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

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СКАЧАТЬ of the purity of the bleached bones of death. Because breath is the evidence of life, as bizarre as it may seem to us today, the eating of beans and the flatulence it causes were thought by ancient Romans to be proof that the living souls of the dead resided inside the lowly bean.

      BEHAVIOURAL MEDICINE

      Behavioural medicine is an approach to healing that acknowledges the effects of behaviour on health, and takes into account not just the interaction between a human and the environment but the interaction between body, mind and spirit.

      Non-Western healing systems, such as traditional Chinese medicine and Ayurvedic medicine, for centuries have based their approach on the interaction between mind and body but it wasn’t until the 1960s that Western medicine began to acknowledge that mind and body may not be as separate as it had previously been thought. Psychiatrist George Solomon observed that feeling unhappy and depressed increased arthritis symptoms, and in his experiments he found that rats put under stress died more quickly than those who were not. But the real breakthrough came in the 1970s with psychoanalyst Robert Ader, who suspected from experiments with rats that the nervous system played a part in a body’s immune system. He coined the term psychoneu-roimmunology’ (PNI). Later research confirmed that the nervous system does indeed produce reactions that influence brain function and that there is a collaboration between the mind, the brain and the immune system.

      PNI suggests that emotions have a part to play in physical health, and over the years research has shown that relaxation and positive thinking techniques can produce changes in wellbeing and can be used in the treatment of illness. Relaxation, visualization and imagery have been used with success to treat a whole range of conditions, from headaches and indigestion to serious conditions such as depression, heart disease and cancer. Studies also show that unhappy feelings, in particular suppressed anger, fear and guilt, low self-esteem and a lack of loving relationships, can also increase a person’s chances of developing heart disease, cancer and infertility.

      Many medical experts now acknowledge the important role relaxation, loving relationships and positive outlook play in mental and physical health and wellbeing. Psychic healers have always used the power of the mind to heal physical and emotional problems, believing that if people feel better mentally and emotionally they will improve physically.

      BELL WITCH

      The Bell Witch is one of the most unsavoury poltergeist cases on record, even though it has since been described as perhaps the ‘greatest American ghost story’. According to legend, it caused the death of a man.

      The haunting took place in Robertson, Tennessee, in 1817 and intrigued many people, including future US President General Andrew Jackson. There are several versions of the story so it is hard to know what is fact and what is fiction, but the version generally relied upon is that based on the diary of Richard William Bell, one of the Bells’ sons.

      John and Lucy Bell lived with their nine children on a farm. The phenomena started with noises and scraping and progressed to clothes being pulled off and furniture and stones being thrown about. Two of the children, Elizabeth and Richard, had their hair pulled one night, and Elizabeth was slapped and punched and pinched. Under investigation by the family and a neighbour, James Johnson, the poltergeist stepped up its activity, tormenting the family, especially Elizabeth, even more. Elizabeth was sent to stay with a neighbour, and the disturbances went with her, indicating that she was the focus of the activity.

      The strange events continued over the next few years. Later activity included strange lights outside the house, stones thrown at Elizabeth’s brothers and sisters and visitors receiving slaps similar to Elizabeth’s. The entity also began to speak using foul language. According to reports a voice would appear from nowhere and with no identifiable source. The voice claimed to be various different people but eventually settled on the name of Kate Bates, a woman who had been dissatisfied with business dealings with the Bells. From then on the voice was called Kate.

      Johnson advised forming a committee to investigate, and with that the Bell family became the object of much curiosity: General Jackson even paid a visit with a ‘witch layer’, a professional exorcist. According to legend, just outside Bell Lane their carriage got stuck. Kate’s voice could be heard promising to appear that night, and the carriage became unstuck. Later in the evening the witch layer tried to shoot Kate with a silver bullet but was slapped and chased out of the house.

      On one occasion it was said Elizabeth was given an emetic to make her sick, and she threw up brass pins and needles. The poltergeist, who had a sick sense of humour, suggested that if she did it again Elizabeth would have enough to set up a shop.

      Elizabeth’s father, John Bell, began to suffer from repeated bouts of illness, and Kate claimed she was the cause. He couldn’t eat, his tongue was swollen and Kate declared that she would torment him for the rest of his life. Unfortunately, this is exactly what she did. Finally the ordeals and cursing wore John down, and on the morning of 19 December 1820, he fell into a stupor, dying a day later. A bottle was found in the medicine cabinet, and when the contents were given to an animal the animal died. Kate declared with delight in her voice that she had poisoned John with the liquid while he was asleep.

      After John Bell’s death the poltergeist activity diminished. Some time later Elizabeth got engaged to a Joshua Gardener, who apparently did not meet the poltergeist’s approval. The entity told Elizabeth not to marry Joshua and the couple could not go anywhere without the entity following them and persistently taunting them. In 1821 their patience finally snapped and they broke off their engagement.

      Elizabeth eventually married a man called Dick Powell, and Kate finally disappeared with the words ‘I will be gone for seven years’. John’s widow, Lucy Bell, and two of her sons who stayed at the farmhouse, did hear manifestations seven years later, but they kept quiet about it this time and the torment stopped after two weeks. Apparently the poltergeist promised to return in 1935 but failed to do so, or wasn’t noticed by anybody.

      The Bells never understood why they were ‘attacked’ in this way, and Kate Bates never made any statements. The most commonly accepted theory is that the poltergeist activity focused on Elizabeth, who was the right age, around puberty, for sexual guilt and tension. It has been suggested that there was some kind of incestuous relationship between Elizabeth and her father, which would have distressed the young girl. This theory, however, does not account for poltergeist activity that took place when she was not around, such as that with General Jackson.

      The legend of the Bell Witch continues to haunt the Bell farm to this day. Thankfully, the violent and terrible manifestations are a thing of the past, but she is believed to haunt a cave, called the Bell Witch Cave, where unearthly screams, knocks and noises have been reported.

      BENTHAM, JEREMY [1748–1832]

      The bizarre sight of the body of Jeremy Bentham, law reformer, scientist and philosopher, can be seen to this day mounted on display in University College London. Bentham was fascinated by mummification and believed that corpses, put on permanent display as memorials to the dead, or ‘auto icons’ as he called them, would become commonplace items in the houses of family and friends.

      Prior to his death Bentham gave detailed instructions in his will about how his body should be preserved. He requested that his body be dissected, his bones be wired in a sitting position and his mummified corpse be dressed in his favourite black suit and straw hat, with his hand on his favourite walking stick, ‘Dapple’. Bentham’s preserved form is on display today in a case with glass sides. Apparently the mummification of his head was not successful, so it was СКАЧАТЬ