The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal

During Black Elk’s young adulthood, missionaries tried to convert the Oglala Sioux to Christianity, often by force. Black Elk himself was baptized Nicholas Black Elk on 6 December 1904, near present-day Pine Ridge, South Dakota, but his Lakota spirituality remained strong throughout his life. He took part in the underground movement supporting traditional religion, which became necessary after the US government outlawed native rituals. Throughout his life, he took part in both secret traditional practices and public Catholic rites.

Black Elk feared that US policies would destroy the Lakota Nation’s identity, so during the summer of 1930 he dictated his life story to John Neihardt. The resulting book, Black Elk Speaks, was published in 1932 and has been reprinted many times. In it Black Elk described the history of the Lakota Nation and provided a sense of hope for the future. His vision eventually became a message to the Lakota people - a warning not to assimilate completely and thereby lose their unique heritage.

Although Black Elk died in 1950, long before the passage of the Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978, his teachings, combined with this legislation, created a new respect for and interest in Lakota spirituality.

BLACK MAGIC

The use of supernatural and psychic power for evil ends, the opposite of white magic, which is concerned with healing and promoting what is good.

The term ‘black magic’ has been used with a wide variety of meanings and evokes such a variety of reactions that it has become vague and almost meaningless. It is often synonymous with three other multivocal terms: witchcraft, the occult and sorcery. The only similarity among its various uses is that it refers to human efforts to manipulate the supernatural with negative intent and the selfish use of psychic power for personal gain. Workers of black magic are thought to have but one goal: to satisfy their own desires at whatever cost to others.

Magic, good or evil, is universal, with no ethnic or racial association, and it is unfortunate that not just in Western civilization but many cultures around the world, good and evil have for centuries been denoted as white and black. White often designates healing, truth, purity, light and positive energy, while black is darkness, falsehood, evil and negative energy.

In modern times probably the most popular synonym for black magic is the occult. Originally the term meant hidden, hence mysterious, and was routinely used by classical and medieval scholars to refer to ‘sciences’ such as astrology, alchemy and kabbalah, but from the late nineteenth century, when magical sects such as the Order of the Golden Dawn emerged, the term began to take on the meaning of evil or satanic. Perhaps the best-known occultist and black magic practitioner was Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who dubbed himself the Antichrist. More than any other person Crowley gave the occult an evil connotation.

See also Magic, Occult, Witchcraft, Satanism, Sorcery.

BLACK SHUCK

Spectral dogs in general play a role in many haunting legends and it is reported that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle based his story The Hound of the Baskervilles on accounts of the Black Shuck legends.

Black Shuck is alleged to be a phantom dog in British folklore that has frequently been sighted in Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex and Devon. The common name of this ghostly animal varies according to locality: ‘Old Shuck’ (Norfolk), ‘Old Shock’ (Suffolk), ‘Yeth’ (Devon), ‘Pooka’ (Ireland), ‘Barguest’ (Yorkshire), to name but a few. His appearance is often considered a death omen.

The origins of Black Shuck remain shrouded in mystery, but the stories probably originated from the hound of the Viking raiders’ god Odin and from the Celtic legends of Arawn, whose hounds of hell searched for human souls. The name Black Shuck may have originated from a local word, shucky, meaning ‘shaggy’, or an Anglo-Saxon term scucca, meaning ‘satan’ or ‘demon’. Other local names have been ‘Galley Trot’, ‘Old Snarleyow’ and ‘Old Scarfe’.

Black Shuck is described as being black, and the size of a very large dog or even a small calf. It is reported to have large, saucer-shaped eyes of red or yellow. In some instances it has been reported as being headless or having just one large Cyclops-type eye and to wear a collar or chain, which rattles as it moves.

The hound is said to roam graveyards and lonely country roads, and on stormy nights its howling can be heard. It is believed to leave no footprints, but its icy breath can be felt. To see or even hear the phantom animal is thought to be a foreboding of misfortune, madness or death. In parts of Devon even speaking its name is thought to bring misfortune. In Suffolk, though, it is thought that Black Shuck is harmless as long as it is not bothered. In Cambridgeshire, Black Shuck is said to have favourite haunts along the banks of the river Ouse and in the flat landscape of the fens.

There is little evidence of Black Shuck causing anyone any harm on contact, but there is a curious account of an attack back in 1577 in the parish of Bungay, Suffolk. The parishioners were at church when the church darkened and a violent storm broke out. Black Shuck appeared from nowhere in the middle of the congregation. It charged through the church, causing mass panic, and killing two men who were kneeling in prayer. A third man is thought to have died from severe burns. At the same time, a few miles away in Blythburgh, another black dog reputedly appeared out of nowhere in the local church, killed three men and left burn marks on the church door.

BLAKE, WILLIAM [175-7–1827]

William Blake was a mystic, poet, artist and engraver whose visionary art was much misunderstood by his contemporaries. He published his first set of poems when he was 26, and six years later, in 1789, he printed the Songs of Innocence, which he also engraved and illustrated. In his forties he wrote his more symbolic epic poems, Milton and Jerusalem, and his best-known illustrations of the Book of Job and Dante’s Divine Comedy were created in the last few years of his life.

Blake lived and died in relative poverty. He received little formal schooling, which makes his visionary interpretations of the Bible and the classics all the more remarkable. From a young age he experienced visions; when he was ten he told his father he had seen hosts of angels in a tree, and when his brother, Robert, died at the age of 20, he saw his soul ‘ascend heavenward clapping its hands for joy’. Throughout his life Blake drew his strength from the spirit world. He believed deeply in the human imagination - indeed, that it was the only reality - and he often spoke with the apparitions, angels, devils and spirits that he drew and engraved in his work. His interest in the spirit world brought him into contact with many of the visionaries and writers of his time, such as Emanuel Swedenborg.

BLAVATSKY, MADAME [1831–1891]

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, daughter of Russian aristocrats, was a key figure in the nineteenth-century revival of occult and esoteric knowledge. A highly intelligent and energetic woman, she helped to spread Eastern philosophies and mystical ideas to the West and tried to give the study of the occult a scientific and public face.

Blavatsky became aware of her psychic abilities at an early age. She travelled through the Middle East and Asia learning psychic and spiritual techniques from various teachers, and she said that it was in Tibet that she met the secret masters or adepts who sent her to carry their message to the world.

In 1873 Helena immigrated to New York, where she impressed everyone with her psychic feats of astral projection, telepathy, clairvoyance, clairsentience and clairaudience. Her powers were never tested scientifically, but her interests were always more in the laws and principles of the psychic world than psychic power itself. In 1874 Helena met and began a lifelong friendship with Colonel Henry Steel Olcott, a lawyer and journalist who covered spiritual phenomena, and a year later they founded a society ‘to collect and diffuse a knowledge of the laws which govern the Universe’. They called this society the Theosophical Society, from theosophy, a Greek term meaning ‘divine wisdom’ or ‘wisdom of the gods’.

Travelling to India, Blavatsky and Olcott established themselves at Adyar, near Madras, and a property they bought there eventually became the world headquarters of the society. They established the nucleus of the movement in Britain and founded no fewer than three Theosophical Societies in Paris.

Throughout her life Blavatsky’s powers were dismissed as fraud and trickery, but this did not stop the Theosophical Society from finding a home among intellectuals and progressive thinkers of her day. The society was born at a time when spiritualism was popular and Darwin’s theory of evolution was undermining the Church’s teachings, so the Society’s new thinking flourished. Many people appreciated the alternative it provided both to church dogma and to a materialistic view of the world.

Blavatsky’s two most important books are Isis Unveiled and her magnum opus, The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888. She drew her teachings from many religious traditions: Hinduism, Tibetan Buddhism, Platonic thought, Jewish Kabbalah and the occult and scientific knowledge of her time. Although they influenced many people, her books are extremely difficult to read. Nevertheless, her teachings were absorbed by many people and then simplified into a worldview that was taken up by many later New Age groups. This worldview includes a belief in seven planes of existence; the gradual evolution and perfecting of spiritual principles; the existence of nature spirits (‘devas’); and belief in secret spiritual masters or adepts from the Himalayas, or from the spiritual planes, who guide the evolution of humanity. All of these beliefs are derived from Blavatsky’s Theosophy.

BLOCKED ENERGY

Energy is believed to be the basis of all matter, and psychics and alternative medicine practitioners believe that a field of energy, called an aura, surrounds your body and a flow of energy (‘chi’) exists within it. If these energy forces are interrupted for some reason the energy becomes blocked and will not flow freely. Chakras are an essential part of this energy flow. If one or more of them is closed, then the energy is blocked at these points.

It is thought that blocked energy which is not cleared can lead to serious consequences, affecting your mental, physical and spiritual health, and impeding your spiritual and psychic development.

See Energy balancing.

BODHISATTVA

In Buddhism, the bodhisattva is an enlightened being who instead of going straight to nirvana - and not being reborn -decides to delay eternal bliss in order to help others on the path.

The concept of a bodhisattva can be used to describe anyone who is dedicated to compassion and the greater good. In many ways it could be said there is a bodhisattva nature in every one of us.

BODY SCANNING

The ability to look psychically into and around a human body in order to determine the person’s heath and state of mind. Body scanning can be experienced through any of the five senses.

A medical intuitive can psychically read a body and come up with a diagnosis in actual medical terms. Each intuitive works differently, for example, some read auras while others read energetically the insides (organs, blood, glands) of our insides. Intuited information can then be provided to the client’s medical doctor and/or health care professional for further evaluation and discussion of possible treatments. Many medical intuitives work with, or are, medical doctors themselves.

BODYWORK

Alternative medicine therapies that take into account the role of the mind and emotions in physical health and look especially at how the body interacts with the environment and universal life energies.

There are many types of bodywork therapies, involving manipulation, massage, movement, breathing, energy balancing and energy transfer. All these therapies assume the existence of a universal life force and the ability of the body to self-heal when therapy stimulates that life force.

See: Acupuncture, Acupressure, Bioener-getics, Energy balancing, Massage, Reflexology, Reiki, Shiatsu, Therapeutic touch.

BOGEY

Also referred to as the bogeyman in British folklore, this is said to be an evil spirit who loves to cause trouble. The bogey is believed to travel alone or in groups, and in some instances they are synonymous with the devil. Usually the bogey is described as big and nasty and for years the threat of calling upon the bogeyman was used by parents to frighten children into good behaviour.

The precise origins of the bogeyman legend are unknown but it is possible that it came from the old Central European gods. The Slavic for god is ‘bog’ and after Christianity came to Central Europe and made its way to the British Isles, many of the deities in the old religions became transformed into evil spirits. It is possible that the gods of pre-Christian Britain became known as these horrible, frightening beings - bogs, bogeys, boggles or boggarts.

The boggart is a type of bogey hobgoblin in British folklore with poltergeist characteristics. A boggart is said to be helpful, but most of the time it is devious and frightening, never appearing but playing tricks on people, such as knocking books off shelves or tripping people up. It is also thought to punch, scratch and kick. In parts of Yorkshire the threat of being thrown into the ‘baggart hole’ is still used today by parents if their children aren’t behaving.

BOLEYN, ANNE [1501–1536]

Anne Boleyn was the second wife of Henry VIII, and their marriage changed the course of English history. Her larger-than-life story is matched by the many sightings of her ghost since her death.

Besotted with the beautiful Anne, Henry asked the Catholic Church for a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. The Church refused, so in order to marry Anne, Henry created a reformed version of the church, making himself the head - a direct challenge to the authority of the Pope. Having obtained his divorce and married Anne, Henry was determined to have a son, but Anne gave birth to a girl, Elizabeth, in 1533, and from then on the relationship between Anne and Henry deteriorated. Henry found a new love interest in Jane Seymour. Anne became pregnant again, but the child was stillborn. Henry, determined to rid himself of Anne, fabricated a charge of treason and confined her to the Tower of London. Her execution took place on 19 May 1536.

Anne Boleyn is reputed to haunt Hampton Court - along with many of Henry’s other five wives - and the Tower of London where she was executed. Predictably, she has been seen there as a headless female figure near the Queen’s House, where she was confined prior to her execution. At Blickling Hall in Norfolk, Anne’s family home, there have been sightings of a headless young woman riding a horse and carrying a severed head on her lap, typically on the anniversary of her death. Anne has also been sighted in the Hall’s corridors. An administrator reported seeing a woman walking down towards the lake wearing an old grey gown with a white lace collar and cap. He thought she was either lost or trespassing and went out to ask if she was looking for someone. The woman replied, ‘That for which I seek has long since gone.’ Then, in a moment, she disappeared.

BOND, FREDERICK BLIGH [1864-1945]

Born in Wiltshire, England, in 1864, Frederick Bligh Bond became a well-known author, editor, architect and archaeologist. Considered to be the pioneer of ‘psychic questing’, he was regarded as exceptionally talented but ‘irascible, eccentric, difficult to work with, moody and confrontational’ by his colleagues. He had a deep interest in all things psychic, occult and esoteric, and his work involved analysing medieval woodwork and construction techniques.

In 1908 Bond was commissioned to excavate the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, burial place of three kings of England and reputed to have connections to the legendary King Arthur and the Holy Grail. It was while working on this project that Bond claimed to have been in communication with spirit monks, called the Watchers, who once had lived at Glastonbury. The Watchers established regular communications with Bond and allegedly penned messages to Bond in a curious mixture of Old English and rudimentary Latin, giving clues to the hidden history of Glastonbury Abbey and insights into the building’s original design and architecture. In all, these communications gave a startling insight into everyday life within the abbey and a glimpse back into the medieval world.

Bond’s claim to have psychic guidance from spirits drew sharp criticism from his conventional colleagues in both the fields of archaeology and architecture. But his communications with the ghostly monks won him the support of members of the British Society for Psychical Research. In 1918 he published The Gate of Remembrance, a collection of transcripts and reports from his automatic writing sessions, and it sealed his fate by firmly undermining his reputation as a professional once and for all. However, Bond’s enthusiasm for his interaction with the ghosts of Glastonbury Abbey prompted him to follow up his book with The Hill of Vision, in which he revealed allegedly prophetic warnings given to him by the spectral monks, including a prediction of World War I.

Despite great success in locating unknown and little-known structures, Bond was gradually pushed out of his work at Glastonbury. It would be easy to say that this was due to his psychic work, but it may simply have had to do with the fact that he was vain and arrogant and made a lot of enemies along the way. He was an amateur archaeologist at a time when the field was professionalized, and his refusal to follow a systematic plan of excavations laid down by professionals was bound to create tension. By 1921 he was reduced to cleaning the artefacts he had found, and by 1922 he was asked to leave Glastonbury.

In 1926 Bond took up an offer from a wealthy American to pay for his passage to the US. He found work as an architect and began a successful lecture tour organized by the American Society for Psychical Research. In 1935, again at his patron’s expense, he returned to England jobless, penniless and homeless. He died in a cottage in Wales in 1945 at the age of 82. Throughout his life Bond never lost his love for Glastonbury or his fascination for the paranormal, but many of the suggestions given by the Watchers have never been followed up, and to this day his books are banned from the Glastonbury Abbey bookstore.

BONES, READING

An ancient Chinese method of divination that used bones from the shoulders of oxen, sheep, deer or pigs, or the shells of turtles, to predict the future. A petitioner would approach a diviner with a question that could usually be answered by yes or no. The diviner would write the petitioner’s question on a bone or a turtle shell from a sacrifice, and would then heat the bone by inserting into it a hot bronze poker. The heat would cause the bone to crack. The patterns of the resulting cracks were then interpreted according to mystical techniques, providing an answer to the petitioner’s question. Answers and results were recorded after the divination had been completed.

Rulers seem to have consulted the oracle bone diviners on even the most trivial aspects of life. Questions were asked about auspicious days for sacrifice and ancestor worship, births, illness, marriage, weather, agriculture, hunting, court appointments, government policy and warfare. A sample divination record reads:

On day 49 the king, making cracks, divined: ‘Hunting at Chi, going and coming will there be disaster?’ The king, reading the cracks, said, ‘Extremely auspicious.’ At this point we drove off in our chariots. We caught 41 foxes and 8 hornless deer.

The first oracle bones known to modern researchers were discovered by late-nineteenth-century Chinese peasants digging in their fields, and since then nearly 155,000 oracular inscriptions have been recovered. Most date to the period of the Shang Dynasty in the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, or, in other words, to shortly after the time of Moses, and they are an invaluable source of historical insight. Although the use of oracle bones eventually died out, divination continued to play an important role in Chinese life. By the ninth century BC, bones were replaced by divination through the oracular book known as the I Ching, which continues to be used in China today, and around the world.

BOOK of CHANGES

See I Ching.

BOOK OF THE DEAD

The Book of the Dead refers to the funeral literature of ancient Egypt. The texts consist of charms, hymns, spells and formulas designed to help the soul pass through the dangerous parts of the underworld. By knowing these formulas, it was thought that the soul could ward off evil spirits and pass safely into the realm of Osiris, god of the underworld. At first carved on to stone sarcophagi, the texts were later written on papyrus and placed inside the mummy case, and therefore came to be known as Coffin Texts.

BOOK OF SHADOWS

A book that contains rituals, laws, healing lore, chants, spells, divinatory methods and other topics to guide witches in practising their craft. There is no single definitive Book of Shadows for witchcraft; each tradition may have its own book, and local covens and individual witches can adapt books for their own use. In past centuries Books of Shadows were held secret; however, some witches in recent years have made their books public.

Traditionally a coven kept only one Book of Shadows, kept safe by the high priestess or priest. But today individual witches have their personal Books of Shadows in the form of diaries or notebooks, often now on hard drive and disk.

See also Spells, Witchcraft.