| PARANORMAL CLASSICS BY MICHAEL WINKLE
A collection of the Weird, the Strange, The Unexplained & the Haunted from the Annals of the Supernatural in America & Beyond!
|  | The Accidental Ape
Category: Telepathy; thought-form From: Sidgwick, et al., pp. 50-53 Where: the Powles’ house in Rye, East Sussex, UK, and the house of the percipient’s friend “Miss B.”, three miles from Rye When: August 4, 1913 Who: Mr. L. C. Powles, his wife Isabel G. Powles, and James W. Sharpe How close to source: Mr. Powles, his wife, and the friend, Miss M. B. (name on file with the SPR) all sent in letters describing the incident Phenomena: On this day in 1913, Miss B. invited the Powles over to meet James Sharpe, who apparently had some reputation for seeing visions or “auras”. Unfortunately, Mrs. Powles felt too ill to travel, so Mr. Powles rode off alone. Mr. Powles himself had only recently recovered from pneumonia, however, and the wind that day was unusually strong and cold for August. Isabel Powles worried about him, so she started reading the latest issue of The Strand Magazine to occupy her mind. She became engrossed in what she described as “a very horrible story of a man disguised as a gorilla who came behind his enemy and broke his neck with his powerful hands.” “I have always had a great horror of gorillas from childhood, and far-fetched as it was, I was made very nervous and oppressed by the story,” Mrs. Powles continued. At Miss B.’s house, meanwhile, tea-time arrived, and the conversation touched upon psychical matters. Mr. Powles asked Sharpe about the “auras” he saw around people, and whether he saw one around him (Powles). At first Sharpe claimed to see nothing, but later he said, ominously, “You asked me to tell you; I do now see something.” Sharpe saw two shapes lurking near Powles. One was a young woman whose description fit well with Mrs. Powles’ appearance. The other, however, was a “dark, non-human, creature behind me with his knotted hands on my shoulder[s].” [Sidgwick, p.53] The woman was trying to “avert this monster’s apparently evil intent.” Sharpe believed the creature to be a “health-warning”, a symbol of approaching illness. Mr. Powles returned home that afternoon to hear his wife speak of the strange story she had read and of the “nervous state” it left her in. Their conclusion was that Mr. Sharpe had not only “picked up” Mrs. Powles appearance but that of the fictional murderer she had become fixated on. Oddities: It is rather creepy that Sharpe did not say the woman thought about a hairy creature, but saw it with its paws on Mr. Powles’ shoulders, as killer and victim were described in the story. Ending: Mr. Powles did not fall ill at any time before writing his account for the Society for Psychical Research (three years later). Rather than a symbolic health-warning, the “gorilla strangler” was a personification of what preyed on Mrs. Powles’ imagination. Legend: Mr. Sharpe, from what little is mentioned of him, did not normally have such odd visions, nor did the Powles ordinarily undergo psychic readings. The implication is that the juxtaposition of the psychic reading with Mrs. Powles’ story reading created a unique telepathic entity. Explanation: This might have been a forgettable incident of parlor-magic had Mrs. Powles’ thoughts not been objectified in a form visible to Mr. Sharpe. The concept of a “tulpa” – an entity formed of pure thought – became popularized by the lady explorer Alexandra David-Neel in her 1932 book, Magic and Mystery in Tibet. A “tulpa”, however, supposedly takes months to create and shape, while the “gorilla strangler” sprang whole from a single psychic observation. Comments: Paranormal investigators Janet and Colin Bord list hundreds of reports of unknown creatures in their book Alien Animals. After concluding that many reported creatures seemed too phantasmal or fantastic to be physical animals, they tackle the problem of what they could be. One possibility “is the idea that the human mind is, by its power of ‘image making,’ capable of creating a physical being which can then exist as an independent creature.” [Bord, p. 191] People might expect to see, or hope to see, or imagine they see a monster, like the hair-covered, semi-human creatures the Bords call BHMs (Big Hairy Monsters). They continue: “So are they solely hallucinatory, taking shape from the archetypal monster image? They might sometimes originate in this way, but then take on an independent existence, feeding by vampirism on whatever energy source is available.” [p. 192] Even if there is some truth to the Bords’ theories, I am still fascinated by the part chance played in this account. No one expected to see a “monster”. No one tried to create a “tulpa”. The gorilla image came about only because 1) Mrs. Powles happened to read that specific story in that specific magazine on that specific day, 2) it had an exceptionally upsetting effect on her, and 3) Mr. Sharpe happened at that time to examine Mr. Powles’ “aura”. It was truly an accidental ape. It is doubly ironic that it took on a visible existence, since even in Mrs. Powles’ work of fiction there was no real ape. Perhaps if the Powles had told and re-told the story and others dwelt on the idea of the phantasmal gorilla, it might have taken on a life of its own . . . and perhaps something like this has happened elsewhere, because there are legends in Britain of such things as the Hairy Hands of Dartmoor, the Man-Monkey of Staffordshire, and the Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui. Bord, Janet and Colin. Alien Animals (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1981). Sidgwick, Eleanor Mildred, et. al. Phantasms of the Living (New Hyde Park, NY: University Books, 1962 [1886]).  June 25: Night at the Brumder Mansion -- Milwaukee, Wisconsin -- Private ghost hunt at the most haunted house in Milwaukee! SOLD OUT!
June 25: Night at the Villisca Ax Murder House -- Villisca, Iowa -- Private all-night ghost hunt at the site of an unsolved mass murder and one of the most haunted houses in America -- SOLD OUT! July 2: Night at the Avon Theater --Decatur, Illinois -- For the first time, we are opening the Avon Theater for ghost hunts! Join us for this rare, private event! Reservations! ONLY 4 SPOTS LEFT! July 2: Night at Black Moon Manor -- Greenfield, Indiana -- Join us for another chilling night at one of the most mysterious and haunting houses in Indiana! Reservations! ONLY 4 SPOTS LEFT! July 9: Haunted Overnight at the Mansfield Reformatory -- Mansfield, Ohio -- Our second overnight ghost hunt of the year at one of America's most haunted prisons! SOLD OUT!
July 15: Join Author Taylor on Chicago's Original Resurrection Mary Tour and Go in Search of the City's Most Famous Ghost! Join Troy Taylor & Weird Chicago on Chicago's infamous Archer Avenue as we hunt for the history of this haunted region and discover the true idenity of Chicago's most famous ghost, Resurrection Mary! This is a night not to be missed as the true story of "Mary" is revealed! Limited Spots Available -- See the July schedule! Reservations! July 16: Night at Rolling Hills Asylum -- East Bethany, New York -- Join us for a private overnight at this haunted insane asylum in upstate New York! Reservations! ONLLY 4 SPOTS LEFT! July 16: Night at the Old Funeral Home -- Jacksonville, Illinois -- Join us for another private ghost hunt at one is becoming one of our most popular locations! Reservations! July 23: Night at the Haunted Opry -- Winchester, Illinois -- Join us as we return to this haunted country music venue in rural Illinois -- where the ghosts from the past refuse to rest! Reservations! AUGUST 2011 August 5-6, 2011: Bell Witch Adventure & History & Hauntings Weekend ---Adams, Tennessee -- Join us for a Full weekend of Canoe Trips, Historical Presentations & After-Dark Tours of the Bell Witch Cave and Property in Tennessee! LImited spots remain for both the canoe trip and historical weekend! Reservations! August 13: Night at the Brumder Mansion-- Milwaukee, Wisconsin --- Join us for a private ghost hunt at "Milwaukee's Most Haunted House" and discover the history and hauntings of the famed Brumder Mansion! Reservations! August 14: Night at the Lemp Mansion -- St. Louis, Missouri -- Join us at one of the most haunted houses in America! SOLD OUT! August 20: Night at the Haunted Rectory -- Jacksonville, Illinois --- Join us for another private ghost hunt at the mysterious Our Savior Rectory -- one of Illinois' most haunted sites! Reservations! August 27: Night at the Eldred House -- Eldred, Illinois --- Join us for a summer time ghost hunting event at one of our most popular -- and haunted -- locations, the infamous Eldred House! Reservations! See even more ghostly events -- including ghost hunts for September thru November -- at the American Hauntings Tours website!
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