and thereafter intuition takes over.
Then, in the early 1970s, Professor Alan Smithers of Manchester University compiled data from the British population census showing clearly that architects tended to be born in the spring, secretaries in the summer, miners in the autumn and electricians in the winter. He also asked members of the British Astrological Association to indicate which signs were associated with the professions of nurse and trade union official. Without knowing what the BAA had predicted, Smithers conducted a massive survey of nurses and trade unionists and discovered that, just as the astrologers had indicated, there was a statistical bias of nurses being born under the signs of Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio and Pisces, while trade union officials were born under one or other of the other six signs.
Athenodorus, THE HAUNTING OF
The story of Athenodorus may be the first written record of a haunting, and it dates back at least 2,000 years. The story was related by several ancient authors, the historian Tacitus among them, but the version below is by the Roman letter writer Pliny the Younger (AD 61-115). In it we see the classic chain-clanking ghost, the restless corpse and even the beckoning finger. The translation is that of William Melmoth (1746), slightly revised.
There was in Athens a house, spacious and open, but with an infamous reputation, as if filled with pestilence. For in the dead of night, a noise like the clashing of iron could be heard. And if one listened carefully, it sounded like the rattling of chains. At first the noise seemed to be at a distance, but then it would approach, nearer, nearer, nearer. Suddenly a phantom would appear, an old man, pale and emaciated, with a long beard, and hair that appeared driven by the wind. The fetters on his feet and hands rattled as he moved them.
Any dwellers in the house passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. The nights without rest led them to a kind of madness, and as the horrors in their minds increased, onto a path toward death. Even in the daytime - when the phantom did not appear - the memory of the nightmare was so strong that it still passed before their eyes. The terror remained when the cause of it was gone.
Damned as uninhabitable, the house was at last deserted, left to the spectral monster. But in hope that some tenant might be found who was unaware of the malevolence within it, the house was posted for rent or sale. It happened that a philosopher named Athenodorus came to Athens at that time. Reading the posted bill, he discovered the dwelling’s price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion, yet when he heard the whole story, he was not in the least put off. Indeed, he was eager to take the place. And did so immediately.
As evening drew near, Athenodorus had a couch prepared for him in the front section of the house. He asked for a light and his writing materials, then dismissed his retainers. To keep his mind from being distracted by vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he directed all his energy toward his writing.
For a time the night was silent. Then came the rattling of chains. Athenodorus neither lifted up his eyes nor laid down his pen. Instead he closed his ears by concentrating on his work. But the noise increased and advanced closer till it seemed to be at the door, and at last in the very chamber. Athenodorus looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him. It stood before him, beckoning with one finger.
Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that the visitor should wait a little, and bent over his work. The ghost, however, shook the chains over the philosopher’s head, beckoning as before. Athenodorus now took up his lamp and followed. The ghost moved slowly, as if held back by his chains. Once it reached the courtyard, it suddenly vanished.
Athenodorus, now deserted, carefully marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he asked the magistrate to have the spot dug up. There they found - intertwined with chains - the bones that were all that remained of a body that had long lain in the ground. Carefully, the skeletal relics were collected and given proper burial, at public expense. The tortured ancient was at rest. And the house in Athens was haunted no more.
ATLANTIS
The name of a vast island continent and the many civilizations that flourished upon it that sank under the sea in a cataclysm. At least fifty locations around the globe have been proposed as sites of the lost continent, but no proof has ever been found of its existence.
There are numerous legends about the Atlanteans and how their highly advanced civilization was destroyed by their misuse of power, but the story was first recorded by Plato in around 350 BC. Plato described the Atlanteans as a wealthy, successful, politically advanced and militarily powerful society that overran Europe with its armies before being defeated by the Greeks. Shortly afterwards an earthquake caused Atlantis to sink beneath the ocean.
The modern myth of Atlantis began in 1882 with the publication of Atlantis: The Antediluvian World by former American congressman Ignatius Donnelly Donnelly proposed that Atlantis might be located in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, to serve as a bridge and source of culture to other areas around the globe.
Numerous other theories have been put forth. The Atlanteans have been linked to the Titans of Greek mythology, the first race of beings on earth who came from the sea and possessed the power to create thunderbolts, earthquakes and terrestrial disturbances. Madame Blavatsky, mystic and co-founder of the Theosophical Society, believed that Atlantis was located in the North Atlantic Ocean and that the Atlanteans were psychically developed descendants from another legendary lost continent, Lemuria. The Lemurians migrated to Atlantis when their own continent was destroyed. In The History of Atlantis (1926), Lewis Spencer, who founded and edited The Atlantis Quarterly, a journal reporting on Atlantean and occult studies, concluded that Atlantis existed on both sides of the Atlantic and was the means of dissemination of culture from East to West.
American medium Edgar Cayce believed Atlantis was located at Bimini, one of the Bahama Islands off the coast of Florida. Cayce said that the Atlanteans had misused the forces of nature and destroyed their own continent and that in subsequent reincarnations Atlanteans exhibited the same potentially destructive traits.
Of all the world’s unsolved mysteries, that of the lost continent of Atlantis is probably the biggest, exerting an influence over humankind for thousands of years. Even though centuries have passed, and scientists and scholars seem intent on banishing it to obscurity, interest in the fabled continent has not diminished and probably never will.
ATMOSPHERE
A term used by psychics to describe a feeling for the environment they are in or the people they meet. Walking into a house with an unhappy atmosphere may leave them with an unsettled feeling, whereas meeting someone who is genuinely kind and honest and friendly creates a positive feeling or atmosphere.
We all pick up information from the environment we are in and from any person we meet for the first time. On a visual level we are influenced by the way a person looks and dresses and by the colours, shapes and styles around us. Sounds and smells influence us too, even before we consciously decide if we like what we see. Operating alongside our other senses is a kinaesthetic awareness, which registers an emotional reaction to the atmosphere that exists in an environment or in a person. In some people this awareness is more developed than others, and for clairsentients, who can sense and respond to the atmospheres created by places and people, it is highly attuned, giving detailed information about the physical, emotional and energetic nature of people and places.
Few of us have not felt at some time that a place is spooky or unfriendly or that we feel irritable or afraid for no reason. When
