New Website
Updated Look To The Website Hey Kids! Take a peek at my ALL NEW website designed by the amazing HillbillE. Be sure and check out the new Varla Ventura logo, too! See if you can spot it. Matching tattoos anyone?
The Poltergeist Within: An Excerpt from Paranormal Parlor
We Are Family The idea of family ghosts, or ghosts that attach themselves to people and are “inherited” from generation to generation can perhaps be traced back to a time when families remained in one place for longer periods of time. Were these “inherited” ghosts simply ghosts of a place, a castle for example, where all …
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Beyond the Strange Tonight with Dave Cruz May 9, 2019
Am I a three-toed malignant, Or furry Yeti miscreant? Have I a beard or a wooden leg? A tattooed face or am ne’er’bathed? Mostly you just have to guess (and I’m sure hope for the best) But not tonight, for as if on stage All will be revealed on Beyond the Strange. 6 pm PST, …
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Try to Keep an Open Mind: From Frederick Douglass to the Fox Sisters
Amy and Isaac Post were a pretty radical couple for the 1840s. As outspoken abolitionists it isn’t surprising that their open-minded attitude meant that not only were they Quakers, free-thinkers, anti-slavery, and women’s rights advocates, they were also believers in the Spiritualist movement. They held regular abolitionists meetings in their home and hosted the likes …
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Happy Hour of Horrors: Corpse Reviver
The next time you’re trying to think of something clever and creative to order at the bar, put down the Merlot and order up one of these. The Corpse Reviver gets its name from the shock it will have on your system within a few minutes of downing it. (I recommend you down it). Serve: …
In Praise of Vampires: Living Vamps FAQ
In Praise of Vampires Although some of my exes may disagree, I am not (at least not last I checked) a vampire. However, I do identify with much of what the current living vampire community represents. And am, of course, quite interested in vampire lore, mythology and culture, pop and otherwise. After all, I wrote …
Sabine Baring Gould, Father of Werewolf Lit?
Sabine Baring-Gould was an eclectic man. Born in England in 1834, he is best known for the hymns he composed, among them the infamous “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” He was married for nearly 50 years and fathered 15 children. He was a collector of stories and folk songs as well as an accomplished novelist, and was …
Leaping Leprechauns: A Bit of Lore
Leprechauns are also known by more than pots of gold in the Fairy Kingdom. The leprechaun can be identified by the sound of his knocking or tap-tap-tapping upon his little shoe bench, as they are cobblers and the sound is that of their tiny hammers making elfin shoes. Fairies prize shoes and fine clothes far …
The Hopskinville Goblins
Not all goblins are from a different century. Case in point, The Hopskinville Goblins: In 1955, eleven members of two families living in a rural farmhouse between Kelly and Hopskinville, Kentucky reported numerous encounters with unidentifiable creatures. In addition to lights and odd noises heard by witnesses nearby, the families claimed that they were terrorized …
The Occult Power of Goats
Do you believe in the occult intellectual power of goats? An American journalist, born in the 1830s, William Wirt Sikes did. Or at least he believed it was necessary to record this belief along with other fascinating “old ways” of the Welsh people as he traveled there as consulate, and never left. Many of us have an …