Vampire and Paranormal Museum

According to Atlas Obscura, there is a fascinating Vampire and Paranormal Museum in Pennsylvania:

An extraordinary collection of vampire-themed antiques lurks on the second floor of a store.

Tucked away in the same building as an antiques store in a small Pennsylvania town lies a shockingly large collection of antique vampire-killing sets.

Covering the walls are the standard tools of the vampire hunter: the stake, the crucifix, the holy water bottle. But the stakes are far more than pointy, wooden sticks. Believed to date back centuries, all the weapons have been beautifully decorated with a variety of religious and allegorical carvings. They are spectacular objets d’art from every corner of the world, including several personal collections from actors who played Dracula in films. One wooden “traveling vampire hunter kit,” from around 1870 was owned by actor Carlos Villarias, who portrayed the famous count in a Spanish language Dracula.

 

Edmondo Crimi, the owner of the museum, was an antiques dealer who traveled the world collecting these weird and wonderful objects for the past half century. Whether or not any of these weapons has killed a vampire of course remains unsubstantiated, but the mere existence of these historic pieces of craftsmanship speaks to the enduring power of vampire folklore.  

But it isn’t all vampire-related artifacts. There are also antique Ouija boards, statues of the archangel Michael, and a chair used for exorcisms in 19th-century Germany. If it’s odd, supernatural, and beautiful, they probably have one at this gem of a museum.

Know Before You Go

Admission is $15 and the museum is open on Saturdays and Sundays from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm.

Jewish Magic from Greece to Galicia

Join My Jewish Learning to learn about, compare, and contrast Jewish magical traditions among Ashkenazi and Ottoman Sephardi Jews, including amulets, magical creatures, and secret names.

This video joins Dr. Devin E. Naar, the Isaac Alhadeff Professor in Sephardic Studies at the University of Washington, and Olivia Devorah Tucker, Talmudist, demonologist, and Program Coordinator at SVAR in revealing some of the secrets of avoiding the evil eye:

 

A Wild Cat May Be A Bad Omen

According to Atlas Obscura, there are quite a few superstitions concerning animals.

The animal world is full of harbingers of doom—at least, according to superstitions. From the Tower of London’s ravens (whose departure would signal the fall of an entire nation) to the average black cat crossing your unlucky path, plenty of critters warn of woe. In Ominous Animals, we explore the lore—and the science—behind these finned, furry, and feathered messengers of impending calamity.

A tiny spotted feline, often smaller than the average house cat, with a bushy tail and big eyes, moves through temperate forest and farmland in southern Chile. Despite its adorable appearance, a mere glimpse of the animal—the kodkod—may cause a farmer to fear for their livelihood, or even their life. According to some Indigenous Mapuche stories in Chile, seeing the pocket-sized predator could spell famine, disease, or death. The kodkod is notorious for raiding chicken coops.

According to a 2013 paper in the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, superstitions about the kodkod are common in rural areas. Interviews with local students and Mapuche community members in southern Chile revealed that some people believed the cat had supernatural abilities, such as being impervious to bullets, or ripping off the heads of chickens to drink their blood—an exaggeration likely rooted in the tiny feline’s preference for eating only the neck and head of its poultry prey.

But the kodkod offers benefits as well: The tiny cats hunt the rodents that carry hantaviruses, which can cause potentially fatal infections in humans. If conservation campaigns are successful, the cat may one day be known as the cutest pest controller, rather than an omen of catastrophe.

 

Colors For the Day You Were Born

I have heard that in Thailand, the day of your birth has a very specific color. To improve your luck through the year, you should wear your "birth color" on your birthday every year. The King was born on a Monday and the entire country, as a sign of respect and love, will be wearing yellow shirts on his birthday.

Here are the days and their colors for handy reference:

Sunday - Red

Monday - Yellow

Tuesday - Pink

Wednesday - Green

Thursday - Orange

Friday - Blue

Saturday - Purple

How to Bring Good Luck into Your Home

Maybe you’re the type of person who knocks on wood to stop yourself from jinxing. Or you keep an amethyst crystal on your nightstand in hopes of absorbing anxiety to help you nod off. In one way or another, these behaviors are linked to capturing positive energy.

"Superstitions give one a sense of control in a complex, apparently impersonal, and largely unpredictable world," says Phillips Stevens, Ph.D., professor of Anthropology Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo and author of forthcoming book Rethinking the Anthropology of Magic and Witchcraft (Routledge). The idea that an action or an object can prevent something bad from happening is a type of magical thinking. When it comes to the home, certain cultural do's and don'ts are tied to the idea of universal order—balance and harmony, the yin and the yang. The inside of a home should be peaceful and comfortable, to counteract the potentially risky and unpredictable outside world. As a result, each culture has created rituals, ways that capture the transition and transformation from outside to inside.

Take the ubiquitous superstition: opening an umbrella inside. Everyone knows it’s bad luck, right? But why? Stevens explains that, since an umbrella is an object related to bad weather, bringing it inside is akin to inviting the storm in. Better leave it in the foyer, closed, until it's needed.

In addition to magic superstitions, there are also sign superstitions that believers interpret as messages from the universe, such as seeing a black cat cross one’s path. "Some prefer the term 'folk beliefs', as superstitions can be a pejorative term," says Tok Thompson, PhD, professor of anthropology and communications at University of Southern California in Los Angeles and author of Posthuman Folklore. "Some superstitions are later proven by science to be true, and then are no longer superstitions but scientific belief. Likewise, science can change its mind, and what is scientific belief at one point can become superstitious belief later. In general, superstitions are beliefs about the world, and about what causes what, that are not approved by science."

One of the reasons people still believe in superstitions today is habit and routine. Think of it this way, if you always get up on the same side of the bed and get coffee but one day you crawl out on the opposite side and skip your coffee, your day might feel a bit off. Or if your favorite team wins the playoffs when you're wearing a particular t-shirt, you might feel inclined to wear it again the next time they play. "Persistent behaviors give you a sense of control and that’s terrifically important when processing the world at large," Stevens continues. That's why if you do something out of turn and the day isn’t great, it can be attributed to the anomaly, especially one that is dubbed a taboo. "Superstitions are a part of folklore, and have been around for a long, long time. Way longer than writing," Thompson continues. "But they change, die out, and new ones emerge."

The bottom line in our view: Better safe than sorry! To keep your household running smoothly, read on for 11 things to try so that your house is full of good juju.

Make the most of mirrors

Keep hats off the bed

Bring in some horns

Give Ghosts something to read

Arrange flowers in odd numbers

Never put shoes on a table

Powerfully position your bed

Save the spiders

Sweep strategically

Don't dine in the dark

Clean the commode

 

https://www.housebeautiful.com/design-inspiration/home-makeovers/g44266174/11-ways-to-bring-good-luck-into-your-home/?fbclid=IwAR1XRDDINFFkhZUFbP9om5ORRuaSOTmzGE0WFIfnpIWik9bjgd7AhbLaR6c_aem_th_AV-jWwLCg-ELK2UGfVh-e1jkvNvk-Krrd7xgx9MUC1LIrB35aL0YhC2pHeaSX1Yt8zA&mibextid=Zxz2cZ