Jock Brocas On Spiritual Life

Sunday, 24 May 2026

Distinct Types of Fascinating Spirit Art Phenomena

Nowadays, we find everyone is ‘a weekend medium/psychic/healer’ after completing one perfect course online, at an event or a workshop. And sadly, we often we see online writers, commenters and so-called ‘professional intuitives’ (especially the freshly minted ones!) who know loads more than many of the experts who have spent years researching and developing themselves on the spiritual matter/phenomena being discussed. It is frustrating and scary to think of the harm these ‘sudden experts’ can do to the image of the profession of spirit work. They may also negatively affect the historical and scientific facts within the macrocosm of Metaphysics, Spiritualism, and Spiritism worldwide. We have seen the damage-in-progress by so-called ‘scientists of the paranormal’ eager to discredit and ruin reputations of legitimate psychics and mediums worldwide – for the purpose of being known as a ‘professional’.

Spirit Art Types and Terminology

I believe it is of utmost importance for us to all understand the proper terminology and explanations for the various phenomena we can experience with the world of Spirit around us.

In this article, I have chosen to focus on the field of Spirit Art and its spiritual manifestations in this third dimension of life. When it comes to the phenomena of spiritual art and writing, we see so many now who use the terminology incorrectly due to their lack of proper education (and general ‘spiritual laziness’ to be honest) to take the necessary time to research proper terminology. Let’s look at the terminology we have used in both the past and present for the many varied Gifts of the Spirit (Bible, 1st Corinthians 12) being expressed across our planet:

∞ Inspirational Art (conscious)
∞ Automatic Art (conscious & an effect of mediumship)
∞ Painting Mediums (entranced)
∞ Direct Art (an effect of mediumship)
∞ Precipitated Art (an effect of mediumship)

Inspirational Art – Many are aware of intuitive (psychic) artists who draw, paint or write through inspiration. The inspiration comes into the intuitive’s mind whereby the conscious artist is impressed to create something via their hands, even their feet. Psychic art tends to be inspirational. Mediums that draw or paint personalities from the spirit world fall into this category. The words ‘psychic’ and ‘spirit artist’ seem to be commonly used for such works.

Automatic Art – As we continue with conscious artists as an important factor in said phenomena, we find automatic art as a type of mediumship whereby spirit personalities control the artist’s limbs (hands and/or feet) ‘through the ethers’ by directly controlling the limbs through an external unknown force. Using an internal force, spirit personalities can also harmonize with the mind and central nervous system of the artist to control their nervous system which moves the hand without the conscious influence of said artist. Mediums of note exhibiting automatic art (also known as Psychography) were Chico Xavier (Brazil) and Helen Smith (France). Please know that both were generally known as automatic writers with occasional automatic drawings of beauty.

Painting Mediums – Many have surely heard of entranced mediums painting in styles eerily familiar to the great masters painters (ie. Picasso, Monet, etc.) These mediums are generally in an altered state (entranced) so they are not conscious of what’s being painted or spoken to an audience through themselves. Spirit personalities merge succinctly with the artist achieving entrancement whereby the Spirit has full control of all bodily faculties necessary for painting. Brazil is rich with the Spiritist history of such mediums, even today. Mediums of note who exhibited painting mediumship were:
Luiz Gasparetto (Brazil), Jose Medrado (Brazil), Valdelice DaSilva Salum (Brazil) and David Duguid (Scottland).

Direct Art – Process whereby Spirit uses several forces including those from the medium to materialize ‘pseudopodia limb(s)’ necessary for maneuvering the coloring and writing instruments. Many believe incorrectly that such painting and writing phenomena occurred predominately since Spiritualism began less than 200 or more years ago. Theologians and historians have noted such examples going back two thousand years. When one reads, for example, the Biblical Babylonian account of King Belshazzar’s temple being visited by a materialized, disembodied ‘floating hand’ which ‘wrote upon the wall’ the King’s demise to come (Daniel, chapter 5).

Here we have a materialized hand appear independent of any physical person. The hand intelligently writes in a ‘strange and foreign tongue’ upon the wall. This is an example of direct art whereby spirit causes unknown forces to act upon tools such as paint brushes to create art and writing. One medium of note to have documented accounts of such was David Duguid (Scottland). An exceptional book on the subject: Bennett, Edward T (1908): The Direct Phenomena of Spiritualism: Speaking, Writing, Drawing, Music, & Painting: A Study. William Rider & Son.

My question for Spirit on this phenomena would be – where did the pigment come from for suddenly writing? Think precipitation, one must conclude!

Precipitated Art – A curious word is ‘precipitated.’ It means a substance caused to be deposited from a solution. Snow, rain, fog – even ash, are examples. Most recall the precipitated painting stories of the Bangs Sisters and the Campbell Brothers (actually gay partners in unforgiving times.) Some may recall the holy faces of Christianity’s Byzantine period, Acheiropoieta, ‘made not by human hands’ (ie. the Veil of Veronica.) Holy images precipitated onto cloth through intelligent spirit control.

And yet many have heard little of David Duguid of Glasgow, Scotland (1832-1907). He was a physical medium known for automatic, direct and even precipitated art. In his later years, his precipitated paintings were no larger than 2 inches by 2 inches (5cm x 5cm) produced between his clasped hands while the sitter held the tiny, torn off corner of the card being developed, so as to remove potentials of fraud. The Arthur Findlay College’s Museum (England), on its second floor, holds and displays occasionally up to three owned Duguid precipitated cards with their tiny torn corners sitting beside them. I have seen such artifacts first hand on my past visits there.

In the United States, we have some awareness in the minds of those following Spiritualism and Metaphysics, of precipitated art as a possibility. While I personally know of less than a dozen U.S. mediums in various stages of precipitation development, there is truly only one man at the forefront of this craft – Rev. Hoyt Z. Robinette (Camp Chesterfield, Indiana). He travels around the U.S. for part of the year to share this highly evidential ability. His precipitated spirit cards are breathtaking and infused with vibrant and rich colors. Once you have seen one, you will never forget them.

Gifts of Spirit

An interesting side note I’m excited to share, is that due to my extensive knowledge and passionate experiences with precipitation art over these years, Spirit told me in a séance that I’d be helping a lady in England. Sure enough, two years later in 2015, on an Autumn trip to the Cobber Hill Retreat Center near Scarborough, England to experience the remarkable, yet humble, Stuart Alexander – I met a ‘little dove’ who was eager to hear about my fascination with precipitated art and to witness the small collection of such artifacts I had brought along to share with others. This lovely lady was spirit artist Sandy Ingham (UK). I soon taught her all she needed to know to begin developing such ability and within a short time her efforts paid off with rudimentary precipitation upon blank index cards. Her guide, Leonardo da Vinci, guided her development away from the cards and towards her steady spiritual work of drawing loved ones in Spirit for public audiences.

Leonardo soon began to manipulate the light’s qualities in the projected images (of her real time live drawings) upon the church walls and evidential eye colors began to appear occasionally in the projected light images. For the last year, attendees receiving her black charcoal drawings (no color tools are used) found eye coloring and/or skin coloring fused upon the drawing they had taken home – which was NOT there prior to departing the demonstration. In all honesty, this is incredibly remarkable and has not occurred in Europe for some 150 plus years of documented mediumistic phenomena. Sandy and Leonardo are bringing forward new paradigms of highly evidential potential, certain to infuse our Spiritualist and Metaphysical movement with much-needed spiritual possibilities.

‘Gifts of the Spirit’ are as varied as God’s flowers on the earth… And art is an outward expression of an inside state of being. Besides, who does not love art!? It stirs the soul and makes us joyful and happy. Art is the light emitted by the artist’s soul that truly nourishes us spiritually. If you have not considered adding art to your mediumistic tool belt, give it a try!

Who knows… ‘What Dreams May Come?’

Saturday, 23 May 2026

Mackenzie Crook's SMALL PROPHETS Rekindles the Eerie World of Homonculi

Unknown Author, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Mackenzie Crook's critically lauded BBC2 comedy-drama Small Prophets has sparked renewed interest in ‘Homunculi’ - the strange sperm, blood and horse manure created tiny artificial humans or human-like beings of legend...or reality?

In the show, DIY store worker Michael Small (Pearce Quigley) is inspired by his aged father Brian’s esoteric tales of National Service in Egypt to attempt to create his own prophesying creatures. Why?

To discover what happened to his girlfriend Clea, who disappeared without explanation seven years ago on Christmas Eve:

What are Homunculi - and what are their origins?

Psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist Carl Jung (1875-1961) believed that the concept of an (as yet unnamed as such) ‘Homunculus’ first appeared in the Visions of Zosimos, written in the third century AD. Zosimos was born in Panopolis in the south of Roman Egypt (a connection with Small Prophets) and wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, calling them "Cheirokmeta," for "things made by hand."

In the 1973 motion picture The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, evil sorcerer Koura creates a Homunculus to spy on Sinbad:

How can I create a Homonculus?

Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493–1541), in his De natura rerum (1537) outlines how to create Homunculi, not something to be taken lightly.

The sperm of a man be putrefied by itself in a sealed cucurbit for forty days with the highest degree of putrefaction in a horse's womb warmed by "venter equinus, warm, fermenting horse dung", or at least so long that it comes to life and moves itself, and stirs, which is easily observed. After this time, it will look somewhat like a man, but transparent, without a body. If, after this, it be fed wisely with the Arcanum of human blood, and be nourished for up to forty weeks, and be kept in the even heat of the horse's womb, a living human child grows therefrom, with all its members like another child, which is born of a woman, but much smaller.

The homunculus was a potentially powerful but also somewhat limited creature; only thriving for any time within its glass container and sustained only on a particular strain of blood known only to alchemists.

The homunculus acted as seer, protector and servant, not as a weapon; neither good nor evil, counted on only to follow the will of their master, be it for pure means or ill.

The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616), concludes with the creation of a male and female Homunculi duo, suggesting the ultimate goal of alchemy is not transmutation of metal but the creation of artificial humans. In 1775, Count Johann Ferdinand von Kufstein, assisted by the cleric/mystic Abbé Geloni, created ten homunculi with the ability to foresee the future (see also Small Prophets), kept in glass containers at the Vienna’s Masonic lodge.

From The Strange Experiments of Count Kuefstein: The Man Who Made Ten Homunculi by Rade Kolbas (2024):

They worked on creating ten spirits, which they claimed to have successfully captured in glass jars. Each spirit was unique: there was a king, a queen, a knight, a monk, a seraph, a nun, a miner, an architect, and two other spirits, one blue and one red, that were only visible through specific rituals. The spirits were said to be small, initially just a few inches in size, and were captured in jars filled with a clear liquid, possibly holy water. The jars were sealed with a special ox bladder and a sigil, believed to prevent the spirits from escaping. Abbé Geloni assured Count Kuefstein that the spirits would grow, which they allegedly did, eventually reaching a length of over a foot. The captured spirits were then dressed and assigned certain roles, the king wore a crown, the knight carried a shield, and so on.

The captured spirits played a role in the Count’s interactions with other members of the Freemason and Rosicrucian orders. On several occasions, he invited prominent members of these secret societies to Greillenstein Castle to witness the spirits in action. These demonstrations were highly secretive, with only a select few allowed to attend. The spirits, according to witnesses, would move within their jars, change color, and even “speak” in a faint, barely audible voice. While some attendees were convinced of the spirits’ authenticity, others suspected that the Count and Geloni were using clever tricks to create the illusion of supernatural activity.

Not everything went smoothly during Count Kuefstein’s experiments. One notable incident involved the breaking of the jar containing the monk spirit. During an attempted ritual, Count Kuefstein accidentally knocked the jar over, causing it to shatter and the spirit to “die.” The Count’s attempts to replace the monk spirit with a new creation, an “admiral” spirit, ended in failure, as the new entity lacked the vitality of its predecessors. Another failed experiment involved an attempt to create a spirit that could provide more direct and accurate answers to questions posed by the Count. This spirit, which was supposed to be a “sage,” never fully formed, and the liquid in its jar remained cloudy and inert.

Dr. Emil Besetzny's 1873 Masonic handbook, Die Sphinx, devoted a chapter to the wahrsagenden Geister (scrying ghosts), apparently a form of Homunculi.

The Golem and Mandrakes

Homunculi have been compared to Jewish folklore’s protective Golem, a lofty animated anthropomorphic artificial being created from mud/clay.

The most well-known account of the golem is The Golem of Prague created by Judah Lowe ben Bezalel, in the 16th century.

The homunculus may have also been inspired by the German folk tradition of the mandragora (mandrake). Author Jean-Baptiste Pitois (1811-1877) likened the creation of a mandragora to that of a homunculus, writing:

“Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus so praised by Paracelsus? Then find a root of the plant called bryony. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the Moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man’s grave. For 30 days, water it with cow’s milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena; then wrap it in a piece of a dead man’s winding-sheet [burial shroud] and carry it with you everywhere.”

Author unknown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

An Homunculus also featured in 2005’s The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, created by 17th-century sorcerer Dr. Erasmus Pea (played by David Warner):

BCrttemberg Kunstkammer-Schmuckkasettep1190

Wuselig, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

"Scenes with Witches: Morning, Day, Evening and Night" by Salvator Rosa (1645 to 1649). A witch pours candle wax into her brew as it boils atop a fire, while another witch holds a book of spells. A demon (or, maybe even the Devil) looks on.

LINKS

Homunculus: The Alchemical Creation of Little People with Great Powers | Ancient Origins

The homunculus is first referred to in alchemical writings of the 16 th century and is the living representation of a tiny but fully formed human. It is clear, however, that this concept is much older than these writings.

www.ancient-origins.net

Homunculus: The Alchemical Creation of | The Mystica

Discover the homunculus - the artificial human created through alchemy by Paracelsus. Explore the occult science of creating life.

www.themystica.com

Medieval Scientists Tried to Make Little People with Semen, Blood, and an Animal Womb | Ancient Origins

Medieval alchemists conducted horrifying experiments to create mini artificial humans using semen, blood, rotten meat and animal wombs.

www.ancient-origins.net

Storytime: Reading ‘The Visions of Zosimus’ – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)

shwep.net

Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE, is available on Amazon Kindle

The Great One : The Secret Memoirs of Pompey the Great eBook : Arnell, Stephen: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store

www.amazon.co.uk

SAMPLE:

Thursday, 21 May 2026

Dare You Meet the Owlman of Mawnan?

Johannes Meiner, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“The owls are not what they seem.” Twin Peaks

Cornish folklore tells of the cryptid Owlman (Kowanden in Kernowek), an owl-like humanoid creature first seen in 1926 in the quaint, but somehow forbidding, coastal village of Mawnan Smith, located in the south of the peninsula.

The Cornish ‘Mothman’ if you will.

The most famous appearance of The Owlman was in 1976

Surrealist artist, magician and writer Tony "Doc" Shiels (1938-2024), had a reputation as something of a trickster/hoaxer, and was already associated with a series of Cornish ‘monster-raising’ tall-tales in 1976 (sometimes aided by his coven of nude ‘witches’).

In the Spring of that year, he claimed to have investigated the curious story of two young girls on holiday who apparently witnessed a large, red-eyed, winged humanoid creature hovering above the tower of St Mawnan and St Stephen's Church on April 17th 1976.

mawnan owlman — St Mawnan and St Stephen's Church, Mawnan

Simon Burchell, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

The girls - June (12) and Vicky Melling (9), were so rattled by the "feathered bird-man" their dad immediately cut their family holiday short and took them all home. Shiels said one of girls gave him her drawing of the beast, which he called "Owlman". The events were recounted in Anthony Mawnan-Peller’s (Mawnan?) pamphlet Morgawr: The Monster of Falmouth Bay, circulated throughout Cornwall the same year.

Sheils claimed "Owlman" was reported again a few months later on July 31st by two 14-year-old girls Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry, who had heard of the supposed creature. The pair were camping when they encountered "a big owl with pointed ears, as big as a man" boasting glowing red eyes and black, pincer-like claws, reminiscent of Spring-Heeled Jack, subject of a previous investigation of mine.

Spring-Heeled Jack mysteries and terror tales unveiled

Who or what was Victorian England's terrorizing Spring-Heeled Jack? Theories range from extraterrestrial and satanic to staged and supernatural.

paranormaldailynews.com

Irregular sightings of the beast in the vicinity of the church were shared in 1978, 1979, 1989, and 1995. According to local hearsay, a "loud, owl-like sound" was heard at night in the church yard during the year 2000.

The 1995 incident was witnessed by an American tourist, who sent a letter to the then night editor of the Western Morning News, Simon Parker:

Dear Sir,

I am a student of marine biology at the Field Museum, Chicago on the last day of a summer vacation in England. Last Sunday evening I had a most unique and frightening experience in the wooded area near the Old Church at Mawnan, Cornwall. I experienced what I can only describe as a ‘vision from hell’. The time was 15 minutes after 9, more or less. And I was walking along a narrow track through the trees. I was halted in my tracks when about 30m ahead I saw a monstrous ‘Birdman’ thing. It was the size of a man with a ghastly face, a wide mouth, glowing eyes and pointed ears. It had huge clawed wings and was covered in feathers of silver grey colour. The thing had long bird legs which terminated in large black claws. It saw me and rose, floating towards me. I just screamed then turn and ran for my life. The whole experience was totally irrational and dreamlike. Friends tell me that there is a tradition of a Phantom Owlman in that District. Now I know why. I have seen the phantom myself. Please don’t publish my real name and address. This could adversely affect my career. Now I have to rethink my ‘worldview’ entirely.

Yours very sincerely scared Eyewitness.

The creature was quiet for a few years but there were other strange occurrences recorded in Mawnan. In 1996 a woman reported a ball of light floating above the church. In 2003, two teenage girls (again) were listening to music in the church car park late at night (possibly indulging in some herbal recreation):

They too saw a glowing, pulsating globe of light hovering over the church. The girls said that they watched it for a while until it just vanished. The most recent sighting (that I know of ) was in September of 2009. It was reported that a 12 year old girl named Jessica Wilkins (or Wilkinson) saw the Owlman of Mawnan for the first time this century. Why all these strange happenings have occurred in the vicinity of Mawnan church is a mystery. There is some suggestion that the sightings are due to an escaped Great Grey Owl which can have a wing span of nearly 2m, has huge talons and can stand around 4.5ft tall. The only problem with this theory is the length of time over which the Owlman has been seen. Another theory is that the stories have something to do with the church standing in the centre of an ancient earthworks. Or perhaps because some researchers have detected a ley line (earth energy line) passing through the site? Other writers have said that sensitive and perceptive visitors have also described Mawnan Woods as being ‘alive’ with energy. Could that natural Earth energy be connected to the reports of the Owlman? (The Cornish Bird: Cornwall’s Hidden History Blog)

Tony Shiels - from Magonia Archive

Shiels seems to be an admirer of John Keel, the British edition of whose classic The Mothman Prophecies appeared in 1976. As if in affectionate imitation there then came report of a Cornish counterpart, Owlman. This entity showed himself only to adolescent girls on holiday, who afterwards would chance to meet Doc Shiels, tell him their stories, and never be seen again. Three of the girls produced drawings of what they had seen, though there is some doubt about one variously described as "by June Melling", or "based on the sketch by June Melling", which is not the same thing. If it is her original, then like the other two, she had remarkably excellent draughtsmanship for a pre-teenager; in fact one might have guessed all of the pictures to have been the work of a professional artist (e.g. Doc Shiels).

Barbara Perry and Sally Chapman both wrote a brief description of the 'monster' underneath their drawings. Their handwriting is of interest. Graphologists know that there are some writing habits that can be consciously altered, for instance whether the letters are joined up or not, whereas others are very difficult to disguise. Chapman's and Perry's hands are very different in their alterable habits; Perry joins up some of her letters but Chapman does not but are remarkably similar in their unalterable ones. The ways they wrote "monster" are virtually identical, and they share several other habits, both putting the dot over the i to the right of the letter and beginning the crossbar of the t at the upright stroke. One could almost conclude they were one person pretending to be two.

Years later Jonathan Downes, the portly Devonshire cryptozoologist, did his own investigation of Owlman and located a man who said he had seen it when a boy; though his sketch of it looks like an imitation of the originals rather than an independent drawing from life. The same is true of a letter sent by an American student who had seen it while on holiday. Though she gave an address in Chicago and stated herself to be a student of marine biology, when Downes tried to contact her she was not registered as living there, and no department chief he spoke to on the telephone had heard of her. Downes' best known contribution was to star in the Owlman video, which also featured the director's wife as a naked lesbian Witch, while a professional sceptic was depicted as a maniac gay Nazi.

But... back to 1926

From Sarah Coomer’s 100 Ghosts: The Owlman of Mawnan (May 2021)

There had been reports of a very large angry bird type thing in the churchyard as far back as the 1920s, whose reputation was enough to attract the attention of loved up Surrealists Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst who allegedly performed rituals to try to summon the beast in 1937. But the most famous sighting of the Owlman occurred in 1976 - whilst holidaying in Cornwall, two (probably v bored) young girls caught sight of what they described as a very large bird with glowing red eyes and claws like blacksmith’s pincers hovering over the church, as reported to monster investigator, storyteller, magician and all round character Tony ‘Doc’ Shiels. A number of other sightings were sporadically recorded but dismissed as having been engineered by Shiels, who had a bit of a reputation as a hoaxer. It’s all so obviously utter nonsense, and easily explained away (er, it’s a big owl) but there’s something about it which has captured the imagination of fans of the unexplained / Surrealist painters for decades. The idea itself is terrifying, the environs evocative and a bit spooky and the name of the place is a gift, like something out of Lord of the Rings.

And this from The Cornish Bird: The Cornish Hidden History Blog

In 1926 the Cornish Echo newspaper reported that two boys had been chased by what was described as a very large and ferocious bird. The terrified boys managed to escape and took cover behind a large steel grating. This first sighting attracted the attention of surrealist painters Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington. The couple visited Mawnan in 1937. There they are said to have performed rituals to try and summon up the half man half bird they called a ‘therianthorpes’. The Owlman featured heavily in both their artworks for the remainder of their lives.

Lord Of Tears (2013) - In the film, the Owlman represents Canaanite god Moloch, who particularly savoured child sacrifice. Moloch has been connected to Bohemian Grove, a sinister ‘gentlemen’s club’ for wealthy elites who gather in the San Francisco woods and stand each summer before a giant moss-covered 40ft wooden owl statue erected there.

The Owl Service

The Owl Service Episode One - transmitted Sunday, 21 December 1969, based on the Welsh legend of Blodeuwedd, turned into an owl for betraying her husband to death (all episodes available on YouTube)

The Mothman Prophecies (2002)

Links:

Owlman of Mawnan, Cornwall | Into Horror History | J.A. Hernandez

Many legends of cryptids don't have a clear origin, a story that can easily be traced back to the first sighting. For these creatures, the line between cryptid (an as-of-yet undocumented natural animal) and supernatural is sometimes blurry, as is true with cases such as The Qalupalik of Inuit Folklore or El Peuchen of Mapuche Mythology. In some ways, the controversy surrounding sightings of strange things can make them even more intriguing to explore because there is little in the way of proof for or against their existence. At the core of these legends or folklore is a story, often a tangled combination of truth and fiction, genuine experience and exaggeration.

www.jahernandez.com

Masters of the Universe Go to Camp: Inside the Bohemian Grove

whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu

Hieronymus Bosch - Garden of Earthly Delights

Hieronymus Bosch, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Night Owl (full version) - Gerry Rafferty

Bird Song - Lene Lovich

Blood Sweat and Tears - Suite from The Owl & The Pussycat (1970)

Stephen Arnell’s novel THE GREAT ONE is available on Amazon Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk

www.amazon.co.uk

SAMPLE:

Wednesday, 20 May 2026

Satan Summoned by Stone? England’s Ancient Demonic Rocks, Lore & Legends

The Devil, Probably?

In England, there’s a plethora of ancient stones associated with the Devil - and in many cases with related lore in how to summon him in. Here are just a few of them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys & Girls, Angels & Imps, I give you... England’s Satanic Stones. This one, a mere 5 minutes by motor vehicle from my abode.

The Devil’s Boot (Soulbury, Buckinghamshire)

Not a summoning place, as such, but worth a mention; a glacial chunk of 300-million-year-old carboniferous limestone deposited from the Peak District some 450,000 years ago. Oliver Cromwell has speechified from it, tanks during WWII tried to dislodge it and boy racers have pranged it, but the Boot abides on its hillside vigil. Come the stroke of midnight and the chime of the bells at Soulbury’s All Saints Church every evening though, the object rolls down the hill to face The Boot Inn public house - and presumably then swiftly returns to its original site. Therein lies a tale. The ‘Boot’ is in fact the Devil’s Hoof, sheared off by irate Soulbury villagers after Old Nick tried to trash the church.

The Blood Stone (Wiltshire)

Near the ancient battlefield of Edington (Alfred the Great vs Guthrum’s Danes, 878 AD) in Wiltshire is The Blood Stone. This from The Witchery Arts:

“One of the smallest and most overlooked of these sites is the Blood Stone, situated in the center of a sheep infested valley between Westbury White Horse Hill and Picket Hill in Bratton, on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

The stone itself is about three feet across, two feet high and a dark, scabby red in colour. It’s said that the stone was one of those used by King Alfred’s men as a block upon which to behead Danish prisoners of war after the Battle of Ethendune of AD 878, which is how it is supposed to have got its particular shade. There are even paired indentations in the surface of the rock, which look uncannily like the marks left by a pair of front teeth.

There is archeological evidence to suggest that it really is an ancient execution site since a large pile of headless skeletons, dated to around that time, were excavated from the nearby watercress beds at the bottom of the valley in the 1970s. The skulls were found a half mile away, buried upside-down, apparently according to the Saxon tradition that if a soul escaped through the top of the head it could be thus trapped into heading straight down into the bowels of the Earth.”

The 'blood stains' are actually Iron Oxide traces. Apparently.

The Devil's Stone (Kent)

The Devil’s Stone is noted for what appears to be a cloven strange footmark indented in it. The Devil, who so annoyed by the sound of Newington-next-Sittingbourne’s church bells, climbed the steeple with a bag over his shoulder, and nicked them.

As the fiend leapt from the tower, he slipped, and his foot hit the stone, the bells rolling out of the bag and into the nearby Libbet Stream. As a result, the well was said to continuously bubble, and bizarrely, the stone is also said to sparkle when hit. Another version of the legend blames the church wardens, who decided to sell the great bell of the church to pay for the repair of the remaining bells. Under the cover of darkness, the bell was drawn up to the roof of the bell tower in order that it could be lowered from outside. The Devil appeared, and seized it. The church wardens, after seeing that Old Nick had gone, attempted to remove the bell with grappling irons and ropes. At first, they had great success at raising the bell to the surface, but the rope broke and down went the bell! Again, they tried and again they failed. In both versions, a local witch arrived and told them that the only way in which the bell could be raised is by drawing it up by four pure white oxen. This was done, and it was almost raised to the surface until a local urchin, who was passing, shouted out at the top of his voice, 'Look at the black spot behind that bull's ear'. The rope instantly broke, and the bell was lost forever!

The Devil’s Stone in Crook (County Durham)

You must run around it seven times anticlockwise at midnight, sometimes with added, much darker rituals.

The stone is an erratic glacial, beginning in the Lake District more than 10,000 years ago during the last Ice Age. A glacier moved it 60 miles east and dropped it on the edge of the Durham market town of Crook. It is now made up of three large lumps of igneous rock after someone blew it up looking for a diamond reputed to be hidden inside.

Chanctonbury Ring (Sussex): Run round this prehistoric ring fort three or seven times backward or naked and the devil will appear and offer a bowl of soup or porridge for your soul. Nice deal.

The Witch's Stone (Westleton, Suffolk)

Place a handkerchief or piece of straw in the grating beside the chancel door and (using the Witch’s Stone) as a base – run around the church three or seven times widdershins (or counter-clockwise) without looking at the grating; once back at the Witch’s Stone, the item in the grating will be gone and the eerie rattling of the Devil’s chains can heard from the church crypt. Cool. I guess.

The Devil's Chair, Avebury (Wiltshire)

Jim Champion, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Legend says that if you run around this megalithic stone at Avebury Henge one hundred times, the Devil will pop up for a chat.

In an original ceremony devised by Philip Shallcrass of the British Druid Order in 1993, pagans assemble and divide into two groups, one the God party and the other the Goddess party. Those with the Goddess party go to the Devil's Chair, where a woman representing the spirit guardian of the site is a vessel for the voice of the Goddess.

Avebury in fiction:

Children of the Stones (1977) - full series

The Devil’s Den (Avebury)

A dolmen burial chamber, part of a Neolithic passage grave on Fyfield Down.

A local tradition says if water was poured into hollows on the capstone, Satan would come in the night and slurp it. Super.

The Devil's Arrows (North Yorkshire)

Two of the Devil's Arrows by Gordon Hatton, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

These millennia-old standing stones in North Yorkshire are the second tallest in the United Kingdom, after the Rudston Monolith.

The common Dark Age belief was that the Devil was shooting or throwing arrows from a neighbouring hill at the Christian settlement of Aldborough nearby, but he fell short of his target. Human sacrifices were supposedly conducted on the top of the stones, where the bodies were left to rot.

The Devil's Ring and Finger (Staffordshire)

Some posit this Neolithic pile as a Druid’s altar within a sacred grove, the circular Ring Stone an altar piece for the Sun God, who represented the power of life, of good, of increase, and the Finger representing the Serpent God, which represented evil and death - in other words Satan, to later inhabitants. The Ring Stone’s porthole, is large enough for a person to climb through, or be passed through, to increase fertility. Or is it a portal to another dimension? Faerie perhaps?

The Devil's Quoits (Oxfordshire)

The Devil's Quoits are located in Oxfordshire, Neolithic henge and stone circle near the village of Stanton Harcourt. Folklore says the Devil threw large stones from Wytham Hill, some 8 miles away, during a game of quoits with a beggar for his soul. The beggar lost.

In a different version, Satan was actually playing solo on a Sunday and was b*llocked by God for playing games on His Holy Day. Understandably, a frustrated Old Nick threw his huge stones down in a hissy fit at Stanton Harcourt.

Traditionally, the stones were thought to resist being moved; one story tells of a stone moved to make a bridge that would not stay in place. In fact, the henge has been disturbed many times in recent history. The stone circle originally featured 36 stones, some removed during the medieval period (used as building materials); during WWII, the site was levelled for an airfield. More recently, there have been efforts to restore the henge; the remaining stones being re-erected, missing stones replaced with modern blocks, and the earthworks surrounding the circle re-dug between 2002 and 2008. So a tad ersatz then.

The Devil's Stone (Shebbear, Devon)

The stone is rolled over every November 5th to "turn the Devil away" and prevent the next year's crops failing. Also, if the stone is NOT overturned, Satan will the appear. The Shebbear Yeomanry has yet to try leaving the stone unrolled as a test, local parish records show.

The Nine Stones, Winterbourne Abbas (Dorset)

These sarsen stones were erected in the Bronze Age; legend claims they were the Devil, his wife, and his children and cannot be counted; others say they had once been children who were turned to stone as punishment for playing ‘Five-Stones’ on a Sunday. A bit severe.

In 2007, the Dolmen Grove Druids claimed they’ve had to confront individuals hurling abuse at them as they performed their rituals at the Nine Stones.

The Devil’s Toenail (Bedfordshire)

This Neolithic stone (10,000 to 4,500 BC) marks the spot where the Devil joined some local kids who were defying the sabbath by enjoying a cheeky game of leapfrog. Satan merrily participated in their game, then opened a hole in the ground into which they were cast and never seen again.

20 minutes or so from my dwelling.

Roche Rock (Cornwall)

Roche Rock by Chris Gunns, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

I’ve been to Cornwall’s chapel of St Michael at Roche Rock, mainly I admit from curiosity to see the location for one of the doomed killer monks attempts on Damien’s life in 1981’s Omen III: The Final Conflict than anything else.

The Chapel in Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Roche Rock features in Cornish myth; the ruined chapel that we see today was built more than 600 years ago in 1409 by the wealthy Tregarrick family. The last resident of Roche Rock is said to have been Sir John Tregarrick who hid himself there for many years after contracting leprosy. His only visitor was his daughter who brought him food and fresh water from a nearby well. 17th century magistrate Jan Tregeagle’s evil spirit was set to roam the wilds of Cornwall pursued by Satan’s demons. Tregeagle sought sanctuary in the chapel’s holy ground, but only managed to get his head stuck in the east window, with his body dangling outside to be welted by the Devil’s eager helpers. On a stormy night you can still hear the howls and tortured screams of cornered Tregeagle on the wind.

In the time of King Arthur, it was said to have been the base of hermit/holy man Ogrin. Ogrin helped the famous star-crossed lovers Tristan and Isolde in their attempted escape from an enraged King Mark, hiding the couple with him on the rock.

Devil's Chimney (Gloucestershire)

The Devil, cheesed off by the many Christian chapels in the area, took to perching on Leckhampton Hill, mocking and hurling rocks at those who attended church on a Sunday. But the treacherous, turncoat rocks rebelled and drove Satan back beneath the ground, preventing him from harassing the pious villagers any further.

The mass of stones then formed a chimney to hell - as can be seen by tendrils of smoke that waft from the structure at night. Visitors still leave a coin among the stones, to protect them from the wrath of the Devil.

The Devil's Lapstone (Durham)

The Devil himself offered to help build Durham Cathedral but with the wicked intention of constructing foundations of such crumbly rock, the building would soon collapse, killing anyone inside. Naughty Satan.

Lucifer would fly up and down the length of the River Dene, collecting stones for the cathedral, but one day, his leather apron snapped and the stone within plummeted to earth. The Devil snatched at it, trying to catch it again and again, leaving deep scratches and Satanic blood in the rock. If you ever see the Devil’s Lapstone, take a close look, as you can still see the rents and blood left by The Horned One in his fury.