It's been a heck of a year for most of us at SRI, and we've certainly had our highs and lows. We've welcomed new members to the team and bid others farewell. We have ventured forth with new endeavors and we've suffered unwarranted attacks by negative people. But we've continued to move forward with our mission to help those people most in need of spiritual assistance.
We hope you will continue to follow our research as we move into the new year. Have a fun and safe holiday season with your families.
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SRI Forums
For those of you who have not yet discovered our official SRI Forum Boards, you are truly missing out on a wealth of information and discovery. Come join our SRI team members as we discuss all things having to do with the paranormal on a variety of topics that are educational and enlightening. Save the following link to your web browser and join in on the fun! You won't be disappointed!
http://spiritrescueinternational.freeforums.org/index.php
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Krampus - The Bad Santa?
Krampus is the dark companion of St. Nicholas, the traditional European winter gift-bringer who rewards good children each year on December 6. The kindly old Saint leaves the task of punishing bad children to a hell-bound counterpart known by many names across the continent — Knecht Ruprecht, Certa, Perchten, Black Peter, Schmutzli, Pelznickel, Klaubauf, and Krampus. Usually seen as a classic devil with horns, cloven hooves and monstrous tongue, but can also be spotted as a sinister gentleman dressed in black or a hairy man-beast. Krampus punishes the naughty children, swatting them with switches and rusty chains before dragging them in baskets to a fiery place below.Krampus is celebrated on Krampusnacht, which takes place on the eve of St. Nicholas’ Day. In Austria, Northern Italy and other parts of Europe, party-goers masquerade as devils, wild-men, and witches to participate in Krampuslauf (Krampus Run). Intoxicated and bearing torches, costumed devils caper and carouse through the streets terrifying child and adult alike. Krampusnacht is increasingly being celebrated in other parts of Europe such as Finland and France, as well as in many American cities.
The European practice of mummery during the winter solstice season can be traced back tens of thousands of years. Villagers across the continent dress up as animals, wild-men and mythic figures to parade and perform humorous plays. This ancient guising and masking tradition continues to this day as the primary source for our modern Halloween with its costumes, trick-or-treat, and pagan symbolism. Among the most common figures in these folk rituals were Old Man Winter and the horned Goat-Man — archetypes now found in the forms of Saint Nick/Santa Claus, and the Devil (‘Old Nick’), aka Krampus.
In 19th century New York City an American St. Nick emerged in the form of Santa Claus. Although based on the Dutch Saint Nicholas, Santa incorporated more elements from pagan winter solstice customs. He relinquished his white bishop garb for a red suit, traded his horse and staff for a sleigh and reindeer, and moved his franchise to Christmas Eve.
Santa also tried to take over the dark companion’s job of punishing the naughty, but his New World temperament was apparently unsuited for the task. As Santa neglected and abandoned his punishing duties, American kids lost all fear of Santa and his lumps of coal. Thankfully, in the 21st century, Krampus has arrived in this land of spoiled and dissatisfied children to pick up the slack.
Information borrowed from - http://www.krampus.com/who-is-krampus.php
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My Mysterious Christmas Visit
by Irene Allen
I have one of those minds that always seem to be active if I am not searching for answers then I am just mulling over life as it is now or once was. On this day I find myself mulling over Christmas those traditions that were in my early child hood or before that are now still kept in this modern day we live in. Sadly the ghost stories around an open fire, a tradition from Victorian time when our ancestors craved all things spiritual and the scarier the better seems to be dying out.The evening set aside for this would be the 24th Christmas Eve. Friends and family would gather round the fire to tell each other their most frightening stories. For the Victorian English this was one of the best parts of Christmas and as important to them as many of our own little rituals are to us today.
There is something of a ghostly air at Christmas maybe it is the cold winter’s night, the dampness that seems to draw up the feeling of ghosts. In Victorian English society for ghost stories to be told on any other evening other than the 24th of December with the same effect would be impossible.
This is the true story of my one and only Christmas ghost. The names and location has been withheld and the only name mentioned is a fictitious one. - Irene Allen-Block
It must be getting on five years now since my visitor at Christmas first came to visit. I remember well that feeling of being excited the night before Christmas day. As was the usual tradition in our house I would share the chores in preparing the Christmas fare for that evening and the big day itself. I am no good as a cook and also a vegetarian so preparing and stuffing the bird and other meats for the main day always fell to my husband. My job was the pastries and vegetables. As I stood at the kitchen sink peeling Brussels sprouts I glanced up and looked out of the window in front of me. The darkness of the night outside and the light on the ceiling behind me reflected the room I was standing in on the window itself. I could just make out the tall fir tree in my driveway and the wrought iron gates that opened the drive onto the road. I could see my hubby’s reflection as he moved around the kitchen busying himself in his task. Christmas carols were playing in the other room and as the music drifted around the house I remember thinking that if it snowed for Christmas day everything would be perfect.
I finished doing the sprouts and moved on to pealing the potatoes as I worked I kept glancing up and looking out of the window to the scene outside. It was on one of these glances that I suddenly realised there was something else reflected in the window, the fir tree and the gates were as normal barely visible, the room behind me being the stronger and brighter of the view, there was hubby still doing his thing but there was someone else. Standing about three foot behind me and watching me was a man. I turned and he was gone.
I have grown up being able to see, nothing fazed me and this sighting to me was no different. My reactions to it were as they normally are I just accepted what I saw. I am not the type to go into flappy mode squealing out “I just saw a ghost, I just saw a ghost” that was not me; I just took it and did not mention it. What did happen though is within those few seconds of the sighting I took in everything I saw. Those few seconds of the vision the man was clear almost solid like I could judge his height what he looked like in every detail but as soon as he had vanished as far as I was concerned that was it. I never gave him another thought.
The evening went on and as it did my excitement of Christmas increased. For me when it came to Christmas time I never grew up. I wanted everything to look perfect and went around the house through every room titivating all the decorations making sure they were looking right in the places that I had put them. The ornaments hanging on the tree were spread equally out, so whatever side you looked at it from, there were no bare spaces. Now with only one thing to do before I could sit down and relax with hubby was to put the wrapped presents under the tree, the final finish to it. Retrieving the gifts from upstairs, my arms full I made my way back down the staircase. Nearing the bottom there he was again and as I approached him the words that filled my head were “tell her I am sorry.”
Christmas day arrived and I was up early for the usual exchange of gifts between my husband and myself before the onslaught of our family and grandchildren would descend on us. As I watched my husband opening my gift to him I was aware of a presence close to me, I turned again to see the man and the words once again “tell her I am sorry.” There was nothing I could do for this lost soul; his was a message that he needed to get to its receiver. I had no idea who he was or for whom his message was intended. I knew also that we would be spending our Christmas with another unseen visitor to my guests. He was there again when my granddaughter sitting on the rug ripped the wrapping off of her presents and again when we were all sitting around the table eating our Christmas dinner. Each and every sighting that I had of him that day always the same words were impressed into me “tell her I am sorry.” This continued all day and into the evening, where ever I went he seemed to be there.
Finally when all the fun of the day was over and all had returned to their own homes, I got out my laptop. Logging on to my forum at Spirit Rescue International I decided to post my events of Christmas for the other members to read. I wrote about my Christmas visitor and gave a detailed description, not expecting anyone would claim him but someone did. Janet had been a member from nigh on the birth of Spirit Rescue International she had been a frequent poster contributing some very good articles on the forum and I liked her very much as a person. Janet claimed my visitor as her father; she had bad feelings towards him and spoke about him unfavorably. She told me that he had left her mother at Christmas when she and her siblings were very young. There was no Christmas for them that year, no presents from Santa. Janet never saw him again and could not forgive him for what he had done. Posts between us went back and forth as she told me stories that she remembered of her father and try as I might I could not change her mind set on him. She had built up a hatred to him her memories were not good. As time went on and the days passed we talked, eventually she said she would think about what I had said about forgiveness. That week leading up to New Year’s Eve the spirit was a regular visitor in my home and his words continued “Tell her I am sorry.”
New Year’s Eve arrived and as I sat watching the celebrations on the television building in London I decided to log onto the forum, I could feel the spirit close by and was doing my utmost to ignore it. Janet was already logged in and we began to chat. The conversation got round once again to her father I told her that he was with me. She mentioned that she had been giving the whole situation a lot of thought and although as a child she had suffered she could not carry on feeling the way she did about her father. She knew she needed to let the negativity go. As she spoke I could feel the energy in the room begin to shift a feel of lightness began to fill the room. My visitor was still there beside me but now what I was sensing from him was different and then Janet said what I and obviously the spirit needed to hear. “I forgive him” she said in her post and as I read it I felt my visitor go. I believe that is all that he needed was to know that he was forgiven but I also knew that he wanted his daughter to have closure to be able to move on with her life as well. Where he had failed her in life he needed to make up for it in death. The negativity and bitterness she had been holding onto was pulling her down. Janet from that day onwards changed her life she became an author of books and as a writer I hope she will excel. I never saw or heard from my Christmas visitor again and I can only hope he too found peace. And now five years later as I sit and recount this story to you I discover something I did not know before. Christmas Eve is traditionally one of the most haunted nights of the year besides Halloween. And just as Halloween it is said, that the barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead are at the thinnest. Christmas Eve is when ghosts can walk the earth and finish unsettled business. The Charles Dickens masterpiece Scrooge amplifies this with the apparition of his dead partner Marley and could well go towards answering the reason for my ghost as well.
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Among The Spirits
Be sure to pick up your copy of Irene Allen-Block's engaging autobiography, "Among The Spirits".
Among The Spirits tells the story of Irene Allen-Block who discovered at a very early age that she wasn’t like the other children she played with while growing up in England - she could see and communicate with spirits! This would lead Irene down a unique and sometimes lonely path of self discovery. Filled with laughter, tears and frightening visions of the other side, Among The Spirits is a personal story of one woman’s spiritual journey as she travels through the world of the strange and paranormal. From crossing over the spirits of young Victorian era children to battling demonic forces in a terrifying fight to the death, Irene uses her gifts to help out people in need on both sides of the spiritual veil. And as you journey with her you will see first-hand how her experiences have affected her own life, but those closest to her.
Reviews for "Among The Spirits"
"If the title suggests a nice warm heart rendering book about being surrounded by spirits then you're in for a real surprise. From the age of 4 Irene saw and spoke with the dead, and by the time she had moved to London aged 9 she was helping spirits move to the light, well the good ones anyway. Imagine being that age and confronted by Demons. This is one woman’s terrifying story about the tormented souls that have been with her for most of her life. However, it’s more than a book about naughty ghosts; it’s an honest, down to earth account of Irene’s life, including her mischievous teenage years, her journey into the paranormal and the tormented dark side of the paranormal that is hardly ever spoken about. Let’s not forget that wherever there is good, there is bad AND this lady has a habit of encountering the bad spirit out there. This is why she created Spirit Rescue International, a worldwide agency dedicated to helping rid the world of the bad spirits, the demons and the tortured souls that choose to hang around and torment the living. From demons to devilish poltergeists Irene and her team have solved cases all over the world using their natural gifts AND scientific remote viewing. This book is a must read, if you want to know the real truth about how to get rid of spirit then this is the book for you."
- Paul Stevenson - Haunted Magazine
"The title of this auto biography not only defines the life of Irene Allen-Block, but is also explanatory of what she experiences on a daily basis. Writing a memoir usually involves recall of various anecdotes and personal encounters the author assumes the reader will enjoy and remember. Irene's personal story not only includes many fond reflections of family and friends, but it also introduces the raw truth of a young girl's life evolving in an intimidating psychic domain.
- Lon Strickler - Phantoms & Monsters Blog
Among The Spirits is available on Amazon.com in both soft cover and Kindle formats.
http://www.amazon.com/Among-Spirits-Irene-Allen-Block/dp/1477491856/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1387825821&sr=8-1&keywords=Among+The+Spirits
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"Haunted Highways" - A Review
by Mark Johnson
On Tuesday December 17th the SyFy Channel presented a brand new episode of their show “Haunted Highways”. In this particular episode, the second segment had Jack Osborne and Dana Workman investigating the legends of hauntings surrounding “Shades of Death Road” (yes that is the real name of the road) in Warren County, NJ.
I admit to being a fan of the show since it first premiered last year, although I also admit to being a bit peeved that SyFy ripped off my own YouTube series of short documentary films entitled “Paranormal Highways”, where my team and I investigate strange roads and other exterior locations that are rumored to have paranormal activity. With Haunted Highways, the show’s producers hired two teams of two investigators each, and follows the same basic concept of investigating strange outdoor locations across the country. The “hook” for this show as that each team films the entire episode themselves with “no big camera crews following them around”. Oh wait, that’s Ghost Adventures. Still, the Haunted Highway teams do film the entire episode using their own cameras which are rigged to shoot both what is in front of the camera as well as another camera pointing back to capture their own facial reactions. So far this season I’ve been enjoying the show as they have investigated some unusual areas, and some of the evidence of paranormal activity looks impressive at first glance.
But then there was this Tuesday’s episode, and my faith in this show has been torpedoed by the greedy, stupid and moronic producers and executives at SyFy who have proven once again that they can’t present a serious show on the paranormal without trying to twist facts and manipulate the outcome in order to present something that is not reality.
This past February I was contacted by the producers of Haunted Highways notifying me that they were going to shoot an episode on Shades of Death Road, and that they were looking for people who had paranormal experiences on the road. My team and I, New Jersey Paranormal Research, had conducted an investigation of the road a couple of years prior (which ironically became an episode of my own Paranormal Highways series) and I agreed to be interviewed on their show. So arrangements were made to meet up with Jack Osborne and Dana Workman in March at a specified location to shoot a brief interview with me, presumably before they would do their night time investigation.
I arrived at the small deli where they wanted to shoot the interview to find several other people milling about, all waiting to be interviewed as well. I found out that my friend Chris Nicolletti from SCREAM Paranormal was also shooting an interview with them earlier in the day, and Chris called to tell me they had finished with him and they were on their way. Not long afterwards a black SUV pulled up with Jack and Dana, and following on their heels were several other vehicles including a motor home. That’s when it hit me that the whole concept of having two investigators out in the middle of nowhere all alone with no back-up was a sham. Jack and Dana are followed around by a large crew of about 15 people including producers, production assistants, and even a caterer! They began shooting interviews with some of the other people while I patiently waited for my turn. Having a background in film and television production I understood the process. Finally Jack approached me and we started to do the interview, and I explained how my team and I had heard about the paranormal activity on Shades of Death Road and how we conducted our investigation. I was about halfway through my story when this woman entered the deli holding a clip board and a walkie-talkie – obviously a producer – and stopped the interview. She then asked me to tell the story again, but this time don’t mention that I was part of a paranormal team, but that I just happened to be there with some friends and experienced activity. I was dumbfounded that she was asking me to change the facts of my story. I told her that’s not how it happened, but she said that they can’t mention any other paranormal groups and I needed to tell the story as if I was just a witness, not an investigator. I retold the story, and although I downplayed my group’s involvement, but it was still clear that I wasn’t just a witness but that I was there doing an investigation. After the interview was over I got a photo of myself with Jack and Dana and I left while they shot more interviews.
It was when I drove away from the deli that I began to become angry and upset with myself. In hind site I understood that I should have stuck to my full story, and if that wasn’t good enough for them then I should just walked away. It was at that moment that I vowed I would never do another TV show unless I had 100% control over what I could say and how it was presented to the public. Too many of these so-called “reality shows” are not reality at all. They are scripted and manipulated in the editing room to portray whatever the producers or the network want to portray, whether it is real or not. After my previous bad experience with Paranormal State I should have known better to trust working on any show that I have no control over. I had also learned that the SyFy channel has a standing edict that they will not mention or promote any other paranormal research groups other than the ones on their own shows. I learned this when I was approached by the producers of Haunted Collector and set them up with one of my cases to do for their show. I was supposed to be interviewed by the cast, but an executive at SyFy wouldn’t allow it because I represented another paranormal group. So in essence they reach out to other groups looking for cases for their shows, and once they get them they toss them aside. After several months of waiting, I finally received an e-mail from the producers that the episode would air on Tuesday night. So I told all my friends to tune in and see me on TV like most people would do. I was very curious to see how the rest of the episode would play out and if Jack and Dana would capture any of the same evidence we encountered in our prior investigation of the area. When the episode aired I quickly realized that I had been cut from the episode entirely. To be honest I was relieved. I would rather have my story not heard at all than to have it twisted around by these scumbag producers and executives to serve their own agenda. As the rest of the episode unfolded I began to see how the network altered the footage to mislead the public, and how they may have faked some evidence.
At this point Jack and Dana jump out of the car and start to explore the woods looking for the person. They find a run-down shack and Jack captures what looks like the figure of a person quickly disappearing inside the shack on his thermal FLIR camera. This figure was all black in the thermal camera indicating extreme cold. I couldn’t help but be struck by the fact that the figure looks identical to other figures captured on the FLIR camera during several other investigations on the show. In the past I was impressed with the thermal footage and thought they had captured real apparitions, but now I’m not so certain. Since we cannot see the menu on the screen that shows the levels of hot and cold, I have the feeling that SyFy is trying to pull another fast one on us by inverting the color palette. So where a living person’s heat signature would normally look red or white, inverting it could make them appear black. Apparitions are extremely rare and difficult to capture, and in this season alone the show has captured 3-4 similar black so-called apparitions on its thermal cameras. As I have recently learned, when something appears too good to be true, it usually is.
When Jack and Dana leave the shack they walk through the woods and suddenly find themselves standing next to Ghost Lake. I laughed at this bit of editing deception as the lake is surrounded by high cliffs on the side of the lake where they “appeared”, and the only way to reach is it to park their car in the nearby parking lot. Jack stayed to investigate the shore while Dana hiked back to where a small cave used by the local Lenape Indians sits. In the episode Jack mentions that the Indians used it for rituals and ceremonies, which is not true. Archeologists feel the cave was used more as a rest stop for hunters and did not involve ceremonies. The rest of the episode shows Dana doing an EVP session in the cave and encountering some possible activity in the form of disembodied voices, which is consistent with the activity my group and I encountered when we investigated the cave. However, at one point Dana reacts to something brushing near her, and at the exact same time a shadow moves in front of the camera. This seems to indicate that what she reacted to was related to the shadow, yet SyFy choose to completely ignore that piece of evidence and it wasn’t mentioned again in the episode. Also, while Jack was standing on the shoreline he sees through the FLIR camera two large pillars form in the center of the lake. He becomes excited as it seems to corroborate other witness testimony of people seeing two figures appearing on the lake. Yet once again SyFy cut to commercial, and when they came back from break it was as if the incident never happened, and the footage was not seen again. This type of poor editing and storytelling seriously irritates me as SyFy is only concerned with showing something creepy, yet they have no intention of attempting to explain it, something real investigators would have done. I got another chuckle when Jack says that the sun is coming up so they will have to go back to base camp to review their evidence, yet the clock in the corner of the frame says that it’s only 1:45 AM. Seriously, the sun comes up at 1:45 in the morning in New Jersey? Who’d have thunk it?
In the last scene where Jack and Dana supposedly review their evidence the next morning and have a conversation with the other team members via Skype. The insult comes from the fact that their car is parked in a forest, but it’s the wrong forest! The camera shows them standing amongst a grove of California Redwood trees…something we don’t have here in New Jersey. They are also not wearing jackets, showing that the scene was shot in warmer weather, weeks to months after the episode was actually filmed. And most of the more interesting pieces of evidence from the investigation, including the shadow in the cave and the pillars on the lake, were completely ignored; while the figure of the very much alive person standing on the side of the road was the highlight of the investigation.
Let me say upfront that I don’t have a problem whatsoever with Jack Osborne or Dana Workman. Meeting and talking to Jack I found him to be very pleasant and friendly. Dana was more quiet and didn't say much to me, but that doesn’t mean anything negative against her as a person. My issues are directed at the producers of these programs and at the executives at SyFy in particular!
Let this serve as a warning to all other investigators who are contacted by these shows to be careful and realize that when you work with these production companies you are working with the devil. They don’t care about you, and they certainly don’t care about the truth. They only want to sell their product and make money, and they will lie, cheat, and manipulate the facts in order to do it. I will never, ever, do anything for the Syfy Channel again, not until they change their policy of not mentioning the other hard working paranormal groups out there who they contact for cases and give them credit where credit is due. I won't play their game or put money into their pockets. They don’t care about the paranormal, they only care that it’s popular at the moment and they can make money off of it.
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