parents loved your awesome ex

This is so obvious it doesn’t need an explanation. If you need an explanation, stop dating immediately, wait 5 years, and try again.



Plenty more relationship topics to avoid



What it comes down to is that these are all important topics that have to be discussed as a relationship becomes more serious. When you start to feel really deeply about someone, and have established trust, start going into the more intimate, or controversial aspects of your life.



You’ll never get to that point, however, if you’ve scared off Mr. or Ms. Thang by bringing up too much information too soon, you’ll never get the opportunity.

Tonights Clouded Moon...
03:09 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 545

Normally I do not speak of personal things, but once in a while I feel i must share. Tonight is one of those nights...

While walking my pup tonight, I felt the uneasiness of the Clouded Moon, and every sense I have is on full alert...

There are many spirits and entities on the move tonight... all with a sense of urgency. The anxiety in the air is almost electric with charge, and I am not the only one who feels this. Pull strength from yourselves this night, protect yourselves while you rest this night and place protection on your loved ones. I feel a major shift tonight, perhaps even a connection from the mist to this plane. It is nights like this that I am thankful I am not working in the Emergency Rooms. They will be packed.

Protect yourselves and loved ones...

From my Hearth to yours,



Morganna777

25 Crazy Rites of Passage... Link, and interesting read...
02:06 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 547

http://list25.com/25-crazy-rites-of-passage/

8 Interesting (And Insane) Male Rites of Passages From Around the World
02:03 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 550

At the heart of the modern crisis of manhood is the extension of adolescence, a boyhood which is stretching on for a longer and longer period of time. Once thought to end in a man’s 20s at the latest, men are extending their adolescence into their 30’s and in some especially sad cases, their 40’s.



But in some ways it’s not their fault. It’s the fault of a culture in which rites of passage have all but disappeared, leaving men adrift and lost, never sure when and if they’ve become men. Today’s men lack a community of males to initiate them into manhood and to recognize their new status.



Across time and place, cultures have inherently understood that without clear markers on the journey to manhood, males have a difficult time making the transition and can drift along indefinitely. Thus, rites of passage were clearly delineated in nearly every culture as one of the community’s most important rituals.



While almost every culture had a rite of passage ritual, there existed a great diversity in what these ceremonies consisted of. The common thread was an experience that involved emotional and physical pain and required a boy to pass the test of manhood: to show courage, endurance, and the ability to control one’s emotions.



The following are a few of the interesting (read:insane and crazy) rite of passage rituals that existed (and in some cases still exist) around the world. While they be quite offensive to our modern, Western sensibilities, each was born of different cultures’ beliefs of what made a man, a man. And you thought your Bar Mitzah was stressful.



Vanuatu Land Diving



Vanuatu Land Diving male rite of passage



Bungee jumping is for wusses… at least compared to the men who live in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the middle of the South Pacific. Here the men take place in a yearly harvest ritual called Land Diving.



Around April or May, villages will build crude wooden towers reaching heights of 100 feet or more. After the tower is completed, a few men will volunteer to scale it. The men then tie a vine first on a platform on the tower and then around their ankles. Summoning all the courage they have, the men dive from the platform headfirst. The divers reach speeds of 45 miles an hour as they plummet to the ground.



The goal of the jump is to land close enough to the ground that the diver’s shoulders touch the ground. Any miscalculation on the length of the vine means either serious injury or death.



Land diving among the Vanuatus goes back nearly 15 centuries. The purpose of the ritual is twofold. First, it’s performed as a sacrifice to their gods to ensure a bountiful yam crop. Second, it serves as a rite of passage to initiate the tribe’s boys into manhood. Boys as young as five years old will take part in the ritual which is often preceded by circumcision. The boys start out jumping low, but will work their way up as they get older. The higher a man goes, the manlier he is considered by the tribe.



Watch the divers make their plunge into manhood:





Mardudjara Aborigines Subincision



Mardudjara Aborigines Subincision illustration male rite of passage



The rite of passage from boyhood to manhood of the Australian Mardudjara Aborigines consists of two parts: circumcision and sub-incision. Don’t know what sub-incision is? Read on. You’ll be wincing in pain.



When an Aborigine boy comes of age, usually around 15 or 16, the tribal elders will lead the boy to a fire and have him lie down next to it. Tribal members surround the boy while singing and dancing. Another group of men, called the Mourners, wail and cry while the circumcision is performed.



The tribal elder in charge of the circumcision sits on top of the boy’s chest facing his penis. He pulls up the foreskin and twists it so it can be cut off. Two men take turns cutting away the foreskin with knives that they’ve imbued with magical qualities. The boy bites down on a boomerang as the operation takes place.



When the circumcision is complete, the boy kneels on a shield that’s placed over the fire so the smoke can rise up and purify his wound.



While the boy sits there dazed and in pain, the tribal elders tell him to open his mouth and swallow some “good meat” without chewing it. The “good meat” is actually the boy’s freshly removed foreskin. After he’s swallowed a piece of his own wiener, the boy is told that he has eaten “his own boy” and that it will now grow inside him and make him strong.



Now comes the second part of the initiation- the sub-incision. A few months after the circumcision, the tribal elders take the young man again to a fire. An elder sits on the boy’s chest and takes ahold of the boy’s penis. Again, there are singers and men mourning at the ceremony. A small wooden rod is inserted into the urethra to act as a backing for the knife. The operator then takes a knife and makes a split on the underside of the penis from the frenulum (underneath the head of the penis) to near the scrotum.



After the sub-incision, the boy stands above the fire and allows his blood to drip into it. From now on the boy will have to squat when he urinates, just like a woman. In fact, some anthropologists posit that the sub-incision ceremony is done to simulate menstruation, allowing men to sympathize with the females of the tribe.



The ceremonies of the Mardudjara have slowly disappeared as contact with the modern world has increased and each successive generation becomes less willing to make a snack of their foreskin.



Hamar Cow Jumping



hamar cow jumping photo male rite of passage



Imagine sitting down with your girlfriend’s dad to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage. You’re nervous. Sweat gathers on your forehead. You make small talk, but finally manage to get the question out while your voice cracks.



The dad responds, “Sure! But you’ll have to jump over some cows first.”



If you’re a man living in the Hamar tribe of Ethiopia, this is exactly what you’d have to go through before you can get hitched. To become a man, you’ll have to jump over a herd of cattle.



The ceremony starts off with the tribe’s young girls jumping in unison. Usually these girls are relatives or good friends of the boy who is about to be initiated into manhood. Their metal jewelry clinks and clacks in a rhythmic beat. The girls will jump towards the maza — men who have already gone through the rite of passage — and hand them a green stick. The men use this green stick to lash at the backs of the girls while they continue to jump up and down. The lashing continues until blood is drawn. When the men are finished, the girls bow to them and jump away. The scars that form show that the women endured pain for the initiate during his passage into manhood.



After the whipping ceremony, the tribe forms a circle around a herd of cattle. Singing and chanting fills the air. Four of the biggest bulls are lined up side to side. In order for the ceremony to be valid, the bulls must be castrated. The initiate is brought to the cattle, naked except for a few cords he wears around his chest. The boy must jump onto the first bull and then run back and forth across the backs of the cattle three times. When he’s done, a shout is given and the boy is a maza, or man.



The Ancient Spartan Helot Killing



Ancient Spartan Helot Killing male rite of passage



For ancient Spartans, becoming a soldier was the only way one could be recognized as a man. Military training began at age seven when boys would be taken from their families and placed in the Agoge system. For the next 10 years Spartan boys learned the skills necessary to become a trained killing machine.



When a Spartan youth turned 18, he completed his training. To graduate and be recognized as a man in his community, the boy had to undergo a cruel rite of passage called the krypteia. The young man would be sent to the countryside with only a knife and his wits. His object? To kill as many state-owned slaves, called helots, without being detected and return to his school in one piece. The young men would often hide during the day and make their attacks at night. In order to complete this rite of passage successfully, the young man had to call on all the training he received in the Agoge.



After successfully completing the krypteia, a Spartan man was expected to marry and continue killing for the state.



Satere-Mawe Bullet Ant Glove



Satere-Mawe Bullet Ant Glove male rite of passage



Deep in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon lives the Satere-Mawe tribe. To become a man in the Satere-Mawe, a boy must stick his hand in a glove woven with bullet ants and withstand their stings for over 10 minutes without making a noise.



According to the Schmidt Sting Index, the bullet ant has the most painful sting in the ant world. It’s described as “waves of throbbing, all consuming pain” that continues for over 24 hours. In fact, the locals call the ant, hormiga venticuatro because the pain from the sting lasts 24 hours.



Now if the sting from one bullet ant is that painful, imagine the pain you’d experience if you put on a glove made entirely of pissed-off bullet ants.



To make the glove, the tribesmen will knock out the bullet ants with a natural sedative. While the ants are docile, the elders proceed to make their torture device by weaving the ants into a glove made of leaves with the ants’ stingers facing inwards.



When the ants regain consciousness, the boys put on the gloves and face 10 minutes of pure, unadulterated hell. The copious amounts of venom the boy receives during the ordeal will temporarily paralyze his arm and leave him shaking uncontrollably for days.



This isn’t a one-time deal, either. A young boy may have to stick his hand in the bullet ant glove several more times before he’s considered a man. Each time he experiences the ordeal, the object is to remain as quiet as possible. It’s a test of manly endurance and stoicism that’s necessary to be effective warriors for the tribe.



Watch it in action:





Maasai Warrior Passage



Maasai Warrior boys male rite of passage



The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania have a series of rites of passage that carry boys into manhood. Every 10 or 15 years a new warrior class will be initiated into the tribe. Boys between the ages of 10 and 20 are brought together from all across the country. Dozens of houses are built that will serve as the place of initiation. The night before the ceremony, the boys sleep outside in the forest. At dawn, they return to the little makeshift homestead for a day of singing and dancing. They drink a mixture of milk, cow’s blood, and alcohol and eat piles and piles of meat. After the festivities, boys who are of age (12-16) are ready to be circumcised.



The Emuratare is the most important ceremony in the life of a Maasai boy. Once circumcised, the tribe will consider him a man, warrior, and protector of his village. As the young man makes his way to where the elders will circumcise him, friends and family members will taunt the boy by saying things like “If you flinch, we will disown you.” The Maasai value bravery in their warriors and the circumcision is a boy’s first way to prove his courage even in the face of severe pain. It takes about 3 months for the circumcision to heal and during that time the young men wear black clothing and live in huts built by the women of the villiage. The Maasai boy is now warrior.



For the next 10 years the young men live together in an Emanyatta, or warriors camp. There they learn fighting, oratory, and animal husbandry. After 10 years, the young men take part in the Eunoto ceremony that marks the transition from warrior to senior warrior. After a Maasai has passed through the Eunoto, he can marry. The ceremony is basically several days of festivals, which ends with the initiate’s mother shaving his hair.





Mandan Hook Hanging



Mandan indians Hook Hanging male rite of passage



Native American tribes each had their own unique coming of age rituals for the men in the tribe. But few were as intense as that of the Mandans. Before his rite-of-passage, a Mandan boy fasted for 3 days to cleanse his body of impurities. Then, on the day of the ritual, elders of tribe would pierce the boy’s chest, shoulder, and back muscles with large wooden splints. Ropes, which extended from the roof of a hut, were then attached to the splints, and the young man was winched up into the air, his whole body weight suspended from the ropes. Despite the pain, the boy was not to cry out in pain. While hanging in the air, more splints were hammered through his arms and legs. Skulls of his dead grandfather and other ancestors were placed on the ends of the splints.



Eventually, the young man fainted from the loss of blood and the sheer pain of the torture. When the elders were sure he was unconscious, he was lowered down and the ropes were removed. Yet the splints were left in place. When the young man recovered consciousness, he offered his left pinky to the tribal elders to be sacrificed. He placed his finger on a block and had it swiftly chopped off. This was a gift to the gods and would enable the young man to become a powerful hunter. Finally, the young man ran inside a ring where his fellow villagers had gathered. As he ran, the villagers reached out and grabbed the still embedded splints, ripping them free. The splints weren’t allowed to be pulled out the way they had been hammered in, but had to be torn out in the opposite direction, causing the young man even greater pain and worse wounds. This concluded the day’s ceremony, and the boy was now a man.



Sambia of Papa New Guinea



Sambia Papa New Guinea male rite of passage



In the small country of Papau New Guinea, over 1,000 different culture groups exist. Among them is the Sambia tribe, a group with perhaps the most insane rite of passage into manhood in the world.



The initiation begins at age seven with the separation of the boy from the mother. The boy will spend the rest of his young life only in the presence of men in an all male hut. The gender separation is taken to such extremes that boys and women use different walking paths around the village.



After being separated from the women, the young boy is subjected to several brutal hazing rituals. The first involves ceremonial bloodletting from the nose. The procedure is crude, but effective. The boy is held against a tree and stiff, sharp grasses and sticks are shoved up his nose until the blood starts flowing freely. Once the elders see blood, they let out a collective war cry. After the bloodletting, the boys undergo severe beatings and lashings. The purpose is to toughen up the boys and to prepare them to live as warriors.



As we’ve seen, ritual bloodletting is par for the course when it comes to male initiation. What sets the Sambia apart from other groups is the second part of their male rite of passage: semen drinking.



The Sambia believe that both men and women are born with a tingu. The tingu is a body part that allows for procreation. A woman’s tingu is ready for reproduction when she first menstruates. A man’s tingu is born shriveled and dried and the only way to fill it is to drink the “man milk,” or semen of other sexually mature men. They believe that by drinking the male essence of other men, the boys will become strong and virile. Done in the privacy of the forest, a boy will perform fellatio on young, usually unmarried men between the ages of 13 and 21. The boys are encouraged to “drink the male essence” as much as possible in order to become strong.



Around age 13, a young man has started puberty and another stage in the initiation begins. Another ritual nosebleed takes place along with some beatings to purify the young man. The boy is now considered a bachelor and will now provide the “man milk” to young boys just starting down the path of manhood.



Around age 20, a Sambia man is ready to marry, but before the nuptials take place, the tribal elders teach the young man the secrets to protect himself from the impurities of women. For example, when having intercourse, a man should stuff mint leaves in his nostril and chew on bark in order to mask the smell of his wife’s genitals. Moreover, when a man has sex with his wife, penetration shouldn’t be too deep as this will only increase the chances becoming polluted. Finally, after intercourse, a Sambia man must go bathe in mud in order to wash away any impurities he may have contracted from his wife. Even after marriage, a young Sambia man doesn’t spend very much time with his wife, but instead continues passing the time with the other men



The final rite of passage in the life of Sambian man is fatherhood. After his wife gives birth, a Sambia man is considered to have the full rights of masculinity.

13 amazing coming of age traditions from around the world By Leticia Pfeffer and Christina Nuñez on Sept. 9, 2014
02:01 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 551

The transition from childhood to adulthood -- the “coming of age” of boys who become young men and girls who become young women -- is a significant stepping stone in everyone’s life. But the age at which this happens, and how a child celebrates their rite of passage into adolescence, depends entirely on where they live and what culture they grow up in. Looking back, we'll never forget the majesty that was prom, or the excitement of hitting the dance floor at our friends' co-ed Bar and Bat Mitzvah parties, and why should we? Embarassing or amazing, they were pivotal moments in our lives that deserve remembering. On that note, here are thirteen of it the world’s most diverse coming of age traditions.

1. Jewish Coming of Age Tradition: Bar and Bat Mitzvah





Around the world, young Jewish boys and girls celebrate their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs at age 13 and 12 in order to demonstrate their commitment to their faith and recognize that they are now responsible for following Jewish law. After the religious ceremony, a reception typically ensues to celebrate the young person’s hard work and accomplishment, as they have often spent weeks learning and preparing for this day.

2. The Sateré-Mawé Coming Of Age Tradition: Bullet Ant Initiation



Infinitus Possibilis

In the Brazilian Amazon, young boys belonging to the indigenous Sateré-Mawé tribe mark their coming of age when they turn 13 in a Bullet and Ant Initiation. The tradition goes as so: they search the jungle for bullet ants which are sedated by a leader who submerges them in an herbal solution. The ants are then weaved into gloves with the stingers pointed inwards. An hour or so later, the ants wake up angrier than ever, and the initiation begins. Each boy has to wear the gloves for ten minutes.

Enduring the pain demonstrates the boys’ readiness for manhood -- so few cry out as doing so would demonstrate weakness. Each boy will eventually wear the gloves 20 times over the span of several months before the initiation is complete.

3. Amish Coming of Age Tradition: Rumspringa



Wikimedia Commons

In Amish tradition, Rumspringa marks the time when youth turn 16 and are finally able to enjoy unsupervised weekends away from family. During this time, they are encouraged to enjoy whatever pleasures they like, be that modern clothing or alcohol. The purpose of this period is to allow Amish youth the opportunity to see and experience the world beyond their culture and upbringing. In this way, returning to their community and way of life thus is entirely their choice. Those who return are then baptized and become committed members of the Amish church and community, marking the end of Rumspringa (but they must do so before turning 26).

4. Hispanic Coming of Age Tradition: Quinceanera



Flickr: Christopher Michael

In many parts of Central and South America, young girls celebrate their Quinceanera when they turn 15 years old. The coming of age tradition typically begins with a Catholic mass where the girl renews her baptismal vows and solidifies her commitment to her family and faith. Immediately following the mass is a fiesta where friends and family eat and dance.

5. American Coming of Age Tradition: Sweet 16



Flickr: Kris Krug

While less rooted in tradition, the 16th birthday is nonetheless an important one for American youth, as it marks the time when they are legally permitted to drive a car (and with driving comes big-time freedom). For some lucky teens the day is celebrated with an over-the-top party and potentially a new car, as documented on the the MTV show My Super Sweet 16.

6. Inuit Coming of Age Tradition: North Baffin Island



Wikimedia Commons

In North Baffin Island, Inuit boys have traditionally gone out to the wilderness with their fathers between the ages of 11 and 12 to test their hunting skills and acclimatise to the harsh arctic weather. As part of the tradition, a shaman would be called to open the lines of communication between men and animals. Nowadays, however, this tradition has been extended to young girls as well, as “outcamps” are established away from the community in order for traditional skills to be passed down and practiced by the young men and women.

7. Khatam Al Koran Coming of Age Tradition: Malaysia



Flickr: CPS Brunei

In Malaysia, 11 is a special birthday for some Muslim girls, as it marks the time when they can celebrate Khatam Al Koran, a prestigious ritual that demonstrates their growing maturity at their local mosque. Girls spend years preparing for this day, reviewing the Koran so they can recite the final chapter before friends and family at the ceremony.

8. Maasai Coming of Age Tradition: Tanzania and Kenya



Wikimedia Commons

The Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania have several rites of passage that carry boys into manhood. Boys between the ages of 10-20 come together to be initiated as the new “warrior class” of the tribe, placed in dozens of houses built for the occasion. The night before the ceremony the boys sleep outside in the forest, and at dawn they return for a day of singing and dancing. They drink a mixture of alcohol, cow’s blood, and milk, while also consuming large portions of meat. After these festivities they are ready to be circumcised, making the official transformation into a man, warrior, and protector. Similar to other rites of passage the boys cannot flinch, because doing so would shame their families and discount their bravery.

For the next 10 years the boys will stay at a warrior’s camp where they learn various skills. After the ceremony takes places, marking their transition from warrior to senior warrior, they are entitled to marry the woman of their choice.

9. Ethiopian Coming of Age Tradition: Hamar Cow Jumping



Travelblog.org

In Ethiopia, some grooms-to-be have their own “bachelor party” of sorts- a rite of passage they must complete prior to being able to marry. Participants must successfully jump over a castrated, male cow four times while naked, symbolizing the childhood they are leaving behind them. If successful, they will now be considered one of the Maza- other men who passed the test and spend the next few months supervising these events in villages throughout the Hamar territory.

10. Vanuatu Coming of Age Tradition: Land Divers



Wikimedia Commons

Bungee enthusiasts will enjoy this: in Vanuatu, a small island nation in the middle of the South Pacific, young boys come of age by jumping off of a 98-foot-tall tower with a bungee-like vine tied to their ankles, just barely preventing them from hitting the ground. The catch? Unlike a bungee cord, the vine lacks elasticity, and a slight miscalculation in vine length could lead to broken bones or even death.

Boys initially begin jumping at around 7 or 8, although they are permitted to jump from a shorter tower. In their first dives their mother will hold an item representing their childhood, and after the jump the item will be thrown away, symbolizing the end of childhood. As boys grow older they will jump from taller towers, demonstrating their manliness to the crowd.

11. Japanese Coming of Age Tradition: Seijin-no-Hi



Wikimedia Commons

In Japan, the second Monday of January marks a special day- the day in which 20 year olds get to dress up in their finest traditional attire, attend a ceremony in local city offices, receive gifts, and party to their hearts’ content amongst friends and family. It’s their Coming of Age Festival, otherwise known as Seijin-no-Hi.

The tradition started nearly 1200 years ago and recognizes the age when the Japanese believe youth become mature, contributing members of society (it’s also the time when they get to vote and drink).

12. Confucian Coming of Age Traditions: Ji Li and Guan Li



globaltimes.cn

In some parts of China, there has recently been a resurgence of the Confucian-forbidden coming of age ceremonies Ji Li (for girls) and Guan Li (for boys). The ceremonies typically honor youth who have turned 20, and provide a fun opportunity to wear traditional dress. For the girls, this is also an opportunity to follow typical Ji Li practices such as making hair buns, attaching hair pins, and paying tribute to Huangdi, a Chinese ancestor.

13. Apache Coming of Age Tradition: Sunrise Ceremony



allthatisinteresting.com

There’s no room for shyness among young Apache girls. While this ceremony is rarely practiced today, traditionally all girls were required to complete the sunrise ceremony, also known as Na’ii’ees or the puberty ceremony, during the summer following their first menstruation. During the 4 day ceremony the girls must abide by certain rules, preventing them to wass or touch their skin, or drink from anything other than their drinking tubes. They must also reenact the Apache Origin Myth drawing each female participant closer to the first woman, known as White Painted Woman, Changing Woman, or simply Esdzanadehe. In doing so they obtain her power during this special time.

There are currently 1.8 billion young people around the world. That’s a quarter of our population who is currently making the leap to adulthood. Yet, young people can’t mark their smooth transition to adulthood if they don’t have the opportunities to do so -- such as going to school or seeking employment skills.

We must invest in youth because their human rights matter, because their needs matter, and because unlocking their potential is needed to create a sustainable future. Now is the time for governments everywhere to act to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for all young people.

What is a rite of passage? Why is it Important? Posted: 20:56:30 - Mar 21 2016 Times viewed: 2
01:58 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 552

A rite of passage is a ceremony and marks the transition from one phase of life to another. Although it is often used to describe the tumultuous transition from adolescence to adulthood, it does refer to any of life’s transitions (Births and Beginnings, Initiations, Partnerings, and Endings or Death). There are many passages in our lives if we choose to mark and celebrate them.



Journeys is most concerned with initiatory rites of passage. Initiation is defined in the dictionary as, “the rites, ceremonies, ordeals or instructions with which a youth is formally invested with adult status in a community, society or sect.” We extend that definition to include rituals and ceremonies that help adults transition to new life roles along the path of adulthood – all the way into meaningful elderhood.



When we design rite of passage experiences, we work to assure that initiates come out of the experience with a new and empowering story that helps them take responsibility for the decisions that set the course of their future. We help initiates create the story of who they are and the kind of life they want to build based within the exploration of their own personal values. We also help them find the story that connects them to their community. Through this self-exploration initiates emerge with a stronger sense of personal responsibility to all aspects of their lives – stretching all the way out to the larger world of which they are a part.



In this way both the community and the initiate benefit from a rite of passage. An intentional rite of passage experience provides the space for the community to transmit its core values and confer the role responsibilities appropriate to the initiate’s stage of life, thus insuring cultural continuity, a sort of knitting together of the generations.

Tattoo Psychology: Art or Self Destruction? Modern-Day Social Branding 11/09/2012 05:30 pm ET | Updated Jan 09, 2013
01:54 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 553






Reef Karim, D.O.

Founder/Director, The Control Center In Beverly Hills, UCLA Assistant Clinical Professor; Media Personality

Body art, body bling, self-graffiti, walking billboards, fashionable ink accessories... Each of these expressions depict the physical nature of the tattoo. What’s often NOT discussed, however, is the emotional side of tattoos.



I vividly remember the first time I saw a “tramp stamp.” A woman was reaching for something in the front row of a large auditorium and a few rows of men and women witnessed her walking artistry. Everyone had a reaction. And once she left the room, we all talked about it. It was like group therapy.



The responses ranged from “She’s definitely a party girl, probably drinks a lot, has a lot of sex and a rough childhood,” to “She’s probably really creative, edgy, a leader and an independent thinker.” Some liked her more, some liked her less and many guys were more interested in her because of the tattoo. Whatever the response, we were all intrigued, and each of us conjured up our own personal version of her story — all from the sight of a well-placed tattoo.



In those days, tattoos were still controversial. Now, they’re more accepted than ever. You could even call them “trendy.” In the nightlife scene, tattoo artists are rapidly becoming a popular career choice. Sooner or later, we’re going to see a leather-clad, tattoo-sleeved, multi-pierced guy named Rocko at our kid’s career fair standing next to the “Be a DJ” booth. Although tattoos have been around for more than 5,000 years (Egyptians used tattoos to differentiate peasants from slaves and social branding has been around a long time), ink art has really exploded in the last 25 years. [1]



Is it social branding?



Tattoos are a conversation starter. Either there’s a story attached or a “skin”-showing session or an emotional response derived from the sight of ink art. And the emotional response from the sight of tattoos leads to a modern-day version of social branding.



“He must be tough.”



“She’s probably easy.”



“He’ll never get a corporate job.”



“She just wants to drink vodka tonics and dance on a speaker.”



Of course there are variables. In my opinion, the older you are, the less chance you’ll be forgiving of tattoos. Neck and face tattoos are usually not as well-received as other locations no matter what your age (sorry, Big Mike). Where you put the tattoo, how may tattoos you have, what the tattoos is and the size of the tattoos all help shape the emotional response of the viewer. And that observer could be anyone from a potential boss, a family member or a date.



You’re incredibly naïve or in total denial if you think your tattoos aren’t going to have a significant positive or negative influence on people who don’t know you well.



Why Get Tattoos?



People get tattoos for many reasons: for attention, self-expression, artistic freedom, rebellion, a visual display of a personal narrative, reminders of spiritual/cultural traditions, sexual motivation, addiction, identification with a group or even drunken impulsiveness (which is why many tattoo parlors are open late).



And now, according to some research studies, 15-38 percent of Americans have some type of long-term body art. What was once considered self-mutilatory behavior and a psychiatric problem has now become almost normative behavior.



What Does Your Tattoo Mean?



Some people mark themselves for life to remind them of past family members or ancient sayings or religious scriptures or names of their current family/love interest. Other people use tattoos to enhance their sexual prowess or feed their exhibitionist side, and many people use tattoos to visually promote their identity and/or group affiliation. “I stand for...”



Johnny Depp said, “My body is my journal and my tattoos are my story.” Tattoos can visually reveal more about you or distract people from getting to know the real you. Some people hide behind their tattoos.



Research on tattoos reveals some interesting findings:



Adults with tattoos have been shown to be more sexually active than controls without tattoos.

People with tattoos have been shown to be more likely to engage in more higher risk behaviors.

Women who get tattoos are more than twice as likely to get them removed as men.

In studying first impressions of people that have tattoos, researchers have found that avatars (neutral) with tattoos and other body modifications were rated as more likely to be thrill and adventure seekers, to have a higher number of previous sexual partners, and to be less inhibited than non-tattooed avatars. This study looked at general stigma associated with people sporting tattoos.

And another study showed both men and women had higher body appreciation, higher self esteem and lower anxiety right after getting new tattoos. Surprisingly, three weeks later men continued to have less anxiety but women had a sharp increase in anxiety that may be associated with concerns about body image.

And I’ve personally seen tattoo markings used as an endorphin release and substitute for addictive behavior. An individual addicted to pills was able to stop popping pills but then subsequently became addicted to getting body ink.



So what does this mean?



Our current society craves individuality and self expression. And now many people wear their artistic expression. We are having more trouble communicating with each other than ever before, as electronic communication will never replace face-to-face human contact. So, it’s not surprising that there’s a growing trend toward communication via body ink. We don’t have to talk, we just have to look.



Our bodies have become the refrigerator magnets of quotes, sayings and reminders.



Whether you like it or not, tattoos are growing in popularity. The long-term fear of being “marked for life” is being tempered by tattoo removal technology and people getting used to seeing tattoos.



Personally, I chose not to have a tattoo (henna tattoos don’t count) because the beauty of life is that it’s unexpected and we change with our experiences. What we stand for and believe in at 18 is very different than 35 or 60. If we stood for one thing in life and it never changed, then we could all have “life script” tattoos (and face boredom on a regular basis).



But we do grow and change. I appreciate the artistry of tattoos but also enjoy the mystery of learning about someone without being “visually influenced” to have a response. We all judge, and first impressions probably carry more weight than they should. Whatever your feelings are about tattoos, one thing is for sure: There’s definitely more than meets the eye.



Reference:



1. Caplan J. (Ed). 2000. Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European & American History; Princeton N.J., Princeton University Press

10 Ways to Spot a Narcissist Who’s your favorite narcissist? Kim? Justin Bieber? The Donald? And who can forget Kanye? Imma let you finish, but first, what exactly makes a narcissist? Savvy Psychologist explains, plus offers 10 tips on how to spot a nar
01:42 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 555

10 Ways to Spot a Narcissist



Who’s your favorite narcissist? Kim? Justin Bieber? The Donald? And who can forget Kanye? Imma let you finish, but first, what exactly makes a narcissist? Savvy Psychologist explains, plus offers 10 tips on how to spot a narcissist.



By

Ellen Hendriksen, PhD,

Savvy Psychologist

March 6, 2015

2808 54 54tumblr12

Episode #060

Page 1 of 2



Aside from the dead giveaway of a selfie stick, otherwise known as “the wand of narcissism,” there are lots of clues you’re dealing with a narcissist. Today we’ll cover the features of narcissistic personality disorder, plus 10 giveaways that you’re dealing with a narcissist.



The foremost feature of narcissism is grandiosity, which means a narcissist think she’s more attractive, intelligent, and important than others. She’ll exaggerate her achievements and abilities and has a big ego, often without being able to back it up. The narcissist’s own needs always come first, and when others express needs, she sees it as a sign of weakness. She may be generous and beneficent in front of the camera (only for the admiration - it’s not genuine), but goes cold once no one is watching.



A narcissist also thinks he’s entitled - to a buzz of attention when he walks in the room, to the deference of others, or to preferential treatment. Waiting his turn is torture. Exploiting the intern or blaming the waiter is typical. He’s a victim entitled to better and is contemptuous of the successes of others



(See: Kanye’s rant against Taylor Swift, Kanye’s rant against Beck, Kanye's general persona...do I sense a pattern here?)



How many of them are out there? Narcissists comprise up to 6.2% of the population, but it often seems like more because they’re frequently found in highly visible positions of power, leadership, or celebrity. The majority of narcissists are men, but women make up somewhere between 25-50% of this self-loving bunch.



And what a miserable bunch they are: Narcissism has been linked to everything from child conduct problems to exercise addiction, not to mention the usual suspects of depression and anxiety.



A narcissist is like porn: you know it when you see it. But there are clues; here are 10 giveaways you're dealing with a narcissist:



Giveaway #1: They Name Drop

A narcissist will rarely mention other people except to blame them for something (remember the intern and the waiter?), or to name drop. Why the latter? They want to associate themselves with power, beauty, or fame. And it’s not limited to people - prestigious institutions, name brands, and exclusive events all get mentioned by narcissists with unmistakable frequency.



Giveaway #2: They Edit Selfies

A 2014 study of 1,000 men across the country who use social media found that those high in narcissism did three things: they spent more time overall on social media, posted more selfies, and edited their selfies, like cropping out unflattering parts, using filters, or using Photoshop before posting.



While it’s not necessarily surprising to find that narcissists do this, it is the first time that a study actually confirmed that, contrary to Meghan Trainor, it’s not just the magazines working that Photoshop.



Giveaway #3: They Inflate Themselves and Devalue Others

Narcissists get particularly bitter if they sense they haven’t been adequately recognized for their talent, performance, or general awesomeness. As a result, there are a lot of bitter narcissists out there; they think their time to shine is long overdue and genuinely wonder why they’re not on the red carpet or the A-list.



Giveaway #4: They Want to Be Idolized, But Don’t Care if You Like Them

You can call a narcissist an a-hole and they won’t care. But tell them they’re plain or boring (or at least not the greatest ever) and they’ll go nuts. Criticism or losing (Hello, Richard Sherman!) leaves them empty, humiliated, and angry.



Giveaway #5: They Need the Best of Everything

They insist on seeing only the “best” doctor, lawyer, personal trainer, or hairstylist. Working for the most prestigious company, driving the most luxurious car, sitting at the best restaurant table, and going to the hottest bar.



Giveaway #6: They’re Charming and Attractive...at First







Narcissists know how to work it. They’re very seductive, are often physically attractive, and their confidence draws people to their flame. They’re magnetic, until you get to know them. Which brings us to…



Giveaway #7: They Start Many Relationships



Narcissists often start out in a relationship with an inflated, idealized view of their partner. But the partner quickly falls from the pedestal for three reasons: 1) getting to know the real partner, not just the image, lets the narcissist down, 2) the risk of actual intimacy is too threatening, or 3) someone seemingly better comes along. Which bring us to...



Giveaway #8: They’re Always Looking for the Next Thing



A 2002 study found that narcissism is negatively linked to commitment. Narcissists always think they can do better, so they are more likely to attend to what researchers call “alternatives” (that is, the hottie down the bar).



Giveaway #9: There’s No Core of Self-Loathing or Insecurity



A team of researchers at the University of Georgia did a study in 2007 that was actually titled “Do Narcissists Dislike Themselves 'Deep Down Inside'"? It was an ingenious study that used implicit associations to measure how narcissists saw themselves. And contrary to the popular belief that narcissism covers up insecurity or low self-esteem, it turns out, through and through, narcissists really do think they’re all that. Sound like someone you may know? (Cough, Gwyneth, cough).



And finally...



Giveaway #10: They Totally Admit it



In 2014, a study found that narcissists can be identified by asking this one simple question:



To what extent do you agree with this statement: “I am a narcissist.” (Note: The word “narcissist” means egotistical, self-focused, and vain.)



The study was rigorous - the researchers tested the question in 11 separate experiments and the results showed that people’s answers were accurate. Despite having lousy empathy and commitment, at least we know narcissists have accurate insight.



To wrap up, remember the original narcissist, Narcissus, searched and searched for the ideal romantic partner until he found the one person who was flawless and perfect enough for him: his own reflection in a pool of water. We also know that didn’t go so well: he drowned in that very pool. If only they had selfie sticks in ancient Greece.



http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/health-fitness/mental-health/10-ways-to-spot-a-narcissist?page=1

18 Ways To Spot A Narcissist 02/04/2014 08:33 am ET | Updated Aug 14, 2015
01:37 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 556

Chances are, you’ve encountered a narcissist. You know, that friend who somehow manages to revert every topic of conversation back to himself; the colleague who is always bragging about having the latest, greatest ____; the family member who thinks she is hotter, smarter and just generally better than you at everything.



But sometimes the signs of narcissism are a little more nuanced. They’re not always as obvious as media depictions would have you believe. And yes, it’s possible to have some traits of narcissism without having full-blown, clinically diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder, which is when narcissism starts to have a serious, negative impact on everyday life and relationships.



“People are on a continuum — there’s a range of narcissism,” W. Keith Campbell, Ph.D., head of the Department of Psychology at the University of Georgia and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement, explains to HuffPost. “Most people are sort of in the middle, though some are more extreme than others.”



When you think about the people you come into contact with every day — whether it be a friend, romantic partner or colleague — do any of the following seem to ring a bell? If so, you may be dealing with a narcissist.



narcissist



1. They’re likable — at least, at first glance.



Narcissists tend to be great at first impressions, coming across as very charismatic and personable, which is also why they can perform quite well in job interviews. “Often the image you see of someone who is narcissistic at the beginning could be very positive, but over a longer term, it turns out to be more negative,” Campbell says. “So that’s where the surprise comes in — it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the person I just hired, and now look at what I’m dealing with.’”



2. Not all narcissists are loud and proud. In fact, some are quiet and shy.



While the loud and braggy types are the ones people usually picture when thinking about narcissists, they can actually be quiet and reserved. Zlatan Krizan, Ph.D., an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Iowa State University, explains that there’s actually two kinds of expressions of narcissism: grandiose, which is where the bragging and showing off is exhibited, and shy, where a person may not be as forthright “or be out there with a bullhorn, but is sitting in the corner, fantasizing about when their day will come, and resenting others.”



That’s not to say that narcissists are always either grandiose or shy. In most people, there’s elements of both shy narcissism and grandiose narcissism. “We like to put people in a box,” Krizan says, “but when you look at how these personality traits present themselves, you see separation only at extreme levels.”



3. They can often be found in leadership roles.

boss nametag



Not that that makes them good leaders, notes Jean Twenge, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Psychology at San Diego State University and co-author of The Narcissism Epidemic with Campbell. But narcissists often find themselves in leadership positions because “people who are narcissistic want to be leaders. They don’t necessarily make better leaders, but they want to do it, so they’re more likely to end up in those positions.”



4. They always manage to make the conversation about themselves.



“You could start talking to a person about how you have cancer, and pretty soon you’re talking about their new car,” Campbell explains.



5. They’re also guilty of name-dropping.



It’s all in the name of self-promotion and making themselves seem better — which includes the tactic of name-dropping, Campbell says.



6. Not every story a narcissist tells is one of victory. But even in the stories of tragedy or failure, there’s an air of entitlement and victimization.



Narcissists will often tell stories about themselves — sometimes repeating the same story over and over again — and many times, the story will be about an instance of personal heroism or an exploit. But even when a story is of something negative that happened, it’ll never be the narcissist’s fault. There’s “more emotional victimization,” Krizan explains. There’s still an air of self-reference “about not being understood or people not recognizing your value. It’s about me and how I’m great,” but others aren’t realizing it.



7. They like nice things.

shopper



Now, we’re not saying that all shopaholics or materialistic people are narcissists, or that all narcissists are also shopaholics. But one of the hallmark traits of narcissism is the desire to display high status, and this is often done with material items, Twenge says.



“One place to differentiate it is that sometimes the shopaholic will tell you what good a deal she got on something, and the narcissist is more likely to emphasize how prestigious or status-oriented the thing is,” she says. “The really prototypical example: They drive up in a Ferrari, but they won’t tell you what a good deal they got on it.”



8. Appearance is everything to them.



Narcissists are not necessarily more attractive than other people, but they “do take care of their appearance and place an importance on looking physically attractive,” Twenge says. Not everyone who makes a point to take care of their appearance is a narcissist, she adds, but “well-applied nails, hair and so on would be an indicator.”



9. On Facebook, they have lots of friends — and not a single bad picture.

facebook logo



“People who are narcissistic use it to maintain status, and so what they do is they tend to have more attractive photos, and more self-promoting, broader networks — more ‘friends’ — on Facebook,” Campbell explains.



10. They are strongly averse to criticism.



While no one can honestly say they like receiving criticism, people with narcissism are hyper-sensitive to it, Krizan says.



11. Excuses are a narcissist’s best friend.



Narcissists tend to externalize blame, pinning the blame on everyone but themselves. “They’re good at making excuses and not taking credit for mistakes they make,” Campbell says.



12. They leave a trail of wreckage behind them.



Does this person have a history of bad relationships and work experiences? Consider that a red flag. With narcissist CEOs for instance, you’ll see that “that they’ve gone into companies, kind of wrecked them, then moved onto something else,” Campbell explains. “In relationships, they may have infidelity, which destroys that relationship, and then they’ll move on to another one.”



13. And in that vein, they may be more likely to cheat.

infidelity



That’s because a narcissist won’t put the feelings of the partner above his or her own. There’s also the undeniable self-esteem boost that comes when you find out another person — even if that person is not your partner — is attracted to you. Together, these two elements help to explain why infidelity may be more common among narcissists, Campbell says.



14. Everything is personal.



Particularly in the quieter narcissists, there may not be signs of overt self-reference and promotion. But there is defensiveness and reactive anger if they are not recognized or if they can’t get their way. “If you do something to [the narcissist] that he doesn’t like, it means you’re against him or you don’t understand him,” Krizan explains.



15. A narcissistic person probably has no idea he or she is a narcissist.



“Narcissism in itself is sort of a double whammy, not just because you have disturbances or believe you’re special in some way more than others, but because those things in themselves will prevent you from seeing that you have these problems,” Krizan says. In the more shy narcissists who may also experience symptoms of depression or anxiety, those other things may spur them to get professional help. But “the grandiose people, because they feel superior or because they may even have initial success, they’re very unlikely to seek treatment,” he explains. “It would only be after they develop so many problems where they ask themselves, ‘I feel so great, I know I’m awesome, but why did everybody leave me?’”



16. You find yourself resorting to flattery just to maintain the peace with a narcissist.



While the best way to deal with a narcissist is to just cut the cord and run, there are certain circumstances where you have no choice but to deal, Twenge says. Maybe the narcissist is a family member, or maybe it’s your boss. In these cases, flattery is the best way to avoid conflict.



17. Narcissists are not low in self-esteem.

high self esteem



A common belief is that people who are high in narcissism are secretly low in self-esteem — but this just isn’t true. As far as narcissists in a typical population are concerned, “they have a very high self-esteem and don’t have a deep-seated insecurity, as far as we can tell,” Twenge says. Indeed, Campbell adds that narcissists seem to be confident through and through.



18. Men are more likely to be narcissists than women.



And the level of narcissism is higher among today’s millennials than previous generations at similar ages, Twenge adds. As far as whether some professions or cultures have more narcissists than others — more research needs to be done to determine that.

Are these the most terrifying trousers ever? The 17th century NECROPANTS made from corpse legs - and are supposed to be lucky
01:04 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 557

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in Holmavik houses the only known intact pair of necropants

In order to make the necropants, or nábrók, an individual had to get permission from a living man to use his skin after his death

According to legend, the trousers brought their wearer wealth and luck, but had to be passed on to a future generation before his own death

By SARAH GRIFFITHS

PUBLISHED: 07:33 EST, 25 October 2013 | UPDATED: 19:55 EST, 31 January 2016





Many people will be planning scary costumes for Halloween, but nothing is likely to compare to this pair of macabre trousers.

In 17th century Iceland, sorcerers wore 'trousers' made of a dead friend's skin that were said to bring them wealth.

According to legend, a morbid deal was struck between two friends to arrange who became the trousers or 'necropants,' which were used for purposes of traditional magic at the time.

Scroll down for video and an audio explanation of the trousers...

The only surviving pair of Necropants (pictured). They were made by skinning a dead man and according to legend, were worn by a friend to bring him wealth and luck. The coin and piece of paper with a magical symbol drawn upon it is shown to the right of the 'trousers'

The only surviving pair of Necropants (pictured). They were made by skinning a dead man and according to legend, were worn by a friend to bring him wealth and luck. The coin and piece of paper with a magical symbol drawn upon it is shown to the right of the 'trousers'

The Museum of Icelandic Sorcery & Witchcraft in Holmavik, Iceland, houses the only known intact pair of necropants, that were meant to be worn day and night by their owner.

In order to make the necropants (called nábrók in the naive tongue) an individual had to get permission from a living man to use his skin after his death.

The surviving member of the pact had to dig up his dead friend's body and peel off the skin of the corpse from the waist down in one piece without any holes or scratches, to make the magical trousers.

nábrókarstafur

The wearer of the pants had to steal a coin from a widow and place it in the scrotum of the trousers, along with the magical sign called nábrókarstafur, (pictured) drawn on a piece of paper

As soon as they stepped into the pants, the skin of the corpse stuck to theirs own, according to the museum, which documents 17th century occult practices.

A spokeman for the museum told MailOnline: 'They would immediately be stuck with your own flesh and be part of your body.'



To make the grim garment, the wearer of the pants had to steal a coin from a poor widow at Christmas, Easter or Whitson and place it in the scrotum of the trousers, along with the magical sign called nábrókarstafur, which is drawn on a piece of paper.

The coin is a 'tool to gather wealth by supernatural means,' according to the spokesman.

It drew money into the scrotum from living people so 'it will never be empty' as long as the original coin is not removed, according to folklore.

The spokesman told MailOnline the wearing of the necropants was 'unusual behaviour' and reports are 'pure folklore' but the stories say that people could wear them for as long as they lived - but had to pass them on to a willing recipient before they died.

If the sorcerer wearer of the pants did not pass them on before his own death, it was said that his body would be infected with lice as soon as he passed away, but if the trousers were passed on, they could bring wealth to future wearers.

To ensure the transmission of fortune, the future wearer of the pants had to put his leg into the right leg of the necropants before the original owner stepped out of the left one.

According to the legend, the necropants would keep the money-gathering nature for generations and produce an endless flow of coins.



HOW NECROPANTS WERE MADE

An individual was granted permission from a living man to use his skin after his death

The surviving individual dug up his dead friend's body and peeled off the skin of the corpse from the waist down in one piece

He stepped into the necropants, which stuck to his own skin and then stole a coin from a poor widow to keep in the scrotal area of the trousers, along with a piece of paper bearing a magical sign

It was thought the 'trousers' brought their owner luck and prosperity





A reading of the legend of the necropants.

The spokesman said: 'People would be able to use them as long as they lived, but they would have to get rid of them before they die. If they would find someone to take them over the could last forever.'

17th century Iceland was a tough place as it suffered harsh trade restrictions from Denmark as well as natural disasters including a huge volcanic eruption that killed half of the country's livestock in years that followed and led to widespread famine.

Coastal settlements were also raided by pirates, locals sold into slavery in the Arab world, while a giant smallpox epidemic in the 18th century wiped out a third of the struggling population.







Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2476512/Are-terrifying-trousers-The-17th-century-NECROPANTS-corpse-legs--supposed-lucky.html#ixzz43aayOqjr

8 Things A Strong Woman Should Never Apologize For
00:58 Mar 22 2016
Times Read: 560

There is certainly a time and place for asking for forgiveness, and women can show strength by being humble when needed. Asking for forgiveness when we make a mistake is a positive character trait, whereas over-apologizing can be seen as a sign of weakness.



“I’m sorry” can roll off of the tongue so easily that it can leave you wondering if you did anything that was really worth apologizing for. When an apology is called for, a strong woman does the right thing, but there are at least 8 things that she should never feel that she has to apologize for.



8 THINGS A STRONG WOMAN SHOULD NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR

1. MAKING CHOICES AGAINST CONVENTION

Even women who consider themselves liberated from social conventions feel that they will be judged for going against the expectations that others have for women, even though that expectation has changed over time.



Choosing to focus on her career, choosing not to have a career, choosing to not get married, choosing to have a traditional family; women make choices that are right for them and they should never apologize for that.



2. PUTTING HERSELF FIRST

A strong woman knows that she can’t be her best for others unless she is already at her best. By taking care of her own needs before helping her family, boss or community, she is able to do more for them.



But first she has to be healthy, financially secure, and mentally strong. Strong women don’t apologize for prioritizing their to do list with taking care of her own needs.



3. MAKING PLANS WITHOUT DEFERRING TO ANYONE

In the 1970’s a study found that prior to learning about women’s liberation, women felt the need to defer to men when making a decision. The need to ask permission of the men in their lives left them feeling resentment and anger.



Today, a strong woman knows that she is her own boss. She can make her own decisions about her future financial security, career, education, family or health. She doesn’t need to ask permission from anyone.



4. BEING COMFORTABLE WITH SEX

Consensual sex is healthy and natural to both men and women, but it’s only women who feel like we should hide the fact that we both have, and enjoy sex just as much as men do. A strong woman knows that she has control over her physical enjoyment and has a choice of whether or not to have a partner.



A strong woman rejects the negative labels that have been given to women who have sex frequently or outside of marriage. What she does with her body and with whomever she wants to is none of your business.







5. SPEAKING HER MIND

Words have power and a strong woman uses them to her advantage to communicate effectively. Strong women should never apologize for using language to express themselves; even if that includes swearing, raising her voice or saying unpopular things.



6. SAYING NO

‘No’ is a powerful word, and strong women will not apologize for using it liberally. A strong woman will decline to overextend herself so that she has more energy to devote to people and activities who are a priority.



Although it can be tempting to apologize for skipping your party, a strong woman knows that she’s not doing anything that needs your forgiveness. If you are upset that she can’t attend your event, that’s a negative emotion that you put on yourself, not something that a she has caused you to feel. Apologizing for someone else’s negative emotions is not what a strong woman will do.



7. HAVING STRONG OPINIONS

A strong woman will not apologize for having and expressing her own unique thoughts, even if they are different from yours. She also has no need to apologize for holding seemingly conflicting beliefs. For example when she expects a gentleman to hold the door for her, while still expecting him to treat her as his equal.



Strong women are aware of the convention of devaluing traditional female roles and segregating gender in the workplace and they do not apologize for expressing their dissatisfaction with this. Strong women will not apologize for expecting equal pay for equal work, equal treatment by the law and evolving gender roles.



8. EXPECTING MORE

A strong woman has a list of accomplishments that she wants for herself but she also knows that she is capable of much more. She not only expects herself to achieve, she expects the same of others. A strong woman knows what she wants to change and how to achieve it.







A study in Psychology of Women Quarterly found that when it comes to breaking gender barriers, women’s own expectations for their success were important to their sense of achievement. Since gender discrimination still exists in the workplace, women bear a psychological and economic burden that men do not.



https://www.powerofpositivity.com/8-things-a-strong-woman-should-never-apologize-for/?c=daw

Vampires and Silver by Vicky Karnataka, India
01:30 Mar 20 2016
Times Read: 573




Question:

I heard that vampires are injured when they come in contact with silver. If it's true, then like silver are there any more materials that vampires cannot touch? Can you give the list of them?



Answer:

Silver has a unique place in vampire mythology as the single, solid, naturally occurring substance that can injure a vampire. The ultraviolet rays of sunlight can harm a vampire, as can fire or holy water, but these are all substances that have to be "created" in order to be used. We can create machines that emit ultraviolet rays, we can bless water, and we can start fires, but all of these require planning, special spiritual connections, or specific chemical reactions in order to exist. Silver is a naturally occurring mineral that, in and of itself, can be dangerous to vampires.



Why silver and not, say, gold or copper or any other mineral? Well, no one can say, as we have not been able to sit a vampire down and do any scientific studies on the matter, but for whatever reason silver has been known for thousands of years across thousands of cultures to be a very potent material against several supernatural monsters, such as vampires and werewolves.



For whatever scientific or chemical reason, silver has a unique effect upon vampires when it comes in contact with their skin. Not only does it burn, but it also has a paralyzing effect, making it so a vampire cannot pull the silver off of itself. It's somewhat similar to the way humans become paralyzed by electrical currents - the muscles seize and the person becomes unable to disconnect themselves from the source. While in both cases this is not necessarily deadly in small amounts, there is the possibility of major injury with enough exposure.



The burns caused by silver are minor compared to those caused by sunlight. Silver has the effect, though, of slowing a vampire's ability to heal so greatly that over enough time it could effectively destroy a vampire. The paralysis effect makes it so much more dangerous than other materials in that a vampire could be incapacitated simply by chaining them up with silver chains, handcuffs, or wires. Despite a vampire's incredible strength, the paralysis effect makes it so that they cannot break free of these chains without outside assistance.



While there are other materials and objects that serve as vampire repellents, none come close to matching the effects of silver.

21 Creepy Wikipedia Pages That Will Have You Locking Your Doors Tonight Chrissy Stockton ...http://thoughtcatalog.com/christine-stockton/2013/10/21-creepy-wikipedia-pages-that-will-have-you-locking-your-doors-tonight/
16:26 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 589

21 Creepy Wikipedia Pages That Will Have You Locking Your Doors Tonight

Chrissy Stockton 64 Comments

98.3k

1. Villisca Axe Murders



Villisca Ax Murder House Facebook

Villisca Ax Murder House Facebook



In 1912 in a sleepy town in Iowa (population around 2k), someone took an axe to a family of six and their two house guests. A hundred years later the case remains unsolved. No one knows who murdered these people or why, or even how all the people (save one, maybe) remained asleep while other people in the house were bludgeoned with an axe.



Now the house is reportedly super haunted and since you can stay at the house and do your own ghost hunt, and I heard a particularly terrifying recording of an EVP on this radio show. Warning: it is not for the faint of heart.



2. Spontaneous human combustion



dark_ghetto28

dark_ghetto28

Spontaneous human combustion is a phenomenon where you could go up in flames suddenly. Like, right now. With no cause (hence, ‘spontaneous’).



Example:



Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house on the Rassau council estate in Ebbw Vale, south Wales, in 1980. His entire body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and a portion of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair in which he had been sitting was also destroyed. Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the wick effect. His death was ruled ‘death by burning’, as he had plainly inhaled the contents of his own combustion.



No thanks.



3. Bloop





Bloop is an extremely low-frequency and extremely loud noise heard in the ocean. It sound like a noise an animal would make, but it does not match the sounds of any known animal, AND the volume is way louder than the loudest known animal (the blue whale).



Here’s a journalist paraphrasing Dr. Christopher Fox who works for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration talking about the Bloop:



Fox’s hunch is that the sound nicknamed Bloop is the most likely to come from some sort of animal, because its signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts. There’s one crucial difference, however: in 1997 Bloop was detected by sensors up to 4800 kilometres apart. That means it must be far louder than any whale noise, or any other animal noise for that matter. Is it even remotely possible that some creature bigger than any whale is lurking in the ocean depths? Or, perhaps more likely, something that is much more efficient at making sound?

Other scientists believe the sound is made by icebergs, but come on, listen to the audio above. It’s totally an extremely large, secret ocean monster.



4. Chelyabinsk meteor







This was the 2013 meteor that hit Russia. 1,491 people were injured and there’s basically nothing stopping another from hitting your city. Or a bunch of them falling everywhere like the apocalypse making it rain.



5. The Lottery



The Lottery is a short story by Shirley Jackson that originally appeared in The New Yorker in 1948. The story itself is creepy, but not terrifying (it’s basically the OG Hunger Games). Reading the Wikipedia article, however, makes you reflect on the themes of the story and how realistic it is that our society could end up doing something like this. It’s too real.



6. Armin Meiwes



Hannibal

Hannibal

Armin Meiwes was a German cannibal who found someone who voluntarily let him kill and eat him on the internet. Before the victim died, Meiwes severed the guy’s penis and they shared it.



Meiwes has since become a vegetarian but claims there are “about 800” cannibals in Germany.



7. Murder of Junko Furuta



This is also known as the “Concrete-encased high school girl murder case.” The Wikipedia article basically tells the real life story of a 17 year old Japanese girl who was abducted and held for over 40 days while being tortured. You will call your mom just to tell her you love her after reading this.



8. Hinterkaifeck



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

In 1922 a family of six was killed on their farm by someone with a pickaxe-like tool.



More details:



A few days prior to the crime, farmer Andreas Gruber told neighbours about discovering footprints in the snow leading from the edge of the forest to the farm, but none leading back. He also spoke about hearing footsteps in the attic and finding an unfamiliar newspaper on the farm. Furthermore, the house keys went missing several days before the murders, but none of this was reported to the police.



Six months earlier, the previous maid had left the farm, claiming that it was haunted; the new maid, Maria Baumgartner, arrived on the farm on 31 March, only a few hours before her death.



Exactly what happened on that Friday evening cannot be said for certain. It is believed that the older couple, as well as their daughter Viktoria and her daughter Cäzilia, were somehow all lured into the barn one by one, where they were killed. The perpetrator(s) then went into the house where they killed two-year-old Josef who was sleeping in his cot in his mother’s bedroom, as well as the maid, Maria Baumgartner, in her bed-chamber.



9. Carl Tanzler





It’s a classic love story: Doctor falls for patient, patient dies, doctor lives with corpse chillin in his house for seven years…



10. Gloria Ramirez



In 1994 Gloria Ramirez had advanced cervical cancer when she went to the emergency room. The home remedy she was taking for her cancer formed a poisonous gas after her heart was defibed and made several of the hospital staff sick enough that they passed out.



11. List of reportedly haunted locations in the world



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

If you’re looking for a way to Wiki your entire day away, this would be the place to start. Research all the haunted houses in the world. Search for ones in your area. Sink deeper into this creepy-ass k-hole.



12. Dnepropetrovsk maniacs



This selfie was taken by the killers.

This selfie was taken by the killers.

The Dnepropetrovsk maniacs are two 19 year-old psychopaths in Ukraine who killed a bunch of people, some in broad daylight. They made videos of the murders and put them on the internet. A motive for the killing spree was never established. It was hypothesized that they planned to make money from the murder videos they made.



Deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy said “For these young men, murder was like entertainment or hunting.”



13. H. H. Holmes



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons



Known as ‘Dr. Henry Howard Holmes,’ this guy built a hotel specifically as a playhouse for him to murder people in. He is suspected of murdering up to 200 people. The murder hotel contained, “a maze of over 100 windowless rooms with doorways opening to brick walls, oddly-angled hallways, stairways to nowhere, doors openable only from the outside, and a host of other strange and labyrinthine constructions.” There was also a “corpse chute” that allowed Holmes to drop bodies from the hotel into the basement.



14. Elizabeth Báthory



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

Elizabeth is maybe the most prolific female serial killer ever, and is known as the “Blood Countess.” She tortured and murdered up to hundreds of young girls in her castle with the help of her servants.



15. Killing of Tim McLean



A guy was stabbed and eaten in public, while riding a Greyhound bus in Canada. Here’s the witness accounts:



Garnet Caton, a 26-year-old seismic driller who sat one row ahead of McLean, described hearing “a blood-curdling scream,” saying, “I turned around and the guy sitting right behind me was standing up and stabbing another guy with a big Rambo knife…. Right in the throat. Repeatedly.”



Caton added: “I got sick after I saw the head thing. Some people were puking, some people were crying, some people were shocked. [The attacker] just looked at us and dropped the head on the ground, totally calm.” A police officer who was at the scene said the attacker also cut off parts of the victim’s body and ate them.



Another passenger, Stephen Allison, stated that McLean fought his attacker, providing other passengers with the opportunity to get off the bus.

16. Roanoke Colony



Who wasn’t fascinated by the Roanoke Colony when they learned about it in elementary school history class? An entire colony disappears after being left alone for three years with only a small clue, the word “Croatoan” carved into a tree. Tell me this isn’t one of the most interesting Wikis out there.



17. Albert Fish



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons



Fish was a child killer from the early 1900s who raped and ate some of his victims. He was only convicted of three murders, but he claimed to have committed over 100, and that he had a “child in every state.”



It should also be noted that his face is way creepy. :(



18. Boy in the Box



Wikimedia Commons

Wikimedia Commons

The boy in the box is a child murder victim who was found naked and beaten in a box. He has never been identified.



19. Murder of Shanda Sharer



Honestly, this is probably the sickest thing I have ever read on the internet. Four girls tortured and killed a 12-year-old girl, eventually burning her alive. They then went to McDonald’s and ate breakfast, joking about how she looked like one of the sausages they were eating.



98.3k

20. List of people who disappeared mysteriously



This is the k-hole that keeps on giving. The princes in the tower, Amelia Earhart, Natalee Holloway–and probably about a thousand people you’ve never even heard of.



21. Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter



In 1955 two families report seeing green men and UFOs. Sounds super made up, right? There were over 20 witnesses, including policemen and a state trooper.



Even creepier are the actual activities of the creatures:



The seven people present in the farmhouse claimed that they were terrorized by an unknown number of creatures similar to gremlins, which have since often been referred to as the “Hopkinsville Goblins” in popular culture. The residents of the farmhouse described them as around three feet tall, with upright pointed ears, thin limbs (their legs were said to be almost in a state of atrophy), long arms and claw-like hands or talons. The creatures were either silvery in color, or wearing something metallic. Their movements on occasion seemed to defy gravity with them floating above the ground and appearing in high up places, and they “walked” with a swaying motion as though wading through water. Although the creatures never entered the house, they would pop up at windows and at the doorway, waking up the children in the house to a hysterical frenzy.

Vampiric Biology By Hugo Pecos & Robert Lomax Return to Vampiric Virology
04:00 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 599

Untreated, a person who comes out of a vampiric coma will have undergone a number of major physiological changes affecting the various systems of the body. The information included below is only a short overview; for a more detailed account, read Robert Lomax's extended pages here.



Brain & Nervous System



A vampire's nervous system is similar to humans and has proven to be their Achilles' heel: injuries to the spinal cord and brain can be devastating for them. While a vampire's spinal cord and nerves work as before transformation, a number of changes take place in the brain, and that altered brain chemistry goes a long way toward understanding vampiric behavior.



The normal brain (left) shows much more serotonin activity

than the vampiric brain (right).

Serotonin: Vampires have much lower levels of this neurotransmitter. Serotonin acts as an inhibitor against violent, aggressive and impulsive behavior, which also explains why criminals such as murderers and rapists have so little of it in their brains.



Dopamine/Endorphins: These neurotransmitters induce feelings of euphoria, and are released in a vampire's brain when it feeds. Neural pathways activated in feeding vampires are much like those found in drug users.



Circadian Rhythms: Chemical changes in the brain that help us "rise and shine" with the morning light are reversed in vampires.





Sense Organs



Powerful sense organs give vampires an advantage in both hunting and eluding capture. Sneaking up on them is virtually impossible, as they are aware of your presence long before you are aware of theirs.



A normal eye compared with a vampire's

Sight: In vampires, the iris in each eye becomes hyperdilated, giving them what appear to be black eyes. In addition, the retina now reflects more light into the rod cells, causing the eyes to shimmer in the dark. While all this gives vampires excellent night vision, it renders them effectively blind in daylight. They also experience extreme vasodilation of the sclera, making the whites of their eyes appear red.



Smell/Hearing: Both senses are extremely acute: thanks to a combination of enlarged brain tissue and additional receptor cells, hearing range is tripled while smell is tenfold.





Hair, Skin, Teeth & Nails



Part of the terror of encountering a vampire stems from dramatic changes to their outer appearance. Some of these changes are functional, while others are simply the result of various chemical imbalances.



As you can see, the upper fangs are quite straight

compared to the curved lower fangs.

Teeth: During the latter half of the vampiric coma, the upper and lower eyeteeth experience rapid growth as additional enamel is deposited on the crown of each tooth, creating sharp fangs. Many vampires will file these fangs to make them sharper for easier feeding—though they'll have to do this about once a week as vampire fangs are capable of regeneration, even when pulled out.



Skin: A newly-transformed vampire has a sickly, pale-yellow skin tone that fades to a ghastly bluish color over the next few days as its circulation slows. Over a matter of years, the skin becomes more and more translucent as its fat and water stores shrink away, revealing a fine network of veins underneath.



Nails: Both fingernails and toenails thicken and grow at a more than doubled rate. To prevent tension on their nail beds, vampires will generally keep their nails within a centimeter in length, and also quite jagged or pointed to help them grab victims and injure opponents.



Hair: Hair growth slows down substantially in order to feed the accelerated nails. Not only that, once a follicle reaches its terminal length and falls out, each regrowth will become smaller and lighter until it's gone for good. Within ten years of transformation, a vampire's entire epidermis will be completely bald, with not even a hint of peach fuzz.





Muscular & Skeletal System





Adaptations in their skeletal and muscular systems give vampires significant advantages over humans.

Muscles/Connective Tissue: About 90% of vampiric muscles are of the fast-twitch variety (compared to 50% for the average human). This brand of musculature enables short bursts of maximal force, ideal when hunting prey. However, unlike typical fast-twitch muscles, vampiric muscles are highly resistant to fatigue, thanks to a drastic increase in myoglobin and mitochondria. Ligaments and tendons thicken in response to the workload imposed upon them by the muscles.



Skeletal System: Osteoblast production causes a vampire's entire skeleton to harden and thicken, both during the coma and after each feeding. As a vampire loses its fat and water stores, its spine will curve into a hunchback, a condition known as kyphosis.





Cardiovascular System



The most profound differences between our species are found in the circulatory system, as they enable vampires to survive injuries that would kill a human being.



A drop of human arterial blood compared

with that of a vampire

Blood: Vampire blood is called ichor (pr. ik-er), and appears black due to an increase in iron levels, allowing it to carry more oxygen and clot faster.



Heart: Vampire blood is pumped via the contraction of skeletal muscle rather than the heart, which eventually atrophies from disuse. At rest, these contractions are mostly involuntary and take place in the limbs, emanating from the furthest extremities inward, like a wave. BPM for each contraction tends to be much lower than the average human heartbeat.



Adrenaline: This "emergency hormone," produced by the adrenal glands, is released in consistently large amounts in vampire blood during "fight-or-flight" situations. This quickly raises a vampire's sluggish metabolism by increasing blood flow, dilating air passages and accelerating the production of clotting factors. Along with changes in muscle, bone and connective tissue, this ability to release adrenaline only adds to a vampire's extraordinary power.





Body Temperature





Like a reptile (or corpse), a vampire's core body temperature depends largely on its surrounding environment. They aren't completely cold-blooded, however, as they'll still shiver and produce heat to keep their temperature at a bare minimum of 60 degrees Fahrenheit (compared to 98 for humans). This proved to be a great help for modern vampire hunters, as it made vampires easily distinguishable from humans when viewed through infrared imagery.



Aging & Life Expectancy



While no vampire on record has ever died of natural causes, vampires do undergo an aging process—just not in the same way as humans. Vampires do not age on a molecular/genetic level, but their life of hunting and eluding capture creates tremendous wear and tear in the form of injuries to bones and tissue.



A 125-year-old vampire

photographed in Spain; 1901.

Note the curved spine, lack of hair

and emaciated frame.

Because they presented such a danger to society, most vampires were destroyed long before the outer limits of their lifespan were determined. Ancient history offers some clues, however. In ancient China, there was said to be one vampire in the Emperor's court through the entire Eastern Zhou Dynasty, which would put his age at 550. More accurate modern records have certified vampires of over 300 years old.



Contrary to the opinions of many theologians, vampiric longevity is not the result of some pact with the Devil, but rather an ability to ward off the DNA damage that occurs during cell division in normal humans. Specifically, the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes (known as telomeres) become chewed up over time in humans, but not vampires.



Though their DNA may have the ability to resist aging, mutations that take place during the initial coma cause a vampire's appearance to change dramatically within the span of a decade. It will lose all of its hair as its fat and water stores shrink away, causing its skin to become thinner and more transparent. This gives it a distinctly withered and dried appearance, with smaller muscles and a pronounced curvature of the spine.



Despite their rather feeble appearance, older vampires are still extremely powerful and agile. Many a vampire hunter has made the mistake of underestimating them.

The Vampire Prophecies...http://www.vampiricstudies.com/prophecies.html
03:58 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 600

In many societies there are prophecies foretelling the time of the last great battle of good against evil. The Vampires have such a legend as well, here are a few of the Prophecies which foretell a time of ending, which begins this, the last war of good against evil, to take place in the modern-day world of the viral vampire.



And now here are only a few of the prophecies that foretell this time of ending and beginning. The words are taken from Paladin as said to her by Azraeyel and also taken from other verbal Vampiric Sources.



And there grows near the foretold time.

A time when the truth breaks forth, like a chicken from its shell, at the moment of birth, into the world. The truth is upon the wind and the wind becomes a gale.



Once set free, the truth travels and releases the knowledge. And there shall be those on both sides who do not wish the truth known. And yet shall it become known to all.



On that day, shall human turn against human, vampire against his own kind and brother shall slay brother and friend shall kill his friend ... in the name of truth.



Then he shall have been the first, but his truth shall go unheeded, and the children shall betray him.



One of his own shall bring forth the tempest.



And the child shall lead and so shall he become the first and be the last.



In the end, there shall be only two kinds of humans: those who believe and understand, and those who fear.



The truth is upon the wind, and the wind becomes a gale, and shall blow across the land to devastate all within its path.



The wind shall blow ill. And so doth the time of ending become a plague upon all the land.

















The messenger rides forth alone.



The wall of stone is false and 'tis but made of clay which shattered as the balance is shattered.



They who speak this truth are the first to die.



The Messenger carries forth the divine truth unto the masses.



The death is accomplished by the hand of evil which is mistaken for the Sword of Right.



But though the lips are silent, the heart screams and the words rise as the Phoenix to herald the end of the beginning.



As the storm grows more ponderous, THEY shall hear the windsong.



And what was fantastic will be reality, and reality shall be proven.



He who is the first, he who is the last, shall know the truth.



And as they do, so shall all, and the tempest subsides leaving only the destruction, a memory ... the voices an echo, and the truth evident.



And Brother kills his Brother, and Friend lies to Friend. and loves are lost as friendships die and the wind blows cold.



The Silent Battle rages, the Balance is no more, and yet doth the end come slowly ... with promise of renewed Light.







As with humans there is, and has been for centuries, a foretelling of a Time Of Ending; a time of a great and awful war which would put an end to things as we know them. A war that would tear families apart, that would turn friend against friend and bring destruction, devastation, and death in its wake.

This was/is not exactly religious in nature, but there are parallels. And, as with the Second Coming and the Armageddon, this Ending Time has its own legends and prophecies.



These legends are known mostly only to the vampires and those close to them. But the rumors of such a time have endured for centuries, told by word of mouth from one to the other.



There are several groups of vampires, and those who have an interest in them, who have very similar prophecies. A word or two different, a piece of information missing or added to the puzzle.



But they all agree the battle, as with humanity and Christians, will be a battle of great good over great evil. A fight on a planetary scale to include both humans and vampires.



No more secret, no more underground; no longer limited to just the vampire communities.







The battle is to be for balance, protection and survival.

In today's world, there are many different vampire groups and communities; they all belong to a loosely associated organization. An alliance of sorts, which basically keeps the peace. The alliance members are world wide; they abide by an ancient treaty, a treaty with many sections governing such things as conduct, relationships with humans, territorial ties and disputes, political and environmental issues. Laws and rules by which all are governed.



This treaty is ratified and added to, every so often in large meetings held in Europe, Asia and the Orient, and yes, here in America as well. Those who run the world and govern themselves and others have their own political structure and substructure.



You could compare it to a senate made up of many different councils, committees and other formations which unified the members. All going their separate ways and breaking off into smaller groups. To help understand the treaty concept, think of the alliance and treaty as a whole country, such as the United States, and think of the councils as the individual states, all unified for a common good. Unified to form a uniform policing force and laws that govern and benefit all.



Now think of each member state as an individual, different in modes of conduct. Just as we all are. But in this case, the German, French, American and Asian members all differ within their own location as well ... that way being unified as a member of the treaty, these organizations differ greatly in political beliefs and what they consider to be lawful.



Then, as in America, there is a comparison of the old beliefs, rules and laws, with the new and modern; the natural separation of the very young, the middle aged and the old. But with vampires, the age differences are greater. But young and old are not restricted to age but the length of time one has been a vampire, and which kind of vampire.



In this world, old could mean 800 years and young could mean newly transformed only a day or a week. A Classical vampire may be a week old, even though the 'actual' age of that newly transformed Classical could be over 50 years old or barely 18 years old. Compliance with the treaty originally, and the councils and committees which ran them, is what (in part) had kept the balance.







As with vampires everywhere, many disagree.



Some feel that humans should be shunned and will have no part in human affairs, others cherish human friendships. Some feel humans are cattle and nothing more. Whereby, there are vampires who feel humans are going to be the surviving animals and, as such, are responsible for the safety of the planet.

Other vampires feel THEY are the highest life forms and humans are not necessary and should be gotten rid of by any means possible. Then there are the vampire rogues, the independents who also adhere to the treaty.



The treaty keeps the balance ... as well as the balance of nature, between man and nature; between man and vampire.







There is a series of people who govern this treaty ... although the title seems religious, it is not so, not in the same sense as in Judeo-Christian systems ... included in this maze of interlocking different issues is also that of magick ... the old and the ancient, things you have no idea exist ... things of physical and psychic natures ... also dependent on the balance of the cosmos and the universe.

Just as good and evil and life and death are all balance and discipline, so is the treaty dependent on balance ...



For centuries there have been rumor's of this Ending Time. A time when the treaty would be no more ... when the old proven ways would no longer be followed. A time when the balance was disturbed and this would begin before the Christian Armageddon.



It would at first begin with only vampires but would soon spread to their human associates. A war unlike any other which would prove the existence of vampires to the world. There are many truths involved here and a few more important than all the rest.



Vampires have always been safe because of the myths. As long as the myths were believed, the actual vampire remains safe and able to function freely amid the disbelief of mankind. They are safe because they are uniformly not believed in by the masses. But the truth about vampires, by its very definition, will change the balance of nature.







Will humans want the benefits?

The longer life span, the more years of health and strength and beautiful appearance?



Would they feel the real vampire was a threat due to his strength, psychic abilities, longer work history which permits him to gain greater education and wealth?



Would that be considered a threat?



So many issues, so many reasons for the truth to be hidden?



But a few major reasons for the truth to be told.







The major reason ... Death to humans on a massive scale from ... err ... lets call it natural causes.

If one can consider AIDS a natural cause, that is. Deaths of millions of humans over the next 75 to 100 years. That death would also disturb the balance of nature.



What happens to the planet and the vampires, if the humans die? Some vampires feel it is natural selection ... just let it happen. But others feel, 'No, humans must survive. It is necessary to the survival of the planet.'







Now, just suppose that the vampires could insure the humans' survival, but in so doing perhaps end their own existence.





This would cause a rift in the vampire communities with some saying, 'Let them die. They caused it themselves. We can and will survive and so will the planet ... do nothing. Do not endanger us for them.' But others feel humans can be saved but in so doing they would learn a new truth: that vampires exist. And once this is proven to them, the vampires will be at risk as they lose the safety of pure myth.

Humans have always feared what they do not know or understand, and they tend to destroy what they fear. The hatred for vampires is ingrained due to the myths and lies of religion. So, the struggle between the two factions begins; those who wish to keep the treaty, the balance, intact, with those who wish to help humanity survive pitted against those who do not.







Those who feel the time is for change, the new ideas over the old, the young and new over the old ways. A change. Let the stronger vampires prevail.

What could happen if this actually occurred? If the treaty was disbanded? If the alliance fell apart?



The Civil War that would begin the 'Ending Time.'







Some vampires feel they could and should control the world governments by themselves instead of in the partnerships they now find themselves with humans counterparts. They do not wish any truth known ... especially that they exist. These factions would be pitted against those who disagree.

At first this war is confined to words, then actions only within the vampire communities. Later it would spill over into the human friendships, then fully into the human communities.







He, who is venerated for maintaining the Old Ways,

is called the Pope of Balance.



But he is only one of many. He is an ancient; sort of a figurehead, one of the symbols of the treaty and what it stands for: peace, right, balance, life.



He is believed to be a man of ancient honor who had taken vows to uphold this balance and more.



He is, and has always been, a target and so too are any who ally with him. His family, his friends, his associates ... just in knowing him they are a part of a struggle not many even realize begins.



In the end it is believed he will die sometime near the end of the war. He accepts this and is resigned to it. However, some think the event of his dying before the end of the war is a misreading of the ancient texts.



Some of us know our fate and know a truth ... it cannot be altered.







Just as the Christian time was foretold, accomplished and not able to be changed by any of its counterparts, so to is this Civil War predestined. Due to happenings during the past few years, such as the disturbances in California where several vampire groups began to openly argue about general policy and some even got into public fights ... these occurrences of serious argument began spreading to other states and countries.



In late 1997 there was a hectic meeting in Germany where several members of the Inheritor hierarchy walked out of the meeting on ratifying the additions to the treaty. This was followed by a general walkout by the younger Classicals.



A while later, in Paris, a high ranking Inheritor was attacked and badly injured by a young Classical. Also during 1997 a Night-Timer who is responsible for a good quantity of the truth reaching the public was stalked, threatened, had property destroyed by vandals and serious death threats. This act of terrorism and destruction was seen as an attempt to prevent information, such as found in the Vampiric Studies Course on the web site and such as is taught in this class, from being given to the general public. Twice the enemy has successfully been able to bring this site down, that will never happen again.



Due to these and other happenings within the vampire communities it is believed that the time line toward the Ending Time has begun and forces are now in play leading to the inevitable.







It is important to note that this Ending Time which is the beginning of the Civil War will, in its earliest stages, appear to the human community as human 'gang fights' but in actuality will be severe, ideological and territorial disputes which at first will be confined to the vampire communities. These disputes, however, will not be secret and will, in these early stages, be played out within a public background.

The War of Balance which is the beginning of the Ending Time.







RUMORS OF THE WAR:

August 2005



However, it is only rumor because no one I know will confirm or deny this information.



I was told some time ago by the editor of my Spanish speaking site in Spain that a new Classical, who's home is Spain, has stated in an international forum originating in Spain, that he was now vampire leader of the east coast of the United States. He spoke quite a bit about himself and how he was now ruling the east coast from Maine to Florida. I wrote every vampire I could think of to see if this was accurate, even sent a hard copy of what was sent to me, but I received no reply from anyone. Shortly thereafter, I learned that ImortalN has told other people quite different things than he has told me, including the fact that I made up the entire site. So no one will respond to me. Any of you who wish to communicate with the Spanish vampire, let me know and I'll provide you with his name and email address in Spain, he speaks only Spanish, and most likely won't answer you, but the information is here if you want it.



Based upon the bits and pieces of information I DO have, I feel the war is either over or they have come to an agreement. But that is unofficial.

Native American Myths ...http://www.vampiricstudies.com/nativeamer.html
03:57 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 601












This is a condensed combination of the Vampire Creation Myth. To my knowledge, there are five, three of which I have seen. All are based on Native American myth but two are based on 'The Book of Enoch' (about the fallen angels and the Watchers). To save time I have condensed the non-Christian ones here. To my knowledge the basis for these myths are deeply rooted in the religious lore and Shamanism of the Lakota Sioux, Cherokee and Black Foot Nations.







The Myth

There was once a brave and powerful Medicine Man and Healer who was kind and ruled his tribe with love. His brother was the Chief of the Ten Tribes. The Medicine Man loved a maiden named Laughing Sky. He and his love were wed and they lived among their people in peace and harmony with all. But Laughing Sky was barren and brought forth no children.



One day the Medicine Man, in his anguish for the lack of a son, raised his head and challenged the Great Spirit. He declared that he would no longer obey all things, if he where not given a son.



But the Great Spirit was deaf to his plea and listened not.



As the days passed Laughing Sky grew old and the end of her child bearing time drew nigh. In desperation, the Medicine Man turned to the more negative spirits for aid in making Laughing Sky fertile.



He did things forbidden and one sad day opened a portal by the use of magick, through which entered a dark spirit named Jumlin.













Jumlin was a strong and dominant negative spirit who sought life in the living dimension of the Earth and tricked the Medicine Man to bring him forth. He promised in payment for bringing him out of the Spirit Realm into the world that he would bestow the Medicine Man with many healthy sons and daughters to enrich his later years.

Jumlin promised the Medicine Man that Laughing Sky would bring forth to bare a beautiful and healthy son nine months after the Medicine Man granted Jumlin's desire to be brought from the Realm of Spirit Shadows into the Living World.



The Medicine Man complied.



Even though to do so was forbidden, the Medicine Man brought the Spirit of Jumlin into the world.



But Jumlin had fooled the great Medicine Man. Jumlin had shielded much of his power and once across the Divide, he possessed the Medicine Man, going into his heart, mind and body.



Jumlin was a hard and cruel spirit, dominant and hungry. He fed on blood of living things. First the animals of the forest, then the horses and finally on the people of his tribe.



As the Medicine Man, Jumlin had power and control of his people. He first selected the strongest of Braves to feed upon and in his hunger and blood lust fed from them unto their deaths.







The Medicine Man's brother, the Chief, and his people lived in fear. As Jumlin continued, his physical and mental powers grew stronger until none dared to resist him.

The stronger he became the more he took advantage of those weaker. Then one day he stopped feeding from the males and went into the female population of his village, doing as ever he liked or willed with their minds and bodies as he fed.



As with the males he satisfied himself fully with the women ... most died. In the spring, those who did not die, became with child and there where many new births in the village, all healthy, robust children.



The young, and older, braves, even though terrified, hated their Medicine Man more and more as he did as he pleased to their wives and daughters, sisters and nieces.



As the days grew into summer, Jumlin's appetites increased. He was now unstoppably strong in all ways and became even more negative.



All lived in dreadful fear as woman upon woman and then the female children began to die of Jumlin's cruelty and feeding.



As fall approached the men of the tribe could stand it no more and despite their fears, they sent two messengers to a nearby tribe to consult their medicine man. They were told that their Medicine Man was no longer he whom they had known, but the evil Spirit Jumlin.



And they learned the ancient methods for his destruction, for now, no more could he be killed as a mortal man is killed.





When they returned, after several months, they found Jumlin's spouse large with child and very ill. She lived to bring forth into the world Jumlin's child, who was called Laughing Bear.

Soon after giving birth, Laughing Sky fell into Child Bed Fever and the braves banded together in a plot to destroy Jumlin. But he was aware of it at once.



He killed Laughing Sky and drained her of her blood and did the same to the leader of the young braves as the warrior slept.



Jumlin took his son, several of the other children and their mothers in the dead of night and escaped. He gave the women and their children to several braves in various villages to buy their protection for a time as he made his way across the plains.



After a time only he and Laughing Bear rode together. Laughing Bear soon grew to be as cruel and indulgent as his father.



Several months hence, they came to yet another village where they stopped to rest. As Laughing Bear slept, Jumlin went abroad into the night as was his want. This time his feeding was more vicious than ever and his victim was the chief's eldest daughter.



As Jumlin, deep in a blood lust frenzy, partook of her, he was discovered by her father and three of the Hunters who had been following them all these months. Jumlin was killed, or actually destroyed, by the magic knowledge of the Hunters, but Laughing Bear escaped.



Laughing Bear and his brothers and sisters, begot by Jumlin, are said to be living to this day. Breeding with humans and their own kind to produce the first race of Inheritors.



They are physically powerful, live eternally and are negative in nature.



They are both the first Vampires and the ancestors of the first Vampires. And they walk the Earth today.



So said the three Native American Myths.













Another Cherokee Vampire Myth



U`TLÛÑ'T&Au ml; ~ A VAMPIRE FROM CHEROKEE FOLKLORE



Among the Cherokee there is a legend of a terrible bloodthirsty ogress who slaughters people and eats their livers.



Known as the U`tlûñ'ta, this she-creature can adopt any shape or appearance to suit her purpose, but in her right form she looks very much like an old woman, except that her whole body is covered with a skin as hard as a rock that no weapon can penetrate.



On her right hand she has a long, stony forefinger made from hard bone, shaped like an awl or the head of a spear. She uses this ghastly weapon to stab whomever she encounters.



Because of this fearsome weapon she is called U`tlûñ'tä, or 'Spear-finger'. Some people call her Nûñ'yunu'ï, or 'Stone-dress' because of her stony skin.



By whatever name she is called, though, this vengeful and bloodthirsty creature is to be deeply feared.

Exactly what is a Night-Timer?
03:51 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 602




That is a good question and many Vampires, and those members of the medical profession who are Vampire aware, disagree. Night-timer is a title given to a race of beings who are actually also Inheritors. Although, they are distinguished by the term Night Timer, they are a recognized subset of the Class 2 Inheritor. Which, technically makes them a Bourne or Inheritor Vampire. Night-timers are affected and infected by a much weaker strain of what’s come to be known as the V5 virus.



Night-timers Normally Live Much Longer Than Humans: They outwardly age more slowly and stay younger looking in appearance much longer. The average live span of a Night-timer is 200 to 300 years. They look about 80 to 90 at age 300. On the whole, nowhere near as long as the average Classical or Class 1 Inheritor Vampire.



Night-timers Can Be Killed: They may be killed by most of the normal ways of killing humans, but not as easily.



Night-timers Are Psychic: Usually, they tend to be much more psychic than the average human and, most often are just as psychic as the most skilled Vampire.



Night-timers Are Physically Stronger: If healthy, they average three to five times as strong as their counterpart human, but much less powerful than a Classical or Inheritor Vampire at the same stage of life at any given point.



Night-timers Have Extreme Sensitivity To Light, Heat And Sun: As their Vampire counterparts suffer, so do Night-timers. They are also prone to eye problems and digestive maladies.



Night-timers Consume Blood: As their Classical and Inheritor counterparts, Night-timers consume blood as nourishment, in varying amounts. If they do not do so on some sort of regular basis, they become very weak and prone to illness. Like other Vampires, Night-timers can eat and drink as well as consume blood.



Night-timers Function Better After Dark: As with Vampires, Night-timers feel more vigorous, and stronger during the non-daylight hours. As Vampires do, they prefer not to go out during the day. But, as with Vampires, they can and do go out when the need arises.

















Night-timers Do Not Regenerate Organs: Unlike the Class 1 Inheritor Vampire, who tend to heal faster and regenerate to a greater extent, Night-timers are more like humans in this respect. It was once said that Night-timers inherited the worst of both species. The ailments and other characteristics of both human and vampire without the strength, regenerative abilities, health, or long life of the Vampire.



Actually, there are two forms of Night-timer. Those who more strongly resemble Inheritor vampires in their attributes, (they heal faster, are physically stronger, and tend to be more arrogant) and those who more strongly favor humans. That which causes these differences is believed to be the original strength and/or the specific mutation of the infecting virus.









Night-timers never get much respect from the Classical or Inheritor communities. Most vampires consider Night-timers to be half-breeds or even think of them as human. Humans think of Night-timers as vampires and insist on calling them vampire. Most vampires, especially Bornes, refuse to recognize Night-timers as vampires, even though Night--timers are born the same way. Usually from human parents or skipping generations and resembling ancestors such as Aunts, Uncles, cousins, etc. Night-timers choose to call themselves Night-timers to help differentiate themselves from true Bornes.

Unlike Class 1 Inheritors we are not sterile, but we die. It is difficult for Night-timers to become pregnant and to carry to full term. Many first pregnancies are lost, or the children die very young.



So, even though new generations may be sired, the young often die much before maturity, making the race as a whole, sadly doomed to extinction. Mating with humans seems to eliminate the Night-timer qualities or, at least, dilute them even further. And since Class 1 Inheritors are sterile; mating with a Vampire to strengthen the race would accomplish nothing.









Many Night-timers have fangs, but many do not. Night-timers feed exactly like Class 1 Inheritors, but whereas Inheritors and Classicals disdain dead blood and prefer their blood pumping live from the vein of a feeding source, many Night-timers exist on animal blood. Which most secure from possible blood donors and butcher shops.

Night-timers feed by biting, those who do not have fangs use an appliance called Feeding Fangs. Which are actually dentist quality fangs over a very sharp piece of steel at the point. For reasons explained in the class on Inheritors, else where, most Night-timers feed from the area just above the heart, the breast, the upper arm, upper thigh – both inside and outside thigh – and on the hand. The fangs make small punctures which heal rapidly and resemble freckles when healed.



Class 1 Inheritors are mostly immune to human illnesses. They cannot catch AIDs and other varying diseases, but they can pass them on from blood donor to blood donor. (i.e. sources) The Night-timers, even those which resemble Inheritors Class 1, are also susceptible to human illness. That is why most prefer what is known as dead blood. Because it is not pumping from the donor at the time of feeding. Night-timers must be careful to be sure their blood is safe, by heating it or cooking it, or perhaps eating animal organ meats. Such as liver, heart, etc, which usually contain more blood.



Due to very popular written and film fiction and animation many people believe there is such a thing as a half vampire, a person born of one vampire parent and one human parent. It is also believed these people are called all kinds of similar names ... Damphoire, vampirell, vampir, daywalker and a host of others originating in works of fiction.



There is no such thing as a half vampire, if there where, they would most likely be classified as Night-timers.

Classical Vampires...
03:47 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 603

Classicals, also known as Classics, are what most people visualize when they think of a Vampire. In movies and literature it is said that Classicals have been 'Brought Across', meaning brought across the threshold of death; or having been 'turned', meaning transformed from a living human into a not living Vampire. This is of course a fictional vampire, real Classical Vampires are NOT dead or undead.



Fictionalized versions of Classicals are the kind of Vampires you see portrayed on 'Forever Knight', and in Ann Rice novels. Dracula, in all of his incarnations, was supposed to be this type of Vampire, purely from Bram Stoker’s imagination.



We all know that Vlad Tepes was given the name of Drakul, which meant Dragon. Vlad's' father was known as The Dragon due to his leading association with an order called The Dragon. Vlad inherits the name, and an 'A' is added, meaning 'Son of', thus Dracula = Son of the Dragon. He may have been a bit mad, but he is still considered quite a hero in his home land.



Another meaning for the word Drakul is 'Devil'... given by the church at the time, for the inhumanity of the acts committed. As you all know, his name -- Vlad, the Impaler -- came about from his impaling both his own people that he felt to be traitors and the soldiers of opposing armies. He impaled them on large stakes. This line of impaled bodies stretched for miles from the battlefield leading into his town. The impaling was done, in an effort to appall and terrorize the attacking armies, despite the fact that they had Vlad vastly out-numbered. Not too surprisingly ... it worked. They felt he was insane. Horrified by the inhumanity, they simply retreated, with Vlad's army close behind in pursuit.



As to Vlad's drinking blood, I personally think he or his men started that story to frighten all who opposed him. However, it was the forbidden of the times to partake of the blood or heart of he whom you had vanquished; providing you believed him to be brave and strong. It was a common practice. It was believed that Vlad made a pact with Satan on the death of his love. That is why Classicals are still believed, in some places, to be servants of the devil and to have come from hell.





The pale, gaunt appearance of Classicals, in film and press, is purely fiction brought forward from the beliefs of the day. If you were dead, you shriveled up and lost weight. If you had no blood and were dead or newly dead, you were pale; as in 'Pale as a Corpse', etc. It was once believed a Classical had to drink blood, not only for nourishment but to replenish his blood supply, which he did not have because he was believed to be dead.















A Classic, having fed well, is believed to look quite human; rosy cheeks, bright eyes, etc. But when the blood began to dissipate, the corpse-like appearance returned: sunken eyes, gaunt, drawn and with pale skin. The red or yellow blazing eyes comes from the church view that vampires are Minions of the Devil and are from hell. It was believed that Vampires, Classicals especially, could change to any animal, including: large cats, such as tigers, black leopards and black pumas, as well as dogs, wolves, bats or rats; not to mention fog and smoke. After all, they are Demons and can do anything, can't they? Of course not, but that was church view.



Real Classicals can only be infected by one who is already infected. The ones who claim to be undead (a fictional term) say they are killed by the draining of blood unto death and then revived into the undead state. This is purely fiction.



An newly infected Classical needs to feed immediately, i.e.: to ingest fresh, living blood to restore health, vigor etc. Young ones - newly infected ones, usually have a hard time dealing with the rush of new emotions, strength and mental capabilities. Most do desperately try to maintain at least some of their humanity and it is always a struggle.







The real medical evidence suggests that today’s Classicals are infected by the mixing of bodily fluids or blood with the Parent i.e., the Father or Mother who infected them. (Father or Mother does not mean the biological parent, rather it means the Vampire who spread the infection). This causes either a genetic imbalance, because of the mixing of affected DNA, or the effects of enzymes or viruses which slowly affect the changes noticed.



Sometime, long ago, a human was infected with the Inheritor retrovirus containing the mutagen. This human's ability to be infected was due to his or her possibly unique body chemistry, or maybe the specific Inheritor's retrovirus had mutated further. This human became the first Classical Vampire. Old writings even speculated that after this human was infected, he/she became ill, as the altered mutagen tried to adapt to the alien body chemistry. But, instead of dying, the first Classical was born.



The highly volatile nature of the new mutagen meant more blood was necessary. As the old retrovirus mutagen began reshaping, the human's own unique chemistry adapted the mutagen. Thus, a new breed was born. This may account for the difficulty in creating new Classicals. Perhaps it is only the rare individual with the correct body chemistry who can be infected.





As far as infecting children and babies ...



As for babies, I think it is not done for several reasons. One is practicality. An adolescent or baby Vampyre is a pointless creation. But mostly because it is impossible. It is believed that certain testosterone or estrogen levels are needed as a catalyst for the retrovirus to infect. Children, before the onset of puberty, lack the appropriate levels.







Classicals, like Inheritors, must ingest blood. It is a biological need, not a psychological one. The criticism here is that blood cannot be digested through the human stomach and broken down into proteins and other nourishments. This is indeed true and a medical fact. It is one of the chief reasons why the existence of vampires is disbelieved, as such. However, the point to remember here, is that blood is not broken down into its nutrients in the 'normal human stomach'. Those persons with what medicine calls today, 'The Physical Vampire Condition' do break down the substances. We are not speaking of Porphyria, the illness, here just yet.



The Physical Vampire Condition is the term for today's real Classicals, Inheritors, Nighttimers and Genetics. If these people do not ingest blood for real food ... nourishment ... they get progressively weaker, feel ill, experience aches and pains. Even though real Vampires can and do eat regular food as well, if they do not ingest blood, persons with the Physical Vampire Condition will die without blood transfusions. It is a VERY SERIOUS MATTER.





Attributes And Problems



Almost all true Vampires have the same or quite similar problems, including sensitivity, in varying degrees, to light, heat and sun; even indoor lighting and the lights in night clubs maybe bothersome. Some blister very badly, some deeply burn, some pass out, others suffer heat stroke. Most have Day-Glare Blindness, similar to humans who experience snow blindness or night blindness. Most CAN go out into the day, but really would rather not. All tend to feel ill and weak during the day and better and stronger as darkness descends. And I have known Vampires who have trouble driving at night due to the intensity of oncoming headlights.



In truth, real Vampires try to live as normal a lifeforbidden as they can. And most real Vampires keep away from humans and human affairs, as much as they are able.







FEEDING



Ahem ... now we get into touchy realms. Real feeding is mostly by bite, but not in the neck. With the nerves, muscles, arteries, and veins it is really dangerous if you do not know what you are doing. The reason for the fictional biting of the neck originated with the true belief that the carotid artery in the neck, where the pulse is normally taken (as opposed to the radial pulse, in the wrist) is the direct arterial link to the heart. It is not a vein, but an artery.

The main difference being, when an artery is severed, it will continue to spurt the blood out of the wound with each heartbeat and is very difficult to stop. A vein is smaller in nature, does not spurt with each heartbeat, but flows steadily and will in most cases, stop bleeding on it's own. If direct pressure is applied, or a tourniquet used, it will stop the bleeding fairly quickly. NOT so for an artery, which will pump the blood out of the body with every beat of the heart. This is a much more effective scene for a film, or a play, and easier to access if you want to kill someone quickly. (However, it would be neither advisable, nor practical, to attempt to apply a tourniquet around someone's neck!)







Some real Vampires, such as Classicals, and many Inheritors, feel protective toward human friends, mates and feeding sources -- known as 'Sources', 'Donors' or 'Victims'. Most Vampires do not kill their Sources, but do become very territorial about them. They feel possessive, as if they have pure and simple ownership. However, to be fair, many Inheritors do not feel ownership, but perhaps protective and territorial about their human friends and charges.



MOST real Vampires consider humans to be food, period. You do not play with, befriend, or have sex with, your food. My husband has said ... 'Having sex with your human Source is like a human having sex with a cow before eating a hamburger.' It is simply not done. However, I know of many who disagree. Today there are rarely real victims. But indeed there are a few. A victim is said to be anyone who is used as a food source without their consent.



Donors, or as we call them -- feeding partners -- come out of the woodwork if they know a Vampire or bloodist wants a donor. There is no reason to kill donors. There are alternate ways of feeding, such as, getting your blood from blood banks, by buying it, or stopping people waiting to go in and asking them if they will sell it to you instead. It is not against the law in this country to buy, sell, or ingest blood. But this way you risk AIDS and other nasty things if you are NOT an actual vampire.



Animal blood is easily gotten. Any butcher will sell you animal blood; Pig, cow, chicken, sheep, horse, etc. You have to take steps to sterilize it if you are not a true vampire, as you could become ill by contamination. But it is available.



If you eat meat, even very well done, you ingest animal blood. A sizzling steak, roast or hamburger -- the sizzle comes from body fat, body fluid, water, and animal blood. Plain and simple. Even if it is cooked to 'leather' the blood is in the cells of the flesh.



You eat it, no big deal ... get over it.







LONG LIFE



All Vampires live much longer than humans. Classicals, and Inheritors as well, have more physical strength. More efficient nutrient consumption probably leads to this factor. Almost all Vampires are psychic. Not to be confused with Psi~Vamps, i.e. Psychic Vampires. Night-timers and humans are also psychic. Being psychic helps, but it is not really fun. More on this in later lessons.



TEMPERAMENT



Vampires, (no matter how nice they appear to be) if they are REAL, are killers. Killers who choose not to kill. But they are very UNPREDICTABLE and extremely strong. Even if you love a Vampire or befriend one, or they befriend or love you, remember always that Vampires are not human. You must never forget with whom (or what) you're dealing.



EGOS



Some Vampire's egos are worse than actors' egos. It comes with the territory. Many, but not all, have an arrogant, elitist attitude. Again, it’s just part of their nature, even if they do not consider themselves to be an elitist or superior. Many are devoted and loyal friends and spouses. Many delight in their lifeforbidden, others hate it. As with humans ... to each his own.



THE NEW HUNGER



For the youngest and newly infected ones, they have a condition called 'New Blood' or 'New Bloods'. The surge of developing senses is overwhelming after being infected. The power and temptation to do something to take advantage -- JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN -- is very strong.



With sudden surges of strength and psychic ability, many young ones (newly infected vampires) go a little crazy until things level out in their brains and bodies. It is very easy to accidentally injure or even kill someone when one suddenly finds that they literally 'Don't know their own strength.' That is why a newly infected real Vampire is never left alone but constantly guided into the world he has just entered.





Classical Vampires all have the same problems and strengths, but Inheritors do not have these problems. Immortal and Eternal. There is really no such thing as immortal. All Vampires can die. Their lives, their existence (whatever you wish to call it) can end. If you drop a safe on a Vampire from a tall building he will probably die.



But Vampires do tend to survive bad injuries, regenerate and re-grow some organs and limbs, as well as teeth. It takes huge amounts of fresh, living blood to keep a severely injured Vampire alive -- in other words, lots of donors. This is true for all Vampires, Classicals and Inheritors alike.





And now I am going to let you all in on a private joke of sorts. Within the world of the Classical there is an in joke, probably begun by the Inheritors, anyway they began calling the Classicals 'Pales.'



Why?



The original mythological connection to the Undead myth. A vampire was either dead and just stayed that way or, Undead, given some unholy life by Lucifer. Of course, if you where dead, you where pale, hence the name. Today most Inheritors still refer to Classicals as 'Pales' and many Classicals have taken or adopted the title as their own.



It is the 'in' joke of most real Vamp communities. But we must remember, Classicals are not undead, but are living beings.

Another in joke, is the term used to distinguish extremely old Classical Vampires. Who are believed to have lived so long in time that they have gone insane.



The age of these vampires is unknown, but believed to be older than the oldest Inheritor. The term for this type of vampire is Gaunt. Again, a play on old films and books.



The ancient vampires, such as portrayed in the film Nosferatu, are very old and very ugly, unlike the Classicals portrayed in Dracula films by Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee who were more seductive and romantic figures.



The age of gaunts is not readily known, it is said they live exceptionally long, thousands of years. But there is no vampiric record, either by Inheritors or Classicals, of what age one might reach.



The extreme age, you might say, is likened to older humans who have Alzheimer's and were in past days thought of as being demented or insane. Gaunts are believed to be insane and exceptionally strong.



There are several vampire communities, in New York City, who believe there to be at least one Gaunt living deep beneath the subway tunnels of Manhattan. Whether or not this is Urban Legend, I do not know.

Vampiric Studies and DNA...
03:43 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 605




The main reason real vampirism is not more widely believed is the failure of the general public to understand exactly what the virus which produces the condition actually is, or how it functions. Most people do not understand, or believe, that human DNA can be altered in such a way as to produce such a being.

Actually, many things can alter a person's normal DNA. Drugs such as LSD and Thalidomide cause DNA changes and many viruses can change the DNA in a single gene. A combination of these altered genes can change the over all DNA of a living human.



The term 'vampire' as used on this site as a medical term, must be separated from the vampire myths. A Viral Vampire is an infected human. Though the DNA in the host human has been greatly altered, the organism remains human in the medical sense as the number of chromosomes has not been changed.



All humans, in fact the entire human race, have the same number of chromosomes. The number of chromosomes is what makes them human (except for those born with Down's Syndrome. These people have an extra chromosome but are, of course, human).



Technically the vampire is still a human, but for sake of discussion we think of viral vampires as non-human or as the next step up in human evolution. This is difficult to believe because many of the attributes of a vampire are, well, considered to be better and more developed than humans'. The strength, speed, enhanced mental and/or psychic abilities, the ability to digest human and other blood more efficiently are but a few of the differences. The reason this happens is the basic human DNA is altered by the virus. The virus, we call it V5 is NOT the same virus as HIV5. To simplify, it is transmitted through a simple infection.



This infection is gained either through birth or infection from one who has the virus and passes it on. The child inherits the infection, passed on from the mother or father. The parent may have picked up the virus from some other member of their family such as a cousin, aunt, brother, etc., and thus the infection is passed on to the newborn child. Rarely are both parents infected, i.e., vampires themselves. More often, they are carriers of the virus, in a similar manner to the way a red haired child is born to a family who, for several generations, have been all blond.















The passing of the virus to the child from the parent produces an Inheritor Vampire child. The V5 is passed on to the newborn much the same way the AIDS virus is passed from mother to child. In such a child, the virus remains dormant until the catalyst of the onset of puberty. The release of hormones is believed to activate the virus system.



The effects of the V5 virus then takes a number of years, as the child develops, to be completely effective, i.e., active in the system from its previously dormant state in the child's body. As in any infection, the child's immune system tries to fight off the infection, and in many cases, if not most, it succeeds. It is also believed that the blood chemical make up of the individual is also responsible in determining if the child will be fully affected by the virus and thus DNA altered. Not all infected people develop the vampire virus, V5, and thus not everyone born with it becomes a vampire.



That is why we are not hip deep in real Inheritor vampires. The only other way to become a vampire is to be given the infection by someone already infected. This would make the person, the subject, a Classical. As with Inheritors, it takes Classicals quite a long time to develop the full blown virus once infected due to the same reasons; blood chemistry make up and the immune system. Also, not everyone who is exposed to the virus by a Classical will be a viable host for the virus.



There is also a theory that a person has to be genetically predisposed to V5.









V5 is actually closely related to many other viruses such as the common flu virus and the AIDS virus. V5 is not the AIDS virus but works in much the same way as to infecting the host. Another reason the reality and cause of vampirism in today's modern world is not more widely believed is because not many members of the public or medical establishment know of the existence of V5.

Why don't they know of it? Because, like Ebola and other new illnesses such as the Flesh Eating Bacteria, which actually have not been named so far, as we do not know what they are as of this date. V5 has only been known for a relatively short time, many years to be sure, but in regard to other illnesses, a short time.



It has been many, many years now that several doctors in different parts of the USA and Europe have known about and been studying the V5 virus and its victims. The studies have been accomplished by long range, personal, one to one research with these infected people.



Why so secretive?



The same reason as with any other discovery. Once released, the doctors and researchers will gain money, fame and reputation. Not to mention grants, and the licensing of new drugs, etc. For the past few years, ImortalN and I have been telling people of the existence of the virus and explaining the ''what and why'' of this illness. We have compared it to other historical illnesses believed to be the cause of vampires in the past.



A few years ago, it was discovered that V5 is related to the AIDS virus. We began telling people then of an impending break through in a vaccine for AIDS. A vaccine for AIDS, discovered from the link to the vampire virus. During the month of June 1998, both NBC and ABC first gave the announcement of a new AIDS vaccine in development.



Just prior to that was released the news announcing a gene, newly discovered, that lengthened the life of a fruit fly by twice its normal life span. OK, laugh. It does sound funny, but it is most important. That gene, in an insect, was gained from gene mapping, isolating, and gene construction, and the same is possible and already being done with humans.







The V5 is accessed because of a special and rare gene some people have and which can be passed on through or by infection into a host. Next there will be further announcements of the life extension program already in effect for humans. Soon to follow, other announcements about gene splicing, genetic engineering and gene manipulation which had already been performed on lesser animals.

The DNA of a jellyfish were implanted into developing mouse embryos. The result? The unification of 2 non-related creatures which resulted in a litter of healthy mice, which actually glowed in the dark, the way a jellyfish glows in the darkness of the depths of the sea. Just 'Google' mice jellyfish. That's all you have to enter, two words, mice jellyfish, (don't use quotation marks) and click search, you'll find the articles! No one believes me when I say these things but they are true.



Genetic mapping, and genetic coding of viruses will explain the V5 more fully to those not knowledgeable in medical or genetic terminology. Discovery of the V5 will make a huge difference when formally announced.



Think for a moment what the full impact of such ramifications would mean.







What would happen to the nation's, to the world's, population if vampires were proven to be real? Real, but not at all like the myths or legends.

First the fear. Vampires are stronger, faster, etc. They could easily take jobs. They tend to be smarter and more mentally adept, more psychic. Could they then dominate and control normal humans?



The hatred. Humans cannot even live with their own kind in peace. How can they live with actual vampires?



The envy, Vampires live longer, stay young looking longer. How many normal people would want to be able to do the same?



Population. So many of them and they live longer. Less housing, less food and what else would they use longer than normal people?



And what about the religious issues? The old church views are that all vampires are evil or in league with evil. How many righteous people would like to see them dead? How many hunters would like to see them dead? (See Real Hunters link elsewhere on this site)



The government would want them for soldiers and laborers and so would other countries. Not to mention forcibly studying them like lab animals.



What about the vampire himself/herself? Their safety gone, they are exposed, people who fear, hate or admire them, and all now know the vampire truly exists.



How does society cope with something that it has been told for a millennium does not exist?



How does the world establishment tell the populous of the existence of something believed to be myth and evil?





How does one go about integrating a newly identified species into the human community?



Very, very slowly and carefully.







To understand how DNA is altered by virus, we shall now look at normal genetic coding. I apologize that there is no way to really simplify this.



Genetic code. The ability to use more than one codon to specify a particular amino acid requires many different (mRNA) as many amino acids as there are triplets. The corresponding number of codon synonyms and (tRNA) results in the correspondence in (mRNA) transcription. The attraction between the (tRNA) and the triplets of the (mRNA) depends on the corresponding codon and the anticodon. The degeneration of the code has a pattern for all amino acids that have 2, 3, or 4 synonyms for the first 2 bases, one or more triplets.



There may be a question as to where the triplets overlap.



Example: a sequence of AUGGUGG Where a non overlapping code 2 amino acids, methioine (AUG) and prypothan (UGG) or could this really be 4 amino acids? Methioine (AUG), cysteiniel (UGU), valine (GUG), and tryptophaine (UGG)? Really bad problems can come from over lapping sequence AAU and AAC which may then read as AAUAAAC. This code could not be followed by methioine because the overlapping codon which resets UGA is a terminator codon.



It was once believed that any one particular codon that specified an amino acid meant the same acid in all organisms. But it has been noted that there are exceptions in humans; to note these exceptions, go to the genetic code. Each (tRNA) molecule has 2 important functions.





1.To attach itself to a certain amino acid



2.To place the acid in its proper place in the protein.



To do both jobs a sort of relocation site must exist in the (tRNA). The anticodon is the compliment of a certain messenger in the (mRNA).





Before you can understand what the vampire virus is and how it works, it is necessary to understand a bit of genetics and virus in general.

Why?



Because the vampire virus is closely related to, or you might say a cousin to, both the flu and the AIDS virus or to more properly say, related to the virus which goes on to cause HIV in humans. This statement simply means V5 is a retro-virus. The things which makes it so difficult to believe, and in fact is why most cannot believe in the existence of the vampire virus, is the lack of general understanding of how the v-virus can and does alter the human DNA to permit the vampire symptoms and maladies to take effect on the once human body. Most people do not believe the human DNA can be so drastically altered.



This is a strange problem, since all retro viruses (except for perhaps some bacteria which are, of course, not viruses) and one form of RNA, viruses do most commonly change the cell DNA and take over the individual cell's original DNA. It commonly occurs in the flu virus and in the HIV virus, both of which are related to the V5 virus.



To better understand how this virus works and how genetics plays a part in the inherited factors, we must first look at the basics of human genetic coding and regular and retro viruses.



Those of you who have already had this in class, will see this is basic text book stuff found in any source for the study of genes or genetic coding. You have already read the above basics of genetic coding and how important the sequence of amino acids and bases are to the virus and its function in a cell.







Genetic coding is the means by which hereditary traits are passed from one human, or other species, on to another of its own kind in birth. Genetic code is the exact chemical equation by which the information making heredity is passed on from the genes to the proteins such as hemoglobin or pepsin. These and other proteins are the ladder which structures the human body. Enliens, pollypeptides, and hormones all serve to regulate these chemical reactions in the body. Chromosomes are located in the Nucleic Acids.

The DNA or RNA of each Gene is responsible for making the Protein involved in the development of each trait. Species allow Genes to have the same effect on all its members in the same manner and so effect all its members from generation to generation of that species.



The codon is the main unit. The Codon is involved with the structure of nucleic acid. Both DNA and RNA are composed of a special sequence of individual units called nucleotides. Each nucleotide consists of three smaller units, a phosphate, a slayer, (No not THAT kind of 'slayer') and a base.







There are 4 types of Base in DNA. Adenine, Guanine, Cytosine are double rings called PURINES and the last component Thymine, is a single ring component called Pyrimidines in RNA. Uracilis is pyrimidine in RNA, wherever Thymine would be found in DNA. The key is the bases, and how they are arranged, and in which sequence in a chain of single strand of (rnRNA) or DNA.

There are 20 different amino acids in proteins but only 4 bases. Nucleotide bases that is. This provides for 4x4x4 different and specific bases, 64 codons. There are more combinations actually but these are all we need to look at right now to realize the structure can be greatly varied as to acids and bases. With the exception of 3 of the 64 codons, each specifies one of the 20 amino acids in the proteins.



Most acids have more than one codon but some have triplets as we have previously seen. The codons which specify are known as the synonyms for the amino acid. During the bonding the protein transfers to the genes the information. This occurs in 2 parts, transcription and translation. The transcription acts as the triplet on which the RNA pollynuecliotide chain, called the messenger RNA (mRNA).







The messenger carries the genetic code from the acids to the cell's nucleus, to the nucleus of the ribosomes in the cytoplasms of the cell. During the transcription (mRNA) is attached to the ribosomes which are sections of three actual proteins. (mRNA) CODON determines the sequence of amino acid in the protein. Synthesis each acid is connected to the ribosomes molecule of transcription. (tRNA) which has, in its nucleus, a sequence of three nucleotide bases. Contained in an anticodon, and is complementary to a particular codon in the (tRNA). An attraction hydrogen binding helps alter the RNA and (mRNA). During this bonding a particular amino acid is transferred to the polypeptide chain.

Doctors originally thought that only one strand, the sense strand, of a double strand DNA contained the actual gene transcription into the RNA directly. The other strand, the antisense strand, was believed to function only as a replication. But this has now changed. It has since been learned that in some cases both strands are transcribed. This is considered a newer break through, something not known a number of years ago. Whichever antisense RNA is transcribed into protein or remains as RNA and may be a regulator to the sequence.



This is believed but has not been officially established.



In order for the Acid chain to be divided into sequence, each has to have a specific message signal showing the beginning and end of each sequence. (mRNA) contains a special codon at both ends of this message, one that initiates and one that ends the transcription of the Code. The triplet for the methioine (AUG) is the initiator codon for the protein synthesis. When first formed, polypeptide chains have methinomine as the first amino acid.



During the transcription process or after the protein chain is completed some changes are usually made by the cellular entyines, and these form the foundation protein. One of these changes is sometimes the removal of methioine. There are 2 types of cells, eukarotic and prorkryotic. The difference is prorkryotic cells don't have a nucleus and rarely have a membrane. Both have DNA codons called nonsense codons such as UAA, UAG, or UGA ... carry anticodons and cannot be transcribed. (mRNA) codon is found in the messenger.







Virus



A virus is a living organism, a life form.

It invades and takes over human cells. The virus invades a cell, kills it or changes the DNA of that cell and replaces the uninfected cells with replications of its own kind. As it replaces the normal cells or changes the DNA in the existing cell, it takes over the function of that cell. The body fights to kill or destroy these cells, if it fails the body can become ill and eventually die from this invasion, called an infection.



There are 2 kinds of viruses, virus and retrovirus. A retrovirus stores genetic material as RNA instead of DNA in the cells.



Remember that the flu is a virus which contains itself in a protein sphere, waiting for its release when you are more likely to be more confined in the winter months. In the summer although, the flu is also susceptible but one is more likely to be out in the open and less likely to be confined in an area. Thus, spread of this virus through coughing, nasal spray, and contact is more likely during the winter.



In a retrovirus mainly the genetic material RNA is incorporated into the host cell. Then the virus takes over the function of the cell and in many cases changes or alters the DNA of the host cell while replicating itself. Each time the host cell divides it makes an exact and complete new copy of the new DNA along with its own genes. There are hundreds of viruses, the common flu is a virus as is HIV and LAV which are cousins to the v-virus but manufactures itself in much the same way.







HIV



Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus.

A type of a virus that stores genetic information as RNA rather than as DNA. When the virus enters a targeted host cell, it releases its RNA and then makes DNA using the viral RNA as a pattern. The viral DNA then is incorporated into the host cell DNA. Each time a host cell divides, it also makes a new copy of the integrated viral DNA along with its own genes. The viral DNA can take over the functions of the cell, become activated, causing the cell to produce new virus particles.



These new viruses are released from the infected cell to invade other cells. The DNA and RNA factor is the difference between the retrovirus and virus. The vampire virus works in much the same way but does not go on to destroy the immune system. Instead it is coded to replace regular genetic material and alter it in such a way as to cause physical changes in the actual function of several aspects of the human body such as in digestion, slower aging, increased physical strength, mental capacity, etc.



The Genetic Code has certain characteristics which determine how and under what conditions coding is to be read. The sequence of a nucleotide base is to be read in certain sequences which show the determination of the formations of the cell. Most amino acids in proteins- and there are over 20 of them- have at least 2 codons, however some have as many as 6.



In a situation in which 2 or more codon words have the same meaning is called a degenerative code. The ability to use more than one codon to specify a particular amino acid requires many different (tRNA) as many amino acids as there are triplets. The correspondents of the number of codons synonyms and (tRNA) results in the correspondence in (mRNA ) transcription. The attraction between the (tRNA) and the triplets of the (mRNA) depends on the correspondents codon and the anticodon. The degeneration of the code has a pattern for all amino acids that have 2, 3, or 4 synonyms for the first 2 bases one or more triplets.







In Summary



Genetic coding is the means by which heredity is passed from one human species to another member of that species or any Species in fact. Genetic code is the exact chemical equation by which the information making heredity is passed on from the genes to the proteins such as hemoglobin or pepsin.

These and other proteins are the ladder which structures the human body. Enliens and pollypeptides, hormones, regulate these chemical reactions in the body. To understand more of how V5 acts to change the human cell structure in the human body we need to remember just how HIV works on the body. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus, a type of virus that stores genetic information as RNA rather than as DNA. When the virus enters a targeted host cell, it releases its RNA and then makes DNA using the viral RNA as a pattern. The viral DNA then is incorporated into the host cell DNA.



Each time a host cell divides, it also makes a new copy of the integrated viral DNA along with its own genes. The viral DNA can take over the functions of the cell, become activated, causing the cell to produce new virus particles. These new viruses are released from the infected cell to invade other cells. The DNA and RNA factor is the difference between the retrovirus and virus. In a similar manner does V5 also slowly take over the function of the cells while replicating itself. Definition: similarly affect the cell DNA of the infected vampire.







The medical and scientific community will make slowly released announcements in approximately the following order. Release to the general public announcements which have already been made on the TV show nova regarding gene mapping, gene splicing.

Then the release of a newly discovered or mapped gene found to prolong life, a prelude to this announcement was just accomplished on NBC and ABC recent television broadcasts.



Next announcements on a human life extension program, which it has already done but taking another direction as can be found in the site links elsewhere on the main page of this site. The announcement of a vaccine- not a cure- but a prevention of AIDS, which was released on NBC and ABC in June 1998.



Next shall come the announcement of the newly discovered virus which in itself lead to the Aids / HIV Vaccine. And then the announcement of the V5 virus itself. Then finally how V5 lead to the break through for HIV cure and then how the research was actually conducted. Finally telling the world about those people the research was conducted upon. Those actual, living, genuine vampires.



To get the proof you all seek so desperately all you need do is wait for this time line to play itself out. Its that simple.



How long will all this take? I do not know.







Now how does all this relate to the prophecies?



(See the Prophecies link at the bottom of this page. #16)



As you read over the prophecies, think of what happens if the vampires do not want this information getting out. Suppose there is a differing of opinion in the overall world wide vampire communities; for the sake of discussion lets say 50 percent of the vampire population felt this information should not be released as the end result would inevitably lead to a vaccine for V5 as well as Aids. If this occurred what could it mean to the vampiric world?

The vaccine I speak of is NOT the HIV vaccine, or the segment known as HIV5, but could be produced as a derivative of the same.





1. A vaccine, used as part of an Aids preventive, will one day be given to all children under the age of five probably included in their normal childhood shots.



These human children grow into adults and some will become volunteers for vampire feeding.

The vampires who feed upon this blood ingest the antibodies for the V5 as well since V5 was used in its manufacture. Or that there is also simply a vaccine for V5 given to all children to prevent their being infected once it is believed and understood that real and actual vampires exist. Now the vampire ingests this medically treated blood and the antibodies in the volunteers blood begins to activate on the vampire. If his/her DNA is altogether changed, it is only the virus taking over the cell functions which is keeping it alive.



To destroy that virus at this stage, or for the vaccine to affect the vampire DNA at a later date, could mean killing the V5, hence killing the host, death to the vampire itself.



With the general population so vaccinated there is much less of a food source for the vampire and competition for the remaining available unvaccinated humans becomes fierce.





2. The information about the vampire can also lead to hunters making weapons to kill the vampire more easily and efficiently. Why then would a vampire want this information to go to the general public?



Considering how easily and frequently viruses mutate, without a cure for AIDS, in very little relative time many, many millions of humans will die, disturbing the balance of nature. Both their own relation to the environment and the human balance relation to the vampire.

Many vampires feel this natural balance should not be altered, It is a prevailing belief that humans must be saved to preserve the natural balance and order of the planet and therefore it is most necessary to help cure AIDS.



Many vampires feel it is inevitable that humans will one day find the vampire virus and thus a vaccine for it. It is the hope of the vampires that human kind can be taught to coexist and in so doing may find a way to help the vampire survive.



On one hand we have those who wish no knowledge given out. Let the humans die of AIDS or anything else, it is natural selection. Then there are the others. 'NO! we must preserve the natural balance at all costs.'



Now reread the prophecies, perhaps they will now make more sense to you. The truth is vampires are indeed real, they are a product of an ages old inherited virus which alters DNA and creates the differences. These kinds and type of genetically caused illnesses are well known today and new viruses are being discovered all the time.







V5 is an ancient illness only now coming into the light of modern day. Its form and reasons are simple and easily understood by anyone with an open mind and willingness to wait for the medical proof to be announced. It will indeed be made known and no doubt disputed at first.



But, in the end, the vampire will be nearly as common as the human.



The new question then being, if the human cannot live peaceably with its own kind how can there be the needed balance between the human and vampire?



And will either species allow the other to exist at all?





THERE HAS BEEN MUCH ARGUMENT

ABOUT THE VIRUS CALLED V5.





There are many claims that V5 is bogus and part of the plot of a British TV series called Ultra Violet which was aired in both Britain and the United States via the SciFi Channel. The problem is, V5 has either coincidentally or purposefully been lumped in to a series of fictional viruses and illnesses.



The retro-virus I write about is commonly known as V5 (pronounced 'VEE FIVE'), it is NOT Code V (on the TV show it is pronounced Code 'FIVE' not Code 'vee'), K-17, G-17, or Stem Alpha. These are names of fictitious virus and bacterial infections. I don't know where these other names came from. K-17 is the name of the bacterial infection used as a fictional plot device in the British TV show called 'Ultraviolet'. The actual name of the V5 virus is not publicly known and is difficult to pronounce. V5 is what it has been commonly called since at least 1985, prior to the creation of the show 'Ultraviolet' in 1998.



Did it ever occur to anyone that the TV show 'Ultraviolet' took the idea of an infection and the information available on the Internet about a real virus, changed it from a virus to a fictitious bacterial infection and based their plot device loosely on that, plus the use of ultraviolet light to kill vampires? Which was also used years ago in a film about vampires based in Mexico. Neither 'Ultraviolet' nor viruses are new to vampire fiction.



According to a BBC web site 'Ultraviolet' is a fictional miniseries. Here's a brief quote of what the site says.



"Ultraviolet is a stylish, modern thriller set in London in the 20th Century, where a secret war is being waged between humans and vampires. It was released by Channel 4 in the UK in 1998."



The words Code V1, or just plain Code V, (This would be pronounced 'CODE FIVE1 or just CODE FIVE not CODE 'VEE') are used on the show to designate vampires or anything having to do with vampires. It does not, I repeat, NOT have anything to do with an infectious virus and is not the name of the bacterial infection in the TV show that made the vampires ... vampires. That is K-17.



The author of the Code V (CODE FIVE) site in question, does not give his name, does not give the web master's name and does not have an email address or phone number listed for questions or further information. All there is, is a Guestbook with questions and remarks. To my knowledge, none of them are privately answered. Someone I do not know, asked within the pages of that Guestbook if my site was a hoax due to the term V5 and the fact that I give medical information. The CODE FIVE site states that many sites went up and listed Code V (CODE FIVE) and K-17 as being real and publishing a lot of the copywritten fictional medical information claiming it all was real. This person's CODE V site states all those sites were closed down by the producers of the TV show 'Ultraviolet'. My site, which is known as, VampiricStudies, and NOT to be confused with the CODE FIVE site, has medical information. Because of this, some woman mentions my site in the Guestbook and asks if it is one of the hoax sites. No response was given to her publicly in the Guestbook.



I know this is very confusing. Between Code V (CODE FIVE) and V5 (VEE 5). This is because the TV show uses the Roman Numeral V which means 'five' as in CODE FIVE -not Code V. My site states the virus designation as V5 which means the letter V as in Victor - the alphabetic V and the number 5. Gosh, it's even confusing me!! LOL. If all this is giving you a headache, just remember V5 is a virus, Code FIVE written as Code V is the fiction. V5 is not a hoax.



Either it's purely coincidence or they purposefully took information that was available 13 years before they wrote 'Ultraviolet' and changed it a little. You can believe what you want to believe but V5 (VEE 5) exists. It is real, it is not a hoax. I've added a site URL to this notice where you can go and read about the show 'Ultraviolet'



http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A5908 43



The first of the sites to claim V5 was a hoax appeared a few years ago. It was allegedly written by someone who claims to have been part of the production company of UltraViolet. The site itself is very well done and believable. However, it is not written by anyone connected with that TV show. It was written by a woman in the United States, who lumped all those other fictional names together, then added the actual V5. The other sites that took up the claim of hoax were all primarily based on this one site. And, as you will see, it is not the site which I have given you from the BBC. I would give you the URL for the other site but I can no longer find it.



I believe one of the readers of my site said it best when she said. ''Regardless if its called V5 or 'Fruity Slurpie 7' its still the virus''

6 Creepiest Places in Massachusetts By Mariah Scafidi Posted Oct 27 2014 - 09:00am
03:37 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 606




With Halloween quickly approaching, our twisted interest in haunted houses, murder stories and overall creepiness approaches a whole new level. Something about October just screams ghost stories, and luckily, Massachusetts has plenty of creepy places to keep you satisfied for the month. Here are our top six creepiest places in Massachusetts:



1) The Lizzie Borden House in Fall River







We all know the saying: Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks; when she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. In 1892, Abby and Andrew Borden were found murdered in their Fall River home, and their daughter Lizzie was the prime suspect. Lizzie was ultimately acquitted of the murders – though many to this day still think Lizzie was the one who committed the crime. The Borden house, featured on Ghost Hunters, is rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of Abby and Andrew. The house is a bed-and-breakfast, and guests have felt a presence in the rooms where Lizzie’s parents were killed.



2) The Houghton Mansion in North Adams







The Houghton Mansion was home to Albert Charles Houghton, the first mayor of North Adams, MA, and his family. In 1914, Mr. Houghton, his daughter, Mary, their chauffeur, John Winters, and some family friends decided to take a joy ride to Vermont. On the way there, the car they were riding in crashed, ejecting everyone from the car except for Mary. The Houghton’s family friends died on impact, and Mr. Houghton and Mary eventually succumbed to their injuries. Feeling overwhelmed with guilt, John Winters eventually shot himself. The Houghton Mansion is said to be haunted by the ghosts of Mr. Houghton, Mary and John Winters. People have claimed they’ve heard voices and footsteps, saw shadows, and have felt a strange sense of sadness in Mary’s room.



3) Taunton State Hospital in Taunton







Last used in 1975, people used to refer to the Taunton State Hospital as the “State Lunatic Hospital,” as it was a hospital for the mentally ill. Apparently, the employees of this hospital in the 1800's used to perform satanic rituals and sacrifices on the patients (which could explain the scratches on the basement walls). Staff members in the later decades of this hospital would walk down the stairs and said they were physically unable to descend to the last step, being blocked by something they couldn’t see.



4) The Orleans Inn in Orleans







The Orleans Inn was purchased by two sisters in 1900 and made into a boarding house. During the twenties, some of the female boarders ran a prostitution business out of the house, ultimately leading to the death of two prostitutes within the home, one of whom was shot in the parking lot of the Inn. In the 1970's, a bartender named Fred hanged himself in the Inn – though some claimed it was murder. Following Fred’s death, a dishwasher named Paul hanged himself in the basement. The prostitute, Fred, and Paul are believed to haunt the Inn: doors open and close, shadows belonging to no one are seen, footsteps are heard going down to the basement, and Fred has a tendency to hang out by the bar. People also claim to have seen the naked ghost of the prostitute (who they have named Hannah) hanging out in some of the rooms.



5) Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham







Metropolitan State Hospital was a psychiatric hospital that opened in Waltham, MA in 1930. Former patients described Met State’s Gaebler Children Center as ‘prison,’ where children were heavily sedated as well as harshly disciplined. Met State is most well known for the 1978 murder of Anna Marie Davee, a patient at the hospital who was murdered by Melvin Wilson, a fellow patient. In 1980, Wilson showed police to three different places where he had buried Anna’s body on the grounds of the hospital. Within ten years of finding Anna’s body, Met State was shut down. Today, most of the hospital has been demolished. Fun fact: the hospital that American Horror Story: Asylum took place in was loosely based on this hospital.



6) Lincoln Mill in Scituate







The Lincoln Mill, which once served as a furniture store, has been abandoned – thus turning up the dial on the creepiness of the place. A girl who drowned in the pond next to the mill is said to haunt the place, staring out the windows and revealing herself in all her bloodied glory (why her ghost appears bloody when her death was ruled as a drowning, we’ll never know). What makes this place even scarier is the fact that people have heard screaming coming from the mill and the pond – but the building has been abandoned for years.



Indulge in the creepy, Collegiettes. You know you want to!

MOST HAUNTED PLACES IN MASSACHUSETTS
03:32 Mar 14 2016
Times Read: 607




Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 91.7

Eunice Williams Covered Bridge - Pumping Station Bridge

Greenfield, Massachusetts

The Eunice Williams, or Green River Pumping Station, Covered Bridge is said to be haunted by Eunice Williams, the reverend's wife who lived nearby in the 1600s. It happened when French soldiers and Indians raided the area and hacked Eunice to death just hours after she had given birth. The story is...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 90.0

Old Yarmouth Inn

Yarmouth, Massachusetts

The inn was established in 1696, and is the oldest on Cape Cod. It is said to be haunted. One witness reported an apparition that appeared at the foot of his bed in 1999. The ghost was a jowly man wearing a flounced white blouse. Another witness, in 2002, reported that a ghost sat on his bed and...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 88.2

Theodore's and Smith's Billiards

Springfield, Massachusetts

Featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters, Theodore's and Smith's Billiards is said to be the site of some eerie occurrences. Witnesses say they hear the sound of balls rolling across floors (in a spot where there was a bowling alley 80 years ago), whispers, footsteps, cold spots, and a ghostly...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 86.7

New Bedford Armory

New Bedford, Massachusetts

The 1903 New Bedford Armory, featured on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters, is said to be haunted. In a room where a sergeant hanged himself, paranormalists saw a strange mist that ran right through one of...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 86.4

The Village Inn

Dracut, Massachusetts

The restaurant here is said to be haunted by a little boy and a little girl. The boy hangs out in the lounge area, but he runs away whenever anyone comes near him. The little girl is seen walking through a tunnel that runs between the restaurant and the barn building where conventions are...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 85.7

Deerfield Inn

Deerfield, Massachusetts

The historic inn was built in 1884, and has been restored and renovated to its former glory by the current inn owners. Guests and staff alike have reported paranormal activity in the inn, including lights turning on and off, strange knocking noises and furniture that moves around by itself. Guests...

Item thumbnail 6

EHP Rating: 85.7

Dean Hill Revolutionary Cemetery - The Rev

Fitchburg, Massachusetts

Dean Hill Revolutionary Cemetery is also know to locals as The Rev. It's unknown whether it's soldiers or more sinister entities that haunt the place, but there are rumors of satanic practices and eerie feelings coming over its visitors. Some have heard loud screams at night. Local tales say a man...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 85.7

Fort Revere

Hull, Massachusetts

Fort Revere, formerly Fort Independence, was renamed to honor patriot Paul Revere. It was used from the American Revolution through World War II and was decommissioned in 1947. A number of eerie experiences have been described by witnesses here, such as unexplained noises and whispers, and shadows...

Item thumbnail 4

EHP Rating: 85.7

New Boston Cemetery

Winchendon, Massachusetts

New Boston was a village that was practically erased from existence to make room for the 1940s Birch Hill Dam flood control project. This cemetery, which lies within the Otter River State Forest, is just about all that is left of the town. Legend has it that it is haunted, and if you back up to a...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 85.7

Penny House Inn

Eastham, Massachusetts

Rumor has it that if you stay in the “old side" of the house, you may meet a ghost. She is called the Goodnight Ghost because she is often seen at night, touching guests in their sleep or whispering to them. She's also been known to move their personal items in the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 85.7

Thaddeus Clapp House

Pittsfield, Massachusetts

According to local legend, playwright Peter Bergman had a ghostly encounter while visiting...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 85.7

Bridgewater State University

Bridgewater, Massachusetts

Bridgewater State University is said to be haunted by a former headmaster in Tillinghast (Tilly) Hall. According to legend, she died when she fell off the roof after climbing up there to discipline some residents who were up there making noise in the night. Also, a ghost named George is said to...

Item thumbnail 7

EHP Rating: 84.2

Old Plymouth County Hospital

Hanson, Massachusetts

Plymouth County Hospital, once Hanson Tuberculosis Hospital, is said to be haunted by some of those who have died within its walls. Passersby have described screaming and laughter coming from the empty building, or simply a feeling that something inside is watching them. *Note* The public is...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 83.3

Old Centre - Old Royalston Cemetery

Royalston, Massachusetts

The tiny cemetery surrounded by a short stone wall is said to be haunted. Folks have reported seeing a misty woman with long blonde hair and a black shadowy figure that moves very quickly. Also reported have been cold spots and uncomfortable feelings of being watched or even...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 83.3

Cutler Majestic Theatre

Boston, Massachusetts

Built in 1903, the historic theater is said to be haunted by a former mayor of Boston who died during a performance, a little girl, and a married couple wearing turn-of-the-20th-century...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 83.3

Holiday Inn Tewksbury

Tewksbury, Massachusetts

An apparition moves from the ballroom to the hall, and can only be seen out of the corner of the eye. When you turn to look at it, it...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 83.3

Orleans Waterfront Inn

Orleans, Massachusetts

This historic restored seaside inn is known for more than its beauty--guests have reported unexplained wind gusts and footsteps, slamming doors, and a ghost the owners nicknamed Hannah, believed to be the spirit of a 1920s brothel worker who was murdered. The ghost has been seen naked walking...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 83.3

Highfield Hall

Falmouth, Massachusetts

Highfield Hall, built in 1878 for the Beebe Family, was in disrepair when Historic Highfield ttook over to renovate it. The stately mansion is said to have a ghost who peers out the center upstairs window. Locals believe it is Mary Louisa Beebe, who succumbed to cancer in this room at age...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 81.8

Hammond Castle

Gloucester, Massachusetts

Built in the 1920s by John Hays Hammond Jr., the unusual castle has different sections built in varying architectural forbiddens: Romanesque, Medieval, Renaissance French, and Gothic. It also includes odd features like passageways and raining rooms. Mr. Hammond himself is believed to reside in his...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 81.8

Village Green Inn

Falmouth, Massachusetts

This 1804 building is said to be haunted by its original owners, the Dimmick family. Sarah, a teenage daughter who died here in 1823, has been spotted in some rooms wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown. She may hover over guests as they sleep looking at them strangely, as if wondering why they...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 81.8

The Blue Door Bed and Breakfast

Middleton, Massachusetts

Several ghosts are said to be in residence at this cottage built in 1692, and one is the builder, Philip Knight. Another is Rebecca Towne, who wears a blue dress and floats through the dining room. Captain Henry Quiver died here in the 1850s, and was said to join the other spirits. Another witness...

Item thumbnail 9

EHP Rating: 81.3

Bradford College - Northpoint Bible College

Haverhill, Massachusetts

Urban legend has it that this is the very New England college that stored H.P. Lovecraft's famed evil book Necronomicon, buried deep underground. Although the Lovecraft book "Necronomicon" is a work of fiction, fans maintain that the book of spells actually exists at Northpoint Bible College...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 80.0

USS Salem

Quincy, Massachusetts

This former Navy cruiser is now a museum ship and open to the public. The ship, in one of its duties, served as a hospital after the 1953 Ionian Earthquake, and many spirits from throughout the ship's service are said to have lingered here. Ghost tours are offered regularly, a paranormal society is...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 80.0

Fort Warren

Hull, Massachusetts

Fort Warren, a pentagonal structure of stone and granite, was completed near the beginning of the Civil War and was decommissioned in 1947. It was named after Revolutionary War hero Dr. Joseph Warren, who sent Paul Revere on his well-known ride. The fort is haunted by a ghostly lady in black, whom...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 80.0

The Mount

Lenox, Massachusetts

The Mount, home of renowned writer Edith Wharton, was built in 1902 and is said to be haunted; in fact, ghost tours are offered here. The Whartons sold the house in 1911, after which it was used for the Foxhollow School for Girls and later as a theater. It was then that folks noticed odd noises,...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 80.0

Hope Cemetery

Worcester, Massachusetts

Rumor has it that apparitions and the sound of children laughing can be seen and heard near this cemetery's statue of Jesus holding an...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 80.0

Tewksbury Cemetery

Tewksbury, Massachusetts

Locals tell of a ghostly white woman who walks here, as well as a dark, leather-skinned creature who follows guests through the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 80.0

Everett Square Theatre

Boston, Massachusetts

Everett Square Theatre has recently undergone renovations. Folks have reported blinking lights, unexplained noises, and uneasy feelings of unseen presences inside the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 80.0

Higgins Armory Museum

Worcester, Massachusetts

Explored on an episode of TV's Ghost Hunters, Higgins Armory Museum is said to be haunted. Witnesses have seen apparitions and black shadows and heard unexplained footsteps, clanging and music, as well as being touched by something...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 80.0

Ventfort Hall

Lenox, Massachusetts

The massive Ventfort Hall mansion is rumored to have a few ghosts under its roof, and witnesses say sometimes the spooks even touch people. One unsettling occurrence is a woman's face that hovers as it descends a staircase. A whispering voice, doors that open and close and screams also have been...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 80.0

Omni Parker House Hotel

Boston, Massachusetts

At this hotel, rumored to be haunted, witnesses claim that doors open and close by themselves, lights turn on and off, and apparitions of folks in old-time clothing have been spotted. Voices have been heard as well in the lobby, restaurant and...

Item thumbnail 4

EHP Rating: 80.0

St. Mary's Cemetery

Salem, Massachusetts

Witnesses have seen a ghostly gray figure walking alongside them and have felt unpleasant vibes from the forest down the hill. There have also been sounds of claws on the path and a waist-high light that appeared near the top of the...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 78.6

Stone's Public House

Ashland, Massachusetts

Built in 1834, Stone's Public House is said to be haunted by apparitions and spirits who throw glasses off shelves. The portraits are said to watch guests and employees as they go about their business, and doors open and close on their own. Visitors to the upstairs function room describe a strange...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 78.6

The Charlemont Inn

Charlemont, Massachusetts

At the 1787 inn many friendly ghosts are said to reside. You may see spirits of a Civil War soldier in the upstairs hall or a former innkeeper in the tavern. A ghost named Elizabeth likes to throw things, slam doors, and stomp in the halls. She has been known to show herself to and have...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 78.6

Knox Trail Inn

Otis, Massachusetts

The restaurant here is said to be haunted by a soldier from the Revolutionary or Civil War. He is in his late teens or early 20s and is nicknamed Jake. His apparition may appear very briefly. He plays with the electrical systems and may tug on your shirt, but it is said if you go looking for him,...

Item thumbnail 7

EHP Rating: 78.6

Belchertown State School

Belchertown, Massachusetts

The original name when it was established in 1922 was the Belchertown State School for the Feeble-Minded, and and certain times in its history it was known for poor treatment of its charges. Trespassing is not allowed on the property. Witnesses say it is haunted by this tragic past, citing...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 77.8

Bellingham-Cary House

Chelsea, Massachusetts

The Civil War-era mansion known as the Cary House is private property, but it has a legend attached. The daughter who lived here had two beaus on opposing sides of the war, and they happened to kill each other on the staircase. Rumor has it that on Mr. and Mrs. Cary's wedding anniversary, you can...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 77.8

Lucky Lanes

Athol, Massachusetts

Lucky Lanes Bowling Alley was once a movie theater called the York. Legend has it that a bomb blew up here, and the victims are still in the building. Footsteps, children's laughter and moving objects have been reported here. Another story says a woman hanged herself in the building, and her...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 77.8

Yarmouth Resort

Yarmouth, Massachusetts

Spooky occurrences reported here have included sounds of slamming doors in areas where all doors are locked tight, and items that move from their original position when no one else is around. Folks here say there is a clue to the identity of a ghost: A small hair barrette was once left on the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 77.8

The New Boston Inn

Sandisfield, Massachusetts

At this 1737 historic inn, Room 4 is said to be haunted. Folks have seen the ghost of a little girl who moves objects or "borrows" them and returns them later. Voices are also heard around the hotel. The game room is said to be the scene of an 1805...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 76.9

Endicott College

Beverly, Massachusetts

There are three spots in Endicott College rumored to be haunted. First, Brindle Hall is the site of mysterious happenings: unexplained noises like hissing or marbles rolling on the roof, shades that go up by themselves, and trees seen outside that bend to form the name Julie, the name of the girl...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.6

Lizzie Borden House

Fall River, Massachusetts

The home where Lizzie Borden lived is now a bed-and-breakfast. The historic house was the site of the famous double axe murder of Lizzie Borden's parents, and is said to be haunted. Witnesses have reported apparitions and unexplained noises. [gallery columns="6" link="file"...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 75.0

Melrose Cemetery

Brockton, Massachusetts

Running footsteps and disembodied laughter are some of the mysterious things that have been reported in Melrose Cemetery. The laughter most often comes from the back corner of the cemetery on the left...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.0

The Sun Tavern

Duxbury, Massachusetts

The Sun Tavern is known for two things: casual fine dining inside a pre-Revolutionary War farmhouse, and a ghost named Lysander Walker, who creates cold spots and has been known to tip over tables. Lysander's story is told on the restaurant's...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.0

Smith College - Sessions House

Northampton, Massachusetts

The historic Sessions House dorm at Smith College campus was originally built in 1710 with a secret passageway inside which the owners could hide from attacking Native Americans. It's haunted by original builder Captain Jonathan Hunt's granddaughter Lucy and her lover, Johnny Burgoyne, a British...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.0

The Mount Estate

Lenox, Massachusetts

Featured on TV's Ghost Hunters, the estate and museum of artifacts relating to novelist Edith Wharton is said to be home to the ghost of Wharton herself. Husband Teddy Wharton and a servant girl also have been seen, as well as an old-fashioned gentleman believed to be Wharton’s lover, who briefly...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 75.0

Longfellow's Wayside Inn

Sudbury, Massachusetts

At this 1716 inn, it is said that a woman named Jerusha Howe lingers, especially in Rooms 7 and 9. She is said to have been unlucky in her love life, and therefore likes to touch male visitors. Author Henry W. Longfellow wrote a book about the inn in the 1860s, Tales of a Wayside...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.0

Quequechan Club

Fall River, Massachusetts

The Quequechan Club, founded in 1894, is housed in an 1861 private home. Witnesses here have seen the apparition of a lady in a Victorian dress and captured several electronic voice phenomena. Orbs also have shown up in photographs, reflected in a...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 75.0

Plaza Guest House

Provincetown, Massachusetts

This guest house is believed to be haunted by many apparitions. People have reportedly seen figures in period clothing walking around the guest house, especially in Room #006. On the floor in this room, there is a bloodstains that will not go away no matter how much the floor is polished. People...

Item thumbnail 7

EHP Rating: 74.6

Blood Town Forest

Lancaster, Massachusetts

Legend has it that a young man and woman were killed here while camping in the forest. There is said to be a rock near the entrance that tells the story, but this may or may not be true. Some say the forest really got its name strictly because the donor of the land in 1946 was named Arthur W....

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 73.0

Old Dudley Road

Billerica, Massachusetts

Although the New Dudley Oxford Road is in use today, its ancestor, the Old Dudley Oxford Road, still exists for about a mile. Apparently unable to quit his favorite route, a spectral horseback rider in Colonial garb is said to patrol the remains of the old...

Item thumbnail 8

EHP Rating: 72.9

S.K. Pierce Mansion - Haunted Victorian Mansion

Gardner, Massachusetts

S.K. Pierce Mansion was owned by the wealthy Sylvester Knowlton Pierce, founder of the SK Pierce & Son Chair Company. It was built in 1875 and was originally located at 21 Union Street, but was moved to where it now stands shortly thereafter. The home had some famous guests, such as P.T....

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 72.7

The Witch House - Jonathan Corwin House

Salem, Massachusetts

The Witch House, aka Jonathan Corwin House, was the home of Judge Jonathan Corwin and is known for being the only structure still standing in Salem with direct ties to the 1692 Salem witch trials. It was Corwin who investigated the claims of witchcraft after the accusations arose, which resulted in...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 72.7

Palladium Theatre

Worcester, Massachusetts

The 1928 Palladium Theater, witnesses say, is haunted by something that creates disembodied footsteps and a floating orb the size of a soccer ball. Even more eerie, rumor has it that dead bodies were discovered in a dressing room a couple decades ago. The site has been featured on an episode of...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 71.4

Boston University - Shelton Hall

Boston, Massachusetts

The fourth floor of Boston University's Shelton Hall is said to be haunted by playwright Eugene O'Neill, who spent his last years there. It was built in 1923 as a Sheraton Hotel and had been renamed the Shelton; the university bought in in 1954. Witnesses say the elevator works by itself, wind...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 71.4

Bainbridge’s - Aprile's European Restaurant

Chelmsford, Massachusetts

The former Bainbridge's, now Aprile's European Restaurant, may serve up a surprise or two to its customers. Folks say it has pictures that move, a woman's spirit that cries, and ghostly children who play in the overnight...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 71.4

Beechwood Inn

Barnstable, Massachusetts

According to reports, there is a ghostly lady who haunts the inn's Rose...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 71.4

Concord's Colonial Inn

Concord, Massachusetts

TV's Ghost Hunters has featured this inn, at which Room 24 is said to be haunted by a...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 71.4

Morning Glory Bed and Breakfast

Salem, Massachusetts

This bed-and-breakfast inn is said to be haunted a young woman in turn-of-the-century clothing. Ghostly children are believed to reside here as...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 70.0

Houghton Mansion

North Adams, Massachusetts

At this mansion where Mayor A.C. Houghton and his family lived, a ghostly chauffeur lingers. He reportedly committed suicide after getting in a car accident that claimed the lives of Mrs. Houghton and their only daughter. The site has been converted into a Masonic temple and has been featured on...

Item thumbnail 4

EHP Rating: 68.2

Van Horn Park

Springfield, Massachusetts

Legend has it that two boys drowned in the pond here in the 1920s, and their ghosts still linger in the area. In summertime, park visitors have heard them laughing and splashing and seen the water move, although no one is...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 66.7

Regis College

Weston, Massachusetts

Regis College's haunted College Hall, built in the late 1920s, is rumored to have several ghosts in residence, including a roaming cold spot. A former piano teacher opens and closes doors and occasionally plays the piano, and the fourth floor is home to some spectral nuns, students say....

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 66.7

Harold Parker State Forest

Andover, Massachusetts

Harold Parker State Forest now has 35 miles of woodsy trails and roads, ponds, swamps, forests and rocky outcroppings, but evidence of its 18th-century farming and milling operations may be seen here as well. Ruins of houses and unmarked graves can be found on the grounds. Some say that beyond the...

Item thumbnail 4

EHP Rating: 66.7

Fort Devens

Devens, Massachusetts

Fort Devens, named for Civil War general Charles Devens, is now the Devens Reserve Forces Training Area. Reports say that in the older, unused buildings, unexplained flashing lights have been noticed at night. And piano playing has been heard coming from the defunct movie...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 66.7

The Boston Conservatory

Boston, Massachusetts

The Boston Conservatory, some say, is haunted. There have been numerous reports of footsteps, doors that slam themselves, disembodied voices, objects that go missing, and other strange phenomena, especially in the dorm buildings. Some attribute the activity to the fact that the place was an 1800s...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 66.7

Joshua Ward House

Salem, Massachusetts

At this historic house built in 1784, the spirits of Sheriff George Corwin and Giles Cory are said to linger. Both men are associated with the Salem Witch Trials....

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 66.7

Captain Freeman Perry House

Brewster, Massachusetts

A ghost they call Roberta resides here; she dates to the early l900s. She has been spotted both in the hallways and in guest...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 66.7

Point Breeze Club and Hotel

Nantucket, Massachusetts

The ghost of a man in period clothing has been seen in rooms of this old hotel. Various other ghostly activity has been reported. (Submitted by Callum...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 66.7

Framingham State University

Framingham, Massachusetts

At Framingham State University, visitors may hear ghostly laughter or feel cold spots, and orbs are often photographed at Horace Mann Hall. And in Peirce Hall, residents have awoken to find all the mirrors in the rooms have been stacked outside in the hallways, piled with the reflective sides...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 64.7

Saint Stephens Cemetery

Attleboro, Massachusetts

Apparitions have been seen here of Albertine and Eugene and their 2-year-old daughter, Doris. Witnesses also describe childlike footsteps on the paved...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 62.5

The Lyceum - Turner's Seafood

Salem, Massachusetts

Formerly the Lyceum and now Turner's Seafood, the spot is said to be haunted by a woman in a long, white period dress on the staircase. She has also appeared as a reflection in mirrors. Some say the land on which it stands was once an apple orchard belonging to accused witch Bridget Bishop. Other...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 62.5

Windward Grille

Essex, Massachusetts

Locals say the restaurant called Windward Grille, housed in a very old building, is haunted by a couple whose apparitions float near the walls. Other ghosts have been seen as well, and witnesses report cold spots, flickering lights, and toilets that flush on their own. The house may once have been...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 62.5

Millicent Library

Fairhaven, Massachusetts

Millicent Library is believed to be haunted by its namesake, the daughter of Huttleston Rogers, a well-known financial backer of historical buildings in Fairhaven. Rumor has it that Millicent was buried in the library's foundation, and her apparition, say witnesses, walks in that very building,...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 62.5

Berklee College of Music

Boston, Massachusetts

Established in 1945, Berklee College of Music has been attended by many famous musicians. And it also has a haunted dorm, a 1900s former apartment building that eventually was remodeled into the Sherry Biltmore Hotel. When the hotel caught fire in 1963, started by a boy playing with matches, many...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 60.0

Pine Manor College

Brookline, Massachusetts

Students of Pine Manor College say that the lights along the pathway near the Main House (the administration building) turn off as they get close, then turn on again as they pass by. Mists have materialized in the nearby woods, and witnesses have noted a disconcerting feeling that something is...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 60.0

Riverside Theater Works

Boston, Massachusetts

Riverside Theater Works, formerly French's Opera House, is haunted by Esmeralda, who died during a fire. "Essie" is said to haunt children who are performing in plays, and has been seen floating above the stage. Esmeralda died in a purple chair in the audience near the right side of the stage, and...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 60.0

Hawthorne Hotel

Salem, Massachusetts

This hotel boasts a haunted elevator and sixth floor. Legend has it that a double murder over a lovers' quarrel occurred here. Chandeliers are said to sway and cold spots can be...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 60.0

Boston Light

Hull, Massachusetts

The Boston Light, built in 1783, is said to be haunted by an old sailor who hates rock 'n' roll music. When Coast Guards tune in to rock stations in the vicinity, they find that their radios suddenly switch to classical stations. At the lighthouse, footsteps and cold spots accompany his visits, and...

Item thumbnail 3

EHP Rating: 60.0

Holiday Inn Taunton

Taunton, Massachusetts

The stairway near the 28 rooms are said to be haunted; voices in the stairway order "Leave here...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 60.0

Colonial House Inn

Yarmouth, Massachusetts

Three haunts are said to reside in Room 224: Dr. John Minot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and a Native American girl. In the dining room, a customer's credit card disappeared while a waiter was trying to run it through the machine. The card was found later in a cabinet. And the front office is said to be...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 58.3

Salem State University

Salem, Massachusetts

Salem State University is reported to have many ghosts, including the spirits of a student who hanged herself and a man in black in Gramley Hall, two girls who were electrocuted at Gramley Library, a little girl who died in the elevator shaft at Clewell Hall, and a haunted portrait in Babcock...

Item thumbnail 4

EHP Rating: 55.6

Pine Grove Cemetery

Spencer, Massachusetts

Who is the Dark Hunter? It's the name given to the entity said to haunt the Pine Grove Cemetery, keeping an eye on those who...

Item thumbnail 1

EHP Rating: 55.6

Clapp Memorial Library

Belchertown, Massachusetts

A night custodian here has witnessed apparitions on the stairs, cold spots, and books that slide in and out of shelves on their own. Rumor has it that the ghost in residence is deceased former librarian Lydia Barton. The library has been featured on TV's Ghost...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Reed Homestead

Townsend, Massachusetts

At the Reed Homestead, explored by TV's Ghost Hunters, four generations of the Oliver Reed family have resided. It was built in 1809 and contains murals believed to have been created by Rufus Porter, painter, inventor and founder of The Scientific American Magazine, a Victorian garden and examples...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Minot's Ledge Lighthouse

Scituate, Massachusetts

This lighthouse is said to be haunted by a former lighthouse keeper who was killed when the original lighthouse that stood on this spot was destroyed in a...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Endicott Family Cemetery

Danvers, Massachusetts

The Endicott Cemetery has three ghosts, locals say. Their identities are thought to be the spirits of the only three gravestones in the cemetery that haven't toppled over: Margaret and her two sons, Jeremy and Alex. The public is not allowed here and No Trespassing signs are posted because of an...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

George C. Gardner House

Nantucket, Massachusetts

The house has been restored to its former glory, but is currently on the market again. Former residents reported hearing disembodied footsteps and seeing the silverware move around by itself. (Submitted by Callum...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Regina Russell's Tea Room

Quincy, Massachusetts

At this psychic/tarot business and tea room, a female apparition is said to reside. She has often been seen standing near the fireplace, and has visited since the place opened in 1970....

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

The Wauwinet Hotel

Nantucket, Massachusetts

The hotel is rumored to be built on Native American burial grounds, which some say have led to its being haunted. Lights turn on by themselves, and there is a ghostly unexplained sound of running water in the lobby. Footsteps have been heard, and an apparition of a woman seen out of the corner of...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Plymouth Light - Gurnet Light

Duxbury, Massachusetts

Built in 1769, the structure is thought to be haunted by the first female lightkeeper, Hannah Thomas, who took over after her husband John was killed in the Revolutionary War. Tales tell of a photographer who spent the night here and saw an apparition of the upper half of a woman in period clothing...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Bucksteep Manor

Washington, Massachusetts

TV's Ghost Hunters explored this manor, famous for its apparition of a monk who walks the grounds. Witnesses also describe hearing voices, feeling someone touch them, and finding objects moved during the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Samuel Onion House

Westwood, Massachusetts

This historic property was a former schoolhouse, and residents have reported seeing the apparition of a female teacher, as well as hearing children playing. (Submitted by Callum...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 50.0

Boston University - Charlesgate Hotel

Boston, Massachusetts

Charlesgate, built in 1901, was bought by Boston University to use as a dorm in 1947, and then was also used as a dorm by Emerson College through the late 1990s. It's now a condo building. Some of the hauntings are attributed to séances held by college kids or a suicide by an architect in one of...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 44.4

Camp Titicut

Raynham, Massachusetts

An old summertime campsite for Native Americans, complete with a burial ground, Camp Titicut is believed to be haunted by King Phillip, whose body reportedly was drawn and quartered here. The sound of leaves rustling, according to local tales, is his body parts trying to get back together. The area...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 44.4

Oak Grove Cemetery

Fall River, Massachusetts

The 1855 Oak Grove Cemetery is known for being the burial place of Lizzie Borden and her family. Witnesses say they have heard screaming from the Borden plot and felt uneasy while in its vicinity. Some claim to have seen unexplained lights within the...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 42.9

Boston Athenaeum

Boston, Massachusetts

Author Nathaniel Hawthorne claimed to have seen the ghost of the scholarly Reverend Harris at this historic...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 40.0

Turn Hall

Adams, Massachusetts

Turn Hall is an apartment with a downstairs gym, bar and bowling alley. The rumor mill says the building is haunted by a former employee, a gymnastics coach, who committed suicide. She is said to be still watching over her former...

Item thumbnail 2

EHP Rating: 37.5

Anna Maria College

Paxton, Massachusetts

Anna Maria College is believed to be haunted, but the college has somewhat of an affinity for its ghosts. At the Zecco Performing Arts Center, according to resports, two seats are kept open at each performance for ghostly...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 33.3

Sacco's Bowl-Haven

Somerville, Massachusetts

Sacco's Bowl-Haven, investigated by TV's Ghost Hunters, has been owned by the Sacco family since 1939. It's believed to be haunted by a former employee. Witnesses have described the feeling of something breathing on their neck and balls that return when the machine is off. The Ghost Hunters...

Item thumbnail 0

EHP Rating: 33.3

Bramble Inn and Restaurant

Brewster, Massachusetts

The Bramble Inn dates back to 1861, and according to its owner (Ruth Manchester) it is definitely haunted. The Manchesters bought the Bramble Inn in April of 1985. A 1987 renovation seems to have stirred up some ghostly activity. Guests report seeing and feeling presences in the home. A...

479





Search

RECENT POSTS

Ghost Hunting for Beginners

RECENT COMMENTS

sarah on Third Bridge

Larry Walden on Orman House

Jamie on Abandoned Asylum

Chandi on The Scary Dairy

Jasmine graham on Tunnelton Tunnel

Travis crawford on Cameron Park – Witch’s Castle

Joe on Academia Girl’s School

Nathan on Adelaida Cemetery

McKenzie Graham on Victorian Pitkin Conrow Estate

Opps on The Ambler House Ruins

David on Tilly Willy Bridge

skarlette on Hollydale Insane Asylum

Elphie on Anoka State Hospital

alyssa on Transmountain Road

Elijah on Sweetwater County Library

Advertisement