Easter and a pagan spirit world

Easter Island 

The time...Easter Sunday 1772.

The place...A remote island in the surging wilderness of the Pacific.

Jacob Roggeveen

It is still a mystery what the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen was looking for in such a remote area when he stumbled upon this island in 1772. But find it he did, and perhaps, out of thanks to his religion, he called it Easter Island.

But he must have been shocked by the pagan cult that he found there, with its history going back 1000 years prior to his arrival. He found that the dead and the living were “physically” connected in a deep symbiosis where the dead provided good health, fertile harvests and fishing, and a general community good fortune, while the living provided comfort to the spirit world through a range of offerings including food. This spirit world was located in the far reaches beneath the Pacific so all the human settlements were on the coast of the island to enable closer communication between the two. In many ways it is very similar to Celtic paganism where death was just an automatic, not-to-be-feared part of the journey to the other world. Indeed, Easter Island is famous for its massive stone giants which represent the ancestors, called Moai. These were erected in antiquity by the spirits to protect their descendants.

Moai, Easter Island 

It doesn’t take too much of a leap in imagination to visualise the islanders’ daily life and religious ceremonies where the ghosts and the spirits of  times and people past actually presented themselves. Certainly history is filled with such beliefs and under the vastness of the Pacific night-skies and the isolation of the inhabitants, there can be no doubt that visions and spirits would have stalked the land. It is indeed an intriguing idea to mull over, but must have been deeply shocking to the early Europeans.

And as a final almost unrelated thought, the Juan Fernandez islands which are part of the same archipelago, came to fame through the pen of Daniel Defoe. These are called the “Robinson Crusoe Islands” with Defoe giving a very stylised idea of life in the remote reaches of the Pacific. Defoe had a most interesting life with all sorts of trials and tribulations; see my blog “The Sedgemoor Ghosts” to read about his luckiest escape.

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The Ghostly Tale of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre

As it’s Saint Valentine’s Day, here at The Official Blog of P J Cadavori we thought a spooky tale about the day was very apt. So we will share the story of one of the darkest days in Chicago that fell on 14th February 1929, and the ghosts still rumoured to haunt the area.

Al Capone

In the 1920’s Chicago was ruled by mobsters, who ran bootleg alcohol and whose gangs fought one another to gain control of the city. You will surely have heard of the infamous Al Capone. He was the leader of the South side, while a man named O'Banion, ruled the North side. After many fights and several near death experiences, George Moran emerged as the new leader on the North side. Both he and Al Capone fought constantly, and after Moran helped kill one of Capone's top men, Capone vowed vengeance would come on February 14.

He planned an elaborate hoax and instructed one of his men to call Moran to sell him a large quantity of illegal whiskey. Moran agreed to the deal, unaware that Capone was behind the plan, and on February 14, Moran’s men patiently awaited the delivery at a warehouse. Moran was late, and by the time he arrived, a police car was sitting outside so he quickly walked away. But in the police car sat five of Capone's armed men and as he walked away, they snuck out of the car armed with machine guns.  

Once inside the warehouse, they forced Moran’s seven men to stand in a line against a wall before firing at them. By the time the real police had arrived, six of the men were already dead. The only man still alive was Frank Gusenberg, but he refused to name the perpetrators and died later that day.

The Chicago Daily News

Capone later claimed that he was haunted by the ghost of Jimmy Clark, one of the men killed in the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, when he spent time at the Eastern State Penitentiary. He said the ghost followed him when he came back to Chicago and while staying at the Lexington Hotel, one of his men also saw Clark's ghost.

The building where the massacre occurred was later used for several different businesses. However, it continued to be a favourite tourist spot for visitors and people were known to steal bricks and other pieces of the building, as mementos. Eventually, the building was torn down but the city kept the St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall, and a man salvaged some of the bricks and used them to build part of the nightclub. Once he closed this nightclub in the 1970’s, he decided to sell the bricks and got a nice sum for them at $1,000 a piece. But before long people began returning the bricks to him claiming that the souvenirs were cursed, explaining that they had experienced terrible luck ever since buying them. 

The building where the massacre occurred may be gone now, but there are numerous and frequent claims that

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall

ghosts remain. Late at night, some people say they have heard the rapid fire of machine guns and the chilling sounds of men’s screams. And others claim they’ve experienced an intense feeling of terror and a sudden icy coldness, when walking past. Dogs too are known to shy away from the area, fleeing in fear and barking uncontrollably. 

You can visit the reassembled St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas. 

Buy P J Cadavori's Catacombs of the Damned at Winstone’s of Sherborne, Waterstones or Amazon, in paperback and e-book formats. Click on the book covers below to view Catacombs of the Damned at Amazon.

 
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