Son of The Dragon by Victor T.Foia

 This is historical fiction about the childhood of Vlad Dracula .

The story starts off with a young boy named Theodore who has dreams of the Dragons son taking over and redeeming Wallachia. He is presented to church officials and no utility but his prophecies do not bring them much pleasure. He gets royally bad treatment.

Fast forward several years and you have Vlad and his brother Marcus coming of age. Boys turn to men following a ritual hunting where they are supposed to bring down a boar. Marcus kills his boar but Vlad has to get his own to kill. Him and his father go out hunting and they come across a ruined burned out town and church . It is something Dracul, Vlads father failed to mention. There is also i an accursed forest where bandits hide and maraud merchant.

While Vlad is out hunting a Bison with Dracul his father he finds out a horrible truth about his grandmother who became a nun at a monastery after something horrible had happened to her. It is also here that Vlad learns the truth about a prophecy involving him.

After the hunting trip Dracul takes Marcus and Vlad to Hungary in order to participate in a tournament. Hungary is not to be trusted. Hunyadi is a military governor and ruler of Transylvania . A real power broker. He is setting up for a crusade against the Turks. But he has designs on Wallachia.

Vlad wants to join the crusade but has to prove his worth by killing a Turk. Just so happens that 4 Akincis are doing a slave raid. Vlad is daring and takes on the Turks. His next visit is to the Sultan. While the book may not be factual it is historical fiction that may have happened.

Phoenician Kabbalah

 Be prepared for a different history of the Kaballah . It is also one that I find interesting even if I do not believe it entirely. According to this work the Kaballah was created by the Canaanite Phoenicians. The person who wrote the Kabbalah or brought the tradition to mankind as Enoch. It was a mystery school that was founded before events in the Bible took place. It was shortly after the flood.

Enoch was given a tradition and he set off to Mount Hermon to set up a 9 chamber temple. From their the Phoenicians would spread their word. This differs from the standard Judaic view. The Phoenicians or the sect of Asayas believe in one god but did not have the same laws the Israelites did. The Israelite version of god seems to want more animal sacrifices while the Phoenician version wants agricultural sacrifice.

The book also presents an alternate way of looking at history. Since the Bible does not have much archaeological proof behind it, there are many who think that it is inaccurate. The belief here is that the Kingdoms of Judea and Israel were not in existence and the the mythology only came to life during the Babylonian exile. The nation of Judea or Israel was an invention of Persian and Babylonian priesthood when they did this they changed their Kaballah and even the god names.

The Phoenicians called their high god El, which was adapted by the Hebrew Israelites. THe Hebrew god was called Yahweh who was a minor water god or a Kenite god. Yahweh is connected to Enki or Ea of the Sumerian pantheons. Yahweh worked with water to save the Israelites.

He was also the god that created the world that trapped human souls. It is our objective to break free of this material. Prison. There were early sects of Christianity who believed that the God of the Old Testament is not the same as the god of the New Testamanet . The Old Testament god was evil and created this world.

The book draws heavily to from Freemasonry, Theosophy and Helena Blavatsky. THe author believes that Enoch along with the great white brotherhood was tasked with enlightening people to break away from the material prison.

THe book also relies upon Unverified Personal Gnosis. The author meditates on the Sphirote and the Phoenicians letters and he conveys the meaning of his mediations.

Jewish theology and history mesh with Canaanite/ Phoenician theology and history. Abraham was the first Jew yet Noah and Enoch are credited with opening institutes of spiritual learning by Jews no less. Paleo Hebrew letters are identical to Canaanite letters. Many of the God names come from Canaanite lexography. Hiram Abiff helped Solomon build his temple. Northern Israel was strongly influenced by Phoenician architecture. This book proves to be an interesting read

Werewolf Stories from All Over the World

 The wolf is liminal figure bordering between light and shadow. On the one hand they are fierce predators who can be hazardous to those wandering about. The wolf also keeps the natural balance and puts a check on other animal populations often feeding on the aged, dying and the sick.

The werewolf is another character based on the wolf but even more terrifying. Rumors of large wolves ravaging livestock and people abound in. European folklore all across the the continent of Europe. There are many ways to transform into a werewolf. There are different were creatures in different countries.

The African nations have wear hyenas and wild cats. In China and Japan you have were tigers. Some theories behind what is called lycanthropy exist. Some think it is a delusion. Someone mentally ill or,deluded and goes around acting like a wolf. There are other who believe that during trance states the souls leaves the body and can assume an animal form.  There are people who believed that they have seen others transform fully into wolves.

How does one transform into a werewolf. For starts let us throw out the full moon motif. Some of the ways people transform is by being cursed by a witch to assume the animal form,sometimes for periods up to 7 years. Others embrace this change by donning a wolf skin or a pelt of a wolf and that will transform them into a wolf. Some believe that a sorcerer has several animal shapes at their disposable.

In certain European countries werewolves are synonymous with witches. Witches too can shapeshift into different animal forms and travel through the night. In Norse mythology part of the soul is an animal soul and it has different forms. People being transformed into wolves or other animals are found all over the world.

Yet not all werewolves are bad some like the benadanti help the people by retrieving grain from Hell so the people can consume it. Bands of wolf warriors used to roam the forests of Europe dedicated to Odin they wore wolf skins and acted a lot like wolves and legend has it they turned to wolves.

The book yields over many stories from folklore illustrating the points above . However , deeper analysis would have been nice.

Urban Faeries

 Kay lives a very unstable life. Her mother Ellen is in a rock band that plays in low level bar and she gets waisted almost every night. Things take a sudden turn when Ellen’s boyfriend Lloyd gets violent. He is hauled off and the two move back with Ellen’s mother.

Back in the old town where she grew up she reunites with old friends, both faerie and human. Hanging with her human friends she joins a party and summons a plastic horse to life. A boy named Kenny sees it all and puts the moves on her. Getting away and lost in the woods. In the woods she comes across Royben . An injured faerie knight from the unseelie court. He also killed one of her faerie friends. No human believes her when tells them about faeries.

After helping Royben she hooks up with Cornelius and she explains her adventure. He looks up all the faerie lore. But something happens, she is loosing her glamour and finds out she is a Fae changeling. They traipse around the unseelie court. After a narrow escape the adventure begins. Although a human is a tithe given as a sacrifice to the unseelie court for seven years of freedom, why is she a pixie given over as a sacrifice.

And so the adventure begins. Friends struggle to release her and then later on she must rescue her friends from the Unseelie court. As the adventure continues with forays into the seelie court, it is learned that there was a complicated conspiracy ignited by the Queen of the Seelie court. THe ending has the iron bite of irony. Get ready for some plot twists

Macht Myrchrana : Lost Version of Dracula

 Everyone is familiar with the tale of Dracula penned by Bram Stoker. Jonathan Harper works for a law firm that assists the sale of Carfax to Count Dracula. Harker goes to castle Dracula only to become the vampire prisoner. He escapes as Dracula leaves for Britain.. In Britain after killing the entire crew of the Demeter, he commences to kill Lucy, Mina Harkers best friend and he tried to turn Mina as well. Van Helsing is dispatched from Amsterdam and a team of people have a final showdown with the count in his own castle.

To write his tale Bram had to jump through lots of hoops and was forced to revise and edit his work. Whole entire sections were pulled from Stoker original story. Part of it ened up in the tale “Dracula’s Guest” This story while bearing many similarity also has lots of differences.

For one the names are different. Jonathan is called Thomas and his fiancé is now now Wilma. As Harker is imprisoned in the castle he is tormented by the counts cousin. In the original it was three vampire ladies that tormented Harker. The count himself is somewhat different as well. Taking some elements from the historical personage this rendition . This story cues into his warrior past and genetically links him to Attila the Hun. While Harker is imprisoned in the castle he learned more about Dracula’s history and the past of his family. When exploring the castle in an attempt to find a way out he reaches and underground vault where in he witnesses a bizarre ritual when young women were murdered and fed to ape like vampires.

The count is loaded with gold and he is well connected to powerful people across the globe who he corresponds with. He has a plan of sorts for world domination. He has a library filled with occult books.

Minus in this book is also Renfield, the lunatic in the original. The final showdown happens in Carfax. They never return to Transylvania.

This is considered the Icelandic Version. Some believe it is based on a Swiss or a Swedish version. Some may wonder how many of these differences and nuances come from the editors contribution and what from Stoker or was there collaboration.?

A different telling and in no way is the original Impaler being spoken of. This is the fictitious Dracula.

The House on 454 Angel Street

 

     

H.P. Lovecraft is the father or founder of weird fiction . Weird fiction is a category in and of itself that focuses on strange things that happen to people. Born in Providence , Rhode Island in 1890 HP lead a real sheltered life.

Born into wealth, thanks to his grandfather Whipple Philips, Howard lived most of his life on 454 Angel Street. When he was two years old his father was committed to a sanatorium. He was sick with syphalis . After this he would be raised by his aunts and grandfather. H.P. was very sheltered by his family , often having little contact with the neighborhood kids. In his own little world he absorbed the mythologies of different cultures and even worshipped some of their gods for fun. He had family that doted on him excessively.

This caused H.P. to have a week constitution and he missed lots of school as a result. As a teenager he was often struck with nerves . He did not graduate high school due to so many abscences. While in high school he managed to run his own magazine which focused on science and astronomy. 

Later in his career he would focus on amateur work. Later on he would publish in Weird Tales. He had difficulty publishing later on. Basically the man and his life in a nutshell. H.P. was an atheist who had no beLife in god. He believed the Anglo Saxon culture to be superior and he shunned inter ethic marriage. He looked down on anyone who was not white. The book was overly long and Burdened with excessive details that made for slow reading . Book should have been condensed to three to four hundred pages.

Spaceships and Skinealkers in Utah

 In recent years much light has been shed on UFO ‘s and paranormal activity. Strange animals that resemble,Dog men or wolves walking upright are starting to gain more attention and the reports of their sighting are becoming more numerous and they reports are viewed as more credible. Now even the government is publicly taking these issues seriously in public forum.

Part of the reason for this change happened between thee years of 2008-2010. The American government set up AWASS an organization designed to study these phenomena along with the help of Mr. Bigelo the owner of Bigelo Aeronaughtics. Senator Reed was essential in getting the funding set up and the approval for the agency. It was staffed by scientists, military personnel , FBI and intelligence agents. They took a hard look at the UFO phenomenon and paranormal occurrences . Senator Reid felt that studying these UPA’s as the author calls them was essential to American security, Bigelow was interested in the UAP’s along with the psychic abilities that people tended to have when there was an encounter.

The base of operation was on what is called Skinwalker Ranch. The ranch is located in Utah. It is well known for UFO activity and the observance of strange beings. People who have visited there have been effected by the high levels of radiation, presence of weird animals and presences. Various people that have gone there experience floating orbs, sudden temperature changes, fear of an invisible presence and shadow people. Theses experiences followed them home and they would experiment visions of orbs and animals and like a contagion it spread to the other family members as well.

Medical issues have also arisen the orbs off light when they touch people can get them sick. Symptoms of this sickness could include losing hair, strange bumps and problems with glandular secretion. This happened to someone who worked on Skinwalker ranch as part of the assignment an it happened to someone driving home in Bend Oregon when an orb of light penetrated their chest. Visitors to Skin Ranch have often been attacked by shadow people in their sleep with marks on their body to show for it. One person who viewed a UFO was shot by a beam of light that had serious medical effects.

For two years they gathered information. It was not without obstacle . Other agencies might have been trying to sabotage their work. Individuals who have sighted UFO’s were visited by men in black and told too keep quiet about what they have seen.

After two years the program folded but people took this stuff more seriously. Article were published about AWAASS but got it mistaken with another government agency called AATIP. No one knows if these alien ships are a threat or are here for more noble purposes. Guess only time will tell.