Download or read book Ghosts of Old Europe written by Hans Holzer and published by Crossroad Press. This book was released on 2020-06-06 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ghosts of Old Europe offers a very different kind of tour to the armchair traveler. Wander through the haunted castles and cottages of Europe with Hans Holzer, the world’s most famous psychic investigator, and explore a full range of psychic phenomena from the spirits of the British Isles to the haunts of Imperial Vienna. In England, Anne Boleyn's legendary ghost walks headless within the Tower of London; a procession of transparent monks appears in the Cathedral at Winchester, where no monks have trod since the sixteenth century; and Bloody Queen Mary still visits the four-poster bed where she slept in the dark days of 1553. At Kilkea Castle in Kildare, it is said that the Wizard Earl and his companions ride at night and will return someday from the beyond to “put things right in Ireland.” Room No. 2 in the Hotel de l’Europe in Avignon holds a shocking surprise for the unwary guest; and in Paris, No. 3 avenue Montaigne offers a special concert of ghostly piano music from a spectral grand. Ghosts occur wherever a great tragedy has left an unfortunate person stranded between the next world and this one, someone who has not yet been freed from their own emotional turmoil. The true accounts presented in this book are based on Dr. Holzer's personal investigations. Should you have occasion to visit some of these special sites yourself—if you are psychically gifted (and nearly everyone is to a varying degree)—chances are you may also have a true experience, ranging from a psychic “impression” of past events to an apparition, or perhaps you will hear an unworldly sound. Meanwhile, with this volume in hand, you can read of the long-dead Black Knight of Pflindsberg galloping wildly up the mountain—from the comfort of your own home.
Download or read book The Ghosts of Europe written by Anna Porter and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-01-18 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1989, Adam Michnik said that Central Europe came “as a messenger not only of freedom and tolerance but also of hatred and intolerance. It is here, in Central Europe, that the last two wars began.” Nearing the twentieth anniversary of Communism’s collapse, acclaimed author Anna Porter traveled to Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary to discover whether and how democracy has taken root in these former Iron Curtain countries. The former borderlands of the long-defunct Hapsburg Empire and the more recently dispersed Soviet Empire have attempted to invent their own forms of democracy and capitalism. However, disturbing signs of old attitudes have returned, bringing into question Central Europe’s ability to reform its elites and to effectively control public demonstrations of hatred, the rise of racial tensions, and the emergence of fascist parties. Porter interviewed the young and the old, the winners and the losers, in this grand European transformation. Porter walks Wenceslas Square with those who suffered the violence of the state police and helped to organize the ’89 revolution. She meets with revolutionary leaders such as Václav Havel and Adam Michnik, as well as custodians of the new regimes, among them Radek Sikorski, Michael Kocáb, and Ferenc Gyurcsány. She takes us to Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance and Budapest’s House of Terror Museum—fascinating if controversial attempts to reckon with dark periods of history. She interviews the wealthiest man in Hungary, the general who ordered martial law in Poland, attends an ultraright rally, and visits a Gypsy village where a newly burgeoning yet all-too-familiar racism has destroyed a family. Gradually, a portrait emerges of a Europe struggling under the weight of history and memory, its peoples divided over half-forgotten events, old ethnic rivalries, borders drawn and redrawn—ghosts that had lurked, unacknowledged, under Communism’s force-fed stories of peaceful coexistence and a common front toward the Western enemy. Now, Central European rhetoric veers between historical reckoning, revisionism, and the politics of retribution. Penetrating, fascinating, and powerfully observed, The Ghosts of Europe illuminates themes of tyranny, nationalism, racism, and denial in nations with a tumultuous history and a future very much in the balance.
Download or read book The Secret History of Poltergeists and Haunted Houses written by Claude Lecouteux and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-04-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What poltergeist accounts through the ages reveal about our own worldviews • Provides a wide array of case studies from ancient Greece and Rome to medieval Europe to the modern world • Explores the relationship between poltergeists and troubled adolescence • Looks beneath the Christian adulteration of pagan practices to reveal the hidden ancestral beliefs tied to poltergeists and haunted houses Stories of poltergeists and their mischievous and sometimes violent actions--knocking, stone or chair throwing, moving objects with invisible hands, and slamming or opening doors--are a constant through the ages. What changes is how we interpret this activity. For our pagan ancestors this phenomenon was caused by helper spirits whose manifestations revealed their unhappiness with a household. The medieval Christian church demonized these once helpful spirits and held exorcisms to expel them from the houses they haunted--which proved effective less than half the time. The Age of Enlightenment cast these incidents as clever hoaxes, and many still believe this today. But poltergeist manifestations continue to appear and often defy attempts to debunk them as pranks. What then is behind this phenomenon? Exploring accounts of poltergeists from ancient Greece and Rome, medieval Europe, and the modern world, Claude Lecouteux finds that while our interpretations of poltergeists may change, the manifestations always follow a similar course and evolution. He shows how modern scientific studies of poltergeist manifestations have found a strong tie between these visitations and the presence of a troubled adolescent in the house. Looking beneath the Christian adulteration of pagan practices to reveal the hidden ancestral beliefs tied to poltergeists and haunted houses, the author shows how these unhappy spirits serve as confirmation of the supernatural beings that share the earth with us and of our relationship with the natural and unseen world, a relationship we must take care to keep in balance.
Download or read book The Haunted Land written by Tina Rosenberg and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-11-24 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Pulitzer Prize-winning look at the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe
Download or read book For the Love of Europe written by Rick Steves and published by Rick Steves. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After 40+ years of writing about Europe, Rick Steves has gathered 100 of his favorite memories together into one inspiring, award-winning collection: For the Love of Europe: My Favorite Places, People, and Stories. Join Rick as he's swept away by a fado singer in Lisbon, learns the dangers of falling in love with a gondolier in Venice, and savors a cheese course in the Loire Valley. Contemplate the mysteries of centuries-old stone circles in England, dangle from a cliff in the Swiss Alps, and hear a French farmer's defense of foie gras. With a brand-new, original introduction from Rick reflecting on his decades of travel, For the Love of Europe features 100 of the best stories published throughout his career. Covering his adventures through England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and more, these are stories only Rick Steves could tell. Wry, personal, and full of Rick's signature humor, For the Love of Europe is a fond and inspirational look at a lifetime of travel. Winner of the 2022 Society of American Travel Writers' Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award: Best Travel Book, Silver
Download or read book Ghosts in the Middle Ages written by Jean-Claude Schmitt and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1998-04-28 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating study, Schmitt examines the significance of the widespread belief in ghosts during the Middle Ages and traces the imaginative, political, and religious contexts of these everyday haunts. Ghosts were pitiful or terrifying, usually solitary, creatures who arose from their tombs to haunt their friends and relatives. Including numerous color illustrations of ghosts and their trappings, this book presents a unique and intriguing look at medieval culture. 28 color plates.
Download or read book American Ghosts Old World Wonders written by Angela Carter and published by Random House. This book was released on 2012-09-30 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shortly before her death Angela Carter was preparing this volume of short stories, one which does full justice to the glory of her imagination and the range of her talent. It is divided into distinct parts. The first comprises a group of stories inspired by America: Lizzie Borden visits a circus; a John Ford Western is spiced with the story of 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE' and there is a wonderful Gothic extravaganza set in Hollywood. The second section - OLD WORLD WONDERS - draws on fairy tales (Cinderella), on the story of Mary Magdalene, on the folklore of pantomime, on ALICE IN WONDERLAND, an on medieval legend. These stories represent Angela Carter at her most acrobatic and dazzling: erudite, witty, sexy and enthralling. A book to delight her many, many fans.
Download or read book The Haunted Land written by Tina Rosenberg and published by . This book was released on 1997-05-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In four newly democratic countries in Eastern Europe, communism's former victims and jailers are struggling to make sense of their history - and sometimes rewrite it. In this groundbreaking, stylishly reported book, a journalist travels across the battlefields of memory and asks: Who is guilty? How should they be punished? And who is qualified to judge them in states where almost every citizen was an accomplice? In East Germany, Tina Rosenberg follows the trial of the border guards charged with the last shooting at the Berlin Wall. In the Czech Republic, she meets a heroic dissident who has now been ostracized for having once cooperated with the old regime. In Poland, she speaks with General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the one-time architect of martial law who now presents himself as his country's savior. Out of these stories of conscience and complicity, courage and optimism, The Haunted Land delivers the final chapter of the greatest moral drama of our time.
Download or read book Ghosts of the ETO written by Jonathan Gawne and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2007-08-20 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent, balanced history of the 23rd Special Troops . . . may be one of the most important books to come out of World War II.” —Engineer Magazine No history of the war in Europe has ever taken into account the actions of the men of the US 23rd Special Troops. These men took part in over twenty-two deception operations against the German army. Some of these operations had tremendous impact upon how the battles in Europe were fought. The men who participated in these actions were sworn to secrecy for fifty years and are only now willing to talk about their role. The 23rd was composed of four main units. A signal deception unit to broadcast fake radio signals, an engineer camouflage unit to set up rubber dummies of tanks and trucks, a combat engineer unit to construct emplacements and provide local security, and a sonic deception company. The sonic unit was developed to fool German listening posts by playing audio recordings of various sounds, such as tanks moving up or bridges being built. The 23rd was the only tactical deception unit of the American Army in World War II combining all aspects of deception. This book also covers the birthplace of sonic deception, the Army Experimental Station at Pine Camp, and the 23rd’s smaller sister unit, the 3133rd Sonic Deception company that saw action for fourteen days in Italy. “Highly recommended reading as being a simply fascinating military history of a hidden aspect of World War II that would have a profound and lasting influence on military strategy and tactics.” —Midwest Book Review
Download or read book Medieval Ghost Stories written by Andrew Joynes and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2006 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Medieval Ghost Stories" is a collection of ghostly occurrences from the eighth to the fourteenth centuries; they have been found in monastic chronicles and preaching manuals, in sagas and heroic poetry, and in medieval romances. In a religious age, the tales bore a peculiar freight of spooks and spirituality which can still make hair stand on end; unfailingly, these stories give a fascinating and moving glimpse into the medieval mind. Look only at the accounts of Richard Rowntree's stillborn child, glimpsed by his father tangled in swaddling clothes on the road to Santiago, or the sly habits of water sprites resting as goblets and golden rings on the surface of the river, just out of reach...
Download or read book The First Ghosts written by Irving Finkel and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2021-11-11 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'It's enthralling stuff, mixing the scholarly with the accessible and placing storytelling right at the heart of the human experience.' - History Revealed 'A fascinating journey' - Yorkshire Post 'Marvellous...Finkel is an expert in Mesopotamian cultures at the British Museum, and is one of the most clever, and nicest, of people it has ever been my pleasure to encounter...A fascinating journey' - The Scotsman There are few things more in common across cultures than the belief in ghosts. Ghosts inhabit something of the very essence of what it is to be human. Whether we personally 'believe' or not, we are all aware of ghosts and the rich mythologies and rituals surrounding them. They have inspired, fascinated and frightened us for centuries - yet most of us are only familiar with the vengeful apparitions of Shakespeare, or the ghastly spectres haunting the pages of 19th century gothic literature. But their origins are much, much older... The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies takes us back to the very beginning. A world-renowned authority on cuneiform, the form of writing on clay tablets which dates back to 3400BC, Irving Finkel has embarked upon an ancient ghost hunt, scouring these tablets to unlock the secrets of the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians to breathe new life into the first ghost stories ever written. In The First Ghosts, he uncovers an extraordinarily rich seam of ancient spirit wisdom which has remained hidden for nearly 4000 years, covering practical details of how to live with ghosts, how to get rid of them and bring them back, and how to avoid becoming one, as well as exploring more philosophical questions: what are ghosts, why does the idea of them remain so powerful despite the lack of concrete evidence, and what do they tell us about being human?
Download or read book Istanbul written by Orhan Pamuk and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2006-12-05 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Nobel Prize winner and acclaimed author of My Name is Red comes a portrait of Istanbul by its foremost writer, revealing the melancholy that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire. "Delightful, profound, marvelously origina.... Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory." —The Washington Post Book World A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share. With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city. Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.
Download or read book Rethinking Ghosts in World Religions written by Mu-chou Poo and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2009-06-24 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The central theme of this volume is to re-examine the received concepts and images of ghosts in various religious cultures ranging from the Ancient Near East and Egypt to the Old Testament, the Classical Era, Early Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Early India, and Medieval China. As a religious phenomenon, the realm of ghosts has been less studied than the realm of the divine. Through a collaborative effort by scholars from different disciplines, this volume proposes a multi-cultural approach to construct a wider and complicated picture of the phenomenon of ghosts and spirits in human societies and to have a grasp of the various problems involved in understanding the phenomenon of ghost.
Download or read book Ghostland written by Colin Dickey and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places--and deep into the dark side of our history.
Download or read book Living with Ghosts written by Michel (Prince of Greece) and published by W W Norton & Company Incorporated. This book was released on 1996 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An entertaining account of the ghosts of Europe's haunted castles and palaces presents eleven stories of the spectral inhabitants of England, Provence, Westphalia, and many other celebrated locales throughout the continent. Tour.
Download or read book Ghosts of Old Salem North Carolina written by G.T. Montgomery and published by Arcadia Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stories and photos that reveal the paranormal history of this picturesque Winston-Salem district. Hidden behind the preserved eighteenth-century colonial buildings of the Old Salem Historic District in Winston-Salem is a haunted history of spine-tingling tales . . . Find the harrowing stories of Salem Cemetery and the anonymous headstones of the “Strangers’ Graveyard.” Learn the origins of the inexplicable sounds at Salem College. Meet the tavern traveler who refuses to check out. Follow the story of Andreas Kresmer’s tragic death and the subsequent appearance of the “Little Red Man.” In this book, author G.T. Montgomery takes you on a frightening and fascinating journey to discover the most notorious haunts to wander Salem’s streets.
Download or read book Balkan Ghosts written by Robert D. Kaplan and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the assassination that triggered World War I to the ethnic warfare in Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia, the Balkans have been the crucible of the twentieth century, the place where terrorism and genocide first became tools of policy. Chosen as one of the Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, and greeted with critical acclaim as "the most insightful and timely work on the Balkans to date" (The Boston Globe), Kaplan's prescient, enthralling, and often chilling political travelogue is already a modern classic. This new edition of Balkan Ghosts includes six opinion pieces written by Robert Kaplan about the Balkans between 1996 and 2000 beginning just after the implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords and ending after the conclusion of the Kosovo war, with the removal of Slobodan Milosevic from power.
