"The preternatural or praeternatural is that which appears outside or beside (Latin præter) the natural. It is "suspended between the mundane and the miraculous".
In theology, the term is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery, often attributed to witchcraft or demons, from the purely divine power of the genuinely supernatural to violate the laws of nature. In the early modern period,
the term was used by scientists to refer to abnormalities and strange
phenomena of various kinds that seemed to depart from the norms of
nature."
"With the emergence of early modern science, the concept of the
preternatural increasingly came to be used to refer to strange or
abnormal phenomena that seemed to violate the normal working of nature,
but which were not associated with magic and witchcraft. This was a
development of the idea that preternatural phenomena were fake miracles.
As Daston puts it, "To simplify the historical sequence somewhat:
first, preternatural phenomena were demonized and thereby incidentally
naturalized; then the demons were deleted, leaving only the natural
causes." The use of the term was especially common in medicine, for example in John Brown's A Compleat Treatise of Preternatural Tumours (1678), or William Smellie's A Collection of Preternatural Cases and Observations in Midwifery (1754).
In the 19th century the term was appropriated in anthropology to
refer to folk beliefs about fairies, trolls and other such creatures
which were not thought of as demonic, but which were perceived to affect
the natural world in unpredictable ways"
The Fomorians (Old Irish: Fomoire, Modern Irish: Fomhóraigh) are a supernatural race in Irish mythology.
They are often portrayed as hostile and monstrous beings who come from
the sea or underground. Later, they were portrayed as giants and sea
raiders. They are enemies of Ireland's first settlers and opponents of the Tuatha Dé Danann,
the other supernatural race in Irish mythology. However, their
relationship with the Tuath Dé is complex and some of their members
intermarry and have children. The Fomorians have thus been likened to
the jötnar of Norse mythology.
The Fomorians seem to have been gods who represent the harmful or
destructive powers of nature; personifications of chaos, darkness,
death, blight and drought. The Tuath Dé, in contrast, seem to represent the gods of growth and civilization.
The etymology of the name is debated. The first part is now generally agreed to be the Old Irish fo,
meaning under, below, lower, beneath, nether, etc. The meaning of the
second part is unclear. One suggestion is that it comes from the Old
Irish mur (sea), and that the name thus means something like "the undersea ones". This was the interpretation offered by some medieval Irish writers. Another suggestion is that it comes from mór
(great/big) and means something like "the great under(world) ones",
"the under(world) giants" or "the nether giants". A third suggestion,
which has more support among scholars, is that it comes from a
hypothetical Old Irish term for a demon or phantom, found in the name of
The Morrígan and cognate with the archaic English word "mare" (which survives in "nightmare"). The name would thus mean something like "under(world) demons" or "nether demons". Building on this, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt
interprets the name as meaning "inferior" or "latent demons", saying
the Fomorians are "like the powers of chaos, ever latent and hostile to
cosmic order".
There are several advantages to this interpretation of the underworld. Firstly, there is strong
evidence suggesting that a dry and habitable, below-sea-level basin did
exist contemporaneously with behaviorally modern man , namely the
Caribbean. Secondly, the Caribbean is exactly where the Ancient Greeks
placed the underworld – somewhere in the remote west, across the
Atlantic Ocean, for Ulysses was said to have “reached the far confines
of Oceanus,” or the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, in his odyssey to
the underworld. Thirdly, I shall demonstrate that an underworld that is a
below-sea-level basin instead of an underground realm naturally and
elegantly accounts for the transformation of Hades from a land of the
living to the land of the dead. Finally, the Caribbean Basin contains
within it a trench that strongly resembles a certain primordial abyss
that features prominently in many Greek myths.
In the Odyssey, a myth dating back to the Heroic Age of Greece,
Homer portrays the underworld as a gloomy realm of deceased spirits and
shades. However, in myths that depict events taking place in the
distant past, Hades is described as an abode of the living. For example,
in the myth of the Titanomachy, or the war between the Titans and the
Olympians, Zeus, son of Kronus, rebelled against his father and the
Titans, the elder race of Gods, and emerged victorious in a
ten-year-long war. Upon his victory, Zeus imprisoned the defeated Titans
in Tartarus. There is no mention of spirits, shades, and ghosts in this
version of Hades, and if Hesiod had called Hades and Tartarus by
another name, one would hardly suspect that the setting of this war
between the Titans and the Olympians was in any way a spiritual realm.
Could it be that this transformation of Hades from a realm of the living
to the realm of the dead in mythology and literature corresponds to a
very real change in the physical realm?
If Hades, or the Greek underworld and the Caribbean Basin were one and
the same, this dramatic shift in the way Hades is depicted finds a
natural explanation – it was a land of the living before the cataclysm
that formed the Caribbean Sea and became the land of the dead afterward.
Interpreted in this way, Hades was originally a real and physical place
that suffered a terrible cataclysm in which innumerable souls actually
met their demise. Over time, with the passage of generations, the true
nature of Hades as the resting place of the souls that perished in this
cataclysm was forgotten, and became corrupted into the final resting
place of all souls.
Could it be that Hades was not only transformed from an abode of the
living to the abode of the dead by a terrible cataclysm, but that Hades
was also, prior to the cataclysm, a veritable paradise? That is, might
Heaven have become Hell? The Ancient Greeks and Phoenicians
believed that the Gardens of the Hesperides, like Hades, was also
located in the remote West. Strangely enough, the garden also closely
resembles the geography of the Caribbean Basin. Quoting Ignatius
Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World :
“According to the traditions of the Phoenicians, the
Gardens of the Hesperides were in the remote west…The Greek mythology,
in speaking of the Garden of the Hesperides, tells us that ‘the outer edge of the garden was slightly raised, so that the water might not run in and overflow the land.’”
There were at least five entire continents on Earth in primeval times called Appala-
chia, Tyrhennia, Beringia, Fennoscandia, and Oceania. Our present continents are
remnants of these. Beneath them were literally thousands of miles of subterranean pas-
sages, caverns, and refuges. Some of these remain today and experts know that many
of them were not made naturally. Many of our quaint myths and tales, like those of
Dwarves, Trolls, Elves, the “Little People” and the Scandinavian “King Under the
Mountain,” for example, concern these subterranean worlds. Almost all the native
American Indian tribes speak of their original residence beneath the surface of the
Earth.
Webbing of the digits, or syndactyly, is not caused by the fingers
sticking together in the womb; rather, it is caused by failure, during
the sixth to eighth weeks of intrauterine life, of the usual
longitudinal interdigital necrosis that normally separates the fingers.
This “webbing” is the most common abnormality of the newborn hand. It
happens either as an isolated anomaly or as part of a syndrome. When it
occurs alone it is always inherited as an autosomal-dominant disorder.
Five types of syndactyly are generally recognize
The skulls were reportedly discovered by a team of explorers led by
scientist Vladimir Melikov in a cave on Mount Bolshoi Tjach, Russia.
Despite
being found two years ago, news of it has only gone global after a
separate find in woods nearby of a Nazi briefcase and German full-colour
map of the Adygea region made in 1941.
According to reports the
briefcase, picked up by a local hermit, had the emblem of the Ahnenerbe -
the most secretive Nazi institute founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935
to find evidence that the Aryan race had once ruled the entire globe.
But
it soon branched into occultism, paranormal research, pseudoscience and
the study of UFOs and weapons development due to Himmler’s obsession
with such topics.
Cutaneous horns (cornu cutaneum) are uncommon lesions consisting
of keratotic material resembling that of an animal horn. Cutaneous horn
may arise from a wide range of the epidermal lesions, which may be
benign, premalignant or malignant.
The
"Sayre Skull" was a type discovered in the 1880s in a small borough of
Pennsylvania. It was found, interestingly, in a burial mound. When
uncovered, there were found to be 68 skeletons of giant people around 7
feet tall and over and horned skulls, the horns being about 2 inches
above the eyebrows. It was estimated they were buried around 1200 AD.
Supposedly,
these were not the only horned giants found around America, reports
come from El Paso and Wellsville, New York. Of course, like many
artifacts, after supposedly being sent to a museum, they went missing.
This (below) is Newpaper Rock in Utah. The larger figures have antlers - the smaller do not. The larger footprints have 6 toes
It's
interesting that they supposedly found several of the horned ones
within the "tribe" and so this is not necessarily some kind of foreign
race, but a variant that was among them, perhaps from breeding, or
perhaps from the fact that they were described in legends as being tall
fair people living outdoors and perhaps having a propensity to get these
horns from cutaneous formations.
"Bones from a Cheddar Gorge cave show that cannibalism helped Britain's earliest settlers survive the ice age
Scientists have identified the first humans to recolonise Britain
after the last ice age. The country was taken over in a couple of years
by individuals who practised cannibalism, they say - a discovery that
revolutionises our understanding of the peopling of Britain and the
manner in which men and women reached these shores.
Research has shown that tribes of hunter-gatherers moved into Britain
from Spain and France with extraordinary rapidity when global warming
brought an end to the ice age 14,700 years ago and settled in a cavern –
known as Gough's Cave – in the Cheddar Gorge in what is now Somerset.
From the bones they left behind, scientists have also discovered
these people were using sophisticated butchering techniques to strip
flesh from the bones of men, women and children.
"These people were processing the flesh of humans with exactly the
same expertise that they used to process the flesh of animals," said
Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. "They stripped every bit of food they could get from those bones.""
"Pliny the Elder, Natural History 6. 197 (trans. Rackham) (Roman encyclopedia C1st A.D.) :
"Rising from the sea at the middle of the coast [of the Atlantic coast
of Aithiopia (Africa)] is a mountain of great height which glows with
eternal fires--its Greek name is the Chariot of the Gods; and four days'
voyage from it is the cape called the Horn of the West, on the confine
of Africa, adjacent to the Western Aethiopes [black Africans]. Some
authorities also report hills of moderate height in this region, clad
with agreeable shady thickets and belonging to Aegipanes and Satyri
(Satyrs).""
"THE SATYROS LIBYS and AIGIPAN LIBYS were two breeds of satyr- and
Pan-like wild-men or monkeys which inhabited the Atlas Mountains of
north-west Africa.
They were related to the Satyroi Nesioi and the Ethiopian Satyr encountered by the philosopher Apollonios of Tyana."
Pliny the Elder, Natural History - Latin Encyclopedia C1st A.D.
"Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 23. 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :
"Wishing to know better than most people who the Satyroi (Satyrs) are I
have inquired from many about this very point. Euphemos the Karian
(Carian) said that on a voyage to Italia (Italy) he was driven out of
his course by winds and was carried into the outer sea, beyond the
course of seamen. He affirmed that there were many uninhabited islands,
while in others lived wild men. The sailors did not wish to put in at
the latter, because, having put in before, they had some experience of
the inhabitants, but on this occasion they had no choice in the matter.
The islands were called Satyrides by the sailors, and the inhabitants
were red haired, and had upon their flanks tails not much smaller than
those of horses. As soon as they caught sight of their visitors, they
ran down to the ship without uttering a cry and assaulted the women in
the ship. At last the sailors in fear cast a foreign woman on to the
island. Her the Satyroi outraged not only in the usual way, but also in a
most shocking manner.""
Ixion married Dia, a daughter of Deioneus (or Eioneus) and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price,
so Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion
concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa.
When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and
wood. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's
primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently:
in the Greek Anthology (iii.12), among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas and Polymelos, who had slain his mother, Megara, the "great one".
Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this act of treachery and violation of xenia that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis).
Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and was shunned. By killing his
father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in
Greek mythology. That alone would warrant him a terrible punishment.
However, Zeus had pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera,
Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations.
Zeus found
out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which
became known as Nephele (from nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Imbros or Centauros, who mated with the Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion, Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaurs, who are called the Ixionidae from their descent.
Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel
that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar
wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus. Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop for a while.
A nymph (Greek: νύμφη nýmphē,Ancient:[nýmpʰɛː]Modern:[nífi]) in Greek mythology is a supernatural being associated with many other minor female deities that are often associated with the air, seas, woods, or water, or particular locations or landforms. Nymphs have a synonym in Manipuri language as Helloi, with much similar qualities. Different from Greek goddesses,
nymphs are more generally regarded as divine spirits who animate or
maintain Nature (natural forces reified and considered as a sentient
being)
CENTAURI (Kentauroi), that is, the bullkillers, are according to the
earliest accounts a race of men who inhabited the mountains and forests
of Thessaly. They are described as leading a rude and savage life,
occasionally carrying off the women of their neighbours, as covered with
hair and ranging over their mountains like animals. But they were not
altogether unacquainted with the useful arts, as in the case of Cheiron.
(Hom. Il. i. 268, ii. 743, in which passages they are called phêres, that is, thêres, Od. xxi. 295, &c.; Hesiod. Scut. Herc.
104, &c.) Now, in these earliest accounts, the centaurs appear
merely as a sort of gigantic, savage, or animal-like beings; whereas, in
later writers, they are described as monsters (hippocentaurs), whose
bodies were partly human and partly those of horses. This strange
mixture of the human form with that of a horse is accounted for, in the
later traditions, by the history of their origin.
Others again relate, that the centaurs were the offspring of Ixion and
his mares; or that Zeus, metamorphosed into a horse, begot them by Dia,
the wife of Ixion. (Serv. ad Aen. viii. 293; Nonn. Dionys.
xvi. 240, xiv. 193.) From these accounts it appears, that the ancient
centaurs and the later hippocentaurs were two distinct classes of
beings, although the name of centaurs is applied to both by ancient as
well as modern writers.
Onocentaur, Der Naturen Bloeme manuscript c. 1350, National Library of the Netherlands
"Aelian, On Animals 17. 9 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
"There is a certain creature which they call an Onokentaura (Onocentaur,
Donkey-Centaur), and anybody who has seen one would never have doubted
that the race of Kentauroi (Centaurs) once existed . . . But this
creature of which my discourse set out to speak, I have heard described
as follows. Its face is like that of a man and is surrounded by thick
hair. Its neck below its face, and its chest are also those of a man,
but its teats are swelling and stand out on the breast; its shoulders,
arms, and forearms, its hands too, and chest down to the waist are also
those of a man. But its spine, ribs, belly and hind legs closely
resemble those of an ass; likewise its colour is ashen, although beneath
the flanks it inclines to white. The hands of this creature serve a
double purpose, for when speed is necessary they run in front of the
hind legs, and it can move quite as fast as other quadrapeds. Again, if
it needs to pluck something, or to put it down, or to seize and hold it
tight, what were feet become hands; it no longer walks but sits down.
The creature has a violent temper. At any rate if captured it will not
endure servitude and in its yearning for freedom declines all food and
dies of starvation.
This also is the account given by Pythagoras and attested by Krates
(Crates) of Pergamon in Mysia.""
Ballynoe stone circle, Ballynoe (near Downpatrick), County Down, Northern Ireland
This photo shows how the monuments are smack next to each other at the site.Co. Tyrone, Beaghmore A Stone Circle and Cairn
A portion of the Beltany Stone Circle, south of Raphoe, Ireland
The Bocan Stone Circle near Culdaff
"Carrigagulla" stone circle, is found to the north of the village of Ballinagree County Cork, Ireland
A stone circle next to the stone rows on the peatland at Corick
Drombeg stone circle, County Cork, Ireland
Drumskinny Stone Circle and
Alignment. The alignment of 24 stones extends south from the circle
which is 12.8m in diameter and originally had 39 stones.
“And
injustice increased over the earth and all flesh corrupted
its way, from men to animals and to beasts and to bird
and to all that walks upon the earth; all corrupted their ways
and their orders and began to devour each other, and unrighteousness
increased over the earth, ..”
Book of Jasher, Chapter 4
“And the sons of men
in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the
beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught
themixture of animals of one species with the other, in order
therewith to provoke the Lord.”
Again, in Spain, researchers from the Murcia Catholic University
(UCAM) and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (SIBS) in the US
(founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine) “ genetically modified monkey embryos” and have successfully created a HUMAN-MONKEY embryo.
A report in RT
says the team of scientists, led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa, relocated to
China to conduct the experiment because it was “in violation of Spanish
law”. These modern Dr. Frankensteins tinkered with the very building
blocks of organic life and firstly they “deactivated specific genes used in the formation of organs” before injecting “ human stem cells into the embryo”.
If left to evolve ‘naturally’ the embryo would quickly have grown into a monkey with human cells ;
but adhering to ‘ethical standards’ the plug was pulled on the whole
process long before the embryo began developing a central nervous system . The Spanish daily El Pais quoted Estrella Núñez, who collaborated on the project, as saying “the results are very promising… a necessary first step towards developing human organs in animals that could be used in transplants”.
In 2017 the same team that have now produced a human-monkey embryo attempted to brew-up a “ human and pig chimera ”
and when this experiment failed they subsequently succeeded in creating
hybrid chimeras between a rat and a mouse. An example of an answer as
to ‘why’ scientists are making human-monkey chimera’s might be Dr. Douglas Munoz
of Queen’s University’s breakthrough study on the onset of Alzheimer’s
disease in humans, derived from data gathered by injecting monkeys with
proteins.
Tengu (Japanese: 天狗, "heavenly dog") are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion. They are considered a type of yōkai (supernatural beings) or Shintokami (gods). Although they take their name from a dog-like Chinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu
were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as
an unnaturally long nose, which today is widely considered the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination.
Buddhism long held that the tengu were disruptive demons and harbingers
of war. Their image gradually softened, however, into one of
protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests. Tengu are associated with the ascetic practice of Shugendō, and they are usually depicted in the garb of its followers, the yamabushi.
The tengu in art appears in a variety of shapes. It usually falls somewhere between a large, monstrous bird and a wholly anthropomorphized being, often with a red face or an unusually large or long nose. Early depictions of tengu show them as kite-like beings who can take a human-like form, often retaining avian wings, head or beak. The tengu's long nose seems to have been conceived in the 14th century, likely as a humanization of the original bird's bill.[1] This feature allies them with the Sarutahiko Ōkami, who is described in the 720 CE text the Nihon Shoki with a similar nose measuring seven hand-spans in length.[2] In village festivals, the two figures are often portrayed with identical red phallic-nosed mask designs.[3]
Some of the earliest representations of tengu appear in Japanese picture scrolls, such as the Tenguzōshi Emaki (天狗草子絵巻), painted c. 1296, which parodies high-ranking priests by endowing them the hawk-like beaks of tengu demons.
The term tengu and the characters used to write it are borrowed from the name of a fierce demon from Chinese folklore called tiāngoǔ. Chinese literature assigns this creature a variety of descriptions, but most often it is a fierce and anthropophagous
canine monster that resembles a shooting star or comet. It makes a
noise like thunder and brings war wherever it falls. One account from
the Shù Yì Jì (述異記, "A Collection of Bizarre Stories"), written in 1791, describes a dog-like tiāngoǔ with a sharp beak and an upright posture, but usually tiāngoǔ bear little resemblance to their Japanese counterparts.[8]
The 23rd chapter of the Nihon Shoki, written in 720, is generally held to contain the first recorded mention of tengu
in Japan. In this account a large shooting star appears and is
identified by a Buddhist priest as a "heavenly dog", and much like the tiāngoǔ of China, the star precedes a military uprising. Although the Chinese characters for tengu are used in the text, accompanying phonetic furigana characters give the reading as amatsukitsune (heavenly fox). M. W. de Visser speculated that the early Japanese tengu may represent a conglomeration of two Chinese spirits: the tiāngoǔ and the fox spirits called huli jing.[9]
How the tengu was transformed from a dog-meteor into a bird-man is not clear. Some Japanese scholars have supported the theory that the tengu's image derives from that of the Hindu eagle deity Garuda, who was pluralized in Buddhist scripture as one of the major races of non-human beings. Like the tengu, the garuda are often portrayed in a human-like form with wings and a bird's beak. The name tengu seems to be written in place of that of the garuda in a Japanese sutra called the Emmyō Jizō-kyō (延命地蔵経), but this was likely written in the Edo period, long after the tengu's image was established. At least one early story in the Konjaku Monogatari describes a tengu carrying off a dragon, which is reminiscent of the garuda's feud with the nāga serpents. In other respects, however, the tengu's original behavior differs markedly from that of the garuda, which is generally friendly towards Buddhism. De Visser has speculated that the tengu may be descended from an ancient Shinto bird-demon which was syncretized with both the garuda and the tiāngoǔ when Buddhism arrived in Japan. However, he found little evidence to support this idea.
The Konjaku Monogatarishū, a collection of stories published in the late Heian period, contains some of the earliest tales of tengu, already characterized as they would be for centuries to come. These tengu are the troublesome opponents of Buddhism, who mislead the pious with false images of the Buddha
During the 14th century, the tengu began to trouble the world outside of the Buddhist clergy, and like their ominous ancestors the tiāngǒu, the tengu became creatures associated with war. Legends eventually ascribed to them great knowledge in the art of skilled combat.
This reputation seems to have its origins in a legend surrounding the famous warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune. When Yoshitsune was a young boy going by the name of Ushiwaka-maru, his father, Yoshitomo, was assassinated by the Taira clan. Taira no Kiyomori, head of the Taira, allowed the child to survive on the grounds that he be exiled to the temple on Mount Kurama and become a monk. But one day in the Sōjō-ga-dani Valley, Ushiwaka encountered the mountain's tengu, Sōjōbō. This spirit taught the boy the art of swordsmanship so that he might bring vengeance on the Taira.
Originally the actions of this tengu were portrayed as
another attempt by demons to throw the world into chaos and war, but as
Yoshitsune's renown as a legendary warrior increased, his monstrous
teacher came to be depicted in a much more sympathetic and honorable
light. In one of the most famous renditions of the story, the Noh play Kurama Tengu, Ushiwaka is the only person from his temple who does not give up an outing in disgust at the sight of a strange yamabushi. Sōjōbō thus befriends the boy and teaches him out of sympathy for his plight.
Sōjōbō (僧正坊, lit. "high Buddhist priest") is the mythical king of the tengu, legendary creatures who inhabit the mountains and forests of Japan.
Sōjōbō is an ancient yamabushi (mountain hermit)
tengu with long, white hair and an unnaturally long nose. He carries a
fan made from seven feathers as a sign of his position at the top of
tengu society. He is extremely powerful, and one legend says he has the
strength of 1,000 normal tengu. Sōjōbō lives on Mount Kurama (north of Kyoto).
Sōjōbō is perhaps best known for teaching the warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (then known by his childhood name Ushiwaka-maru or Shanao) the arts of swordsmanship, tactics, and magic in the 12th century. In fact, the name "Sōjōbō" originates from Sōjōgatani, the valley at Mount Kurama near Kibune Shrine
associated with the Shugenja. It is in this valley that Ushiwaka
trained with Sōjōbō in legend. This relationship serves as the basis of
many Japanese woodblock prints, including one by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Also in some Japanese villages, parents spread the myth that he eats little boys to stop them going into the forests at night
Comments
In theology, the term is often used to distinguish marvels or deceptive trickery, often attributed to witchcraft or demons, from the purely divine power of the genuinely supernatural to violate the laws of nature. In the early modern period, the term was used by scientists to refer to abnormalities and strange phenomena of various kinds that seemed to depart from the norms of nature."
"With the emergence of early modern science, the concept of the preternatural increasingly came to be used to refer to strange or abnormal phenomena that seemed to violate the normal working of nature, but which were not associated with magic and witchcraft. This was a development of the idea that preternatural phenomena were fake miracles. As Daston puts it, "To simplify the historical sequence somewhat: first, preternatural phenomena were demonized and thereby incidentally naturalized; then the demons were deleted, leaving only the natural causes." The use of the term was especially common in medicine, for example in John Brown's A Compleat Treatise of Preternatural Tumours (1678), or William Smellie's A Collection of Preternatural Cases and Observations in Midwifery (1754). In the 19th century the term was appropriated in anthropology to refer to folk beliefs about fairies, trolls and other such creatures which were not thought of as demonic, but which were perceived to affect the natural world in unpredictable ways"The Fomorians seem to have been gods who represent the harmful or destructive powers of nature; personifications of chaos, darkness, death, blight and drought. The Tuath Dé, in contrast, seem to represent the gods of growth and civilization.
The etymology of the name is debated. The first part is now generally agreed to be the Old Irish fo, meaning under, below, lower, beneath, nether, etc. The meaning of the second part is unclear. One suggestion is that it comes from the Old Irish mur (sea), and that the name thus means something like "the undersea ones". This was the interpretation offered by some medieval Irish writers. Another suggestion is that it comes from mór (great/big) and means something like "the great under(world) ones", "the under(world) giants" or "the nether giants". A third suggestion, which has more support among scholars, is that it comes from a hypothetical Old Irish term for a demon or phantom, found in the name of The Morrígan and cognate with the archaic English word "mare" (which survives in "nightmare"). The name would thus mean something like "under(world) demons" or "nether demons". Building on this, Marie-Louise Sjoestedt interprets the name as meaning "inferior" or "latent demons", saying the Fomorians are "like the powers of chaos, ever latent and hostile to cosmic order".The skulls were reportedly discovered by a team of explorers led by scientist Vladimir Melikov in a cave on Mount Bolshoi Tjach, Russia.
Despite being found two years ago, news of it has only gone global after a separate find in woods nearby of a Nazi briefcase and German full-colour map of the Adygea region made in 1941.
According to reports the briefcase, picked up by a local hermit, had the emblem of the Ahnenerbe - the most secretive Nazi institute founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935 to find evidence that the Aryan race had once ruled the entire globe.
But it soon branched into occultism, paranormal research, pseudoscience and the study of UFOs and weapons development due to Himmler’s obsession with such topics.
https://books.google.com/books?id=XvlwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA232&lpg=PA232&dq=Mount+Bolshoi+Tjach,+Russia&source=bl&ots=hDMDNVMtup&sig=ACfU3U3fDkGn0ODomCFaV9ErxtVWfRVvVA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwioiIDF7a3kAhUvheAKHRc1AsQQ6AEwEnoECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Mount Bolshoi Tjach, Russia&f=false
Evil Archaeology: Demons, Possessions, and Sinister RelicsSupposedly, these were not the only horned giants found around America, reports come from El Paso and Wellsville, New York. Of course, like many artifacts, after supposedly being sent to a museum, they went missing.
Research has shown that tribes of hunter-gatherers moved into Britain from Spain and France with extraordinary rapidity when global warming brought an end to the ice age 14,700 years ago and settled in a cavern – known as Gough's Cave – in the Cheddar Gorge in what is now Somerset.
From the bones they left behind, scientists have also discovered these people were using sophisticated butchering techniques to strip flesh from the bones of men, women and children.
"These people were processing the flesh of humans with exactly the same expertise that they used to process the flesh of animals," said Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London. "They stripped every bit of food they could get from those bones.""
"THE SATYROS LIBYS and AIGIPAN LIBYS were two breeds of satyr- and Pan-like wild-men or monkeys which inhabited the Atlas Mountains of north-west Africa.
They were related to the Satyroi Nesioi and the Ethiopian Satyr encountered by the philosopher Apollonios of Tyana."
Pliny the Elder, Natural History - Latin Encyclopedia C1st A.D.
https://www.theoi.com/Thaumasios/SatyroiNesioi.html
"Pausanias, Description of Greece 1. 23. 6 (trans. Jones) (Greek travelogue C2nd A.D.) :"Wishing to know better than most people who the Satyroi (Satyrs) are I have inquired from many about this very point. Euphemos the Karian (Carian) said that on a voyage to Italia (Italy) he was driven out of his course by winds and was carried into the outer sea, beyond the course of seamen. He affirmed that there were many uninhabited islands, while in others lived wild men. The sailors did not wish to put in at the latter, because, having put in before, they had some experience of the inhabitants, but on this occasion they had no choice in the matter. The islands were called Satyrides by the sailors, and the inhabitants were red haired, and had upon their flanks tails not much smaller than those of horses. As soon as they caught sight of their visitors, they ran down to the ship without uttering a cry and assaulted the women in the ship. At last the sailors in fear cast a foreign woman on to the island. Her the Satyroi outraged not only in the usual way, but also in a most shocking manner.""
Ixion married Dia, a daughter of Deioneus (or Eioneus) and promised his father-in-law a valuable present. However, he did not pay the bride price, so Deioneus stole some of Ixion's horses in retaliation. Ixion concealed his resentment and invited his father-in-law to a feast at Larissa. When Deioneus arrived, Ixion pushed him into a bed of burning coals and wood. These circumstances are secondary to the fact of Ixion's primordial act of murder; it could be accounted for quite differently: in the Greek Anthology (iii.12), among a collection of inscriptions from a temple in Cyzicus is an epigrammatic description of Ixion slaying Phorbas and Polymelos, who had slain his mother, Megara, the "great one".
Ixion went mad, defiled by his act; the neighboring princes were so offended by this act of treachery and violation of xenia that they refused to perform the rituals that would cleanse Ixion of his guilt (see catharsis). Thereafter, Ixion lived as an outlaw and was shunned. By killing his father-in-law, Ixion was reckoned the first man guilty of kin-slaying in Greek mythology. That alone would warrant him a terrible punishment.
However, Zeus had pity on Ixion and brought him to Olympus and introduced him at the table of the gods. Instead of being grateful, Ixion grew lustful for Hera, Zeus's wife, a further violation of guest-host relations.
Zeus found out about his intentions and made a cloud in the shape of Hera, which became known as Nephele (from nephos "cloud") and tricked Ixion into coupling with it. From the union of Ixion and the false-Hera cloud came Imbros or Centauros, who mated with the Magnesian mares on Mount Pelion, Pindar told, engendering the race of Centaurs, who are called the Ixionidae from their descent.
Ixion was expelled from Olympus and blasted with a thunderbolt. Zeus ordered Hermes to bind Ixion to a winged fiery wheel that was always spinning. Therefore, Ixion is bound to a burning solar wheel for all eternity, at first spinning across the heavens, but in later myth transferred to Tartarus. Only when Orpheus played his lyre during his trip to the Underworld to rescue Eurydice did it stop for a while.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nephele
A nymph (Greek: νύμφη nýmphē, Ancient: [nýmpʰɛː] Modern: [nífi]) in Greek mythology is a supernatural being associated with many other minor female deities that are often associated with the air, seas, woods, or water, or particular locations or landforms. Nymphs have a synonym in Manipuri language as Helloi, with much similar qualities. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are more generally regarded as divine spirits who animate or maintain Nature (natural forces reified and considered as a sentient being)
"Aelian, On Animals 17. 9 (trans. Scholfield) (Greek natural history C2nd A.D.) :
"There is a certain creature which they call an Onokentaura (Onocentaur, Donkey-Centaur), and anybody who has seen one would never have doubted that the race of Kentauroi (Centaurs) once existed . . . But this creature of which my discourse set out to speak, I have heard described as follows. Its face is like that of a man and is surrounded by thick hair. Its neck below its face, and its chest are also those of a man, but its teats are swelling and stand out on the breast; its shoulders, arms, and forearms, its hands too, and chest down to the waist are also those of a man. But its spine, ribs, belly and hind legs closely resemble those of an ass; likewise its colour is ashen, although beneath the flanks it inclines to white. The hands of this creature serve a double purpose, for when speed is necessary they run in front of the hind legs, and it can move quite as fast as other quadrapeds. Again, if it needs to pluck something, or to put it down, or to seize and hold it tight, what were feet become hands; it no longer walks but sits down. The creature has a violent temper. At any rate if captured it will not endure servitude and in its yearning for freedom declines all food and dies of starvation. This also is the account given by Pythagoras and attested by Krates (Crates) of Pergamon in Mysia.""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megalithic_monuments_in_Ireland
Jubilees 5:2
“And injustice increased over the earth and all flesh corrupted its way, from men to animals and to beasts and to bird and to all that walks upon the earth; all corrupted their ways and their orders and began to devour each other, and unrighteousness increased over the earth, ..”
Book of Jasher, Chapter 4“And the sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord.”
The Creation of Animal-Human Hybrids
Again, in Spain, researchers from the Murcia Catholic University (UCAM) and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies (SIBS) in the US (founded in 1960 by Jonas Salk, the developer of the polio vaccine) “ genetically modified monkey embryos” and have successfully created a HUMAN-MONKEY embryo.
A report in RT says the team of scientists, led by Juan Carlos Izpisúa, relocated to China to conduct the experiment because it was “in violation of Spanish law”. These modern Dr. Frankensteins tinkered with the very building blocks of organic life and firstly they “deactivated specific genes used in the formation of organs” before injecting “ human stem cells into the embryo”.
Tengu (Japanese: 天狗, "heavenly dog") are a type of legendary creature found in Japanese folk religion. They are considered a type of yōkai (supernatural beings) or Shinto kami (gods). Although they take their name from a dog-like Chinese demon (Tiangou), the tengu were originally thought to take the forms of birds of prey, and they are traditionally depicted with both human and avian characteristics. The earliest tengu were pictured with beaks, but this feature has often been humanized as an unnaturally long nose, which today is widely considered the tengu's defining characteristic in the popular imagination.
Buddhism long held that the tengu were disruptive demons and harbingers of war. Their image gradually softened, however, into one of protective, if still dangerous, spirits of the mountains and forests. Tengu are associated with the ascetic practice of Shugendō, and they are usually depicted in the garb of its followers, the yamabushi.
The 23rd chapter of the Nihon Shoki, written in 720, is generally held to contain the first recorded mention of tengu in Japan. In this account a large shooting star appears and is identified by a Buddhist priest as a "heavenly dog", and much like the tiāngoǔ of China, the star precedes a military uprising. Although the Chinese characters for tengu are used in the text, accompanying phonetic furigana characters give the reading as amatsukitsune (heavenly fox). M. W. de Visser speculated that the early Japanese tengu may represent a conglomeration of two Chinese spirits: the tiāngoǔ and the fox spirits called huli jing.[9]
How the tengu was transformed from a dog-meteor into a bird-man is not clear. Some Japanese scholars have supported the theory that the tengu's image derives from that of the Hindu eagle deity Garuda, who was pluralized in Buddhist scripture as one of the major races of non-human beings. Like the tengu, the garuda are often portrayed in a human-like form with wings and a bird's beak. The name tengu seems to be written in place of that of the garuda in a Japanese sutra called the Emmyō Jizō-kyō (延命地蔵経), but this was likely written in the Edo period, long after the tengu's image was established. At least one early story in the Konjaku Monogatari describes a tengu carrying off a dragon, which is reminiscent of the garuda's feud with the nāga serpents. In other respects, however, the tengu's original behavior differs markedly from that of the garuda, which is generally friendly towards Buddhism. De Visser has speculated that the tengu may be descended from an ancient Shinto bird-demon which was syncretized with both the garuda and the tiāngoǔ when Buddhism arrived in Japan. However, he found little evidence to support this idea.This reputation seems to have its origins in a legend surrounding the famous warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune. When Yoshitsune was a young boy going by the name of Ushiwaka-maru, his father, Yoshitomo, was assassinated by the Taira clan. Taira no Kiyomori, head of the Taira, allowed the child to survive on the grounds that he be exiled to the temple on Mount Kurama and become a monk. But one day in the Sōjō-ga-dani Valley, Ushiwaka encountered the mountain's tengu, Sōjōbō. This spirit taught the boy the art of swordsmanship so that he might bring vengeance on the Taira.
Originally the actions of this tengu were portrayed as another attempt by demons to throw the world into chaos and war, but as Yoshitsune's renown as a legendary warrior increased, his monstrous teacher came to be depicted in a much more sympathetic and honorable light. In one of the most famous renditions of the story, the Noh play Kurama Tengu, Ushiwaka is the only person from his temple who does not give up an outing in disgust at the sight of a strange yamabushi. Sōjōbō thus befriends the boy and teaches him out of sympathy for his plight.Sōjōbō is an ancient yamabushi (mountain hermit) tengu with long, white hair and an unnaturally long nose. He carries a fan made from seven feathers as a sign of his position at the top of tengu society. He is extremely powerful, and one legend says he has the strength of 1,000 normal tengu. Sōjōbō lives on Mount Kurama (north of Kyoto).
Sōjōbō is perhaps best known for teaching the warrior Minamoto no Yoshitsune (then known by his childhood name Ushiwaka-maru or Shanao) the arts of swordsmanship, tactics, and magic in the 12th century. In fact, the name "Sōjōbō" originates from Sōjōgatani, the valley at Mount Kurama near Kibune Shrine associated with the Shugenja. It is in this valley that Ushiwaka trained with Sōjōbō in legend. This relationship serves as the basis of many Japanese woodblock prints, including one by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Also in some Japanese villages, parents spread the myth that he eats little boys to stop them going into the forests at night