The Blog - Devil's Penny

Current: Gunther von Hagens, aka “Dr. Death” sells “plastinated” human body parts online

Added By: R. Brock On: October 29, 2010

And I thought that the old articles on “human leather” posted here were creepy….

Dr Death: body parts for sale on internet by controversial anatomist Gunther von Hagens

The controversial anatomist Gunther von Hagens, known as Dr Death, is to sell plastinated human body parts online.

The German entrepreneur, whose Body Worlds exhibitions showed human cadavers in lifelike poses, has told clients they will be able to buy the fleshless corpses which he injects with plastic resin over the internet.

The body parts will go on sale from November 3 with whole human bodies available for Â£61,733, according to a report by Sueddeutsche Zeuitung newspaper.

Torsos will be on sale for around Â£50,154 while human heads will be on offer for Â£19,495 each. Animal parts are also available.

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In reply to the Telegraph article above, I wrote:

I have a strong interest in all the sciences, including medicine and biology, but be that as it may, I still think this guy is a ghoul. I remember, as a kid, watching some “B” movie where the villain was encasing living people in wax. You could hear some sort of machine running, pocketa-pocketa-pocketa in the background, and the “general ambiance” of it all made my skin crawl. Now, as an adult, this story gives me the same reaction. This guy needs his head examined.

DR. von Hagen’s “plastinarium”website is something to behold – a kind of macabre flash carousel, offering everything from heads to complete bodies for sale.

"Dr. Death" has also come under criticism recently for his graphic portrayal of plastinated corpses having sex. Can you say "Necrophilia?"

Posted in The Blog | Tagged autopsy, corpses, dissection, Dr. Death, ethics, exhibit, German, Germany, Gunther von Hagens, medicine, plastinarium, plastination | 1 Comment

On Demonic Possession and Exorcism

Added By: R. Brock On: August 25, 2010

As some horror enthusiasts may know, the latest thriller Â ”mockumentary” filmed with jiggly handheld cameras is due to open on the 27th of August. I refer to The Last Exorcism [trailer] which is the story of a former evangelist who, having spent his religious career conducting contrived exorcisms, is forced to confront a real case of demonic possession, that of a farmer’s young daughter, which he allows a documentary crew to film.

The tagline of the film is “If you believe in God, you must believe in the Devil.” Â This jibes with my thinking about the phenomena of possession and exorcism, as they have been presented to Western audiences. Clearly, in popular literature, on television, and in the cinema, accounts of demonic possessionÂ and the ensuing exorcisms occur within an assumed framework of Christian biblical dogma. Â Ergo, if you believe that demons exist and take over the bodies of unwilling human subjects, then all sorts of things become true, by default: Â the existence of the Christian God, Yaweh (Jehovah); the existence of the Devil, an angel who rebelled against God by deceiving Eve into eating of the forbidden fruit, way back in the Garden of Eden. And if you believe this, then you believe the Genesis account of divine creation, and perhaps most significantly, you believe this:

And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. (Revelation 12: 7-9)

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Posted in The Blog | Tagged bible, biblical, Catholic, Christ, christian, demoniac, demonic, Demons, eastern, evil spirit, exorcise, exorcism, fear, gadarene, gerasene, haunting, Legion, Lutheran, pagan, Possession, priest, terror, western | Leave a comment

Current: Haunted Real-Estate

Added By: R. Brock On: August 10, 2010

Via the “Daily Beast,” a gallery of Â ”haunted Â homes,” ranging from the house where the [largely discredited] “Amityville Horror” hauntings took place, to the house where Sharon Tate, et al, were brutally murdered by the Manson Family (now bulldozed).

Interestingly, not all the houses have a well-documented history of haunt-like phenomena, but rather share the characteristic of being locations where heinous murders took place. This is something I have often noted before: Â among many haunting enthusiasts, there seems to be a common presumption that one thing (heinous events) leads to another (dramatic hauntings). Â There is, of course, a certain historical precedent for this in centuries of spooky literature, but it seems to me that this “foreknowledge” might, in itself, predispose some for mentally generating a haunt of terrifying proportions.

I composed a poem about this, not long ago:

THEIR NAME IS LEGION

You who are sane, do not be too assured in your sanity.
You who hearken to shades of the night, please understandâ€“
The most virulent of demons reside within cubic centimeters
Of your apeish skull.
Not the doings of a cruel God, they are
The stuff of molecules and memories, mishandled by
Time and circumstance and the cold calcuations
Of random biology.
Their name is Legion, and
They inhabit the swine,
The dejected, the divine.
——
“Their name is Legion,” copyright Â©, 2009, by Rod Brock

Posted in The Blog | Tagged Amityville Horror, Benet-Ramsey, celebrities, famous, Haunted Houses, Hauntings, Murder, psychology, serial killer, Sharon Tate | Leave a comment

The Will-oâ€™-the-Wisp: More than Just Swamp Gas

The Columbia Encyclopedia, sixth edition, defines â€œwill-o-the-wispâ€ (Fig. 1) in the following way: â€¦phenomenon known also as ignis fatuus and jack-oâ€™-lantern. It is seen at night as a pale, flickering light over marshland. There is no generally accepted explanation for it; it may result from the spontaneous ignition of gases (e.g., methane) produced by the ... [More »]

The Haunted Rectory, ca. 1968

I make no claim of believing the following; I merely relate the story as I heard it when I was young. There is a house in the town where I was born, which many years ago was the rectory for an Episcopalian church. The steeple of the latter is a familiar landmark at the top ... [More »]

Local News

Ghost Smells Like the Grave

The Daily Chronicle invites the Psychical Research Society to investigate the highly unpleasant manifestations of a unique ghost which haunts an old-time country cottage within twenty miles of London.

Several persons while sleeping in a certain bed room of the house have felt a cold, flabby, ghostlike hand placed on their mouths. But the most extraordinary feature of the spook is that the ghostly presence is always accompanied by the indescribable, suffocating smell of the charnel house.

Sometimes the ghost can be heard descending the stairs at noonday. He makes a noise like that of a huge, corpulent man whose slippers flap on each stair. The ghost goes into a room and seats himself at the luncheon table, driving everybody away by his malodorous presence.

There is a local story of an imbecile man of huge proportions who died in the garret of the cottage many years ago. The body being so large, there was unusual delay in getting it out of the house, and decomposition was far advanced before the burial.

Monster’s Abominable Practices, 1788

A MONSTER, hideous and disgusting in form has lately arrived from France. Its manners are brutal although its species is human. In this horrid being is exhibited a junction of both sexes, but its apparel is female. A girl of some beauty and address lives with it for purposes the most vile, and it has been visited by the first men in the country. Decency will not allow a more minute description, either of the MONSTER or its abominable practices.

Sermon

First Church of Christ, Scientist, 850 West Broadway, corner Excelsior avenue; first reader Mrs. Anna C. E. Crowley, No. 850 West Broadway residence–morning service at 10:45 o’clock; subject of sermon, “Ancient and Modern Necromancy, or Mesmerism and Hypnotism”
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One day last week a marvelous apparition was seen near Coney Island. At the height of at least a thousand feet in the air a strange object was in the act of flying toward the New Jersey coast. It was apparently a man with bat’s wings and improved frog’s legs. The face of the man ... [More »]

Poltergeist-like phenomena, New Jersey, 1893

ORANGE, N.J., Sept. 22. – Prayers will be said to-morrow morning in the Church of St. Michael the Archangel, in Matthews Street, this city, to lay a ghost which is driving the Italian residents of White Street, West Orange, into superstitious frenzy. Ghostly rappings, hand-clappings, and other supernatural demonstrations have been heard and experienced since ... [More »]

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The Wizard Lights

I notice in the Dispatch, of the 11th inst., the following paragraph:– “The statement that a vessel was seen burning off Erie on Tuesday night, is corroborated by several persons living on the highlands south of the city, who say they saw it.” On the Tuesday evening mentioned, Oct. 29th, at about 7 o’clock, my ... [More »]

Dr Death: body parts for sale on internet by controversial anatomist Gunther von Hagens

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