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MORE NEW Ghost Stories... Updated 05/09/03
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THEY ARE ALL IN THE MIND WHEN THEY'RE LINKED TO THE WEST'S MAGNETIC FIELD
GHOSTS are all in the mind, according to one of the world's top parapsychologists, Dr Serena RoneyDougal. After 25 years of research, the international expert believes thousands of the ghostly apparitions and UFO sightings reported each year are the creation of a little understood gland in the brain. Very little scientific work has been carried out on the pineal gland, hidden deep in our grey matter. In the East, mystics accept it as the Chakra, or Third Eye but now the mysterious, substance-secreting gland is attracting attention.
Dr Roney-Dougal is one of only a handful of university-trained parapsychologists who have studied its function. Parapsychology is the scientific study of psychic phenomena. The lecturer, based at Glastonbury, Somerset, says the abnormally high incidence of reports of ghosts, alien space craft and abductions in the West Country may be due to a link between the gland and magnetic fields emerging from fault lines radiating across the region. The evidence shows the gland is stimulated by energy and releases a rare drug-like substance, causing heightened sensitivity and, at times, hallucinations. Places such as Dursley and Shepton Mallet have more reports of ghosts and UFOs than anywhere else - and they are all said to be on fault lines releasing magnetic power which affects the body. Dr Roney-Dougal said: "The implications of this are fascinating. This is where science and magic meet."
The findings have also intrigued Edinburgh University, where the faculty of Parapsychology is studying the effects of electro-magnetic fields on the brain. A spokesman said: "There is much evidence to show that geological stress lines are linked to hauntings. Magnetism is one theory under investigation."
The West features highly in the studies, with the Severn Valley and the area around Dursley known as a ghost triangle, where hundreds of spooks have been reported. A fault line is said to run down the High Street, where apparitions have been reported by scores of people above the Halifax building society. They are women in white, little old men and unruly poltergeists. To the South, motorists near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, which stands on the Fosse Way Roman road, claim to have come face to face with centurions. And East into Wiltshire the sightings of UFOs increase greatly - in proportion to the growing magnetic field and military activity but whether the sightings are all a figment of the imagination, the drugged brain tuning into something normally imperceptible or a mixture of both, is not yet understood.
Western Daily Press 23/05/2001
By Roger Tavener
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HAUNTED - WHY ONE WEST TOWN IS THE SPOOKIEST PLACE IN BRITAIN
A SMALL West town and the creepy countryside around it have been acclaimed as among the most haunted in Britain. Ancient Winchcombe, on the edge of the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire, is the ghostly centre for ghastly gatherings of hooded apparitions, a new book reveals. They are known as the Genii Cucullati or "hooded spirits". Here you can hardly move for the spiritual remains of long-dead medieval monks, says Paul Devereux, who has written Haunted Land, an investigation into ancient mysteries and current day phenomena.
The thoroughfares of Gloucestershire are a haven for hauntings. Many of the reports are from travellers who had no idea the highways were inhabited by spectres so each new story from a fresh source adds to a fascinating mystery which continues to grow.
"The Black Dog and the White Lady are two of the most prominent forms of landscape spirit as reported in relatively modern times, but there is a third type, the Black Monk, " says Devereux, a veteran researcher and writer. "He, too, can be white or grey as well as black."
He tells how hospital anaesthetist Guy Routh was driving on the B4068 near Naunton, Gloucestershire at 10:00pm on August 26, 1998 when he encountered in his headlights a woman in a cream-coloured dress standing on the verge. He stopped to make sure she was all right but she had vanished. His car was suddenly full of a strange smell of wood smoke.
Two years later a security guard on the same stretch of road was confronted by a figure all in white. "It looked like a monk and was six feet tall" he said. He drove through it. When he went back to check, there was nothing there. "The Cotswolds seems to be especially prone to these manifestations of monk-like ghosts" says the author. "Among the examples from the region are the occasional sightings made of spectral monks in the aptly-named Cowl Lane near the Abbey in Winchcombe. Monkish ghosts have also been reported on roads immediately around Winchcombe, especially around Postlip Hall, which used to be a medieval chapel."
It is a rich area for road ghosts but why are there so many sightings?
There can be many reasons, says the author, including hallucinations, rampant imagination and hysteria. "Until there are more detailed, closely-textured studies of haunted roads, it will be hard to tell" says Devereux. He adds that 'road ghosts' could be more a function of the availability of witnesses than an indicator of a special type of haunting.
Haunted Land, by Paul Devereux, is published by Piatkus Books on October 25.
Western Daily Press 15/10/2001
By Roger Tavener
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TALES OF THE UNEXPECTED
From grey ladies to marching Roman soldiers - our area is awash with ghostly goings on. Aliya Frostick investigates things that go bump in the night FOR something that is supposed to scare the living daylights out of you, ghosts prove extremely attractive. Film-makers and writers have long used them as a tool to conjure up feelings of eeriness and fear and there is nothing like a decent spook to draw in the crowds.
The Bell in Buckland Dinham has built up such a reputation for its three active ghosts that people come specially to eat at the table with the extra guest. Of course the table is number 13. Even the hard-nosed disbelievers have been swayed into changing their views after first-hand experiences. Landlord Jeremy Westcott admits the ghosts' presence irks him but, equally, he understands why they are there.
One in particular is the ghost of Emily who died in labour in 1756 at the age of 15. Her child was buried somewhere near the pub and Mr Westcott believes her almost daily appearances are motivated by a desire to make people remember her tragedy and to ask them to resolve it. "She makes sure we don't forget her. She's constantly seen out of the corner of people's eyes but the minute you turn around she's gone, " he said. Mr Westcott recalls many incidents when the temperature behind the bar has suddenly dropped to an unnerving chill, when he has caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure on the stairs, and the numerous occasions when items have been flung from shelves and walls and then there is the mystery of the non-drip candles that cascade in a pattern of dripping wax on the bar.
Once there were two teachers sitting at the bar when a candle jumped from its place on the bar and into one of their glasses. "They were absolutely petrified, " said Mr Westcott. "They didn't leave till midnight because they were trying to work it out." He admits that it worries him so much that when closing up at night, he has to run with a whistle and torch from the bar to the door leading out of the room. He said: "Sometimes you can convince yourself things fall off the shelf but not always. "There's something going on, she's reminding us. "It's weird but it's true. "It doesn't make me very comfortable but what can she do apart from frighten me, which is what I don't like." Mr Westcott himself is a reformed sceptic.
He doubted his father's claims of being able to read palms, but now his father sits and talks to Emily and Mr Westcott has seen her himself. "If we do find the baby's grave we'll get a vicar in to do a service, " he said. "I don't want her to be in torment. I wouldn't mind if she did not come back after that because at least her mind would be at rest."
There is also the little boy that runs round and round the bar and the old man who sits in a dining room chair and who the cleaners cannot get past. They have to wait until he leaves to do their job.
If you still don't believe, wait for the confirmation by the official Ghost Society Club, which is visiting the Bell in September to see what hides behind the corners and lingers in the air.
Meanwhile, across Somerset, other apparitions are continuing to make their chilly presence felt.
Standard & Guardian 24/07/2003
Aliya Frostick
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