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

COTTAGE CITY POLTERGEIST

A fascinating and curious case that was the inspiration behind the 1971 best-selling book by William Peter Blatty The Exorcist. In the book, later made into a film, a young girl is possessed by the devil and subject to exorcism by a Roman Catholic priest, but in the original 1949 case that inspired the book, the subject was a 13-year-old boy.

The case began in Cottage City, Maryland. The family of a young boy, called in some newspaper reports ‘Roland Doe’, began to experience poltergeist activity. It started with scratching noises from the house walls, and then the boy’s bed began shaking and moving on its own, with similar events occurring at school.

A psychiatrist was called in to examine the boy but could find nothing wrong with him. The family called in a minister who believed that a ghost, perhaps the spirit of the dead aunt, might be involved. Some reports say that a Lutheran minister performed an exorcism or a series of exorcisms, while other reports say exorcisms were performed by a pair of Jesuit priests.

After the movie appeared, new reports surfaced of a detailed diary kept by one of the Jesuit priests of the entire exorcism process. The diary says that the exorcism took place in a hospital, the boy’s reactions to the exorcism were violent and that it took four months for the ‘demon’ to be expelled. Afterwards the boy remembered nothing and the case was quietly buried. The room at the hospital where the exorcism took place was rumoured to be haunted in the years following. Many people who worked near the room continued to report cold waves of air and unusual noises coming from inside the room.

What truly happened in the case remains a mystery. Were there natural or psychological explanations for what occurred in the case? Or was this simply the story of an attention-starved boy tricking the adults around him into believing he was possessed by the devil?

COTTINGLEY FAIRIES

In July 1917, 16-year-old Elsie Wright and her 10-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths claimed they could see fairies in the small wooded creek behind Elsie’s house in Cot-tingley, West Yorkshire. Elsie’s father dismissed their claims, and so one day the girls borrowed his camera to take a picture of them.

The picture, when developed, showed Elsie with a group of fairies dancing in front of her. A month later the girls took a picture of Elsie with a gnome. Elsie’s parents were startled by the photographs, but her father remained unconvinced. Her mother, however, took the pictures to a Theosophist meeting one evening, and soon the photos were published. The girls’ most famous supporter became Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Conan Doyle printed the first two pictures in Strand Magazine in 1920 and three more photos a couple of years later. He then expanded his articles into a book, The Coming of the Fairies. Shortly after, Frances’s family moved away from Elsie’s, and the girls stopped seeing fairies.

In the decades that followed, the photographs were widely circulated and deemed false, and even Conan Doyle himself finally admitted that he may have been the victim of a hoax. It wasn’t until the 1980s, though, that Frances and Elsie admitted that they had faked the photographs to get back at the adults who had told them off for believing in fairies. They said that when Conan Doyle had got involved they didn’t want to embarrass him by admitting that the photos were faked. They also said that as young girls they had actually seen fairies, but that the fairies didn’t like to be photographed.

CRANDON, Mina STINSON [1888–194,1]

This Boston medium, also known as Margery, left a controversial legacy behind her. Opinion is divided as to whether she was one of the greatest mediums of her day or a complete fraud.

Unusually for mediums, Crandon’s early life did not offer any hints of her future psychic power. It wasn’t until her divorce in 1918 and second marriage to prominent surgeon Le Roi Goddard Crandon, who had an interest in the paranormal and set up a psychic home circle, that her abilities began to surface. Soon she was demonstrating remarkable abilities as a medium managed by her control, Walter. Walter was in fact Mina’s brother who had died five years earlier, with whom she had been very close.

Several investigations of Crandon’s power were put together by prominent academics and psychical investigators, including Harry Houdini the magician, who was utterly convinced that she was a fraud. Despite causing bitter controversy, Crandon had many supporters at the American Society for Psychical Research, and a book published in 1925, Margery the Medium by Malcolm Bird, editor of the Scientific American, was very favourable to her.

Mina Crandon appeared to enjoy all the attention she received from press and public alike. By all accounts it wasn’t just her psychic powers that her supporters admired. She was a vivacious and charismatic person who was not adverse to holding séances in the nude and to having extramarital affairs with more than one of her investigators.

When asked on her deathbed if fraud had taken place, she refused to set the record straight. With the hint of a smile and a twinkle in her eye, she is said to have replied, Why don’t you guess? You’ll all be guessing for the rest of your lives.’

CREATIVE VISUALIZATION

Creative visualization is the process by which the creation of a visual image is believed to promote the desired outcome.

Creative visualization is built on the ancient belief in the power of the mind to create what you want in your life. If you think about what you’d like to achieve in your life, you can do just that, as positive images and thoughts attract positive energy. Creative visualization is widely used in business, sport, art, psychotherapy, psychic development, mystical and occult arts and personal self-development.

Imagination has a powerful influence on self-image, and a poor self-image can often mean the difference between success and failure in life. Creative visualization, which seems to be most effective when practised in a relaxed state, can be used to feed your mind positive images to create a better self-image and improve your personal experiences. For example, if you want to develop your psychic awareness, you need to imagine being psychic. If you want to pass an exam, you imagine yourself passing it. Those who practise visualization say it’s important to fill in all the details of your experience so that the image is as real to the mind as possible.

CREWE CIRCLE

The Crewe Circle was a group of spirit photographers based in Crewe, England, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Led by William Hope, the circle claimed to be able to photograph the souls of the dead. Many psychical research organizations investigated the claims, but the most documented are those sponsored by the Royal Photographic Society and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the author of the Sherlock Holmes novels. Conan Doyle was so intrigued by the Crewe Circle that he wrote a book about it entitled The Case for Spirit Photography (1922).

Over the years the spirit photographs taken by the members of the Crewe Circle have come under detailed examination, and have been dismissed as fraudulent by many, but so far none has been proven conclusively to be a hoax. It is possible that the photos could be spontaneous images of spirits captured on the film plates.

CROISET, Gerard [1909–1980]

Born in the Netherlands, Croiset grew up to become an internationally renowned clairvoyant, highly regarded as a police psychic for his ability to find missing people, animals and objects.

Croiset was raised in foster homes and orphanages and began to experience clairvoyance at the age of six. He dropped out of school at 13 and drifted into unskilled work. The turning point in his life came in 1935 when he was introduced to a group of local spiritualists, and over the next few years his reputation as a psychic and healer grew. In 1945 Croiset volunteered to be a test subject for the parapsychologist Willem Tenhaef from the University of Utrecht. Tenhaef was so impressed by Croiset’s ability that he began to mentor him, and introduced him to police work. In the years that followed Croiset became famous for his help in solving crimes all over the world. His passion was finding missing children.

Croiset never accepted payment for his psychic readings, but he did accept donations for his healing clinic where he treated thousands of clients. He was able to diagnose a person instantly on seeing them. Perhaps his most famous contribution to the field of parapsychology was to popularize the chair test. In this test, chairs in a room would be numbered, and Croiset was able to predict successfully who would sit in a selected chair a month or so before a meeting took place.

CROOKES, SIR WILLIAM [1832–1919]

Sir William Crookes is perhaps best known as a ground-breaking chemist and physicist who discovered X rays and explored the existence of subatomic particles such as the electron. For much of his life he was also deeply committed to spiritualism. He served as president of the Ghost Club of London for a while and took a great interest in the cases investigated by this organization. During his own investigations Crookes believed that many times he did in fact witness the materialization of human forms, and he also studied and photographed teleplasm and ectoplasm.

Published posthumously in 1926, Crookes’s work, Researches in the Phenomena of Spiritualism, is still considered required reading for any serious student of the subject.

CROP CIRCLES

Patterns, typically circle shaped, that appear mysteriously in the middle of grain fields in the middle of the night. The grain inside the circles is usually crushed as if knocked down by force. No tracks have been found leading to these circles, resulting in the belief that some paranormal force must have been involved in their creation. Some crop circles have been exposed as hoaxes, but others remain unexplained.

Crop circles have been reported all over the world, including in the USA, but they began appearing in southern England in the 1970s. They vary in size from about 10 feet to 200 or even 300 feet in diameter. They aren’t always circles but can also appear in elaborate formations and patterns. They are always immaculate and cleanly made.

Natural forces, such as violent or freak weather patterns, stationary whirlwinds or the effects of irrigation have been put forward as theories, but all these fail to explain the more complex patterns, which often resemble pictograms. There are those who believe some intelligent life force is trying to communicate with humankind, while others believe extraterrestrial forces must be at work. The mystery remains unsolved.

CROSS CORRESPONDENCES

A method used extensively in the early twentieth century to test the powers of mediums. The correspondences were made up of the same or similar information allegedly from discarnate entities delivered to mediums while they were in a trance or through automatic writing.

It is difficult to explain how these messages occur, and many psychical researchers believe they provide good evidence to support the case for life after death. Others believe that the mediums draw the information from their own unconscious or from others using telepathy or clairvoyance.

Between 1900 and 1932, cross correspondences were studied intensively by the Society for Psychical Research, in particular, by Frederick Myers. Myers believed that human life might continue after death and that finding evidence for it required the help of the dead - in fact, the dead would have the best idea for how the living could discover this evidence. He stated that producing this evidence would require a group effort on the part of several spirits rather than just contact with one spirit.

Cross correspondences were produced during Myers’ lifetime by several mediums. Words spoken under trance and written during automatic writing sessions by mediums sitting at the same time but in different locations showed similarities to one another. But it was after Myers’ death in 1901 that cross correspondences became more frequent; a message delivered to one medium would be undecipherable until combined with a message from another.

By 1918 the Society for Psychical Research concluded that cross correspondences did form large, interlinked groups and were evidence for survival after death. However others, such as another of the Society’s founding members, Frank Pod-more, believed they were the result of telepathic communication among the living.

Interest in cross correspondences faded in the 1930s, and although they do appear now and again in psychical research, today they are not studied with great interest.

CROSSROAD GHOSTS

Crossroads - the meeting and parting of ways - have long been regarded as likely places for ghosts or other spirit activity to take place. Crossroad superstitions can be found in Europe, India, Japan and among Native Americans, perhaps because in some parts of the world murderers, sorcerers and suicides were buried at crossroads with a stake or nail driven through the corpse, an act known as ‘nailing down the ghost’ to prevent the ghost’s return. Or perhaps the cross shape of the intersection mimicked the consecrated ground of a churchyard, a burial place denied to murderers and suicides. Or perhaps crossroads were places where territories, routes or villages collided, and they therefore became regarded as meeting places between the spirit realm and earth.

Crossroads are believed to be haunted by spirits who take delight in leading travellers astray. In German folklore a ghostly rider is believed to haunt a crossroads in Schleswig; the neck of his horse stretches across the path and prevents people passing. In European lore the dead are said to appear at crossroads, and in Welsh legend every crossroad is thought to be inhabited by spirits of the dead on Allhallows Eve. In modern evolutions of the tradition, crossroads in the rural Mississippi Delta area are reportedly frequented by either Lucifer or his minions; wandering musicians and minstrels seeking to bargain their immortal souls for success in their musical endeavours know to go to crossroads to meet with the Devil.

The cross shape of crossroads is in some traditions protection against the spirits that are said to haunt it. For example, in Irish folklore humans who have been kidnapped by fairies are thought to be able to gain their freedom at crossroads. One German superstition holds that if you are chased by a ghost or demon, you should head to a crossroads for protection. On reaching the crossroads the spirits will vanish with an unearthly shriek.

CROWE, CATHERINE [C.I1800–1870]

The author of The Night Side of Nature, which is one of the earliest and most important studies of apparitions, Catherine Crowe used a scientific approach to study ghosts. Some contend that her fascination with apparitions may have been brought about by a brief period of insanity, but this does not take away from the fact that her work has often been cited as the model for subsequent investigations of the paranormal.

CROWLEY, ALEISTER [1875–1947]

Called by the media ‘the wickedest man in the world’, Aleister Crowley courted controversy all his life with his fascination for sex, magic and blood. Despite his excesses, there are some who think this English occultist was a truly great magician.

Born Edward Alexander Crowley on 12 October 1875, in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley was raised by parents who were members of a fundamentalist Christian sect called the Plymouth Brethren. Crowley was drawn to blood and torture from a young age and was branded ‘the beast’ or Antichrist by his mother when he rebelled against the Brethren.

After leaving Trinity College, Cambridge without a degree but fluent in occultism, Crowley joined the London Chapter of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and quickly advanced up the ranks. He renamed himself Count Vladimir and began to pursue his occult activities full-time in London. Stories began to circulate about his alleged supernatural powers, including psychic attacks on his enemies with demons and vampires. Whether this is true or not is uncertain, but one thing is clear: he had incredible charisma and presence. A disagreement with another Golden Dawn member forced him to leave London and live in Scotland for a time.

Crowley’s sexual appetite was huge. He married twice but had a number of mistresses, and a seemingly unending stream of willing women were attracted to him. He also had a homosexual relationship with the poet Victor Neuburg, who became his assistant in magic.

In 1912 Crowley became involved in the Oro Templi Orientis occult order, becoming its leader in 1922. From 1915 to 1919 Crowley lived in the US before visiting Italy, where he set up his hillside villa called the Sacred Abbey of the Thelemic Mysteries. The villa became the site for his sexual orgies and magical rites, and the behaviour led him to be expelled from Italy in 1923 by Benito Mussolini.

In his later years Crowley was a victim of poor health, drug addiction and financial trouble. He earned a meagre living from his writing, since much of it is incoherent and rambling, but many continue to read his work today. His most important work, The Book of Law, was allegedly communicated from the Egyptian god Horus’s spirit messenger Aiwass. Central to this book is the Law of Thelma: ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’, which Crowley maintained meant doing what you must do and nothing else. His other important work is Magick in Theory and Practise (1929), which many practitioners consider to be a fine work on ceremonial magic. (He spelled ‘magic’ as ‘magick’ to distinguish it from stage magic.)

Crowley’s other published works include The Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922), The Equinox of the Gods (1937), and the Book of Thoth (1944), which is his interpretation of the Tarot. Two volumes of his autobiography were also published. In 1934 he tried to sue Nina Hammett for her biography of him, Laughing Torso, in which she stated that he practised black magic and human sacrifice, but the jury found in favour of Hammett.

Crowley died on 1 December 1947, in a boarding house in Hastings. His final years were spent practising ritual magic with Gerald B Gardner, whom some call the father of modern Wicca. Even though Crowley has been dead for decades, his influence is still very much felt today. One of the many attractions of Crowley’s type of magic was his advice to follow your own way, become your own self and create your own lifestyle - you don’t need a priest or a judge to tell you how to act; you work it out for yourself. It is easy to see how, in the hands of the young, impressionable or immature, this advice can be misinterpreted and become not only misguided but dangerous.

CRYPTOMNESIA

Information that is forgotten or repressed but which comes to the surface in medi-umship or contact with spirits of the dead.

Forgetting information and storing it in the subconscious mind are essential if the conscious mind is to function efficiently and stay uncluttered. However, during trance or altered states of conscious-ness, forgotten or repressed information may break free from the subconscious and surface again, where it appears as new information to the medium. Psychical researchers always consider the possibility of cryptomnesia when investigating mediums and cases of past-life recall.

The earliest recorded case of cryptomnesia was in 1874 when English medium William Moses was said to have contacted the spirits of two young brothers who had died in India. The deaths were verified; however, six days before the séance it was discovered that an obituary to the brothers had appeared in the newspaper. Moses’s information about the brothers was similar to that in the obituary, and psychical researchers concluded that Moses must have read the obituary and had forgotten that he had done so.

It is not known how long the brain can store information and how much information it can store without taking conscious note of it, so it is difficult to rule out cryptomnesia in cases of memories of afterlife and reincarnation. In one famous cryptomnesia case, a woman identified as Ms C communicated under hypnosis with a woman called Blanche from the court of Richard II. The period details were uncannily accurate, but when asked under trance what books she had read about Richard II, Ms C acknowledged that when she was 12 she had read an Emily Holt novel, Countess Maud, which contained the same material as Blanche had given.

The only time cyrptomnesia may possibly be ruled out is when the information received by the medium goes beyond accessible records to facts that can only be verified by other persons or in personal accounts. However, even then other explanations such as ESP and telepathy can’t be entirely ruled out.

CRYSTAL BALL

A tool used to help diviners go into a psychic trance, the crystal ball is perhaps the classic and best-known method of divination. Most people assume it is the ball that has the power, but it is not. The secret is not the ball but the technique of scrying, which involves keeping your eyes open while staring into a shiny, reflective surface to induce a form of meditation or self-hypnosis - the prime state for opening awareness to clairvoyance and psychic insight.

Scrying and crystal gazing practitioners were found in ancient times throughout Mesopotamia, among the Druids and other peoples of Europe and in China. Modern scryers most commonly use crystal balls that are usually three to six inches in diameter. The ideal crystal ball is made of quartz, not glass, because quartz crystal is thought to increase psychic energy.

Crystal gazing exercise

Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and, holding your crystal in your hand, begin slow rhythmic breathing. Focus on what the problem is or on what you want to know about. As you hold the crystal, feel it coming to life. Imagine the electrical energy within it growing stronger, helping to stimulate your psychic vision. Hold the crystal so you can look into it easily. Don’t stare intently into it, just look at it with a soft gaze - the kind of stare you have when daydreaming. Stay relaxed, and as you look into the crystal pay attention to its formation. Turn your crystal slowly in your hand so you can see how the light plays through it in different ways. As images begin to form, ask yourself what they mean to you. Pay attention to the emotions you feel, and trust them. When you are ready, close your eyes, take some deep breaths and come back to the here and now.