JACK THE RIPPER BOOKS BY SIMON WEBB

HISTORIES BY SIMON WEBB DURHAM HISTORIAN
THERE ARE THREE SIMON WEBB'S WRITING HISTORIES
THIS IS THE SELF PUBLISHED SIMON WEBB

About the Author
Simon Webb lives near the historic English city of Durham, and has published over fifty books, including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
Publishes with TLP  The Langley Press



Absinthe Jack: Was Ernest Dowson Jack the Ripper? 

Nov 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
Aesthete, decadent poet, misogynist and violent drunk, Ernest Dowson has been long-listed as a Jack the Ripper suspect for nearly twenty years. Simon Webb's new book takes a fresh look at the evidence, and examines the possibility that Dowson's consumption of epic quantities of absinthe may have turned him from a woman-hating brawler into the terror of Whitechapel.



American Jack: Jack the Ripper and the United States 

Jun 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
The ultimate Ripper collection runs to over 550 pages and includes four complete books: 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, books on the suspects Francis Thompson and Ernest Dowson, and 'Severin', a novel based on the story of the well-known suspect George Chapman. Among other suspects covered in the book are Francis Tumblety, James Maybrick, Prince Albert Victor, Neill Cream, James Kelly and Robert D'Onston Stephenson. 'A Jack the Ripper Omnibus' also includes new material that has never been published before.



Severin: A Tale of Jack the Ripper 
Jan 31, 2016 by Simon Webb
George Chapman, also known as Severin Klosowski, was a London poisoner who was hanged in 1903. During his trial, a number of people began to suspect that he was, or had been, Jack the Ripper. These people included Frederick Abberline, who had been an important detective on the Ripper case back in 1888. Abberline became convinced that Chapman was his man. This book takes Abberline's theory and runs with it.

Jack the Poet: Was Francis Thompson Jack the Ripper?

 Sep 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
Long regarded as a possible Jack the Ripper suspect, the Victorian poet Francis Thompson lived in London at the time of the Whitechapel murders, and may have had motive, means and opportunity to commit at least some of those horrific crimes. At one time, he even lived with a prostitute who subsequently disappeared. Considering known facts about Thompson's life and personality, and searching for clues in the darker corners of his poetry, Simon Webb's new book offers a balanced view of the case for Jack the Poet. Simon has also written 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, and 'Severin', a Ripper novel.

A Jack the Ripper Omnibus 

Nov 30, 2017 by Simon Webb
The ultimate Ripper collection runs to over 550 pages and includes four complete books: 'American Jack', about the Ripper's links to the United States, books on the suspects Francis Thompson and Ernest Dowson, and 'Severin', a novel based on the story of the well-known suspect George Chapman. Among other suspects covered in the book are Francis Tumblety, James Maybrick, Prince Albert Victor, Neill Cream, James Kelly and Robert D'Onston Stephenson. 'A Jack the Ripper Omnibus' also includes new material that has never been published before.

AT LEAST ONCE A DECADE

Jack the Ripper's identity 'revealed' by newly discovered medical records

Dalya Alberge
Sat, July 15, 2023 

Hyam Hyams, photographed at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum in 1899, has been named as a key suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders - London Metropolitan Archives

A former police volunteer claims to have discovered the identity of the figure behind some of the most shocking crimes in British history, unmasking the 19th-century murderer who terrorised the nation as Jack the Ripper.

Sarah Bax Horton – whose great-great-grandfather was a policeman at the heart of the Ripper investigation – has unearthed compelling evidence that matches witness descriptions of the man seen with female victims shortly before they were stabbed to death in 1888 in the East End of London.

Her detective work has led her to Hyam Hyams, who lived in an area at the centre of the murders and who, as a cigar-maker, knew how to use a knife. He was an epileptic and an alcoholic who was in and out of mental asylums, his condition worsening after he was injured in an accident and unable to work. He repeatedly assaulted his wife, paranoid that she was cheating on him, and was eventually arrested after he attacked her and his mother with “a chopper”.

Significantly, Ms Bax Horton gained access to his medical records and discovered dramatic details. She told The Telegraph: “For the first time in history, Jack the Ripper can be identified as Hyam Hyams using distinctive physical characteristics.”

Sarah Bax Horton has researched medical records in her quest to find Jack the Ripper 

- HENRY HARRISON

Witnesses described a man in his mid-thirties with a stiff arm and an irregular gait with bent knees, and Ms Bax Horton discovered that the medical notes of Hyams – who was 35 in 1888 – recorded an injury that left him unable to “bend or extend” his left arm as well as an irregular gait and an inability to straighten his knees, with asymmetric foot dragging. He also had the most severe form of epilepsy, with regular seizures.

The victims were prostitutes or destitute. Their throats were cut and their bodies butchered in frenzied attacks with the authorities received taunting anonymous notes from someone calling himself Jack the Ripper. They are some of the most infamous unsolved crimes.

At least six women Martha Tabram, Polly Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elisabeth Stride, Kate Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly – were killed in or near Whitechapel between August and November 1888.

Hyams’ medical notes, taken from various infirmaries and asylums, reveal that his mental and physical decline coincided with the Ripper’s killing period, escalating between his breaking his left arm in February 1888 and his permanent committal in September 1889.

“That escalation path matched the increasing violence of the murders,” said Ms Bax Horton. “He was particularly violent after his severe epileptic fits, which explains the periodicity of the murders.”

She added: “In the files, it said what the eyewitnesses said – that he had a peculiar gait. He was weak at the knees and wasn’t fully extending his legs. When he walked, he had a kind of shuffling gait, which was probably a side-effect of some brain damage as a result of his epilepsy.”

An 1888 Illustrated Police News front page reports on the murders - alamy

Witness accounts of the man’s height and weight were similar to the details in Hyams’ medical files, Ms Bax Horton discovered.

“They saw a man of medium height and build, between 5ft 5in. and 5ft 8in. Tall, stout and broad-shouldered. Hyams was 5 foot 7 and a half inches, and weighed 10 stone 7 lbs… His photograph demonstrates that he was noticeably broad-shouldered,” she said.

She has concluded that Hyams’ physical and mental decline – exacerbated by his alcoholism – triggered him to kill. The murders stopped at the end of 1888, around the time Hyams was picked up by the police as “a wandering lunatic”. In 1889, he was incarcerated in the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, north London, until his death in 1913. Jack the Ripper never struck again.

Various suspects have previously been suggested as the man behind the killings, including the artist Walter Sickert, who painted gruesome pictures of a murdered prostitute.

Hyams had been on a “long list” of around 100 culprits, but Ms Bax Horton said he had been discounted because he had been misidentified. “When I was trying to identify the correct Hyam Hyams, I found about five. It took quite a lot of work to identify his correct biographical data. Hyam Hyams has never before been fully explored as a Ripper suspect. To protect the confidentiality of living individuals, two of the Colney Hatch Asylum files on patients, including Hyams, were closed to public view until 2013 and 2015.”

What makes her research particularly extraordinary is that it was prompted by her chance discovery in 2017 that her own great-great-grandfather, Harry Garrett, had been a Metropolitan Police sergeant at Leman Street Police Station, headquarters of the Ripper investigation. He was posted there from January 1888 – the murders’ fateful year – until 1896.

Sergeant Harry Garrett, who worked on the Jack the Ripper case

Ms Bax Horton, who read English and modern languages at Oxford University, is a retired civil servant who volunteered with the City of London Police for almost two decades until 2020. She had no idea of her ancestor’s history until she began researching her family and found herself studying the Ripper case.

She will now present her extensive evidence in a forthcoming book, titled One-Armed Jack: Uncovering the Real Jack the Ripper, to be published by Michael O’Mara Books next month.

It is written in tribute to her ancestor and his police colleagues.

Paul Begg, a leading Ripper authority, has endorsed it. “This is a well-researched, well-written, and long-needed book-length examination of a likely suspect. If you have an idea of the sort of man Jack the Ripper might have been, Hyam Hyams could be it,” he said.

Portrait of the Artist As Jack the Ripper

Being a heresiologist I research conspiracy theories and historical who dunnits, one of the cases that will probably never be solved is Jack the Ripper. Who is back in the news this week.

It seems that crime author Patricia Cromwell has hypothesized that Jack was the artist Walter Sickert, and is donating her collection of Stickland paintings to the Fogg Museum....which seems an appropriately named art gallery... Her theory and her collection of painitngs is not without controversy since Sickert is a well known painter, and it is alleged that in her forensic research she destroyed one of his paintings.

Cornwell was drawn to the idea that Sickert, noted for his scenes of London life, might have been the Ripper because he painted macabre scenes and was interested in the murders.

She bought the Sickerts largely to try to prove that he was the murderer. Cornwell used DNA testing on the paintings to compare it with DNA on what were, allegedly, letters from the Ripper, but to no avail.

Among the paintings Cornwell is giving is Putana a Casa, a picture of a prostitute, that she said “resembled mortuary photographs of (Ripper victim) Catherine Eddowes and is suggestive of the mutilation to the right side of her face”.

More than 170 names have been put forward as the Ripper, including the Duke of Clarence, Montague John Druitt, a barrister who killed himself just after the last murder, and Michael Ostrog, a Russian thief.

Cornwell gives away £3m art of ‘the Ripper’

A conservator from the center traveled with Ms. Cornwell to London last October, where they viewed and scanned correspondence allegedly written by Jack the Ripper. Research on Sickert and Ripper letters was later conducted at Harvard. A spokesman for Harvard University Art Museums confirmed to the newspaper that “although no conclusions have been drawn, the Straus Center compared Sickert’s paintings and prints to the Ripper letters.”

Ms. Cornwell’s identification of Sickert, who was 28 in 1888, as Jack the Ripper has caused a storm in the art world. The theory has been vigorously rejected by Sickert specialists, including Matthew Sturgis, the author of a definitive biography of the artist.The Chronicle: Daily News Blog: Harvard to Get Paintings by Artist

Mornington Crescent nude, contre-jour is one of a series of works that Sickert painted following the murder of a prostitute in Camden Town, the rough North London neighbourhood where he lived and had a studio. It has been argued that the real subject of this work is in fact the effect of natural light. The French term contre-jour means lit from behind that is, almost producing the effect of a silhouette.

Enlarge

As I said it is unlikely we will ever know conclusively who Jack was.

And one my favorite writers Colin Wilson, no less a controversial literary figure, has his own theories on who Jack was. In his history of criminology and in Order of Assassins: The Psychology of Murder he points out that Jack is the first 'public' lust murder and the first serial killer, who is identified as such in the press of the day.

As Wilson describes it, Faculty X is the opposite of the normal, dulled state of consciousness. It is our potential to grasp, with an incandescent brilliance and intensity of focus, the actuality of the world, including the reality of other times and places. “Our preconceptions, our fixed ideas about ourselves,” as Wilson puts, “means that we remain unaware of this power.” We trudge along, not engaging the full power of our mental abilities.

Most of us have had similar insights, often while recovering from a bad cold. But the contrast between mental states hit Wilson like a bolt of lightening. In his recent memoir, he writes, “The basic aim of human evolution, I decided, is to achieve Faculty X.”

A few artists are able to summon Faculty X at will. But so, in rather less creative form, do psychopathic killers. For that is the stranger side of Colin Wilson’s work — the part overlooked by The Times, for example, which repeated the standard Wilsonian claim that he was a philosopher of optimism.

Cheerful as that may sound, a very large part of his work over the years has consisted of books about serial murders. They, too, are Outsiders — in revolt against “a decadent, frivolous society” that gives them no outlet for the development of Faculty X. Such an individual “feels no compunction in committing acts of violence,” as Wilson explains, “because he feels only contempt for society and its values.”

These quotations are from his book Order of Assassins: The Psychology of Murder (1972), but they might have been drawn from any of dozens of other titles. Beginning with the Jack the Ripper-sque character Austin Nunne in his first novel, Ritual in the Dark (1960), Wilson has populated his fiction with an array of what can only be called existentialist serial killers. Inside Higher Ed :: A Killing Concept

Following along Foucualts thesis on Sexuality, that sexology developed and contributed to sexual identity and identification of sexuality, including fetishes, upon the publication of texts on sexuality in the 19th century, in particular Kraft Ebbings classic work; Psychopathia Sexualis. In other words the rise of publishing, books and newspapers, created and abetted the rise of the Lust Murderer and Serial Killer of the Victorian and Edwardian world.

The Lust murderer and Serial Killer is still with us today, increasingly so, thanks to alienation of the individual in mass culture of the Metropolis. In fact what made Jack so archtypical was both the mass media and the urban culture of London. What began as a form of sexual deviance; lust crimes; lycanthropy, vampirism, and violent Sado-Masochism,became a social deviance of urban culture.

Jack wanted publicity for his crimes. This has become the modius operandi of serial killers in North America, from the Black Dahlia Case to the Zodiac Killer.

It is not the case with real lust murderers like the Ukranian Vampire, and the cannibalistic Jeffery Dahlmer whose murders were conducted without publicity.

These Jack the Ripper like serial killings are conducted not only out of misplaced passion; lust but in hopes of fame. On this Wilson and Foucualt agree, it is about Power and the Appearance of Power.

Also See:

John Mark Karr's Fantasy

Mexican Murder Cover Up?

The Real Crime In Canada

Crime Comics

Gothic


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Jack the Ripper’s identity may have been revealed in mystery walking stick

Tom Sanders

METRO UK

Friday 30 Dec 2022 

The suspected face of notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper has been revealed after police discovered a cane linked to one of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries (Picture: College of Policing)

The face of Jack the Ripper may have finally been revealed after a vital piece of evidence was discovered in a police archive.

The legendary serial killer terrorised the streets of London in 1888 and was famously never caught or identified.

He gained notoriety for slitting the throats of his victims and mutilating them in a way which made police believe the killer had knowledge of human anatomy.

Scotland Yard detective Frank Abberline was assigned to the case but ultimately failed to catch the killer.

Upon retiring, he was gifted a cane containing the only known facial composite of the Ripper carved into the head.

The cane features the face of a haggard-looking older man cloaked in a dark brown hood and wearing a menacing expression.

Police researchers believe the image supposedly resembles Dr Alexander Pedachenko, a Russian anarchist and ‘lunatic’ who had been living in London during the killing spree and thought to be Mr Abberline’s top suspect, the Telegraph reports.

Mr Pedachenko was named on a sign next to the cane when it was on display at Bramshill Police Staff College, but the artefact was believed to be lost when the institution shut down in 2015.

However, the cane recently resurfaced after staff at the College of Policing discovered it buried in its archives at Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwickshire.

Jack the Ripper murdered five sex workers around Whitechapel, east London, in a terrifying killing spree in 1888 (Picture: Bettmann Archive)

The college’s content creator Antony Cash said: ‘Finding this cane was an exciting moment for us.

‘Jack the Ripper is one of the biggest and most infamous murder cases in our history and his crimes were significant in paving the way for modern policing and forensics as it caused police to begin experimenting with and developing new techniques as they attempted to try and solve these murders, such as crime scene preservation, profiling and photography.

‘This walking cane is such a fascinating artefact which represents such a historically significant time in policing.

‘It’s amazing that we can put it out on display here in Ryton, alongside the original newspaper cuttings, so that our officers can see first-hand how far we’ve advanced in policing since then.’

However, despite its historical significance, there is some debate among Ripper historians as to whether the cane truly bears the face of the killer.

Some claim the stick was nothing but a cheap souvenir peddled by salesmen to crowds who came to observe the scene of the crimes.

Over 200 suspects have been accused of being the Ripper over the years but his true identity remains a secret to this day (Picture: Shutterstock)

Others say that each of the seven officers assigned to the case were presented with an identical stick, meaning the cane is not a bespoke item which was unique to Mr Abberline.



There is also speculation that the face was based on a ‘mad monk’ character in The Curse Upon Mitre Square; the first literary adaptation of the murders which was published while the Ripper was still at large.

But regardless of the sculpture’s true identity, the story of Jack the Ripper has endured as one of history’s most famous unsolved mysteries.

More than 200 people have been accused of being the Ripper over the years, including author Lewis Carroll, Prince Albert Victor and Sir John Williams, Queen Victoria’s personal physician.

In 2014, author Dr Jari Louhelainen claimed that forensic evidence taken from a shawl found next to the body of victim Catherine Eddowes proved Polish-born barber Aaron Kosminski was the real killer, although this has never been definitively proven.

Jack the Ripper police file made public after 136 years


AN ENGRAVING SHOWING 'JACK THE RIPPER', THE EAST END MURDERER IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, BEING CAUGHT RED-HANDED BY POLICE
GETTY IMAGES

DANIEL KEANE

3 DAYS AGO

A lost police file on the Victorian serial killer Jack the Ripper has been found after 136 years by the great-grandson of a detective who worked on the case.

The archive also includes two photographs of Michael Ostrog, an early suspect.

Ostrog, a Russian immigrant, was a petty thief who spent long periods in prison and a mental asylum.

But he was later ruled out as the Ripper after it emerged that he was in a French prison when the murders took place.

The archive also contains of the “Saucy Jack” postcard that was purportedly sent to police to taunt them.

There is also a copy of the “Dear Boss” letter, a note sent to police which was signed off as “Jack the Ripper” – the first time that the name was referenced.

In the letter, the murderer boasted about killing his victims and warned police that his knife was “still nice and sharp”.

Jack the Ripper infamously murdered at least five women in the Whitechapel area in 1888 and was never caught.

The police file was kept by Inspector Joseph Henry Helson, who was working in the Met Police at the time of the killings.

The killer’s archive is now being sold by Helson’s great-grandson at Whitton & Laing Auctioneers of Exeter, in Devon.

A Whitton & Laing spokesperson said: "For nearly 140 years the Jack the Ripper murders have held an enduring fascination and items directly connected to the crimes very rarely come up for sale.

"There is also a facsimile copy of both the infamous 'Dear Boss' letter and 'Saucy Jack' postcard which appears to be cut from the broadside printed in 1888 and used by the police in the hope that someone would recognise the handwriting.

"The original letter and postcard both disappeared, the letter being returned in 1988 and is now in the National Archives at Kew, but the postcard has never been seen again."

The auctioneers added that "people should not forget that the victims were real people with real stories and we wouldn't want to think of this murderer as an anti-hero, but for the monstrous villain that he was".

The Boy Next Door

Is this Jack The Ripper? Why not Jeffery Dahlmer was 'frighteningly normal' until they checked his freezer.

Though this fellow looks a little swarthy and foreign looking, like the immigrants who flooded Victorian London from Eastern Europe at the time to live in the working class ghetto of Whitechapel.

Racial profiling?

A likely computer generated image of Jack the Ripper.

Jack the Ripper was short, stocky and about 30 years old -- 'frighteningly normal' -- according to a profile of the notorious Victorian-era killer published using state-of-the-art computer generated imaging.

See:

Portrait of the Artist As Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

Crime



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Henry Idema: Religion and the control of women


Henry Idema
Sat, October 1, 2022

A woman friend of mine, a Republican (or used to be), said to me recently, when I asked her about her stand on abortion, "Men have controlled me my whole life! Women should have total control over their own bodies."

I agreed with her, and one of the main ways men have controlled women is through religion. Men since the days of Adam and Eve have feared women, especially because of their sexuality. So men created religion in part — in large part — to control women. Women have been seen within religions as tempters, as in the story of Adam and Eve.

We don't know why Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes, but most likely it had to do with sex. In the classic 1944 movie about Jack the Ripper, "The Lodger," the murders are committed because a man, played by Laird Creger, loathes and lusts for women's sexuality. Because Jack the Ripper in the movie cannot control women, or appeal to them sexually, he slaughters them.

If you read the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation of John, you see a long history of women being controlled by men. Just one example. Women caught in adultery, were stoned. Men caught in adultery were not. Kings like David and Solomon had multiple sexual partners and had the freedom to have sex outside of marriage, with no consequences from other men, many of whom were doing the same thing.

If you read an account of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, again you see male judges fearing women, and when these judges could not control the women in their little village, they hung them if they believed they were in fact witches and handmaid's of Satan.

Speaking of handmaids, see the 1990 movie, "The Handmaid's Tale," about a future world where young, healthy white women are brainwashed to become bearers of children for a new "pure" generation. Hitler in fact did this with SS men who forced young blonde women to bear their children in camps set aside for this purpose. Many Germans today are the descendants of these forced rapes and forced births.

This world of forced births has now arrived in America, at least in certain states. The religious right has dreamed for fifty years of overturning Roe, and then imposing prohibitions on abortion, even in many states with no exceptions for rape, incest, or the life of the mother. We are now living in an age of forced births. These new abortion restrictions have been or are now being enacted by mostly men in various state legislatures. The religious right supported a twice divorced and serial adulterer for president in the hope that he would appoint conservative judges, especially on the Supreme Court, who would overturn Roe. That gamble obviously paid off. But now the wrath of women against being controlled by men and their religion, has been unleashed, and who knows what the consequences will be for our religious and political institutions.

I am amazed that women support with their money and attendance places of worship which try to control them. The Roman Catholic Church will not even let women be priests, and tells their the women in their pews not to use artificial birth control. In many evangelical churches women are taught to obey their husbands. No wonder organized religion is declining in America!

Sen. Lindsey Graham, an unmarried man, now wants to have a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks, with some exceptions for rape, incest, and to save the life of the mother. Here is another example of a man who wants to control all the women in the United States. We will see if his desire gets any traction in Congress.

I agree with my Republican friend, men do want to control women, and men are and have been using religion to control a woman' s body for centuries. In my view the government should have nothing to do with medical decisions women make. When abortions happen late in the development of the fetus, it is usually for medical reasons. Most if not all women who carry a baby into the seventh month and beyond, want that baby. But medical issues in the development of the baby sometimes show up only late, after 15 weeks. Let's keep the government, controlled by men, out of these very private and deeply emotional decisions that women make.

Right now in Iran the government is trying to force women to wear hair coverings out in public, and thousands of women are protesting. The government in Afghanistan is using religion to force women to remain uneducated, thus preventing training for careers. In Russia the Orthodox Church, which does not have women priests, supports Putin in his war against the women, and men, of Ukraine. All over the world men are using religion to control women.

In our own country, men are increasingly using religion to control people, especially women. If your religious institution is part of this effort to control women, try to reform it or leave it. If your elected leaders or political candidates are part of this effort to control women, vote them out of office and certainty do not elect the candidates who want to control a woman's body, using religion as their justification.

— Henry Idema lives in Grand Haven. He can be reached at henryidema3@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Henry Idema: Religion and the control of women

Nine Notorious Demons that Terrorized the Ancient World

UPDATED 18 MAY, 2019 - 22:46 ANCIENT-ORIGINS

Storytellers have been telling tales of ancient demons wreaking havoc on humanity since the beginning of time. By the Middle Ages people were so fascinated with and afraid of these supernatural entities that whole books were dedicated to listing demonic creatures , the areas of life they influenced, and how to protect yourself from them.

Lilith: Ancient Demon, Dark Deity, or Sex Goddess?

Lilith, satanic looking angel. (CC BY-NC 2.0 )

Lilith is one of the oldest known female spirits of the world. Her roots come from the Epic of Gilgamesh and she was also described in the Bible and the Talmud. Lilith’s name comes from the Sumerian word ''lilitu'', which meant a wind spirit or a female demon.

From the beginning of her textual existence she was related to Sumerian witchcraft . In the Babylonian Talmud, Lilith was described as a dark spirit with an uncontrollable and dangerous sexuality. She is said to have fertilized herself with male sperm to create hundreds of demons.

• Demonic Exorcisms in the Temple Schools of Mesopotamia
• Decapitating Demons May Be the Oldest Fearsome Entities of Ancient Egypt

In Jewish tradition, she is a notorious demon, but in some other sources she appears as the first woman created on Earth. According to a legend, God formed Lilith in the same way as he created Adam except in place of pure dust, he also used filth and residue 

Lilith was known in the culture of the Hittites, Egyptians, Greeks, Israelis, and Romans as well. In later times, she migrated to the north of the Europe. She represented chaos, sexuality, and she has been said to have cast spells on people. Her legend is also related to the first stories about vampires .

A Heart as Cold as Ice? The Beautiful Yet Dangerous Japanese Snow Demon

Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. ( CC BY SA)

The legend of Yuki-onna (the snow woman) comes from Japanese legends. She is included among the lengthy list of what are known as ‘ yokai’ - supernatural creatures known as monsters, demons, spirits or other mythical beings.

Yuki-onna is believed to inhabit locations with snowy mountains where she feeds off human life energy and regular food. She preys on lost travelers in heavy snowstorms. She sucks the human life force from her victims’ mouths into hers, freezing them solid.

With ageless white skin and cold as ice itself, Yuki-onna is said to have strikingly deep violet eyes and beautiful long black, or white, hair. Although Yuki-onna can fall in love, marry, and live among humans, she will never age and her identity would eventually be revealed, therefore, most legends say Yuki-onna chooses to stay near mountain roads and prey on travelers.

Spring Heeled Jack, the Uncatchable Demon of Victorian England

Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. ( Public Domain )

It is not certain if Spring Heeled Jack was a man or beast. Witnesses report him having long, sharp fingernails that looked almost like claws . His eyes had a crazed look about them that some said glowed red as he was about to strike. Whenever townsfolk tried to catch him, he would easily get away, running swiftly down crowded alleys, jumping over fences, and disappearing into the night as though he were a ghost.

Spring Heeled Jack was first reportedly seen in 1837 and continued for decades. In particular, he sought young women but the damage he caused affected all manner of ordinary people. As the tale of this creature of darkness became widespread, his attributes became more demonic. Reports said that he had horns and a pointed goatee, that he could leap over rooftops, and that he could breathe fire.

For all the terror he caused, Jack did little harm, aside from the reports of shredded clothes, fits of hysteria , and heart attacks. By the 1880s, Spring Heeled Jack was eclipsed by a far more lethal villain, Jack the Ripper. The jumping devil’s legacy lives on in the popular imagination to this day, notably in the mischievous little toy known as the Jack-in-the-Box.

Unmasking the True Identity of the Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )

The Jersey Devil’s history places it at the very top of baffling crypto- zoological mysteries. It has baffled and mesmerized the public for hundreds of years. The creature is often described as a flying bipedal cryptid with hooves, but there are many contrary opinions as to what it actually looked like.

The common description from eyewitnesses is that it kind of looks like a kangaroo-like creature, but with the head of a horse, leathery bat-like wings, and long bird-like legs, claws, hooves, a hideous face, and a forked tail. Several people have even said its body looks like an alligator.

It has been reported to move quickly and has often been described as emitting a "blood-curdling scream.” Eyewitnesses say that it hops like a bird. It has been called a variety of different nicknames such as the flying death, kangaroo horse, flying horse, cowbird, and a prehistoric lizard.

From January 16 to 23, 1909, the State of New Jersey experienced a major paranormal event , it was seen in person by thousands of people, schools were closed, and factories closed down temporarily out of fear. It allegedly inhabited the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey and was named the official state demon in 1939 in New Jersey.

Krampus, Son of Hel: Christmas Devil and Child Punisher

Krampus, the Christmas Devil. ( CC BY SA 2.0 )

The Krampus tradition is popular in countries such as Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. The name derives from the German word krampen, meaning claw. He has a “mangled, deranged face with bloodshot eyes atop a furry black body. Giant horns curl up from his head, displaying his half-goat, half-demon lineage.” (Billock, 2015)

According to legend, Krampus is the son of the Norse goddess Hel, ruler of Helheim (the Norse realm of the dead). Krampus is a counterpart to other Christmas Devils such as France’s Hans Trapp and the Netherlands’ Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). Along with other pagan traditions, Krampus became entwined with Christmas as Christianity spread through Eastern Europe.

• Egyptian Demons and Magic: Exorcising Evil Spirits
• Devils, Demons, and Dangerous Creatures of the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum

About 1,500 years ago, Krampus became the counterpart of Saint Nicholas . On the night of December 5/6, Saint Nicholas walks about, leaving little presents in the shoes and boots of children who have been well behaved. Following close behind is Krampus, who leaves a rod in the shoes of the naughty children. Krampus carries a bundle of birch sticks with which he strikes especially bad kids. The worst offenders he stuffs into a bag and drags them off to his lair where they will presumably be eaten.

By the 12th century, the Catholic Church began its work to stamp out this pagan devil. Christians were fairly successfully at banishing the Krampus until he re-emerged in a 19th-century fit of consumerism.

Incubi and Succubi: Crushing Nightmares and Sex-Craving Demons

The Nightmare’ (1781) by Johann Heinrich Füssli. ( Public Domain)

Known by many names around the world and over time, diverse cultures have spoken of vampire-like demons that feed off of human energy and attack their victims at night. Two of the popular names in English for such entities are Incubus and Succubus (plural Incubi and Succubi) – demons which attack their victims by pressing down on them, often while sexually assaulting them as well.

Incubus is the male form of the demon. The name of this demon comes from late Latin “Incubo” meaning “ nightmare” which has its origins in the Latin word ‘incubare’, to “lie on”. This description is well-suited to what the Incubus does to his victims – he lies upon (or “crushes”) them.

They are supposedly very hard to send away once they have chosen a victim. These demons supposedly can shapeshift, so their appearance differs, although they are often said to look human-like. It has been said the Incubi may be especially physically attractive for their victims.

Succubus (from “spirit bride” or “lie under”) is the female form of an Incubus demon. Accounts of these demons appear in ancient Akkadian, Sumerian, and Greek texts. The princess of the demons is called Nahemah.

Succubi have often been described as exceptionally beautiful women, but sometimes with bat or other flying animal wings on their backs. As with the Incubi, the Succubi attack their victims at night and allegedly prefer religiously-minded victims as well. The Succubi seek out sleeping men and are said to drain them of their blood, breath, life-energy and semen – even until the point that the victim could die.

Baphomet? Was the Diabolical Demon Really Worshipped by Knights Templars

Tarot card depicting Baphomet, detail. ( wimage72 / Fotolia)

The earliest known reference to Baphomet can be traced back to a letter written by a French crusader in 1098. According to the crusader, the Muslims in the Holy Land called upon a certain ‘Baphometh’ prior to battle. It is commonly accepted today that this name is a corruption of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. European Christians at the time perceived Islam as the worship of Muhammad, which they considered idolatry.

The evolution of Baphomet continued in 1307, when the powerful Knights Templars were being suppressed in France. Some of the Templars admitted to worshipping an idol, it seems that their accounts were inconsistent. For instance, some claimed that the idol was the severed head of St. John the Baptist , whilst others claimed that it was the statue of a cat with three faces.

It was only in 1854 that Baphomet became the goat-headed figure that we are familiar with today. It was Eliphas Levi, a French ceremonial magician, who re-imagined Baphomet as a figure he called the ‘Sabbatic Goat’.

Levi’s Baphomet was adopted by the famed occultist, Aleister Crowley . It was Crowley who connected Baphomet with Satan and linked this icon with the idea of suppressed knowledge and secret worship. Thus, in opposition to traditional Christian thought, Crowley argued that Satan was not the enemy of mankind, but its ally.

Were the Worshipers of the Egyptian God Set Following a God or a Demon?

Seth (Set) Left, and Horus. (Niedlich, S / CC BY SA 2.0 )

Set (Seth) is an ancient Egyptian god depicted with the head of an unknown animal referred to by Egyptologists as a ‘Set animal’. The ancient Egyptians believed that Set was the god of chaos, the desert, storms, and darkness.

He was worshipped primarily in Upper Egypt as early as the Pre-Dynastic period. Originally, he was believed to be a benevolent god who lived in the Underworld and was responsible for helping the dead reach heaven, though he was later regarded as an evil god during the conflict with Horus. The followers of Horus triumphed over those of Set, thus resulting in Set’s demonization.

Another theory suggests Set became associated with the Hyksos invaders who conquered the Nile Delta and therefore, by the time of the Second Intermediate period, Set had become regarded as a malevolent deity. As the god of the desert, Set was also considered to be the antithesis of everything that represented life.

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However, he wasn’t all bad, in some myths the gods used Set’s strength and power for good. The best known of these is Set’s role as a defender of Ra’s sun boat. Each night as the sun boat made its journey through the Underworld, Set fought Apep, the chaos serpent. Set is often depicted as standing on the prow of the sun boat, and spearing Apep.

The Shocking Demon that Brings Plague and Devours Babies

Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. ( Public Domain )

Rangda embodies power - she is electrifying, dangerous, and otherworldly. She has protruding eyes, pendulous, large breasts and a long, red tongue hanging down her body. Her mouth is full of big teeth and curving fangs; her fingernails are extended to long pointed claws, and her unkempt mop of gray hair hangs down her back.

Legends of Rangda include her fondness for eating children as well as causing disease and pestilence . Although she may have once been an ancient goddess, today Rangda is identified as an evil demon queen. However, Rangda is also considered a protective force in certain parts of Bali.

In the Barong dance, part of the ritual drama which focuses on the ongoing battle between good and evil, Barong represents the good and Rangda represents evil. The Barong protects villages from plague and malicious magic, whereas Rangda is the one inflicting those plagues and difficulties.

Top Image: Ancient Demons: Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. ( Public Domain ) Krampus, the Christmas Devil. ( CC BY SA 2.0 ) Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. ( CC BY SA)  Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. ( Public Domain ) Lilith, satanic looking angel. ( CC BY-NC 2.0 ) The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )