Category: Weird News

International Superstitions, 1888

On: By: Romeyn


Dr. Oswald in Drake’s Magazine.
Metempsychosis the wide-spread doctrine of soul migration from animal to human bodies, maybe founded on a veiled paraphrase of the Darwinian hypothrsis; but how are we to account for the most equally international prevalence of the were-wolf superstition? The belief in the wolfish metamorphosis of human beings has been found among tribes of North America aborigines who could not possibly have introduced their folklore from the country of Jacob Grimm, or from the Carpathian high lands, where lycanthropy still furnishes the staple of fireside sagas. Continue reading “International Superstitions, 1888” →

The Yawning Hole, 1896

On: By: Romeyn

Article from the St. Paul Daily Globe., March 08, 1896, strangly linking the absurdity of Symmes’ theory about a hollow earth with a new theory that the American nostril was becoming smaller with each generation, and that certain doctors feared Americans were becoming a nation of “Mouth Breathers.” Their theory to correct the problem was “to have various parts of the nasal partition cut, sawed or chiseled out… as to make larger apertures for breathing.”

Koreshans Believe Earth is Hollow

On: By: Romeyn

That the earth is hollow, that the sun is really at its center, and that men men live inside the earth instead of on it, are the views held by the Koreshan cult, whose headquarters are in Florida. Koreshanity, or the Church Triumphant, was the creation of Dr. Cyrus R. Teed, a Utica, N.Y. physician.

Continue reading “Koreshans Believe Earth is Hollow” →

Sick Pearls

On: By: Romeyn

SHE CURES “SICK” PEARLS JUST BY WEARING ‘EM – SO CZAR GUARDS HER

This is Tortola Valencia, who has the peculiar gift of being able to cure “sick” pearls by wearing them. After reposing a few weeks on Tortola’s bosom pearls which have lost their luster are said to recover their original ‘brilliance”.

Tortola is a “Spanish dancer, just now the rage in Paris. Her strange effect on pearls resulted-in a commission from the czar of Russia, who has sent her a magnificent pearl- necklace to wear and “cure.” It was originally made for Catherine the Great of Russia.

While Tortola wears it she is guarded day and night by detectives employed by the French and Russian governments.

 

(The Day Book., March 28, 1912)