Oddities of Life

The Indonesian Walking Dead

Toradja people do practice something akin to the rising of the dead. It seems that the people believe that death is a long process, sometimes taking years as the deceased gradually work their way toward Puya (the afterlife). Very elaborate measures must be taken during the funeral to ensure that the loved one makes it safely to that destination. Because the funeral arrangements are so extensive, they are also very expensive. For this reason, a body is sometimes placed in a temporary coffin. During this time, the family can accumulate the necessary funds to pay for a proper funeral, which includes a cave or hanging casket, a multi-water buffalo slaughter, chanting, singing, music, stone and wooden effigies to protect the soul during travel, and so on.

Once the funds are raised, so is the dead. It seems that the Toradja genuinely believe that the dead are able to walk themselves to their new burial site. More likely, and what we are seeing depicted in the picture, is that the somewhat mummified corpse is removed from its temporary coffin and transported upright to the permanent site. As “corpse walking” is part of the tradition, the body is held in the standing position to simulate ambulation.

They say the corpse is agreed using black magic. They do this because the cemeteries are in mountain regions, so no one wants to lead the deceased to the place they must walk alone.   The body follows, guided by an “expert” in black magic, which takes them to the site. However there is a rule, if called by name, the body falls and will not raise again.

The Man Who Had an Iron Spike Go Completely Through his Head and Lived – The Sad and Bizarre Story of Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage is the most famous person to have survived severe damage to the brain. His accident illustrates the first medical knowledge gained on the relationship between personality and brain damage. After his injury, he turned into a completely different person - an entirely new personality.

A well-liked and successful construction foreman, Phineas Gage was contracted to work for the Rutland & Burlington Railroad in Vermont. In September 1848 while Gage was preparing a railroad bed, an accidental explosion of a charge he had set, blew a 13-pound tamping iron straight through his head.

The tamping iron was 1 ¼ inches in diameter. It went in point first under his left cheek bone and completely out through the top of his head, landing about 25 to 30 yards behind him.

Despite his torn scalp and fractured skull, Gage remained lucid and rational during the ride to the hospital and was even able to speak. Cage not only survived losing a chunk of his brain, he was able to returned home in only 10 weeks. Unfortunately, Gage’s recovery was not a complete success.

The once friendly and well-liked man became mean, impatient, rude, and seemed to have lost any empathy toward others. Those who knew him before the accident said he was “no longer Gage.”

Cage worked in several livery stables for the next ten years until 1859 when his health began to fail. He moved to San Francisco to live with his mother and began to experience the epileptic seizures that would lead to his death in 1860. The tale is heart-breaking.

His story is still standard content in medical, anatomy, and psychology textbooks. His skull and the tamping iron are currently on display in the Warren Museum Exhibition Gallery in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Strange History and Mystery of the Ouija Board

Does the Ouija Board really communicate with spirits or is it just a harmless game?

The first advertisements started to appear in papers by 1891: “Ouija, the Wonderful Talking Board". The board was described as magical because it answered questions “about the past, present and future with marvelous accuracy”. It’s price was $1.50.

The Ouija board (pronounced Wee-ja) is a flat board marked with the letters of the alphabet, numbers 0-9, and the words “yes”, “no”, and  “hello”, “goodbye”. The invention of the original design in still unknown.

The Ouija board was, at first, regarded as a harmless parlor game. It’s popularity grew out of the strong American 19th century obsession with spiritualism - the belief that the living are able to communicate with the dead.

The first patent was granted in 1891 to Elijah J. Bond as the inventor. Bond’s sister-in-law, Helen Peters (who was reportedly a “strong medium”), is credited for naming the board. While using the board, they asked what it should be named. The word “Ouija” was spelled out and when asked what that meant, the board replied, “Good Luck.”

To this day, mainstream religions and some occultists have associated the use of the Ouija board with the threat of demonic possession and have cautioned their followers not to use them.

Many believe that evil spirits, disguising themselves as deceased friends or family members, can trick the users of the board and unwittingly invite “them” into their homes. To be rid of such hauntings, Ouija “experts” advise either to burn the board or dispose of it in a lake since spirits supposedly cannot cross water.

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Highgate Cemetery - London’s Most Haunted

Highgate Cemetery is steeped in supernatural lore. Constructed out of need with six other cemeteries in the early 1800s, with London’s population nearing a million and the death toll rising, there was no more room to bury the dead. This cemetery is one of the most famous in the world, with many notable historic figures, such as Karl Marx, buried there.

The architecture of the cemetery is truly unique. In the heart of the grounds is an eccentric structure called the Egyptian Avenue which consists of sixteen vaults, entered via a great arch. Each vault fits twelve coffins, purchased and used by individual families. This avenue leads to the Circle of Lebanon which was built in the same style consisting of thirty six vaults. A separate gothic-styled catacomb, named the Terrace Catacombs, has an additional fifty five vaults.

But what lures most people to the cemetery are the legends and myths that include ghosts, a vampire and other unexplained phenomena. Spirits coming out of the mausoleums, a glowing woman who roams the paths in between the graves, a man in a top hat, and misty ghosts that hang around the tombs are just some of the the spirits that inhabit the cemetery. Its the account of the “Highgate Vampire” that makes the site legendary.

The first report was in 1970, when a young man reported that he had seen a dark figure resembling a vampire in the cemetery. Since then, hundreds of claims of suspected vampires continued to be reported. Helping the belief along was the fact that dead foxes, with their throats torn open, kept turning up on the grounds. Aside from ghosts and a resident vampire, Highgate Cemetery in London is a hauntingly beautiful place to visit, or spend eternity.

10 Must See Photos from the 1950s

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Puzzlewood Magical Forest – The Real Middle Earth

Puzzlewood is a unique and enchanting place, located in the beautiful and historic Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, England. There is more than a mile of meandering pathways through Puzzlewood and over 14 acres of ancient woodland. It has an atmosphere quite unlike any other wood. The magical forest is one of the most stunning in the world and it’s easy to see why it’s been used as a filming location for Merlin and Dr. Who. It is no wonder that JRR Tolkien is reputed to have taken his inspiration for the fabled forests of Middle Earth from Puzzlewood. 

In Puzzlewood you will find strange rock formations, secret caves and ancient trees. The geological features here are known locally as scowles. The scowles originated through the erosion of natural underground cave systems formed in limestone many millions of years ago. Uplift and erosion caused the cave system to become exposed at the surface. This was then exploited by Iron Age settlers through to Roman times for the extraction of iron ore.

Evidence of Roman occupation of the area is supported by the discovery of a hoard of over 3,000 Roman coins from the 3rd Century which were found in the scowles of Puzzlewood. Once the Romans left, nature reclaimed the old workings with moss and trees, to create the unique landscape. The historical use soon became forgotten, and the folklore of “Puzzlewood” began. In the early 1800s, a local landowner laid down a mile of pathways which meandered through the trees and gulleys to open up this ancient forest originally for the amusement of his friends and children. In the early 1900s, Puzzlewood opened to the public. Since then it is has remained essentially unchanged with the same stunning pathways and bridges as in earlier times, but with the addition of a variety of animals and visitor facilities.

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Incredible Vintage Animated Gifs

Nearly 155 years before the first animated gif appeared in 1887, Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau unveiled an invention called the phenakistoscope, a device that is largely considered to be the first mechanism for true animation. The simple gadget relied on the persistence of the vision principle to create the illusion of images in motion.

The phenakistoscope used a spinning disc attached vertically to a handle. Arrayed around the disc’s center were a series of drawings showing phases of the animation, and cut through it were a series of equally spaced radial slits. The user would spin the disc and look through the moving slits at the disc’s reflection in a mirror. The scanning of the slits across the reflected images kept them from simply blurring together, so that the user would see a rapid succession of images that appeared to be a single moving picture.

Though Plateau is credited with inventing the device, there were numerous other mathematicians and physicists who were working on similar ideas around the same time, and they too were building on the works of Greek mathematician Euclid and Sir Isaac Newton who had also identified the principles behind the phenakistoscope.

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10 Amazing Abandoned Places Around the Globe

10 of the Most Majestic Caves in the World

Paris Catacombs

By the light of torches, candles or miners lights, haunting scenes centuries old appear to unfold. Scenes of skulls, bones and death are everywhere. The passages can be as low as three feet overhead or even less. The air heavy with dust, and the ground underfoot flooded with grimy water splashing way over your shoes. In tunnels up to 100 feet below the surface bustle of one of the world’s great cities, another clandestine world exists.

Consulting maps, self-trained guides lead the way, while others look for opportunities to take photographs. Exploring the Paris Catacombs, also known as the Mines of Paris, carries risk. For one, it is strictly illegal, with special police and their dogs patrolling the vast subterranean network. There is also a very real danger of getting lost, as well as the chance of cave-ins in some places.

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