Superstition and Other Silliness: April 2005 Archives

Scotland (alas): The Paisley Development Trust is convinced that a missing horseshoe is responsible for all the town's woes:

Piero Pieraccini, treasurer of the Paisley Development Trust, blamed high rates of violent crime, hardship and natural disasters, including flooding in the town, on the loss of an iron horseshoe which marks the communal grave of six men and women, who were believed to be the devil's disciples.

The band were found guilty of witchcraft in 1697, hanged and publicly burned at the stake before their ashes were buried and the tomb sealed with the horse's stamp.

Without the horseshoe, it is said, the town cannot prevent witches rising from the dead leaving the town at the mercy of their evil spirits.

Their solution is to replace the missing horseshoe with a new one, something which a blacksmit should be able to knock up in a matter of seconds.

Now the trust has applied for a grant for almost £2500 from Renfrewshire Council to recast a brand new stainless steel horseshoe in the hope that it will bring good luck to Paisley.

At that price, they must be getting Wylundt himself to do the job!

Paisley seeks horseshoe to rein in ancient witches' curse - The Herald, 19th April 2005.

Vatican City - Avedon Carol has dug out an old story, which has some bearing on one of our old stories -- it seems the late Pope John Paul II feared that George W. Bush was the Antichrist.

According to freelance journalist Wayne Madsden, George W Bush's blood lust, his repeated commitment to Christian beliefs and his constant references to 'evil doers,' in the eyes of many devout Catholic leaders, bear all the hallmarks of the one warned about in the Book of Revelations--the anti-Christ.

Madsen, a Washington-based writer and columnist, who often writes for Counterpunch, says that people close to the pope claim that amid these concerns, the pontiff wishes he was younger and in better health to confront the possibility that Bush may represent the person prophesized in Revelations. John Paul II has always believed the world was on the precipice of the final confrontation between Good and Evil as foretold in the New Testament.

The Pope did not agree that Harry Potter is evil, though.

Pope fears Bush is antichrist, journalist contends - Catholic New Times, May 18, 2003 .

Colombia: Pope John Paul II has risen from that dead as The Incredible Popeman!

Like any self-respecting superhero, the Incredible Popeman has a battery of special equipment. Along with his yellow [anti-devil] cape and green chastity pants, the muscular super-pontiff wields a faith staff with a cross on top and carries holy water and communion wine.

In the comic book, the pope dies and is reborn with superpowers beyond the infallibility Catholic doctrine gave him on Earth.

Pope reborn as superhero in Colombian comic -AZ Central, 6th April 2005 (thank you, Rick).