Halloween

Hallowe'en n : a shortened version of the name 'All Hallows Even'. It marks 'The Eve of All Saints' which occurs each year on the 31st of October. This is also the last night of the year in the early Celtic Calendar.

The modern holiday of Halloween has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain (Irish pronunciation: [ˈsˠaunʲ]; from the Old Irish samain). The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year".

Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Gaels believed that on Octobe 31, the boundary between the alive and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, where the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks were also worn at the festivals in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or placate them.

Hallucination

Hallucination : this is the apparent perception of an external sense or object or datum that is not actually present. It is also a mental state of being deceived, mistaken or deluded; an unfounded idea or belief or an illusion. In lay-mans terms, seeing things, the mind tricking you into believing that something is there when in reality it is not.

Hauntings

Ghosts and Hauntings are the precence of the soul, spirit, or the personality of a person who has died. Rather then pass over, for some reason ghosts has remanined on earth. It is thought the person may not be aware they have died, or are a lost soul, or the ghosts may refuse to pass over as they face some sort of hell on the other side due to crimes committed on this side. Ghosts will often take on the look of a misty or semitransparent or fog-like human form. Sometimes Ghosts will make its precense known through moving objects or noises. Those involved in ghost research believe the ghosts may actually be a form of psychic or mental energy that was left behind. The cities of York and Derby in England are famous for ghost sightings. In cultures that hold a belief in reincarnation, they belive Ghosts are souls that refus to be "recycled", because they have unfinished business to complete first. The Chinese have some very interesting beliefs on ghosts that include a ghost can become immortal and become a demigod Or ghosts can go to hell and suffer for all of eternity. They believe some ghosts kill people to rob them of their rights to reincarnation. Ghosts can die and become a "ghost of ghosts".

Healer

Healer n: according to the Fourth Edition American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language the latter is 'one that heals or attempts to heal, especially a faith healer'. Faith healing has been around for many years, but with the advent of modern medicine it has tended to become the domain of sorcerers, astrologers and assorted quacks.

These people did not necessarily refuse to recognise the Church, however the Church did tend to repudiate them. The Renaissance saw the development of a more materialistic attitude towards health and disease and as a result belief in the effectiveness of faith healing began to diminish. This was except among the pitifully poor. Below are some examples of history's better known 'faith healers'

Healing

Healing : is, according to the dictionary means to: make hale, sound, or whole; to cure of a disease, wound, or other derangement; to restore to soundness or health. Today in the West, when a person is ill they will normally go and visit a doctor who will make a diagnosis and then prescribe the relevant treatment to make the person better. There are however many different forms of healing, acupressure, acupuncture, healer, faith healing and laying on of hands.

Holy Grail and Thorn

Holy Grail & Holy Thorn : these are two sacred relics both related to, and from the time of Jesus. Legend has it that Jesus actually once visited England with his tin-trading uncle. According to this legend, while St. Joseph was at Glastonbury his staff rooted into the ground, and duly burst forth into a great thorn tree. After the death of Jesus it was here too, that in the well of a nearby church, St. Joseph concealed the Holy Grail. This Holy Grail was in fact, the chalice from which Jesus drank, during the Last Supper and the same chalice that was used to catch drops of his blood which fell from his wounds during his crucifixion.

Holy spear

Holy Spear : is the spear, said to have been thrust into the side of Jesus on the cross, by a centurion called Gaius Cassius Longinus. The spear also goes by the name of 'The Lance of Longinus' and 'The Spear of Destiny'.

The Holy Spear is said to possess great powers especially the power to grant great success in battles. Apparently Hitler was somewhat obsessed by it.Over the years there have been at least four different spears which have been claimed to be the original.

The first appeared in the thirteenth century and was taken to Paris by St. Louis following his return from the Palestine crusades. The second was sent by Ottoman sultan Bajazet II, to Pope Innocent VIII in 1492 and placed in one of the piers supporting the dome at St. Peter's basilica. The third was simply a copy of the fourth and kept a Cracow in Poland. The fourth however, has a much more complex history. It passed through a number of hands before finally finding it's way into the ownership of the Habsburg Dynasty and until as recently as 1938 was displayed in the Hofburg museum. Hitler later had it hidden in a special vault at Nurenberg.

Strangely enough two of it's previous owners Charlemagne and Frederick Barbarossa are both said to have died shortly after dropping the spear. Indeed the day it was retrieved from Adolf Hitler's underground vault by the victorious American troops in Nuremburg he himself committed suicide.

Hope Diamond

Hope Diamond : is described as being “torn from the brow of a temple god and cut into the world’s most valuable gem, the Hope Diamond bewitched kings and was at the heart of the French Revolution. But it also brought tragedy and death to those who owned it….”The Hope Diamond is believed to have come from the Kollur mine near Golconda in India. It first came to attention in the 1660’s when a French explorer Tavernier noticed the then 112 carats of golf ball shaped blue stone, gleaming on the forehead of a temple idol. At that point in time it was roughly three times the size that it is today. Tavernier took the diamond back to France where in 1669 he sold it to Louis XIV for the modern day equivalent of £71 million.

Horoscope (meaning)

Zodiac Signs! - Horoscope columns in popular newspapers and magazines might lead you to suspect that the zodiac signs in which the Sun appears in horoscopes is of such over-riding importance that little else matters.

The truth is that the zodiac signs in which the Sun appears is assigned much more importance in modern astrology than was the case in ancient times. Then, each planet (the Sun and the Moon being counted amongst the planets) signified a particular area of life as indicated in the individual birth chart. In particular, the planet that rules the ascendant (the zodiac sign rising at birth), and its sign and house position, was seen as having special significance for the individual.

Nevertheless there is no doubt that sun signs in horoscopes do have importance (the ancients acknowledged this too). The twelve zodiac signs are divided into four elements: Fire - Aries, Leo and Sagittarius; Earth - Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn; Air - Gemini, Libra and Aquarius; Water - Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

For more info go to Astrology section on womans zone at www.womanszone.co.uk

Horse Eeels

Horse-Eels : These are aquatic beasts where claims of sightings typically come from two lakes in Ireland. Lough Nahooin and Lough Fadda in County Galway. These strange creatures are described as having a horse-like head with a very elongated eel shaped body.