Legend tripping is a practice in which a usually furtive nocturnal pilgrimage is made to a site which is alleged to have been the scene of some tragic, horrific, and possibly supernatural event or haunting. [1] [ failed verification ] The practice mostly involves the visiting of sites endemic to locations identified in local urban legends, and can serve as a rite of passage. Legend tripping has been documented most thoroughly to date in the United States. [2]
While the stories that attach to the sites of legend tripping vary from place to place, and sometimes contain a kernel of historical truth, there are a number of motifs and recurring themes in the legends and the sites. Abandoned buildings, remote bridges, tunnels, caves, rural roads, specific woods or other uninhabited (or semi-uninhabited) areas, and especially cemeteries are frequent sites of legend-tripping pilgrimages.
Legend-tripping is a mostly harmless, perhaps even beneficial, youth recreation. It allows young people to demonstrate their courage in a place where the actual physical risk is likely slight. [3] However, in what Ellis calls "ostensive abuse," the rituals enacted at the legend-tripping sites sometimes involve trespassing, vandalism, and other misdemeanors, and sometimes acts of animal sacrifice or other blood ritual. [4] These transgressions then sometimes lead to local moral panics that involve adults in the community, and sometimes even the mass media. These panics often further embellish the prestige of the legend trip to the adolescent mind. [3] In at least one notorious case, years of destructive legend-tripping, amounting to an "ostensive frenzy," led to the fatal shooting of a legend-tripper near Lincoln, Nebraska followed by the wounding of the woman whose house had become the focus of the ostension. [5] The panic over youth Satanism in the 1980s was fueled in part by graffiti and other ritual activities engaged in by legend-tripping youths. [3]
Satanism refers to a group of religious, ideological, and/or philosophical beliefs based on Satan—particularly his worship or veneration. Satan is commonly associated with the Devil in Christianity, a fallen angel often regarded as chief of the demons who tempt humans into sin. The phenomenon of Satanism shares "historical connections and family resemblances" with the Left Hand Path milieu of other occult figures such as Chaos, Hecate, Lilith, Lucifer, and Set. Self-identified Satanism is a relatively modern phenomenon, largely attributed to the 1966 founding of the Church of Satan by Anton LaVey in the United States—an atheistic group that does not believe in a supernatural Satan.
The Satanic Bible is a collection of essays, observations, and rituals published by Anton LaVey in 1969. It is the central religious text of LaVeyan Satanism, and is considered the foundation of its philosophy and dogma. It has been described as the most important document to influence contemporary Satanism. Though The Satanic Bible is not considered to be sacred scripture in the way that the Christian Bible is to Christianity, LaVeyan Satanists regard it as an authoritative text as it is a contemporary text that has attained for them scriptural status. It extols the virtues of exploring one's nature and instincts. Believers have been described as "atheistic Satanists" because they believe that God and Satan are not external entities, but rather projections of an individual's personality—benevolent and stabilizing forces in their life. There have been thirty printings of The Satanic Bible, selling over a million copies.
A shadow person is the perception of shadow as a living species, humanoid figure, sometimes interpreted as the presence of a spirit or other entity by believers in the paranormal or supernatural.
Ong's Hat is one of the earliest Internet-based secret history conspiracy theories. It was created as a piece of collaborative fiction by four core individuals, dating back to the 1980s, although the membership propagating the tale changed over time. Ong's Hat is often cited as the first ARG on many lists of alternate reality games.
Beatrice Ruby Mathews Sparks was a Mormon youth counselor, author, and serial con artist, known primarily for producing books purporting to be the "real diaries" of troubled teenagers. The books deal with topical issues such as drug abuse, Satanism, teenage pregnancy, and AIDS, and are presented as cautionary tales. Although Sparks presented herself as merely the discoverer and editor of the diaries, records at the U.S. Copyright Office list her as the sole author for all but two of them, indicating that the books were fabricated and fictional.
Theistic Satanism, otherwise referred to as traditional Satanism, religious Satanism, or spiritual Satanism, is an umbrella term for religious groups that consider Satan, the Devil, to objectively exist as a deity, supernatural entity, or spiritual being worthy of worship or reverence, whom individuals may believe in, contact, and convene with, in contrast to the atheistic archetype, metaphor, or symbol found in LaVeyan Satanism.
Ostension is the act of showing or demonstrating something.
John Lundberg is an English artist and documentary filmmaker. His work is concerned with ostension. Underpinning all of his work is an interest in how myth and artifice can shape and alter reality, especially regarding crop circles, UFOlogy, and other examples of urban legends and the paranormal.
The Highgate Vampire was a media sensation surrounding reports of supposed supernatural activity at Highgate Cemetery in London, England, United Kingdom, in the 1970s. The most thorough account of the story is given by folklorist Bill Ellis in the journal Folklore, published in 1993.
Gore Orphanage is the subject of a local legend in Northern Ohio, which refers to a supposedly haunted ruin near the city of Vermilion in Lorain County, Ohio. The ruin is a building that formerly housed the Swift Mansion and, later, the Light of Hope Orphanage, and is the subject of local urban legends, whereby the violent deaths of young adults and children are alleged to have occurred. According to the urban legends, supernatural activity has occurred in the building since its closure.
Stull is an unincorporated community in Douglas County, Kansas, United States. Founded in 1857, the settlement was initially known as Deer Creek by Pennsylvania Dutch settlers until it was renamed after its only postmaster, Sylvester Stull. As of 2018, only a handful of structures remain in the area.
The New Jersey Pine Barrens has been the site of many legends, tales and mythical creatures, many of which have been documented by Weird NJ in its magazines and books.
Ghosts are an important and integral part of the folklore of the socio-cultural fabric of the geographical and ethno-linguistic region of Bengal which presently consists of Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura. Bengali folktales and Bengali cultural identity are intertwined in such a way that ghosts depicted reflect the culture it sets in. Fairy tales, both old and new, often use the concept of ghosts. References to ghosts are often found in modern-day Bengali literature, cinema, radio and television media. There are also alleged haunted sites in the region. The common word for ghosts in Bengali is bhoot or bhut. This word has an alternative meaning: 'past' in Bengali. Also, the word Pret is used in Bengali to mean ghost. In Bengal, ghosts are believed to be the unsatisfied spirits of human beings who cannot find peace after death or the souls of people who died in unnatural or abnormal circumstances like murders, suicides or accidents. Non-human animals can also turn into ghosts after their death. But they are often associated with good luck and wealth in Bangladesh.
The term devil's chair in folklore is frequently attached to a class of funerary or memorial sculpture common in the United States during the nineteenth century and often associated with legend tripping. Nineteenth-century graveyards sometimes included carved chairs for the comfort of visitors. In this function, the object was known as a "mourning chair," and cemeteries have since provided benches for similar purposes, most often movable units of the type used in parks, but also specimens in the tradition of the carved chairs.
Maha Sona or Maha Sohona is a yaka in Sinhalese folklore, said to haunt the afterlife. The name Maha Sona denotes "the greatest demon" or "god or demon of the cemetery" in the Sinhala language. He is one of the most feared and commonly know gods or demons in Sri Lanka. According to popular folklore, he was originally a giant who was defeated and decapitated in a duel by another giant, Gotaimbara. His head was then replaced with that of a bear or tiger. He is believed to kill people by crushing their shoulders or by afflicting them with disease. Traditional exorcism rituals are performed to repel the demon in such cases. The Sri Lankan Army's Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol units are popularly known as the "Maha Sohon Brigade", named after this demon.
Joseph Wayne Matheny is an American writer and transmedia artist who has created works using alternate reality gaming and transmedia storytelling methods. He holds patents for prediction, recommendation and behavioral analysis algorithms and software design. He is a published author of screenplays, white papers, technology, sci-fi, marketing and gaming books. He is probably best known for the avant-garde work Ong's Hat, which has been called the proto-Alternate Reality Game. Ong's Hat is often cited as the first ARG on many lists of alternate reality games.
The Satanic panic is a moral panic about alleged widespread Satanic ritual abuse which originated around the 1980s in the United States, peaking in the early 1990s, before waning as a result of scepticism of academics and law enforcement agencies who ultimately debunked the claims. The phenomenon spread from the United States to other countries, including South Africa, where it is still evident periodically. South Africa was particularly associated with the Satanic panic because of the creation of the Occult Related Crimes Unit in 1992, described as the "world's only 'ritual murder' task force". According to anthropologist Annika Teppo, this was linked with powerful conservative Christian forces within the then-dominant white community in the last years of apartheid. Christian belief is a prerequisite to serve in the unit. The concern with the alleged presence of Satanism and occult practices has continued into the post-apartheid era.
Ghostlore is an intricate web of traditional beliefs and folklore surrounding ghosts and hauntings. Ghostlore has ingrained itself in the cultural fabric of societies worldwide. Defined by narratives often featuring apparitions of the deceased, ghostlore stands as a universal phenomenon, with roots extending deeply into human history.