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Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 1, 2023 15:28:55 GMT -5
Animal Sacrifice in Bramshaw, Satanism Increasing in UK Once again, St. Peter’s Church (above) atop Judds Hill in the small village of Bramshaw, Hampshire, has been targeted by suspected Satanists. On the morning of Monday, December 12, 2022, a group of ladies discovered a dead cat hanging from the flagpole. “It was tied on the halyard,” said David Coates, the 78-year-old church treasurer who removed the animal. “It was rather macabre. It was a large, black cat and one of its eyes was missing. There were no markings on it, but it had its mouth open. It looked rather nasty, but it didn’t appear to have any wounds on it.”
A few weeks previous, a dead fox was found on the church steps, and in the fall of 2019, Satanic graffiti was spray-painted on the church-house doors. During the same time period, mutilated animals, some of which had pentagrams painted on their carcasses, were found in Bramshaw and other parts of the New Forest. Although a 41-year-old man was arrested and released during the investigation, the bizarre activity has apparently resumed.
“It seems a strange thing to do. It’s a week before Christmas. We’re just hoping and praying we don’t get anything else,” remarked the Rev. David Bacon, vicar of St. Peter’s. “But it’s one of those things about where we live. We’re in the New Forest, it’s an area where strange things happen. There was nothing obviously directed at anybody, but it is unpleasant for those who had to clear it up. The one with the sheep [in 2019] was definitely the occult; this seems much more random.”
The New Forest – a 71+-acre tract encompassing forests, heath and pastureland – has a strong history of paganism. It is where Gerald Gardner, dubbed the “father of modern witchcraft,” claimed to have been initiated into a local witches’ coven, and as a result, the region attracts Wiccans and members of other pagan paths. Unfortunately, it seems to attract those of darker persuasions as well.
Just as the congregants of St. Peter’s Church and other citizens of Bramshaw were beginning to dismiss the dead cat as someone’s idea of a beastly joke, a hiker a mile-and-a-half to the east came upon a gruesome display (above) on Stagbury Hill. On the morning of Friday, the 13th of January, 2023, a man notified police that he had discovered five animal hearts atop a stone marker surrounded by 27 votive candles. Although he cleaned up the area before officers arrived, he took photos, which clearly showed what appeared to be some sort of ritual activity. Many in the area surmised the perpetrators chose Friday the 13th because of its associations with bad luck and the diabolical.
As soon as photos of the animal hearts (above) and candles on Stagbury Hill were posted on Facebook, people immediately connected the dead animals at St. Peter’s Church with the latest abomination, and most were convinced Satanists were responsible.
But it isn’t just the New Forest area plagued by devil worshipers. Bungay, Suffolk, a town with a dark history 215 miles to the northeast, was recently named the “Satanist capital of the UK” after official census figures revealed around one in every 120 people identified as “Satanist.” Presumably, those with a taste for the demonic are attracted to Bungay because of an incident that allegedly occurred almost 450 years ago:
During a violent thunderstorm on August 4, 1577, as the congregation of St. Mary’s Church knelt in prayer, a black hound of hell entered the house of worship. The demon dog, accompanied by flashes of lightning, trotted along the nave, killing two congregants and scorching others. (Of interest, it is said that if one dances 12 times around a boulder known as the Druid’s Stone in St. Mary’s Churchyard at midnight, the devil will appear.)
Shortly after wreaking havoc in Bungay, the diabolical creature appeared in Holy Trinity Church in the village of Blythburgh, approximately 12 miles to the southeast. On this occasion, it killed a man and boy, caused the steeple to collapse, and left scorch marks on the door – still visible today – as it departed.
Bungay capitalizes on its notoriety with a weathervane (above) depicting a ferocious black dog riding a lightning bolt. Additionally, an annual race called The Black Dog Marathon begins in Bungay, and the town’s football (soccer) team is nicknamed the “Black Dogs.” While local pubs also benefit from the town’s association with the demonic, Satanism is something else entirely.
Behind the bar at the Green Dragon Pub, a pentagram – a symbol used by both witches and devil worshipers – hangs around the neck of an action figure. However, barman Jake Feasey doesn’t seem unduly worried about the area’s being designated a hotbed of Satanic activity. “Bungay might attract these people,” he observed, “but they don’t come out and say, ‘I’m a Satanist.’”
Members of the Bungay Town Council denied any knowledge of the ark arts. “This number in the census is a bit of a mystery,” Clerk Rosalind Barnett told reporters. “Devil worship has never crossed our radar.”
“I am wondering if people with nothing better to do during lockdown decided to put down on the census that they were Satanists,” added Mayor Tony Dawes. “Census figures released by the Office for National Statistics show that 5,054 people in England and Wales claimed to be Satanists out of a population of 59,597,300. Of those, some 70 are in Bungay.”
Nonetheless, Chaplain Leopold, a London-based undertaker and co-leader of the Global Order of Satan UK, claimed a 200 percent increase in membership during the past five years. “Younger people,” he explained, “don’t want to identify as part of a prescriptive dogmatic religion and, rather, want to identify as their own self-beliefs and self-realization – which is what Satanism offers.”
Andy Diabolus, head of the Global Order of Satan, denied the organization was involved in animal sacrifice or the killing or abuse of animals. “We revere ourselves as individuals capable of the greatest human expression of compassion and empathy,” he said.
Assuming Leopold and Diabolus are being truthful, then those killing animals and spray-painting graffiti on churches aren’t members of the Global Order of Satan. But anyone can identify as a Satanist, and it’s apparent those around Bramshaw are much more malevolent than those in Bungay.
Sources: Carolyn Griffith, The New Milton Advertiser and Lymington Times, January 20, 2023; Andrew Levy, The Daily Mail, February 1, 2023; Matt Powell, The Daily Mail, January 24, 2023; Ewan Somerville, The Telegraph, January 23, 2023; Steve Warren, CBN, January 26, 2023, and BBC News, December 15, 2022.
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Post by catherine on Jul 1, 2023 16:40:52 GMT -5
Unfortunately, in the UK, the police protect criminals and because the man wasn't named, there's no way to check and see if there were any consequences.
BTW, this is an interesting article because it has elements of the dark and mysterious. |
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Post by serena on Jul 1, 2023 17:00:51 GMT -5
We went to both Bungay and Blythburgh when we were in England and saw the Druid's Stone and the scorch marks on the church door. Blythburgh is the most interesting of the two because it's still a small village, while Bungay is more of a small city.
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Post by jane on Jul 1, 2023 21:44:47 GMT -5
People like this are just pseudo-Satanists. They like to shock others by calling themselves Satanists, join organizations like the Global Order of Satan, the Satanic Temple, the Church of Satan, or whatever, but in reality, they’re clueless. Satan is the personification of evil, to worship Satan is to practice and promote wickedness. The people sacrificing animals and desecrating churches are the real Satanists.
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Post by Kate on Jul 1, 2023 23:22:22 GMT -5
Usually when something like this happens, people think it's teenagers, but I just don't see teenagers getting five animal hearts -- from the photo they look like sheep hearts -- and performing some ritual on the top of a remote hill after midnight. I think this was the work of a group of people who really consider themselves Satanists, or maybe Druids, or someone who just wants to stir up something in the community. I say they might be Druids because the Druids used the entrails of animals, and sometimes men, as a form of divination.
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Post by jane on Jul 2, 2023 2:20:20 GMT -5
Usually when something like this happens, people think it's teenagers, but I just don't see teenagers getting five animal hearts -- from the photo they look like sheep hearts -- and performing some ritual on the top of a remote hill after midnight. I think this was the work of a group of people who really consider themselves Satanists, or maybe Druids, or someone who just wants to stir up something in the community. I say they might be Druids because the Druids used the entrails of animals, and sometimes men, as a form of divination. |
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Post by kitty on Jul 2, 2023 10:35:08 GMT -5
The Druids usually observed the intestines or liver of a newly killed animal or human, but modern-day “Druids” might not know this. Also, if the culprits are Druids, why would they desecrate a church with graffiti and dead animals? In my opinion, those who did this either consider themselves Satanists, or they’re bored and trying to shock people in the area. |
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Post by JoannaL on Jul 3, 2023 0:17:17 GMT -5
How did the Druids tell the future from the intestines or liver? |
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Post by snowfairy on Jul 3, 2023 2:09:57 GMT -5
It’s called hepatoscopy, or hepatomancy, and it was practiced not only by the Druids, but by the Romans, Etruscans, Greeks, Babylonians, etc. At the time, it was believed the liver was the center of the soul, probably because it was full of blood. Sheep’s livers were usually used and after the reading, the remainder of the animal would be eaten. There were actually clay models, like those in the photo below, explaining what various signs meant. |
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Post by steve on Jul 3, 2023 4:24:07 GMT -5
This is fascinating. When I was younger, up until I was around age 30, I read a lot of New Age books about Celtic magic and there was nothing at all about the Druids using livers to tell the future, and I've never seen anything on any other website about it. I never read any New Age books, but I've read a little about the Celts and Druids, and I never heard of it either until now. I knew they sacrificed humans and animals, but I didn't know they cut them open and inspected their livers. |
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Post by jane on Jul 3, 2023 8:46:08 GMT -5
This is fascinating. When I was younger, up until I was around age 30, I read a lot of New Age books about Celtic magic and there was nothing at all about the Druids using livers to tell the future, and I've never seen anything on any other website about it. |
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Post by catherine on Jul 3, 2023 11:36:20 GMT -5
Both Strabo and Posidonius wrote that the Druids also killed people and observed their death throes as a form of divination.
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Post by Sam on Jul 4, 2023 20:30:44 GMT -5
Both Strabo and Posidonius wrote that the Druids also killed people and observed their death throes as a form of divination. Here's something else I didn't know about the Celts and Druids. I didn't know about the livers either. |
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Post by Kate on Jul 5, 2023 7:52:20 GMT -5
The Celts also made what was called Black Bread in which they added animal blood to flour, which gave it a very dark color. But unless they were butchering the animal for food, they would cut a vein in a cow, sheep, or whatever, and let it bleed enough for the bread, then cauterize the wound so that it wouldn't get infected.
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Post by snowfairy on Jul 6, 2023 6:15:55 GMT -5
You can’t trust what you read in New Age books or on most websites for the simple reason that the people who write these books and create these websites are usually poorly educated and probably have never read a scholarly book on any subject. People who call themselves Wiccans and neopagans don’t really know anything about what the Celts and other pagans were really like. The Celts weren’t peace-loving, they were warlike tribes who gathered the heads of their enemies as trophies. There’s an article posted on this site called “The Dark and Bloody Druids,” and although it doesn’t mention livers, it says recent archaeological digs, etc. prove the Roman writers – Julius Caesar, the Elder and Younger Plinys, etc., – were accurate in their descriptions of Celtic practices. Modern-day witches and pagans have little in common with the actual witches and pagans of the distant past. (I don’t know how to create a link in the text, so here’s the link to the article about the Bloody Druids. whatliesbeyond.boards.net/thread/3816/dark-bloody-druids) |
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