{"id":7432,"date":"2015-08-11T21:58:33","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T03:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7432"},"modified":"2015-08-11T22:03:23","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T04:03:23","slug":"wiccan-ghost-hunting-in-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7432","title":{"rendered":"Wiccan Ghost-Hunting in India"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are of a certain age \u2014 or if you hang around the “occult” section in used-bookstores \u2014 you might remember the ghost-hunting team of English witch Sybil Leek<\/a> (1917\u20131982) and American parapsychology author Hans Holzer<\/a> (1920\u20132009).<\/p>\n

They were both writers, but the books appeared under his name, such as The Lively Ghosts of Ireland.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

I was just reminded of them by reading this recent review of Bhangarh to Bedlam: Haunted Encounters<\/em>, which covers some similar ground. Only most of the ground is in India, where \u2014 even with all of the kinds of polytheism, henotheism, and monism (and other -isms) that live under the umbrella term “Hindu” \u2014 Wicca, too, has gained a toehold in the religious landscape of the subcontinent.<\/p>\n

In fact, author Deepta Roy Chakraverti is the daughter of Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, credited with bringing Wicca to India, as I noted in 2006<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The author who is a corporate lawyer by profession investigates the presence of the supernatural in the world we inhabit and writes about paranormal encounters she has had ranging from Bhangarh Fort on the Delhi-Jaipur highway, in the Lodhi gardens, the Konark Temple in Orissa, and the mental asylum of Bedlam in London. . . .<\/p>\n

Deepta explores the energies of the Safdurjung Road house of late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was assassinated and the psychic investigator writes about her experience . . .<\/p>\n

She recalls a chilling encounter in the chapter “Who Walks on Marine Drive? “related to a peanut seller on Mumbai’s Marine Drive who has a horde of people, including a father-daughter pair flocking to him. The people, says the author are those who died suddenly in the 2011 terrorist attacks and are hovering between the worlds of the living and dead.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And in the interview\/review she quotes Holzer himself. We have a tradition!<\/p>\n

Bhangarh to Bedlam<\/em> has a Facebook page<\/a>, is available on Amazon in India<\/a> but not here, it seems, and has created some controversy there.<\/a><\/p>\n

An Indian website in April 2015 reported,<\/p>\n

It also includes a chapter on a popular shopping mall in Kolkata, where a number of accidents and suicides have taken place in recent times.<\/p>\n

And this is where a controversy has erupted, with the mall in question demanding that all references to it be eliminated from the book. According to Roy Chakraverti, a corporate lawyer by profession and a psychic investigator by calling, who is the daughter of the self-styled Wiccan priestess Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, the publishers [not identified] bliged by calling off the publication of the book.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But also in April, Life Positive Books (New Delhi)\u00a0 announced its publication.<\/a> Same house? Different one? Roy Chakraverti hints at dark forces:<\/p>\n

The dark energy has its own power. I feel that this fiasco happened because there were one or two political entities in the background, which were afraid of a Wiccan woman gaining popularity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to the Facebook page, launch parties and signings are ongoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are of a certain age \u2014 or if you hang around the “occult” section in used-bookstores \u2014 you might remember the ghost-hunting team of English witch Sybil Leek (1917\u20131982) and American parapsychology author Hans Holzer (1920\u20132009). They were both writers, but the books appeared under his name, such as The Lively Ghosts of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,143,29],"class_list":["post-7432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ghosts","tag-india","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1VS","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6168,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6168","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":0},"title":"Gamers and Ghost-hunters","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 18, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"What gaming I do has been on computers rather than consoles, so this is a development I missed\u2014using the new Xbox for ghost-hunting. Ever since the release of the Kinect motion sensor controllers in 2010, gamers have been posting videos of \"Kinect Ghosts\" detected by their Xbox 360. The Kinect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ghosts\"","block_context":{"text":"ghosts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ghosts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1656,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1656","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":1},"title":"The Infrared Signature of Ghosts","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Over at my other blog,\u00a0 I have been posting examples of wildlife photos taken with game cameras (a\/k\/a scout cameras or camera traps). Seeking to learn more about how their passive infrared (PIR) detectors work, I was browsing the Web and ended up with South Jersey Ghost Research. Apparently, PIR\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"ghosts\"","block_context":{"text":"ghosts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=ghosts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1239,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1239","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":2},"title":"Dining above the Dead","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I opened the Ca\u00f1on City Daily Record on Monday and learned that M. and I have been dining above the dead.One of our two favorite cafes in the nearby town of Florence, Colo., is the Aspen Leaf Bakery, which, it turns out, is the second-most haunted locale in that county.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0936564296","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":647,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=647","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry: Tab Clearing","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Having been knocked down by a head cold the past week, I am just cleaning out some old links. \u2022 Should you use digital cameras for ghost-hunting? I notice that a lot of the ghost-hunting articles in Fate magazine count \"orbs\" as evidence of spirits. But are they just artifacts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2026,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2026","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":4},"title":"When You Meet the Buddha in the Road, Bite Him","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"We have a best-selling series of romance novels about vampires written by a Mormon. But we also have a popular, if not so huge, series of romance novels about people in Amish communities, by a writer who grew up around Amish people but is not herself Amish. Is this a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3364,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3364","url_meta":{"origin":7432,"position":5},"title":"Ghost Tales of Cripple Creek, &c","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"At my other blog, a recollection of my one venture into collecting ghost stories. And a couple of incidents that did not make it into the book, mainly because they were \"too personal\"\u00a0 and not connected with other people's experience. 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