NH17- HAUNTED ROAD

The  NH 17 (Mumbai-Goa) is considered to be one of the most devilish place. And every person passing by is faced by the evil witches every midnight. It is advised not to carry meat or blood while travelling through this road as it is believed that the witches await this food. This could endanger your life. The road is strongly believed as possessed by witches. Till now in the modern age drivers obey many myths according to local folks. There must have some things that's beyond our shaped thoughts.

Once one couple passing the road in their car. It was a heavy night. On the road, lights of their car started flickering.  Within some seconds, the man lost control over his driving. He was surprised about what happened. They both came out from the car and checked for what happened. Suddenly the doors of the car locked mysteriously. They had some meat and other non-veg food in the car. Almost an hour later, the car released black smoke. Somehow, they managed to open the car doors only to find out that their food was missing. At that moment he heard his wife scream. He ran towards her. What the man saw that was absolutely unbelievable. Someone scratched his wife's neck and face. But, how? Nobody is there except they them selves.

The man escaped from there with his wife . Later he found stories about witches  who roam in the dark on NH 17 for blood and flesh.  Many accidents have also taken place the reason being common that the drivers loose control and also loose their sight for seconds. Making it the most accident prone road and one of the haunted places in Goa.

Analee D'souza

SU160142

FYBSc Computer Science

SAN JACINTO ISLAND

About 5kms from bogmalo, there is a little lovely island called San jacinto island. It has old carved Portuguese houses and a picturesque chapel.

There is a church in this area known as the Hycinthi  church which has an underground tunnel. One can also see an old Portuguese lighthouse on this island. In the year 1927 a vow was made by the inhabitants of the island not to sell or lease it. Therefore the island still holds a Portuguese charm.

What makes it haunted is that, history says this island was a good luck to every married childless couple. Whoever visited this place was blessed with a baby. So as a thanksgiving  the first child was given up.  And this was done at the main alter of the church leaving the innocent bones as a pride. With years passing by,   the church was was acquiring cracks and slight tremors where  faced. It was then assumed that the sacrificed child was wanting eternal peace therefore the remains of the child where flown down to the river. Every midnight the people of the village heard the cries of the babies and a priest Jermo who started this practice was seen in the waters.

A man named Nicolas said "I followed him and the priest was friendly but he walked deeper to the sea with a blink of my eyes he vanished.

The tunnel was believed to hold many dead remains. The inhabitants of the village hear a woman howling who had committed suicide for not receiving her second child. The lighthouse is beautifully carved the stairway of the lighthouse is considered as an impossible staircase as it was constructed just with the balancing of stones and without any gumming. The lighthouse holds a window high up and is said to experience some flickering of lights and shadows when it holds completely no bulbs. Making this island historically haunted.

Analee D'souza

SU160142

FYBSc Computer Science

Reincarnation

Is there life after life?

Introduction: Reincarnation is basically a religious or philosophical concept that an aspect of a living being starts a new life in a different physical body or form after each biological death. It also has synonyms like rebirth and transmigration. The idea of reincarnation is found in many ancient cultures, and a belief in rebirth was held by such historic figures as Pythagoras, Plato and Socrates. 

Although the majority of denominations like the Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not believe in reincarnation. However rebirth is a key concept found in major Indian religions, popularly known as ‘punarjanam’.

Reincarnation is discussed in the ancient texts of Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism. They consider the release from the cycle of reincarnations as the ultimate spiritual goal, and call the liberation by terms such as moksha, nirvana, mukti and kaivalya. However the origins of the notion of reincarnation are obscure. It is only in these recent decades, that many Europeans and North Americans have developed an interest in reincarnation, and many contemporary works mention reincarnation.

REINCARNATIONAL RESEARCH

Psychiatrist Ian Stevenson, from the University of Virginia, conducted case studies on children who claimed to remember their past lives and on these basis published many books including, “Twenty cases of Suggestive Reincarnation”. Stevenson recorded the child’s statement and then identified the deceased person the child identified with. He also matched birthmarks and birth defects to wounds and scars on the deceased, further verified by autopsy.

In spite of all these research works Stevenson was criticized by many people. Objections to claims of reincarnation include the facts that the vast majority of people do not remember previous lives and there is no mechanism known to modern sciences that would enable a personality to survive death and travel to another body, barring the ideas of biocentrism.

One interesting case; 

Patricia Austrian’s four year old son Edward had a phobia of drizzly, grey days. Then he developed a problem with his throat and started to complain of severe pain. Whenever he had a sore throat, he said that his “shot was hurting”. Edward told his mother very detailed stories about his previous life in the trenches in what was apparently World War I. He told her that he had been shot in the throat and killed. At first doctors could not find a cause for his sore throat and removed his tonsils as a precautionary measure. A cyst developed in his throat and doctors did not know how to treat it. As soon a Edward was prompted to tell his parents and others more about his previous life and talk about how he was killed, the cyst disappeared. Edward’s doctors never found out why the cyst had vanished.

Mansi Dessai

FYBSc Maths

SU160185

F.C. English Div B

Exorcism

Exorcism is the religious or other spiritual practice of purportedly evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or an area that are believed to have possessed. The idea that invading spirits are inherently evil is largely a Judeo Christian concept. The practice is ancient and part of the belief system of many cultures and religions. Spiritualism, a religion that flourished across America in the 1800s and is still practiced in a few places today, teaches that death is an illusion and spirits can possess humans.

The word exorcism derives from the Greek word for oath, “oxousia”. As religious scholar James R. Lewis explains in his book “Satanism Today: an Encyclopaedia of religion, Folklore, and popular culture,” “To exorcise thus means something along the lines of placing the possessing spirit under oath- invoking a higher authority to compel the spirit- rather than an actual ‘casting out.’” This becomes clear when the demonic entity is commanded to leave the person, not by the authority of a priest but instead, for example, “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

New Agers have also embraced a form of possession called channeling, in which spirits of the dead are said to inhabit a medium’s body and communicate through them. The Vatican first issued official guidelines on exorcism in 1614, and revised them in 1999. Requested and performed exorcisms had begun to decline in the United States by the 18^th Century and occurred rarely until the latter half of the 20^th Century when the public saw a sharp rise due to the media attention exorcism was getting. 

In Christian practice the person performing the exorcism, known as an exorcist, is often a member of the Christian Church, or an individual thought to be graced with special powers or skills. The exorcist may use prayers and religious material such as set formulas, gestures, symbols, icons, amulets, etc. the exorcist often invokes God, Jesus and/or several different angels and archangels to intervene with the exorcism.

Beliefs and practices pertaining to the practice of exorcism are prominently connected with Hindus. Of the four Vedas, the Atharva Veda is said to contain the secrets related to exorcism, magic and alchemy. The basic means of exorcism are the mantra and the yajna used in both Vedic and tantric traditions.

In Islam, exorcism is called ruqya. It is used to repair the damage caused by sihr or black magic. Islamic exorcisms consists of the treated person lying down, while a sheikh places a hand on a patient’s head while reciting verses from the Quran, but this is not mandatory. The drinking or sprinkling of holy water may also take place along with applying of clean non-alcohol based perfumes, called as ittar.

In general, people considered to be possessed are not regarded as evil in themselves, nor wholly responsible for the act they perform when possessed. It is because possession is considered to be unwilling manipulation by a demon resulting in harm to self or others. Therefore practitioners regard exorcism as more of a cure than a punishment.

Mansi Dessai

SU160185

FYBSc Maths

F.C English Div B

Old Saligao Village

A story of very long before. A distance of 15 KM from Panaji, Saligao was a pleasant village then. Everything was different before 70 years compared to now. For more before that time, a Banyan tree was so infamous for evil haunting. 

According to local folklore the tree was possessed by a spirit. The ghost was known as Christalina's ghost. All the time people there used to avoid this place.

In 1952, famous Saligao-Pilerne Seminary was then under construction. Padre Inácio Lourenço Pereira was appointed as the supervisor. A few weeks later, some days after the inaugural of the Seminary, on a Sunday morning in January 1953, Padre Lourenço was missing at St Anne. He walked on the Seminary road as usual. When he didn't return till night, Padre's helping hand Frank and others started searching for him. They found him unconscious and flat on the ground and having face into the mud. Where he was found, just near the haunted Banyan tree. They saved him and carried him in his house. A priest came to help Padre. 

After that Padre became speechless and motionless for almost four days. Frank and his workers fixed a cross in a branch of the tree. After that Padre was talking in Konkoni language and in female voice. Sometimes he was just shouting 'Christalina'. Rumours spread in rapid pace with various ways. People became very scared as they know Padre was possessed by Christalina's ghost. He was admitted to hospital and from there he was sent to Portugal and never returned again.

In 1957 horizontal part found as missing from the cross on the branch of the tree. Rumours started again as Christalina's ghost came again. The site is believed to haunt till date.

Nevertheless, for the elders of Saligao village the perceived real ghost stories are evergreen, and the Goan ghosts, especially Saligao’s own Goan ghost Christalina and the haunted tree near the Saligao Seminary remain a veritable institution. People there practice many religious rituals in the Christian and Hindu way to please the spirit of Christalina. In fact the Hindu villagers living close to the haunted tree have built a small niche and offer gifts to the spirit, whom they call Ximecho Devchar or Boundary (Protecting) Devil.

Janeska Coutinho

SU160382

FYBSc Computer Science

F.C English Div B

Borim Bridge Hauntings..

Fate of the bridge:

Borim is a small village in Ponda at the banks of the Zuari River. This bridge was built during the  Portuguese Rule. During the war of 1961, the bridge was blown off using dynamite. The damaged portion was reconstructed and thrown open again for public. Due to weight restrictions all the passengers had to cross the bridge on foot and therefore the buses used to cross empty to the other side. There are rumours also that people should not travel by the bridge after 6pm because of paranormal spirits.

This bridge has been closed to the public after the construction of the new bridge. Often people still visit this bridge to enjoy the view and feel the breeze during evenings. The bridge has a spooky image in the minds of the local public. The bridge is visited mostly by youngsters to enjoy the scenic beauty of the river and the greenery around.

Haunted? WHY?

At around 2 o'clock at night, three young men were passing over the old Borim bridge in their car. It was a long day for them and they were really tired. When they were close to the middle of the bridge, they saw a lady from the other side running towards them. All of them had assumed her to be a mad woman.

Suddenly a terrible incident happened. The lady stopped in the middle of the bridge. She looked at the car and screamed with a blood chilling voice. Just after then she turned and jumped over the Borim bridge. All three guys jumped out of the car astounded and looked in the river.

Surprisingly, there was no sign of the lady, or no indications of a water splash. They looked at each other faces staggered. Fear struck them with shivers in their spines. They decided to fly faster from the area. The driver hurried to start the car, suddenly the man sitting behind the driver shouted with fear.

'What happened?' The man couldn't answer anything. He was looking at someone invisible in the car. He now became frozen and fell very ill.

A few days later he told them that the very same lady was sitting beside him in the car with burning eyes that night. 

Reyhan Mesquita

SU160182

FYBSc Computer Science

F.C English Div B

Afterlife -(where do we go next)

“Afterlife”- the word itself specifies the meaning. Life after death has been a controversial topic for centuries. The thought of afterlife has always questioned religious beliefs and placed a challenge to human’s scientific minds. Most of the ideas revolve around the idea of heaven and hell. But there could be more to this that is not yet discovered.

Majority of the religions believe in the concept of afterlife. It is believed that every living creature is made up of two important entities – Body and Soul. After a human being is dead the soul is said to leave the body and enter eternal life. Although there are myths made up about this topic, but that does not make Afterlife a totally fake concept.

Voice of science…

Many scientific studies have been trying to find out what happens after death. The scientists at University of Southampton have spent four years examining over 2000 people who have suffered cardiac arrest. Majority of the victims have reported that they were conscious before they’re heart was restarted. According to the observations of the experiment most of the people said that they felt an unusual sense of peacefulness while nearly one third said that time had slowed down or sped up. Some saw a bright light. Well others encountered feelings of fear or being dragged into deep waters.

Despite of being unconscious and dead for 3 minutes a 57 year old worker could tell what actually happened in the room for those 3 minutes. And to everyone’s surprise the description turned to be right. Later studies have proved that there exists some kind of awareness which continues to pertain even after the mind and heart has completely shut.

Heaven and hell…

Heaven and hell is the first thing that strikes when one thinks about afterlife. Basically Heaven is a term given to a place that is meant to be peaceful and filled with happiness whereas Hell is described as a disastrous place with demons, anxiety, fire and all that makes a place sound very pathetic. According to the religious aspects a person who does what pleases God is called to heaven. And the sinners are burnt in hell. Heaven is said to be Gods dwelling place. Hell on the opposite side is the devils den. A lot of books speak about Heaven and hell.

Other beliefs and stories…

Children also believe in afterlife in the form of fairy tales and animated movies. Usually stories depict that people who die become lifeless objects such as stars, flowers, rain and other elements of nature. The concept of “Afterlife” has opened a wide sea of imagination to writers, poets, film makers and a lot of story tellers too…

Some also believe that if a death is caused uncertainly (for example murder, suicide, accidents) the soul of the dead person turns into a ghost. Also when a person dies craving to get something but fails to do so, the soul remains and tries to achieve it after death. 

These are just beliefs and mysteries that no one has explained clearly.

Though the religious stories have not yet been proved to be true, but science has reached a conclusion that there is something beyond being physically alive. Something that’s beyond just death.

Nikitha Furtado

FYBSc Computer Science

SU160093

F.C English Div B

Paranormal

All about the weird things

The term paranormal consists of two parts that is para and normal. It simply means scientifically the world around us is normal and anything above and beyond that is para.

Unlike hypothetical scientific concepts like dark matter, or dark energy, which can be proved through scientific concepts. Paranormal events is way beyond understanding. The most common beliefs include those pertaining to ghosts, extra-terrestrial life, physic abilities, cryptids, exorcism etc.

Ghosts and Spirits

Ghosts are the manifestation of the spirits or soul of a person. Ghosts are usually described as invisible invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to realistic, lifelike visions. Many a time’s people try to contact spirits of a deceased person which is known as necromancy. Ghosts are described as solitary, human like essences that haunt particular locations, objects or they were associated in life. The belief in the existence of afterlife as well as manifestation of the spirits of the dead is wide spread, certain practices of spiritualism, ritual magic are specifically designed to rest the spirits of the dead.

Cryptids

Cryptids are animals whose existence is questionable, these are typically considered to be extinct. There are number of cryptids though to be in existence today. Some of the cryptids well known like big foot, dragons, unicorns, dinosaurs.

UFO's(Unidentified flying object)

As they say UFO’s directly do not come under paranormal subject. Scientists all around the world are searching for unicellular life within the solar system. UFO’s are claims of visitations by extra-terrestrial life. UFO’s are popularity referred to as flying saucers or flying discs. Studies have established that the majority of UFO observations are misidentified conventional objects or natural phenomena—most commonly aircraft, balloons, or astronomical objects such as meteors or bright planets with a small percentage even being hoaxes. Sometimes, UFOs cannot be identified because of the low quality of evidence related to their sightings.


Yola Brito Carvalho
SU160074
FYBSc Computer Science
F.C English Div B