Jock Brocas is a spiritual author and teacher with books published internationally. Jock is also the president of the charity organization assmpi and works tirelessly to he others develop spiritually and live a more rewarding life. Join Jock Brocas on a spiritual journey.
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Have you ever considered the role karma plays in relation to the importance of the job you do as a medium and how much responsibility you carry? I often wonder how many mediums actually think about the weight of their responsibility, and those who miss it because they are too caught up in the evidence or desire to perform and make a living.
I have lost count of the times when a grieving individual has made contact, only to tell of the terrible reading they had with another medium and how upset they were. I know that some of you will be wondering how awful the so-called evidence was, or if the person was actually communicating with spirit at all. Words used in a mediumship sitting are often used frivolously, without thought. While the actual reading by most standards may be great, and many would be happy to receive the information, how it is delivered and how the words are chosen, must be carefully considered – or they will cut like a knife which is the very last thing a grieving man or woman needs.
Try this exercise. Have someone like your partner or even a member of your circle stand in front of you with their hand and arm outstretched in front of them. Place two fingers lightly, but firmly on the top of their hand, and start to push down as you say amazing wonderful and complimentary things. You will notice the person is still fairly strong and nothing will move them. Then take a moment, and do the same thing, but this time, say horrible, nasty things to them and about them. You will now find they are powerless. You have taken and affected their personal energy by firing and charging negative energy and forcing it upon them. This small exercise exemplifies how words can hurt and destroy someone’s joyful spirit.
Now let’s get back to the sitting with the medium and how the wrong word choices may cause more damage to the sitter than one could imagine. Statements like, “He’s not happy with you” or “You should not have done that” may sound innocuous but in actual fact, do more damage than good to the person’s spirit. In fact, there are so many examples that could be given, such as how the person passed etc. One must consider how frail the sitter’s spirit is and the amount of turmoil they are in. It is, therefore, a great responsibility on the medium to be able to deliver messages in a caring, respectful and responsible way.
Karmic Influence
I am sure that you have all heard the saying “What goes around comes around,” which is that basis of karmic law – saying in layman’s terms that all debts must be paid and your responsibility is not something that you can escape; what you sow, so shall ye reap or words to that effect. So is it wise to consider the reality that a medium may shoulder more karmic responsibility than one would think? If you are steeped in a bath of ignorance about Karma, you won’t escape the karmic responsibility because you did not know any better, but it may be to a lesser degree.
However, there is a hypothesis that suggests one who is spiritually aware, should, in effect know better. I am in no doubt that Karma acts quickly on an individual who has a high level of spiritual awareness. How the karmic debt is paid is of no consequence to anyone other than the relationship between the individual and the divine source or whatever they aspire toward. Nevertheless, the reality of checks and balances does have an immediate effect. As a consequence, perhaps from a developed medium’s perspective, this means that the responsibility of what they say and do has a greater effect and the scales of Karma may tip one way more than the other.
Mediums Beware
Let us now get back to the hypothesis of the mediumship reading. It’s very easy for a medium to reel off everything and anything they see, hear or feel without actually processing it properly. One sure sign of an untrained or undeveloped medium is following that pattern of “Just Say what you see.” In this instance, it is all too easy to cause more harm to the sitter because you are unable to discern what to say and how to communicate the message in a compassionate way. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard a medium give a graphic representation of how the spirit person passed, and though they mean no malice, it causes tremendous angst and upset to the sitter because they are faced with the visions or emotions that compounded the grief.
So, consider this as another aspect of the aforementioned hypothesis, if indeed karma has an immediate effect upon an individual who may be more spiritually progressed than another or who may have more understanding of spiritual law. Does that mean the individual could be the catalyst to immediate karmic balance, or, would there be no change? It certainly is something to ponder. If you do something against your spiritual knowledge or make up for your own personal gain, there will be a karmic balance, but where does that leave the medium, should the medium have that discerning power, because ultimately you have taken on a major responsibility of spirit and passing on information that can change a person’s life. If you knowingly give a grieving individual evidence because you feel it is strong and that evidence causes the individual to be further catapulted into grieving or indeed any other negative state, there could very well be an instant Karmic reaction. This also bears down on the old argument that mediums should not work too early until a sufficient amount of development and training has taken place.
It’s not about the evidence, it’s about the whole package and as mediums who are supposed to be more aware, we have a deeper responsibility and I would suggest, are subject to Instant Karma.
Henry Fuseli, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Puck, The Naughty Sprite
As we approach Midsummer’s Eve...
To many, the naughty sprite Puck (aka Robin Goodfellow) is best known from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream (1596) as one of the main fairy characters that populate the play, significantly influencing events with his cheeky pranks such as replacing Nick Bottom's head with that of an ass.
Older readers may possibly recall Kipling’s novel Puck of Pook's Hill where Puck (“a small, brown... pointy-eared person”), who refers to himself as "the oldest Old Thing in England", recounts various scenes of English history/fantasy to two children from nearby Burwash, in the High Weald of Sussex. Kipling's Puck is extremely critical of the modern image of a fairy: “Can you wonder that the People of the Hills don't care to be confused with that pointy-winged, wand-waving, sugar-and-shake-your-head set of imposters? Butterfly wings, indeed!”
Puck of Pook's Hill (1906) by Rudyard Kipling
‘Pook’s Hill’ is thought to be the hill that can be seen to the south-west from the lawn at Bateman’s, Kipling’s charming rural residence. Its real name is Perch Hill.
Jonathan Whitesell played Robin Goodfellow in The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (2020):
Jack Gleeson (Joffrey from Game of Thrones) also essayed Puck in season two of The Sandman on Netflix last year.
Puck and Fairies, from "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Joseph Noel Paton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
In Amazon’s appalling fantasy series Carnival Row (2019, 2023), the Puck are a race of ‘fae’.
But who was Puck - and was he in any way ‘real’?
Puck associated place-names in England are relatively rare when compared to those commonly said to possess Norse and Saxon stems and originate from Gloucestershire, parts of Sussex, and the South-West, suggesting a possible Celtic origin. Names such as South Gloucestershire’s Pucklechurch ("Puck's Church") and various Puck- and Poke- prefixed woods, hills, and wells survive from early-medieval times to the this very day. Looking further back, Puck has been linked to the Greek God, Pan. In Anna Franklin’s Midsummer: Magical Celebrations of the Summer Solstice (2002) she says, “Robin Goodfellow is sometimes described as having the head of a youth and the body of a goat. Like the god Pan, he has a lusty nature, small horns on his head, and carries musical pipes. It may be that he is the fairy remnant of the ancient horned god or nature spirits, since there originally seems to have been a race of pucks.”
There is also said to be a link between Puck, The Green Man and Robin Hood - all to an extent representing nature in its raw and wilful form. Mike Harding, author of A Little Book of the Green Man (1998), said in a 2010 letter to The Guardian:
Robin Hood and the woodland orgies
Of course there was no Robin Hood. The name is a corruption of Robin of the Wood or Robin in the Hood and refers to Robin Goodfellow/Puck, the spirit of the woods, a pagan nature god who lived on well beyond the Christianisation of this island (Robin is often quoted in witchcraft trials as the name the witches chose for their familiars). He was no "tricksy spirit" but a powerful green god – perhaps seen in one aspect in the images of the Green Man that adorn so many of our great medieval churches and cathedrals. Mayday (a movable feast dependent upon the first blossoming of the hawthorn) was the signal for all and sundry to hie them away to the woods for a mass orgy. Harsh winters and poor diet meant low fertility, so the best way to ensure a good stock of babies was for women to have as many sexual partners as possible.
Any children born of the woodland orgies that went under the name of the Robin Hood games became known as Robson, Robinson or Hudson (Robert Graves – The White Goddess). Men in tights might work very well for the film-makers and the tourist boards – green gods that encouraged fecund fornication probably wouldn't figure highly in the naming of airports. And Maid Marian? Mary the Virgin Mother, the maid, consort of the Green Man perhaps. Morris dancers? Well that phallic symbol the maypole was brought out of the woods accompanied by a gang of dancers – Morris men. (Mary's men?) Until Cromwell came along and did away with maypoles and bonking in the bower, England was a much more ribald and perhaps even merry place. Perhaps the Tories who want a Big Society and a return to merry England could revive the maypole and spontaneous and widespread woodland nookie – bit late to put it in the manifesto though.
Despite the comparative scarcity, at least 50 places in England feature the word "Puck," including:
Puckrup, Gloucestershire - the hamlet derives its name from Old English, meaning a "goblin-haunted farmstead". In local folklore, the locality is heavily associated with Puck (or Puca)
Puckaster Cove, Isle of Wight - mentioned frequently in local folklore regarding ‘fairy dances’.
Puckstye & Pockford, Surrey - relating to nearby fields and a centuries-old goblin/sprite-haunted pathway
Puckham Woods, Gloucestershire - associated with medieval witchcraft
Puckshipton, Wiltshire - strongly associated with sightings of goblins etc
According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898): Puck/Robin Goodfellow is both a "drudging fiend", and merry domestic fairy, famous for mischievous pranks and practical jokes. During late evenings Puck will sometimes perform small services for the family over which he ‘presides’. The Scots call this kind of domestic spirit a brownie; the Germans, Kobold or Knecht Ruprecht. Scandinavians called it Nissë God-dreng.
According to his mood, Puck would undertake minor housework, some fine needlework or butter-churning. He would assist housewives with their chores, in expectation of an offering of some fresh crusty white bread and creamy milk. If this were neglected, he would steal that which he believed was owed and enact other petty acts of retribution upon the householders.
After the Protestant Reformation, Puck became the subject of negative texts written by Protestant proselytisers, along with, of course, other supernatural entities. Edmond Bicknoll claimed he was born from the ‘fruit of infidelity’ and was a conspirator of the devil, whilst Reginald Scot referred to Puck as the ‘great and ancient bullbeggar’ and Edward Dering blamed the sprite for the ‘idle superstitions’ of medieval religion.
Contrary to the attacks from Protestant authorities, the belief in Robin Goodfellow and his fairy companions remained significant in early modern popular life, particularly in the realm of household. Indeed, in Bedfordshire, where I currently abide, local rustic families supposedly still give offerings and venerate the ‘Little Folk/Hobs/Lubber Fiends’ who will minister to their domiciliary needs, if appropriately placated.
The fear Puck could engenderer also led to other customs which were designed to prevent his punishments from occurring. For example, people would often leave out pails of water for the creatures to wash themselves. In 1731, George Waldron argued that this belief was still important, saying “a person would be thought impudently profane” to go to bed “without having first set a tub, or pail full of clean fresh cool water”, in order for “these guests to bathe themselves in”.
Which is nice. Maybe this accounts for the pails of water left by cottages in my locality; unless of course it’s meant for the squirrels and birds during the current heat wave.
Puck Basking Asleep Before the Country
Moses Haughton the younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The 'lubber fiend', a nocturnal household drudge of folklore, lying on a tiled floor beside a fire, satiated from the empty bowl of cream fallen by his right hand, a butterfly circling above him; after a lost painting for the Milton Gallery by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), rendering by Moses Haughton the younger (1773–1849).
Puck was portrayed as a cocky trickster who could also shape-shift to toy with the people he met, stating, “sometimes I meet them like a man, sometimes an oxe, sometimes a hound, and to a horse I turn me can.” His jolly japes ranged from ruining dinner parties by annoying guests, spooking people in their sleep and when in the mood, swapping human children for hideous elf-changelings.
Puck by Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Puck, as Robin Goodfellow, even appears in an 1856 speech by Karl Marx: "In the signs that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor profits of regression, we recognize our brave friend Robin Goodfellow, the old mole that can work the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer – the Revolution."
In 1952, a woman named Mrs. C. Woods reported encountering a 3-foot-tall "elf" or sprite whilst yomping on Dartmoor. Apparently she initially mistook the peculiar little figure for an animal, but realized it was a "tiny man in brown" wearing a smock when she approached closer.
The Red Sprite, a form of upper-atmospheric lightning, is sometimes referred to as "Puck", a reference to mischievous nature spirits, inspiring the phenomenon's name. Whilst extremely rare, Red Sprites have been photographed and witnessed in the night skies of England during severe thunderstorms.
“Hellmouth” - Miniature from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library & Museum
Master of Catherine of Cleves, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
An Underworld Travel Guide - legendary ‘Gateways to Hell’ that still exist in Europe
The ‘Ploutonion’ at ancient Hierapolis (near modern Pamukkale in Turkey) was a religious site and a supposed entrance to hell dedicated to the grim god Pluto, he who ruled over the dead in Hades.
Discovered in 1965 by Italian archaeologists, and followed by studies carried out in 1998, the Ploutonion and the nearby Apollo's Oracle of Hierapolis are linked to a seismic fault, on which both sanctuaries were purposely built as part the Gateway to Hades/Hell/The Underworld. The site has been partially restored, with statues of Hades and his three-headed hound Cerberus now guarding the remains of the complex.
Pluto’s sanctuary is built on top of a cave which emits lethal toxic gas; animals would be thrown into the cave and pulled back, instantly dead. Fumes emitted from the cavern are still fatal; passing birds have suffocated after breathing the fumes emanating from the site.
Lethal gas said to be sent by Pluto, god of the underworld
The Ploutonion is a small cave, large enough for one person to enter. Behind the roofed chamber is a deep cleft, through which fast-flowing hot water passes, releasing the lethal gas, said to be sent by Pluto, god of the underworld. The fumes were so strong they could kill a human within just one minute of exposure.
Gelded priests of Cybele (‘the Galli’) descended into the chamber, crawling on the floor to inhale pockets of oxygen, or simply holding their breath. They then returned to the surface claiming a miracle had occurred and they were uniquely under Pluto’s protection.
In front of the ‘Gateway’ an enclosed area of 22,000 square feet was covered by the swirling, deadly gas, instantly killing many who dared to enter this area, except for the wised-up servants of Pluto who were aware the gases pooled closer to the ground, so kept their mouths and noses above the deadly clouds below; unlike the animals (including bulls) that were led to their deaths. The acquisitive priests naturally sold birds and other animals to visitors, who used them to test the deathly air as sacrifices. But their regular exposure to the CO2 in the surrounding atmosphere would have doubtless contributed to the hallucinations and eccentric behaviour displayed by the Pluto’s servitors.
Greek historian Strabo (63 BC – c. 24 AD) described the gate: “Any animal that passes inside meets instant death. I threw in sparrows and they immediately breathed their last and fell.”
For a fee, supplicants asked questions of Pluto’s human oracle, again topping up the sanctuary’s coffers; but when Christianity came to dominance, the area was closed off, and in time largely forgotten. The temple was mostly destroyed by an earthquakes in the 6th century AD.
But Pluto’s shrine is still deadly to some foolish enough to test the god.
Other ‘Hellgates’
The Roman Forum - home to no less than two entrances to Hades’ realm:
The Lacus Curtius
I’m a regular visitor to Rome’s fascinating ancient Forum; two sites are of particular interest to the investigators of esoterica.
The Lacus Curtis is arguably the most mysterious monument of the Roman Forum. The name suggests it was a lake, becoming smaller as drains were constructed, until a small dodecagonal basin was all that remained, called the Lacus Curtius. The Romans had three stories explaining the name. The first was that in 445 BC, lightning struck the area, and consul Gaius Curtius Philo ordered the construction of a fence around it. Livy (59 BCE - 17 CE) tells us that after the Rape of the Sabine Women, war broke out between the Romans and the Sabines, Roman champion Mettius Curtius, drowned in the marsh during the clash which was thereafter called the Lake of Curtius.
The third and most popular account says in 362 BC a great fiery cleft to the Underworld opened in the Roman Forum; seers claimed that to seal the fissure, Rome must throw "that what constituted the greatest strength of the Roman people" into the ravine. If they did so, Rome would last forever. The knight Marcus Curtius mounted his horse, pronouncing that youth was the most important thing, and jumped into the chasm, which then promptly closed.
To the east of the Lacus, the skeletons were discovered of a child, a woman and a man that were bound together and drowned in the lake, perhaps the victims of an ancient ritual, in which people were sacrificed by drowning ; perhaps the three were the profaners noted on the inscription on the nearby Black Stone (Lapis Niger).
Whosoever (will violate) this (grove), let him be cursed. (Let no one dump) refuse (nor throw a body ...). Let it be lawful for the king (to sacrifice a cow in atonement). (Let him fine) one (fine) for each (offence).
The Lacus Curtius was the place where the aged emperor Galba was lynched by soldiers on the fifteenth of January 69.
When Romulus founded the city, he instructed a circular pit be dug in the Forum. The first fruits of the year were then thrown in as a sacrifice; apparently in archaic times all new citizens of Rome had to throw in a handful of dirt from their place of origin. The Mundus was an underground structure considered a gate to the underworld, ritually opened just three days each year. These days were dies nefasti—on which official transactions were forbidden on religious grounds, because evil spirits rose from the Underworld to wander the city.
Porta Alchemica, aka The Alchemical Door, The Magic Portal or The Alchemy Gate
A way not to the Underworld, but to somewhere else...the mysterious.
Porta Magica
Master of Catherine of Cleves, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The Alchemical Door, also known as the Alchemy Gate or Magic Portal (Italian: Porta Alchemica or Porta Magica), was built between 1678 and 1680 by Massimiliano Palombara, marquis (nobleman) of Pietraforte, in his residence the villa Palombara, located on the Esquiline Hill, near Piazza Vittorio in Rome. This is the only one of five former gates of the villa that remains.
In a story collected by Francesco Cancellieri in 1802, a pilgrim suspiciously named ‘Stibeum’ (‘Antimony’ - a brittle silvery-white poisonous metal) was a guest in the villa for a night. That night, the pilgrim, identified later as alchemist Giuseppe Francesco Borri/Giustiniano Bon, scoured the gardens of the villa in search of an obscure herb capable of concocting gold. The next morning, he disappeared through a door, leaving behind flakes of gold and a mysterious paper full of puzzling symbols and equations, describing the ingredients and transmutative process required.
The marquis had these symbols engraved on the five gates of the villa Palombara and on the walls of the mansion, hoping that one day they would be translated. Another legend holds that between 1678 and 1680, the same Giuseppe Francesco Borri along with Athanasius Kircher and Gian Lorenzo Bernini, designed and built the gate for the marquis. The marquis Palombara developed a passion for alchemy in 1656, when he visited the alchemical laboratory in Riario Palace, now known as Palazzo Corsini. It was rumoured that Palombara, Bernini and Kircher were all poisoned on 28 November 1680, probably by Borri, for having revealed the secret formulas through the inscriptions on the gate. Cancellieri published his account in 1806, including his interpretation of the inscriptions on the Porta Alchimica. His work was published much later in June 1895 in French by Pietro Bornia as an issue of the periodical L'Initiation.
Inscriptions on the Porta Alchemica include alchemy symbols and incantations
Around the circle at top: “The centre is in the triangle of the centre.”
Also: “There are three marvels: God and man, mother and virgin, triune and one.” And the Hebrew inscription, Ruach Elohim, meaning “Spirit of God.”
Beneath: “The Hesperius dragon guards the entrance of the magic garden, and, without Alcides, Jason would not have tasted the delights of Colchis.”
There are six sigils on the jambs, each with its phrase.
Saturn/Lead:“When in your house black crows give birth to white doves, then you will be called wise.”
Jupiter/Tin: “The diameter of the sphere, the tau of the circle, the cross of the globe do not benefit the blind.”
Mars/Iron:“He who can burn with water and wash with fire, makes heaven from earth and precious earth from heaven.”
Venus/Bronze: “If you will make the earth fly upon your head, you will convert the waters of torrents to stone by its feathers.”
Mercury: “Azoth and Fire: by whitening Latona, Diana will come without dress.” Antimony: “Our son lives dead, the king returns from the fire, and enjoys the occult conjunction.”
On the base, Vitriol: “It is occult work of true wise to open the earth, so as he may germinate health/safety for people.”
In another plate, now lost, was the device VILLAE IANUAM TRANANDO RECLUDENS IASON OBTINET LOCUPLES VELLUS MEDEAE 1680 (Passing by opening the door of the villa, Iason obtained the rich fleece of Medea 1680).
And on the doorstep, “SI SEDES NON IS,” a palindrome, meaning both “If you sit, you do not go,” and “If you do not sit, you go.”
The Statues
The figures on both sides of the ‘door’ represent the Egyptian god/semi-divinity Bes. A patron of the home, childbirth, and infants in ancient Egypt, Bes was well-known in imperial Rome, where in pre-Christian age several people followed Egyptian cults.
Originally, the statues were found on the Quirinal Hill, where there once stood a huge temple dedicated to the Egyptian gods Isis and Serapis; over centuries its rich decorations, reliefs and small obelisks were dug up and ‘relocated’ to ornament different parts of the city.
In 1888, during the works for the opening of Piazza Vittorio, the statues were moved from their original location to the Porta Alchemica - and therefore were not part of the original design.
And briefly, some other European ‘hellmouths’
The lake at Lerna, Greece
Lerna was one of the entrances to the Underworld, and one could gain entry to the netherworld via the Alcyonian Lake. The lake is called "the Lake of Darkness" in Shakespeare's King Lear.
According to Pausanias (110-180 AD), “There is no limit to the depth of the Alcyonian Lake, and I know of nobody who by any contrivance has been able to reach the bottom of it since not even Nero, who had ropes made several stades long and fastened them together, tying lead to them, and omitting nothing that might help his experiment, was able to discover any limit to its depth. This, too, I heard. The water of the lake is, to all appearance, calm and quiet but, although it is such to look at, every swimmer who ventures to cross it is dragged down, sucked into the depths, and swept away.”
Cave of the Sibyl, Cumae, Italy
Entrance to the Cave of the Sibyl, Cumae
Carole Raddato from FRANKFURT, Germany, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The Cumaean Sibyl was a priestess who presided over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony near Naples. Her cave was discovered by Amedeo Maiuri in 1932, basing his identification on the description by Virgil in the 6th book of the Aeneid. The cave is a trapezoidal passage over 131m long, running parallel to the side of the hill and cut out of the volcanic tuff stone, and leads to an innermost chamber where the Sibyl was thought to have prophesied, aided by volcanic fumes direct from Hades, or perhaps additional pharmaceutical help. A younger Claudius consulted the Sibyl in I Claudius:
“What groans beneath the Punic curse and strangles in the strings of purse before she mends must sicken worse. Ten years, fifty days and three, Clau-Clau-Claudius shall be given thee a gift that all desire but he. But when he's done, and no more here, nineteen hundred year or near, Clau-Clau-Claudius shall speak clear.”
"The hairy sixth to enslave the State/ Shall be son, no son, of this hairy last./ he shall give Rome fiddlers and fear and fire./ His hand shall be red with a parent's blood./ No hairy seventh to him succeeds/ And blood shall gush from his tomb." (Referring to Nero)
A tunnel complex in nearby Baiae (part of the volcanically active Phlegraean Fields) leads to an underground, geothermally heated stream that conforms to the description in the Aeneid of Aeneas's journey to the underworld and back
Lake Avernus, Italy
Lake Avernus was once synonymous with Hell/the Underworld. Its name means ‘birdless’ in classical Greek, due to the toxic fumes (them again) seeping from the area, which, like Cumae, is part of the Phlegraean Fields of dormant/semi-active volcanoes. The ancient Roman believed Lake Avernus was the entrance to Hades, and its name grew to be a synonym for the underworld itself. In Virgil's Aeneid, Aeneas descends to Hades through a cave near the lake.
St. Patrick’s Purgatory, Ireland
Christian tradition links Patrick to Ireland’s Station Island (Lough Derg, County Donegal), where Christ showed St Patrick a cave, sometimes referred to as a pit or a well, that was an entrance to Hell. Legend maintains that St. Patrick was depressed by the doubts of his potential converts, who demanded proof of the Creed. St. Patrick earnestly prayed to God to aid him in converting the heathen Irish, and in return, Jesus revealed to him the hole where Purgatory could be seen; a place in which the joys of Heaven and torments of Hell may apparently be glimpsed rather than actually experienced. This supposedly convinced those pagan-backsliders who gaped into the chasm. Not technically an underworld entrance to Hell, but more a spiritual peep-show of sorts.
The cave has been closed since October 25th 1632, but descriptions by early pilgrims survive, referring to it as a cave or cellar or an enclosed pit. The entrance was narrow: about 0.6 m (2 ft) wide and 0.9 m (3 ft) high. Once inside there was a short descent of about six steps. The cave was divided into two parts: the first was about 3 m (9 ft) long, probably with banked sides and only high enough to kneel in; after a turn there was another niche about 1.5 m (5 ft) long.[5] The site has never been excavated, so we can only rely at this point on these descriptions of the cave. It was probably an ancient pre-Christian structure, likely an ancient sweat house. People would enter these enclosed places to inhale medicinal smoke produced by burning various plants, a place that people went to for physical or spiritual healing of some kind.
Cape Matapan Caves, Greece
The caves at Cape Matapan lie at the end of the Mani peninsula in Greece. The entrance to the caverns is located at sea level, leading to chambers under the cliff face; marked by the ruins of a Spartan temple on top of the cliff. The Ancient Greeks believed in several different entrances to the underworld, of which Matapan is the most famous.
Mount Etna
Etna was thought in ancient times to be the forge of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and blacksmithing. The rumbling of the volcano was assumed to be the hammer of Hephaestus striking his anvil. Etna was also believed to be a gateway to Hell.
In later times, the Devil left his footprint on the volcano and he whisked Elizabeth I there as she lay dying.
Hekla, Iceland
Iceland’s Hekla volcano was believed to be another ‘Gateway to Hell’. The activity at Hekla, which includes lava flows and fountaining, looking like a veritable Hell on Earth; birds that were seen flying in the area were thought to be damned souls queueing to enter the Pit. Hekla still carries an evil aura for the superstitious, for they claim it is where witches gather to meet Satan himself.
Houska Castle
Houska Castle in the Czech Republic is infamous for a legend claiming it was built over another toxic "Gateway to Hell". The gassy fissure was allegedly so deep that no one could see the bottom of it; animal-human hybrids supposedly crawled out of it, and dark-winged, otherworldly creatures flew in the vicinity. When construction began on the castle, prisoners that were sentenced to death were offered a pardon if they agreed to be lowered by rope into the hole, and reported back on what they saw. When the first person was dangled, he began screaming after a few seconds, and when pulled back to the surface, he looked as if he had aged 30 years. Houska’s inhabitants include a bullfrog/human creature, a headless horse, and an old woman as well as the remains of "demonic beasts who escaped the pit".
Fun Fact: the courtyard walls face inwards, as if to keep something in.
The castle was the inspiration for Michael Mann’s 1983 motion picture The Keep? - especially since in World War II, the Wehrmacht occupied the castle and the Nazis were said to have conducted occult experiments there.
Cresswell Crags
Creswell Crags is an enclosed limestone gorge on the border between the English counties of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. Its caves contain the northernmost cave art in all of Europe, as well as hundreds of later ‘witch marks’ recently discovered there. One collection of scratchings, carved around a four-foot round hole in one of the caves, is said to warn of an entrance to the Underworld.
Hell’s Gate, the East Riding of Yorkshire
Close to the Cresswell Crags, but not really an entrance to Hell as such, but the burial place of thirteen decapitated Anglo-Saxon ‘criminals’. Their heads had probably been displayed on poles as warnings to others, a known practice in Anglo-Saxon England. The use of an ancient pre-Saxon barrow site for the mass grave indicates the executed were excluded from the community, even unto death. The site had been known locally as ‘Hell's Gate’ – suggesting an enduring folk memory from its days as a public execution site.
More Eerie Underworld Entrances
The are other entrances to Hades in the UK, including close to where I currently live.
Marston Moretaine’s (Bedfordshire) - Devil's Stone, marks the spot where Old Nick played a game of leapfrog with three foolish local lads. When they leapt over his back, an entrance to hell opened, and they were never seen again. The Horned One was showing off his muscles to villagers and lifted the tower away from the main body of the building, but had to drop it when his back hurt.
Not an entrance to hell as such - but of interest I hope to readers; standing outside the west side of St Giles-in-the-Fields in central London, is a gateway built in 1800 by William Leverton.
This is actually a cast of a much earlier original oak panel, kept inside the church, apparently carved in 1687 by someone called Love. It depicts the Resurrection, with Jesus standing in the centre while angels proclaim judgement day and cadavers clamber out of the graves to await their fate. One side shows the godly ascending to heaven (at the right hand of God), the other those fated to eternal damnation.
From Ornamental Passions:
The tympanum depicts Christ bursting onto the world in a blaze of light, announced by angels with trumpets filling the sky. Beneath his feet, a nasty little imp with bat's wings, tail and claws scuttles off to her master, Satan, who stands in the mouth of Hell at the bottom right hand corner (which is on Christ's left, or sinister, hand). Flames and smoke belch from the infernal regions, as sinners are dragged down to eternal torment. All along the bottom, graves spring open and the dead arise, some as skeletons, others as rather gruesome shrouded corpses. An angel holds a naked man with one hand, pointing heavenwards with the other. Another man grasps him by the leg, hoping to get a lift to glory. Two women sing and play the harp as they arise.
Extra:
Hellam Township in the US, near York, Pennsylvania, is the subject of a modern urban legend claiming that it contains the Seven Gates of Hell.
Plus some related motion pictures:
The Gate (1987)
Antrum (2018)
As Above, So Below (2014) - ‘The Gates of Hell’ scene
Every year, some science journalists proudly announce in their headlines that they are “debunking” ghosts. Their recycled, repeatedly cloned articles—usually appearing in summer or around Halloween—follow the same predictable pattern.
When the Media Keep Recycling the Same “Scientific Explanations” Supposed to Debunk “Ghosts”
When it’s not about cognitive biases, irrationality, fraud, or misinterpretations, the past two decades have seen a wave of cliché articles and videos claiming to explain ghosts through poorly understood environmental factors barely perceptible to our senses: black mold, infrasound, magnetic fields, and so on. More importantly, these explanations are often presented as “major scientific discoveries,” even “revolutionary,” when in reality they rely on shaky interpretations, overextended extrapolations, or studies taken out of context.
A critical review reveals the same recurring pattern: an initial article engages in cherry‑picking and offers ready‑made explanations. It is then reproduced internationally without verification; consequently, it spreads like wildfire, amplified by sensationalist headlines, and is ultimately presented as an uncontested scientific truth.
The method I propose—and encourage others to adopt—to counter this recycling of ignorance consists in presenting contradictory data and sources while, at the same time, analyzing the limits of these simplistic explanations within a structured, evidence‑based counter‑expertise.
A Few “Classics” of the Genre
Here are some typical examples of debunking ghosts:
Seeing ghosts may just be a result of breathing a toxic mold! — Mental Floss, 2015
Black mould in your home can cause terrifying hallucinations of demons and ghosts — The Mirror, 2019
Neuroscientists awaken the ghosts hidden in our cortex — EPFL News, 2014
Scientific explanations for ghosts — Mental Floss, 2015
BBC Earth Lab – The Science of Ghosts, 2015
This list is only a tiny sample of what circulates online.
What concerns me most in these highly biased pieces is that their rhetoric almost never engages with the serious indexed empirical literature that contradicts their assumptions.
This issue becomes even more troubling when certain institutions presenting themselves as authorities on “critical thinking” also promote explanations that would benefit from being re‑evaluated in light of contradictory data. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), for instance, adopts a form of militant skepticism toward psi and so‑called paranormal phenomena that diverges from scientific skepticism itself. Most of its advocates produce no empirical data on anomalies (Clément, 2026). Only a small handful of researchers affiliated with orthodox anomalistic psychology—such as Wiseman, French, or Braithwaite—have published a few isolated experimental studies on hauntings, which are regularly—and often over‑interpreted—by the press without any in‑depth examination of the results.
Epistemic Tension Trying To Explain Ghosts
As researcher Chris Roe (2024) points out, this situation creates a genuine epistemic tension that deserves far more attention. Indeed, the objections raised by opponents of psi are often so vague and so poorly operationalized that they themselves escape any test of falsifiability. Consequently, this absence of explicit, testable, and potentially refutable counter‑hypotheses paradoxically places part of the anti‑psi discourse in a position of irrefutability—precisely what they accuse parapsychologists and other heterodox researchers of doing. Moreover, their flagship magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, which is more opinion‑driven than research‑driven, is not indexed in any academic database.
Despite this very limited scientific output relative to the epistemic authority it claims, CSI (and its international branches) regularly mobilizes media personalities to reinforce its position. This is notably the case with Neil deGrasse Tyson, often presented as an essential reference on anomalies (psi, ghosts, UAPs…). This is not a personal criticism—I have great respect for his science communication work in his field of expertise. But the example below illustrates a structural problem.
In this video: Insider Tech — Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why some people see ghosts
Tyson offers psychological explanations for ghosts, but:
He cites no specialized empirical studies that could challenge his claims.
He does not examine the limits of his explanations.
His argument relies primarily on media authority rather than expertise grounded in empirical research on anomalies.
What I highlight here is not a moral issue but a critical thinking issue about how knowledge is constructed, one that deserves serious attention. The argument from authority replaces analysis, and the “skeptic” posture overshadows substantive research. This pattern is not limited to Tyson: it also appears among other public figures such as Bill Nye, Brian Cox, or Sean Carroll, whose opinions on the paranormal never engage with the empirical data that challenge their normative assumptions.
France Is Not Immune to This Media Recycling
The same pattern appears in the French‑speaking press and on YouTube: these explanations are often repeated without context, without perspective, and without any systematic comparison with specialized research. Most of these reprises come from more‑or‑less self‑appointed science communicators who are unfamiliar with the literature on hauntings, or from podcasts hosted by psi‑antagonists whose goal is debunking—driven more by ideology than by empirical inquiry. It is a form of critique that judges and disqualifies rather than explores, tests, and confronts evidence.
A few examples to illustrate the point:
Milgram, G. — Les expériences de télépathie sur C8… et ailleurs ! (YouTube)
Info ou Mytho — La télépathie, ça marche ? ; Les maisons hantées : révélations ! (YouTube)
Le Pharmachien — Chasse aux fantômes et phénomènes paranormaux (YouTube, 2022)
S&V TV — La science du paranormal (2016). This episode notably shows Jérôme Bonaldi interviewing François Lasagne, who makes several claims about “ghosts” that clearly distort the data.
Futura‑Sciences — Hallucination : les infrasons vous font voir des fantômes (2021)
Futura‑Sciences — Fantômes et maisons hantées : ce que la science vient de trouver, invisible mais bien réel (2026)
Even some popular magazines and books contribute to spreading these simplified ideas:
DK (2024) — A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural, p. 275
Benoit, M. (2021) — In TENEBRIS, pp. 98–102, 131–132, 136–142
Epsilon (2023) — Ce que le paranormal dit de notre cerveau, n°26
This analysis of debunking practices is part of a broader epistemological reflection that, in my view, deserves serious attention from experts in scientific demarcation.
Debunking Ghosts Counter Analysis
Before moving on to the counter‑analysis that motivates this article, one essential point must be recalled: environmental factors only produce effects when our senses are already placed in highly ambiguous conditions (Houran & Lange, 1996). Put simply, the more our senses are exposed to ambiguity, the more the brain tries to make sense of weak stimuli, thereby increasing the risk of confusing the normal with the paranormal. Thus, this occurs in situations of poor visibility, total darkness, sensory deprivation, or during paranormal investigations conducted deliberately in pitch‑black conditions—combined with strong expectations. Even suggestion, however, must be nuanced in light of recent research (Dagnall et al., 2015).
Important note: the “sensory deprivation” mentioned here has nothing to do with Ganzfeld protocols, which use sensory reduction to facilitate the emergence of potential psi‑mediated perceptions. In environmental models, sensory deprivation acts instead as a source of perceptual ambiguity likely to induce misinterpretations.
In other words, these models are only relevant when the environment prevents or reduces normal perception—conditions that differ significantly from many documented haunting reports. By contrast, these typically occur in good observational conditions (daylight or artificial lighting), in ordinary settings, and describe structured multisensory experiences.
Curiously, Wikipedia and many media outlets continue to cite Houran & Lange (1996) as a key reference, even though nearly thirty years of incremental research have passed. Houran himself now adopts a far more measured position, both in his recent publications and in his public statements (Houran, 2022).
It is also crucial to recall that empirical literature on apparitions and hauntings highlights two characteristics that cannot be ignored—both incompatible with the weak, unstable effects produced by environmental factors:
Intersubjective verification: several witnesses perceive the same phenomenon simultaneously under good observational conditions.
Serial verification: the same phenomenon is observed successively by different witnesses.
These two dimensions—intersubjective and serial—therefore constitute phenomenological consistency criteria that go far beyond explanations based on individual perceptual illusions or environmental factors producing weak, non‑reproducible, idiosyncratic effects.
Likewise, they contradict hallucinatory hypotheses, which by definition rely on private, unshared, unsynchronized experiences that are not independently repeated by multiple witnesses.
A common attempt to salvage a “shared hallucination” objection is to invoke clinical entities such as folie à deux (shared psychotic disorder) or related “shared belief” syndromes. However, these constructs do not map well onto the typical phenomenology of hauntings, poltergeist cases, or ADC reports: they primarily concern the transmission of a delusional interpretation within a close dyad or family system, usually in the context of marked vulnerability, dependency, isolation, and broader psychopathology. By contrast, many haunting/ADC reports involve ordinary contexts, multiple witnesses with varying degrees of involvement, and recurring perceptual patterns that are not reducible to one dominant individual’s fixed delusional framework. In short, pointing to shared-delusion syndromes does not constitute an explanation of the empirical patterns at issue; it mostly highlights the need to keep diagnostic clinical categories distinct from field reports of anomalous experiences.
These elements are recurrent in ADC and poltergeist cases, and contemporary research confirms this phenomenological coherence (Woollacott, Roe, Cooper, Lorimer & Elsaesser, 2022; Elsaesser, Roe, Cooper, Morrison & Lorimer, 2025; Sweeney, Ryan, Leahy & Deering, 2026; Dullin, 2024).
My article follows the same line of reasoning as a chapter of my book Phénoménologie des hantises (Clément, 2025), in which I dismantle a considerable number of fragile scientific claims that attempt to explain ghostly experiences through errors, hallucinations, or perceptual biases.
In my approach to psi and anomalies—particularly hauntings, my area of expertise—I pay close attention to historical depth, verifiable sources, and the provisional nature of knowledge. Scientific skepticism should logically involve corrective reflexes based on current data, not rigid adherence to outdated assumptions.
Reading a scientific study does not mean suspending critical thinking.
To illustrate this issue:
James Felton relays the claims of Dr. Rodney Schmaltz, an active member of the Center for Inquiry and co‑author of the latest infrasound study I critique. Yet, after reviewing his Academia and ResearchGate profiles, it appears that Dr. Schmaltz has conducted no substantive research on psi, hauntings, or ADCs. His publications focus almost exclusively on belief psychology, critical thinking, and the critique of pseudoscience. In other words, he specializes in cognitive mechanisms associated with paranormal beliefs—not in anomalies themselves.
This distinction is essential.
And yet, here is what he claims:
“As someone who studies pseudoscience and misinformation, what stands out to me is that infrasound produces real, measurable reactions without any visible or audible source. So, the next time something feels inexplicably off in a basement or old building, consider that the cause might be vibrating pipes rather than restless spirits.”
Striking, isn’t it? And these examples are far from isolated.
Back to the Origins of the Infrasound‑Explains‑Hauntings Narrative
In 1998, engineer Vic Tandy proposed the idea that 19 Hz infrasound—produced in his case by an unbalanced industrial fan—had triggered a “ghostly vision” and other strange sensations. Yet a closer look at his account shows that Tandy described only a vague, peripheral blur, nothing remotely comparable to the structured characteristics of documented apparitions.
Despite this, his anecdote became the starting point for a disproportionate media narrative.
By 2003, Wiseman and O’Keeffe had published a study in the British Journal of Psychology suggesting that infrasound might be involved. But the data did not show hallucinations.
Although 46.5% of participants reported at least one “strange experience,” two‑thirds of these involved temperature changes. The remaining third, moreover, consisted of other atypical sensations (dizziness, headaches, discomfort, breathlessness, foul smells, a sense of presence, intense emotions). When the experiment was repeated in a more intimate setting, most participants were not convinced they had encountered an entity, despite some reports of unusual sensations. Ultimately, only 3% attributed their feelings to a ghost.
Yet the press presented this experiment as “the first major scientific investigation of ghosts”—historically false, since the first major study dates back to Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886).
This distortion prompted a reaction at the time from Pascale Catala, IMI researcher and France’s leading specialist on hauntings.
Chris French revived the same demystifying logic in 2009 with his Haunt Project, aiming to recreate a “haunted room” in the lab. But the results were again far removed from actual haunting phenomena: participants mainly reported vague, subjective sensations—about 80% dizziness, 50% spinning sensations, 23% depersonalization, 23% sense of presence, 8% terror, and 5% sexual arousal (French et al.).
From Early Media Amplification to Laboratory Simulation
Nothing resembling the structured, intersubjective perceptual richness found in phenomenological accounts of apparitions.
A crucial detail is that participants knew they were expected to feel “strange sensations.” As a result, this alone introduces a classic demand characteristics bias, well documented in experimental psychology (Orne, 1962; Coles, Wyatt & Frank, 2025): when subjects perceive the experimenter’s expectations, they tend to produce the responses they believe are desired.
Despite this, the study received disproportionate media coverage.
Later Refutations and the 2026 Resurgence
A technical refutation of the infrasound hypothesis followed in 2012, when Steve Parsons argued that while infrasound can produce odd effects in some individuals, it does not generate elaborate visual hallucinations attributable to entities (Parsons, 2012).
That same year, MythBusters, in collaboration with Meyer Sound Laboratory, tested a 19 Hz infrasound signal in several cabins—only one of which received the signal. Participants, unaware of the condition, showed no significant reaction: only 2 out of 10 found the infrasound cabin more unsettling, far too weak to establish any link between infrasound and haunting sensations.
France’s ANSES then published a report in 2016 on infrasound from wind turbines and found no evidence of hallucinogenic potential.
In 2020, Dagnall et al. concluded that environmental models based on air, temperature, infrasound, light, or electromagnetic fields are insufficient to explain hauntings or anomalous experiences (Dagnall et al., 2020).
In 2022, Houran, Laythe and Ventola emphasized that the psychophysiological effects attributed to these variables are weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent, and that no solid empirical basis supports them as a general explanation (Houran et al., 2022).
In 2026, the study amplified by The Guardian — Infrasound exposure is linked to aversive responding, negative appraisal, and elevated salivary cortisol in humans (Scatterty, VonStein, Prichard, Franczak, Hamilton & Schmaltz, 2026) presents, in my analysis, several major issues:
Sampling bias (36 volunteers)
No reference to the work of French, Wiseman, or Dagnall
Results show only a small to moderate increase in cortisol under infrasound exposure
Again: what does this have to do with the phenomenology of hauntings and apparitions as documented in exceptional‑experience research?
The results show only a slight rise in cortisol (a stress hormone), increased irritability, and altered emotional appraisal of music; accordingly, none of this constitutes hallucinations or anything comparable to haunting reports.
Even less so when compared to the empirical literature on ADCs, which consistently shows comfort and psychological benefit (Evrard et al., 2021; Penberthy et al., 2023).
What About Other Environmental Factors Such as Magnetic Fields, Toxic Spores, and CO₂?
Neuroscientific and environmental explanations of hauntings rely heavily on overextended interpretations drawn from artificial laboratory experiments. The EPFL study (Blanke et al., 2014), widely promoted as proof that ghosts are merely brain‑generated illusions, in fact produced only feelings of presence in some volunteers—no visual hallucinations. No apparition was induced, and the protocol bears no resemblance to the complexity of documented haunting cases.
Explanations involving toxic mold, CO₂, or other environmental agents follow the same fragile interpretive pattern. Here again, the often‑cited case of Shane Rogers is particularly revealing: his hypothesis linking toxic spores to hallucinations has never been published in a robust peer‑reviewed scientific journal, and the available medical literature contradicts the idea that household molds can produce structured, apparition‑like hallucinations. At best, such exposures are associated with general symptoms (fatigue, irritation, mild cognitive issues), which, in turn, have nothing in common with the phenomenology of hauntings.
To paraphrase investigator CJ‑Romer, many of these “pop‑science” explanations are methodologically unfounded:
“…all these pop science articles on ‘Science explains ghosts’ are generally absolute claptrap. Science will one day explain the ghost experience; but that begins with a detailed study of that experience, and we have 150 years of neglected peer‑reviewed research on this issue now!”
— Christian Jensen Romer, 2023
The case of magnetic fields illustrates this drift even more clearly. Since Persinger’s “God Helmet,” the idea that electromagnetic fields could induce ghostly visions has been widely publicized (Persinger, 1983–1990s). However, these results have failed replication (Granqvist et al., 2004). Later studies show, at best, weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent effects (Braithwaite, 2011; Maij et al., 2018; Caltech, 2019; Schumacher et al., 2023). Even when the brain shows some sensitivity to magnetic fields, moreover, no elaborate hallucinations are produced.
Conclusion
Apparitions have never waited for electronic devices or faulty boilers to make themselves known. The phenomenon long predates Pliny the Younger’s accounts: the earliest known descriptions go back to at least 3400 before Jesus Christ, as shown by Finkel (2021).
In the face of the increasingly troubling instrumentalization of science as a form of branding—an image of authority rather than a means of producing knowledge—I call on researchers and practitioners, amateurs and professionals alike, to structure their disagreements according to Graham’s hierarchy: prioritize reasoned refutation, methodological critique, and source‑based argumentation over posturing. This is essential if we want to restore a public sphere capable of debating intelligibly and responsibly.
It is becoming urgent, in both scientific and media spheres, to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric that claims to “debunk” the paranormal. In fact, the real scientific approach—rigorous, cumulative, and transparent—already exists and has been developing for nearly 160 years: field investigations, explicit protocols, confrontation of contradictory data, peer‑reviewed publications. Yet one must be willing to read and engage with them.
These are the practices that need visibility—not media saturation that pretends to explain anomalies without ever engaging with the data.
In short, we need to disseminate reliable information, something mainstream magazines paradoxically almost never do when discussing the paranormal.
As for the “revolutionary explanations” that resurface every year—infrasound, mold, CO₂, ocular vibrations, and perhaps next year the hallucinogenic wingbeats of flies or wood‑boring insects—see you in 2027 for the next “definitive” explanation the media will present as the rational key to irrational beliefs, yet once again disconnected from empirical data.
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