Michael Schmicker's Blog - Posts Tagged "ghosts"
Who Was the Real "Alessandra Queen of Spirits"?
My new novel, "Alessandra Queen of Spirits" was inspired by a real life person.
While researching my first book, "Best Evidence," I came across a fascinating woman – Italian Spiritualist medium Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918), a fiery-tempered, erotic, middle-aged Neapolitan peasant woman who levitated tables and conjured up spirits of the dead in dimly-lit séance rooms all across Europe at the end of the 19th century. Her psychic powers baffled Nobel Prize-winning scientists, captivated aristocracy from Paris to Vienna and enraged the powerful Catholic Church which suspected her paranormal feats were the work of Satan. Her scandalous flirtations, her meteoric rise to fame, her humiliating fall and miraculous redemption made world headlines at the time (when she died, she earned an obituary in the New York Times).
My heroine, like Palladino, is a Spiritualist medium, which adds a hook to the novel, but the story itself is firmly grounded in the bitter, fin-de-siecle clash between Darwinism/Science and religion/Spiritualism. Most 19th century mediums were women, suffering from "female hysteria," according to the (male) psychiatrists of the Victorian era. I thoroughly enjoyed researching the social, political, sexual and psychological currents of the era.
If you want to see some of the books I read to help me craft the novel, check out the book list tagged "paranormal-Eusapia Palladino." From cholera epidemics and Spiritualism to Camorra gangsters and Victorian dinners in Cambridge England, you have to deliver accurate details. I even poured through antique Baedeker Guides from the 19th century to find out how much a plate of macaroni cost.
While researching my first book, "Best Evidence," I came across a fascinating woman – Italian Spiritualist medium Eusapia Palladino (1854-1918), a fiery-tempered, erotic, middle-aged Neapolitan peasant woman who levitated tables and conjured up spirits of the dead in dimly-lit séance rooms all across Europe at the end of the 19th century. Her psychic powers baffled Nobel Prize-winning scientists, captivated aristocracy from Paris to Vienna and enraged the powerful Catholic Church which suspected her paranormal feats were the work of Satan. Her scandalous flirtations, her meteoric rise to fame, her humiliating fall and miraculous redemption made world headlines at the time (when she died, she earned an obituary in the New York Times).
My heroine, like Palladino, is a Spiritualist medium, which adds a hook to the novel, but the story itself is firmly grounded in the bitter, fin-de-siecle clash between Darwinism/Science and religion/Spiritualism. Most 19th century mediums were women, suffering from "female hysteria," according to the (male) psychiatrists of the Victorian era. I thoroughly enjoyed researching the social, political, sexual and psychological currents of the era.
If you want to see some of the books I read to help me craft the novel, check out the book list tagged "paranormal-Eusapia Palladino." From cholera epidemics and Spiritualism to Camorra gangsters and Victorian dinners in Cambridge England, you have to deliver accurate details. I even poured through antique Baedeker Guides from the 19th century to find out how much a plate of macaroni cost.
THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT (Book Review)
Ghosts and Scotland go together.
What’s that oft-quoted, ancient Caledonian prayer? “From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” A sensible sentiment to most.
Writers, on the other hand, welcome them. Supernatural stories always find an audience, and historical fiction author Linda Root (writing here under the pen name J.D. Root) has come up with a stonking good one, as the Brits would say. Thea Jameson, a best-selling California author hawking her latest historical novel on a promo trip to Scotland, inexplicably time-slips back to 1612 and gets tangled up with the axe-wielding clan Kerr, and a mysterious entity called the “Green Woman.”
Our heroine – “a cross between Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie” – is a sassy, middle-aged, hard-drinking, Amex Gold card-toting divorcee who travels around with a bottle of Jameson’s, a pocket flask of V.S.O.P, and a fifth of Glen Livet, and happily pub crawls with rugby players. Drunks propositioning her she can handle; she’s taken self-defense lessons from the LAPD, and holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The dead are another question. Returning inebriated to Ferniehirst Castle, the site of her imminent book-launch party, the bewildered Thea finds the castle’s Great Hall filled with Border reivers strutting around with daggers at their belts, women busy with needlework. Delirium tremens? A theme wedding? An evening bash of the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Fleeing up a back stairs which suspiciously wasn’t there before, she bumps into the specter of Sir Andrew “Dand” Ker (d. 1628) who instantly takes a strong liking to her – showing a “cow cumber in his britches,” as the quaint Scots saying goes – and our time traveler is swept backwards four centuries, into his arms, and into the adventures of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, Catholic allies of the tragic Mary Queen of Scots.
It’s a demon-haunted era, and Root deftly exploits some of the more promising material. Dand’s cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, pops up repeatedly throughout the story. “Wild Frank” Stewart (1562-1612) enjoyed a reputation as a warlock, and in 1591 was arrested and accused of employing sorcery in an attempt to knock off Scotland’s King James VI (fact, not fiction). James VI bequeathed us the famous “King James” version of the Bible, the most widely printed book in history. Less known, His Highness also considered himself an expert on witchcraft, penned an 80-page treatise on demonology, and was personally involved in the infamous North Berwick Witch Trials which led to the torture (and in some cases, execution) of 70-plus victims. The “Green Lady” herself predates the 17th century; references can be traced back to pre-Christian Celtic folklore. Nowadays, the Scottish Tourism Board promotes a half-dozen castles haunted by a green ghost, but Root cleverly imagines for this now-garden-variety discarnate a complex, mythological backstory which will send readers scrambling for their Bulfinch’s.
Root originally wrote “The Green Woman” in three weeks as an exercise for the 2013 NaNoWritMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest; it challenges authors to come up with a 50,000 word novel in one month. Besides pulling off that rather remarkable feat, she managed to slip into her genre-busting fantasy a final plot twist which caught me completely by surprise.
Halloween is coming soon. My suggestion? Instead of plopping yourself down on the sofa and watching stale, Hollywood horror flicks this Oct. 31, download “The Green Woman” and enjoy a Scottish spooking.
What’s that oft-quoted, ancient Caledonian prayer? “From goulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night, good Lord, deliver us!” A sensible sentiment to most.
Writers, on the other hand, welcome them. Supernatural stories always find an audience, and historical fiction author Linda Root (writing here under the pen name J.D. Root) has come up with a stonking good one, as the Brits would say. Thea Jameson, a best-selling California author hawking her latest historical novel on a promo trip to Scotland, inexplicably time-slips back to 1612 and gets tangled up with the axe-wielding clan Kerr, and a mysterious entity called the “Green Woman.”
Our heroine – “a cross between Hillary Clinton and Angelina Jolie” – is a sassy, middle-aged, hard-drinking, Amex Gold card-toting divorcee who travels around with a bottle of Jameson’s, a pocket flask of V.S.O.P, and a fifth of Glen Livet, and happily pub crawls with rugby players. Drunks propositioning her she can handle; she’s taken self-defense lessons from the LAPD, and holds a second degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do. The dead are another question. Returning inebriated to Ferniehirst Castle, the site of her imminent book-launch party, the bewildered Thea finds the castle’s Great Hall filled with Border reivers strutting around with daggers at their belts, women busy with needlework. Delirium tremens? A theme wedding? An evening bash of the local chapter of the Society for Creative Anachronism? Fleeing up a back stairs which suspiciously wasn’t there before, she bumps into the specter of Sir Andrew “Dand” Ker (d. 1628) who instantly takes a strong liking to her – showing a “cow cumber in his britches,” as the quaint Scots saying goes – and our time traveler is swept backwards four centuries, into his arms, and into the adventures of the Kerrs of Ferniehirst, Catholic allies of the tragic Mary Queen of Scots.
It’s a demon-haunted era, and Root deftly exploits some of the more promising material. Dand’s cousin, the Earl of Bothwell, pops up repeatedly throughout the story. “Wild Frank” Stewart (1562-1612) enjoyed a reputation as a warlock, and in 1591 was arrested and accused of employing sorcery in an attempt to knock off Scotland’s King James VI (fact, not fiction). James VI bequeathed us the famous “King James” version of the Bible, the most widely printed book in history. Less known, His Highness also considered himself an expert on witchcraft, penned an 80-page treatise on demonology, and was personally involved in the infamous North Berwick Witch Trials which led to the torture (and in some cases, execution) of 70-plus victims. The “Green Lady” herself predates the 17th century; references can be traced back to pre-Christian Celtic folklore. Nowadays, the Scottish Tourism Board promotes a half-dozen castles haunted by a green ghost, but Root cleverly imagines for this now-garden-variety discarnate a complex, mythological backstory which will send readers scrambling for their Bulfinch’s.
Root originally wrote “The Green Woman” in three weeks as an exercise for the 2013 NaNoWritMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest; it challenges authors to come up with a 50,000 word novel in one month. Besides pulling off that rather remarkable feat, she managed to slip into her genre-busting fantasy a final plot twist which caught me completely by surprise.
Halloween is coming soon. My suggestion? Instead of plopping yourself down on the sofa and watching stale, Hollywood horror flicks this Oct. 31, download “The Green Woman” and enjoy a Scottish spooking.
SUPERNATURAL HAWAII (Book Review)
Everybody loves a ghost story, science be dammed.
Turn on your television any night (at least in the U.S) and you can shiver along with a half-dozen hit series, live or in rerun – Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International (SciFi); Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel); Ghost Lab, and A Haunting (Discovery Channel); and Paranormal State (A&E).
Today’s investigators descend on a house or graveyard and chase ghosts with a truckload of 21st century toys – hi-def videocams, digital tape recorders, EMF detectors, infrared thermal scanners, thermometers and walkie-talkies.
Judi Thompson’s book “Supernatural Hawaii” features tales from a quainter era when folklorists chased ghosts with a simple notebook and pen. Thompson started collecting her oral histories in 1984 while working as executive editor at the Institute for Polynesian Studies. Her decades-old stories and accompanying black-and-white photos give off a musty, bygone-era scent, but her scholarship is spiced up by a rich, cultural chop suey of ethnic story-tellers.
Native Hawaiians justifiably command center stage in this collection, surprised on a dark road by the volcano goddess Pele and her phantom dog Poki; avoiding danger with the help of ‘aumakua (ancestral spirits) manifesting in the form of a pueo (owl) or mano (shark); averting their eyes as the legendary Night Marchers, ghostly spirits of Hawaiian warriors, tramp their torch-lit, chanting way down the mountains to the ocean along traditional trails – through bedrooms and kitchens of modern buildings unluckily blocking their path. Auntie Harriet Ne of Moloka’i shares with Judi a lifetime of “chicken skin” (pidgin for goose bumps) experiences, including pre-World War II encounters with menehune, survivors of the legendary race of small, elfish stonemasons whom Polynesian voyagers found working fishponds when they first arrived in Hawaii in 500 AD. Kalaupapa leper colony survivors speak cautiously of Moloka’i kahuna (priests) who enjoyed a particular reputation as sorcerers of ana’ana (black magic), able to tell the future or kill people with evil spells. Both animist Hawaiians as well as Buddhist-believing Japanese immigrants working on the sugar plantations recount witnessing mysterious, floating orbs of light playing in the cane fields – fireballs each group regarded as spirits of the dead (the Nisei called them sinotama; the Hawaiians akualele). Back in modern Honolulu, Chinese and Portuguese firefighters in the Nu’uanu and Kaka’ako stations reluctantly admit to being attacked by Chokeneck, an evil spirit who yanks off bed sheets, tosses men bodily out of their bunks, and sits on their chest trying to suffocate them while they sleep. To protect themselves, they stuff ti leaves under their mattresses (ti leaves protect against evil spirits; watch a televised Hawaii football game and you’ll see Hawaii fans waving them to ward off touchdowns by their opponents).
Thompson’s Hawaii stories echo universally reported paranormal experiences – ghosts, orbs, poltergeists, guardian spirits. Chokeneck matches the Old Hag syndrome. Native Hawaiian scholar Rubelite Johnson, professor of Indo-Pacific languages at the University of Hawaii, shares a family story involving her great-grandmother Ekikela who suffered a classic near-death experience right out of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life. The old Hawaiians don’t bury the body right away; they keep it around for several days since they believe the spirit of the deceased can sometimes be persuaded by offerings or incantations to return to the body. Grandma did just that. She described how she felt ill while working in the garden; collapsed and rose out of her body, traveling upwards towards the sunrise (light); came to a partially-opened door (barrier); looked inside to see a beautiful, heavenly place; tried to enter but was stopped by a firm hand and a stern voice which told her “You are not ready yet. You have to go back to your body”; reluctantly returned to her corpse; wiggled back in through the big toe, then blacked out and re-awoke surrounded by her overjoyed family.
For some unexplained reason, Thompson took 25 years to publish her supernatural stories. During that period, two Hawaii writers beat her to market. Journalist and travel writer Rick Carroll put together his breezy, popular, six-book “Spooky Tales” series. The late American studies professor and Honolulu Ghost Walks tour operator Dr. Glen Grant tapped a darker vein with his “Obake Files” series (obake is Japanese for “ghost”). I admit I got so scared reading one particularly graphic murder/spirit possession case that I threw the book unfinished into the garbage.
Thompson’s stories don’t deliver the fright of Grant’s best, or the easy-reads featured in Carroll’s collection, but you’ll learn a lot about a hidden Hawaii infinitely more entertaining than Don Ho and hokey hulas.
Halloween’s coming. Let’s celebrate the truly spooky!
Turn on your television any night (at least in the U.S) and you can shiver along with a half-dozen hit series, live or in rerun – Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International (SciFi); Ghost Adventures (Travel Channel); Ghost Lab, and A Haunting (Discovery Channel); and Paranormal State (A&E).
Today’s investigators descend on a house or graveyard and chase ghosts with a truckload of 21st century toys – hi-def videocams, digital tape recorders, EMF detectors, infrared thermal scanners, thermometers and walkie-talkies.
Judi Thompson’s book “Supernatural Hawaii” features tales from a quainter era when folklorists chased ghosts with a simple notebook and pen. Thompson started collecting her oral histories in 1984 while working as executive editor at the Institute for Polynesian Studies. Her decades-old stories and accompanying black-and-white photos give off a musty, bygone-era scent, but her scholarship is spiced up by a rich, cultural chop suey of ethnic story-tellers.
Native Hawaiians justifiably command center stage in this collection, surprised on a dark road by the volcano goddess Pele and her phantom dog Poki; avoiding danger with the help of ‘aumakua (ancestral spirits) manifesting in the form of a pueo (owl) or mano (shark); averting their eyes as the legendary Night Marchers, ghostly spirits of Hawaiian warriors, tramp their torch-lit, chanting way down the mountains to the ocean along traditional trails – through bedrooms and kitchens of modern buildings unluckily blocking their path. Auntie Harriet Ne of Moloka’i shares with Judi a lifetime of “chicken skin” (pidgin for goose bumps) experiences, including pre-World War II encounters with menehune, survivors of the legendary race of small, elfish stonemasons whom Polynesian voyagers found working fishponds when they first arrived in Hawaii in 500 AD. Kalaupapa leper colony survivors speak cautiously of Moloka’i kahuna (priests) who enjoyed a particular reputation as sorcerers of ana’ana (black magic), able to tell the future or kill people with evil spells. Both animist Hawaiians as well as Buddhist-believing Japanese immigrants working on the sugar plantations recount witnessing mysterious, floating orbs of light playing in the cane fields – fireballs each group regarded as spirits of the dead (the Nisei called them sinotama; the Hawaiians akualele). Back in modern Honolulu, Chinese and Portuguese firefighters in the Nu’uanu and Kaka’ako stations reluctantly admit to being attacked by Chokeneck, an evil spirit who yanks off bed sheets, tosses men bodily out of their bunks, and sits on their chest trying to suffocate them while they sleep. To protect themselves, they stuff ti leaves under their mattresses (ti leaves protect against evil spirits; watch a televised Hawaii football game and you’ll see Hawaii fans waving them to ward off touchdowns by their opponents).
Thompson’s Hawaii stories echo universally reported paranormal experiences – ghosts, orbs, poltergeists, guardian spirits. Chokeneck matches the Old Hag syndrome. Native Hawaiian scholar Rubelite Johnson, professor of Indo-Pacific languages at the University of Hawaii, shares a family story involving her great-grandmother Ekikela who suffered a classic near-death experience right out of Raymond Moody’s Life After Life. The old Hawaiians don’t bury the body right away; they keep it around for several days since they believe the spirit of the deceased can sometimes be persuaded by offerings or incantations to return to the body. Grandma did just that. She described how she felt ill while working in the garden; collapsed and rose out of her body, traveling upwards towards the sunrise (light); came to a partially-opened door (barrier); looked inside to see a beautiful, heavenly place; tried to enter but was stopped by a firm hand and a stern voice which told her “You are not ready yet. You have to go back to your body”; reluctantly returned to her corpse; wiggled back in through the big toe, then blacked out and re-awoke surrounded by her overjoyed family.
For some unexplained reason, Thompson took 25 years to publish her supernatural stories. During that period, two Hawaii writers beat her to market. Journalist and travel writer Rick Carroll put together his breezy, popular, six-book “Spooky Tales” series. The late American studies professor and Honolulu Ghost Walks tour operator Dr. Glen Grant tapped a darker vein with his “Obake Files” series (obake is Japanese for “ghost”). I admit I got so scared reading one particularly graphic murder/spirit possession case that I threw the book unfinished into the garbage.
Thompson’s stories don’t deliver the fright of Grant’s best, or the easy-reads featured in Carroll’s collection, but you’ll learn a lot about a hidden Hawaii infinitely more entertaining than Don Ho and hokey hulas.
Halloween’s coming. Let’s celebrate the truly spooky!
