Shannon Taggarts Paranormal-Photography
Shannon Taggart fotografiert Geister, Medien, Seancen, Hypno-Kram, Geisterjäger und Voodoo, der ganze Quatsch aus dem Venn-Diagram of Irrational Nonsense neulich. Für’s Midnight Archive erklärt sie ihre Einflüsse, der Geister-Fotografie aus dem 19. Jahrhundert.
Photographer Shannon Taggart explores the Victorian born art of ‘Spirit Photography’, a practive in which, the spirit of a loved one or guide would appear in one’s photograph. Shannon takes a heartfelt and uncontroversial look at a topic that had been plagued with scandal.
Vincent Price’ Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture-Kit
Vincent Price’ Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture-Kit, findet man noch auf Ebay. (via Retronaut)
Massive Graverobbery for Black Voodoo Market:
In Benin haben sie seit Samstag mehr als hundert Gräber ausgeraubt, man geht davon aus, dass die für den Schwarzmarkt für okkulte Rituale vorgesehen sind: More than 100 graves robbed in Benin for voodoo rituals: „Tomb raiders have dug up more than 100 graves at a cemetery in Benin since Saturday for what authorities suspect is a black-market trade in human organs and skulls for voodoo ritual fetishes.“
How to shrink a Head
Mary Roach hat im Outside Magazine einen tollen, langen Artikel über Schrumpfköpfe: SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND: „A guy calls, says he found some mysterious papers left behind by a dead relative who apparently shrunk human heads and bodies. Do we wanna come see? Uh, no. But we knew Mary Roach would.“
Fast noch besser finde ich aber die kurze Anleitung, wie man selber einen macht. Dazu hat sie mit einer Präparatorin den Kopf eines Luchses geschrumpft: DO ICK YOURSELF – The ABCs of Shrinking a Noggin.
As it turns out, the most challenging part of head shrinking isn’t the shrinking; it’s the skinning. A shrunken head is basically skin removed from the skull and then contracted and hardened by boiling it and filling it with hot sand.
It takes Monica ten minutes to get from frozen bobcat (“He’s so pretty! Bye!”) to partially thawed bobcat with skinless head. It would have gone faster had I not helped. I did the top of the head, which is a straightforward skinning task, but some details take skill. Detaching outer ear from inner, cheek from gums, is confusing. There’s no dotted line. I quickly hand the scalpel over to Monica.
Our future shrunken head is now a floppy pelt draped over Monica’s gloved fist, a furry hand puppet that should never be given to a child. Next comes the part one ethnographer has called “the boiling of the flesh-head.” Monica drops it into a pot of simmering water. Never put your flesh-head on a roiling boil, because the hair may fall out.
Inside Haitian Vodou
Life Mag hat eine schöne Fotoreportage über eine Voodoo-Zeremonie auf Haiti.
Few religions are as misunderstood and as steeped in often-cartoonish misapprehension as Haitian Vodou. Countless people around the globe, shown images of a ceremony, might confidently say, “Yes, that is Vodou.” But very few, when pressed, could coherently discuss the core tenets of the belief.
For photographer Anthony Karen, who has traveled extensively in Haiti over the years, Vodou is at once a fascinating subject and — in a very real sense — the gateway to his vocation.
“About 13 years ago,” he told LIFE.com, “I was in a difficult, transitional point in my life. Out of nowhere, I felt Haiti calling to me. I traveled there, and saw two Vodou ceremonies in person. On the same trip, I discovered my passion for photojournalism.” Here, LIFE.com presents previously unpublished pictures of a June 2011 Haitian Vodou ceremony, along with Karen’s insights into so-called “marginalized” groups and his own work as a photographer.
Inside Haitian Vodou (via Life)
Nzambi: Doku über Voodoo, Drogen und Zombies (jetzt komplett)
VBS hat in den vergangenen Tagen die restlichen Teile der Voodoo-Zombie-Doku „Nzambi“ rausgehauen, in der Hamilton Morris („unser hauseigener Bewusstseinserweiterer bereist den Globus auf der Suche nach dem perfekten High“) Wade Davis (Autor von „Die Schlange im Regenbogen“) interviewt, auf Haiti Voodoo-Rituale besucht und das Zombie-Gift auch selbst testet.
Nach dem Klick die nun also vollständige Doku in sechs Teilen, die ersten beiden Clips hatte ich schonmal hier gebloggt.
Vintage Voodoo-Party vs. Hitler
Im Januar 1941 haben sich ein paar Irre in einer einsamen Hütte in den Wäldern von Maryland zu einer Party getroffen, auf der sie Hitler umbringen wollten. Mit Voodoo. Im Bild links sticht eine Dame namens Ruth Davis einer Hitler-Puppe die Augen aus: „Nails in eyes induce insomnia,“ LIFE reported. „As she jabs, Ruth Davis croons: ‘Burn Hitler’s eyes! Keep them open night and day! Kill his rest!’“
“On the wet windy evening of January 22, a youthful band of idealists went to a lonely cabin in the Maryland woods.” Thus begins one of the odder stories LIFE magazine ever published — a straightforward, tongue-nowhere-near-cheek account of a 1941 “hex party” convened with one aim in mind: “to kill Adolf Hitler by voodoo incantation.” According to LIFE, the party featured “a dressmaker’s dummy, a Nazi uniform, nails, axes, tom-toms and plenty of Jamaica rum,” and was inspired by a book by occultist and writer William Seabrook that was popular at the time: Witchcraft: Its Power in the World Today.
Nzambi: Doku über Voodoo, Drogen und Zombies
VBS hat die ersten beiden Teile ihrer Voodoo-Drogen-Zombie-Doku „Nzambi“ online gestellt, in der Hamilton Morris („unser hauseigener Bewusstseinserweiterer bereist den Globus auf der Suche nach dem perfekten High“) Wade Davis (Autor von „Die Schlange im Regenbogen“) interviewt und auf Haiti Voodoo-Rituale besucht. Die folgenden vier Teile werden bis Halloween auf VBS veröffentlicht, ich bringe hier dann nochmal die komplette Doku.
Teil 1
(VBS DirektVoodoo)
Inspired by Haitian tales of human reanimation, VBS correspondent Hamilton went on a mission to discover the truth about Haitian zombies. His mission began by visiting Wade Davis, an expert in the science of Haitian witchcraft and author of The Serpent and the Rainbow. Davis, a world renowned ethnobotanist, claims a living person can be turned into a zombie by two special powders entering the blood stream. After being briefed, Hamilton took off for Port-Au-Prince on a quest for the secret poisons and the truth about the living dead.
Teil 2
(VBS Direktzombies)
Hamilton arrives in Port-Au-Prince and checks in to the Adams Family mansion. There he meets his guide Alex, a man who survived fourteen bullets to the face. Together they attend a Vodou ceremony and watch a pig become an ambassador to the gods.
Voodoo-Wrestling im Kongo
Die Global Post hat eine superfaszinierende Galerie voller Fotos von Voodoo-Wrestlling im Kongo. Der Sport ist dort ziemlich populär, sie vermischen ihn aber mit traditionellen Voodoo-Riten. Zombie-Wrestler FTW!
The hypnotic beat of drums and the loud melodic trumpets announce the beginning of the wrestling match. The athletes are getting ready and tonight, in Brazzaville, they will fight opponents from Kinshasa. The audience is mesmerized by the “voodoo” that has been borrowed from ancestral practices that were used in animist rituals — a large part of the intrigue of this sport.
In Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrestling is as popular as it is in the U.S. The main difference: The Congolese like to introduce a mystical, magical “voodoo” element to the pantomime. So in addition to huge men wearing spandex and diving off 10-foot-tall stages, there are also “magical traditions” involving powders, spells and zombie-like transformations of wrestlers.
Voodoo wrestling in Congo – Huge men in spandex, magic spells and zombie-like transformations (via Digg)
Haitis Voodoo Zombies sind Alkoholiker, that’s it
Okay, entgegen einiger Klischees glaube ich nicht wirklich an Zombies (obwohl ich, falls sie sich irgendwann aus ihren Gräbern erheben, gut vorbereitet sein werde). Deshalb ist das hier für mich keine wirklich große Überraschung: Das Zombie-Phänomen in Haiti, das immer irgendwelchen Voodoo-Zaubern untergeschoben wird, ist tatsächlich Symptom einer Hirnkrankheit („Wet Brain“), dass durch übermäßigen Alkoholkonsum verursacht wird. Und die „Zombie-Arbeiter“ auf Haiti sind tatsächlich nur Alkis.
Research at the University of Haiti College of Medicine has uncovered strong evidence linking Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome or “Wet Brain” to the phenomena of zombiism.
Long term alcoholism causes chronic wet brain syndrome which has 3 prominent symptoms.
- Confusion, drowsiness and paralysis of eye movements
- Ataxia or a staggering gait
- Mental DisturbanceResearchers in Haiti have linked a special brand of Haitian alcohol known as tafia, a cheap form of rum produced from sugar cane, to a newly discovered form of Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome which they believe to be the cause of zombiism.
Wet Brain: Zombie Infection Linked to Alcoholism (via Neatorama)
