Old Tyme News

  • mail order magic
    Old Tyme News,  Witchcraft & Magic

    Mail Order Magic

    Back in the 1940’s Standard O and B Supply Company, a Chicago-based distributor of Occult, astrological and African-American hoodoo material, was the go-to mail order company for all your magical and occult needs. Their Masters Occult Catalog carried everything from books like The 7 Keys of Power and The Ancient Book of Formulas to necessities like Uncrossing Powder, Black Cat Candles, and Dream Perfume. Were you looking for a Bible with full color illustrations? They had it. Sampson Snake Root? No problem. David the Fearless Floor Washing Soap. Step right in. What about a glow-in-the dark Yogee Board? $1.98 please. Best of all you sent no money, everything was C.O.D.…

  • Old Tyme News,  Witchcraft & Magic

    The St. Louis Witch Murder

    Many people believe that women being murdered for being a “witch” ended once the Salem Witchcraft Trials were over. Unfortunately, it did not and it still goes on around the world to this day. This is only one of those tragic stories. 1911 As the month of May came to a close in 1911 so did the life of Aldina Eisenbarth. Not more than a month earlier had she married Alois Eisnenbarth against the wishes of her friends. Aldina a 63 year-old widow had moved back to St. Louis three years earlier after the death of her husband. She met Alois while doing odd jobs around his house and soon,…

  • glowing wolf
    Cryptozoology,  Old Tyme News

    The Glow-in-the-dark Werewolf… maybe

    The cold December nights of 1913 seem filled with a strange creature which only served to chill the blood of citizens in the Bronx more than usual. Some newspaper accounts labelled the creature a “Werewolf” and parents were told, by police, to keep a watchful eye on their children. As if a werewolf roaming the Bronx wasn’t odd enough this creature added a new supernatural spin to the old legends, it glowed. The Tail Tale Witnesses of the beast described it as having glowing and “gleaming, pale eyes” and some even said that the creature’s jaws shot fire and emitted “sparks” as it snapped its teeth. The “werewolf” attacks also…

  • Ghosts and Hauntings,  Old Tyme News

    The Strange Saginaw Spook House

    In the latter-half of the 1800’s newspapers in Saginaw, Michigan began reporting stories of a house which seemed, to the citizenry, to be haunted. For years families which moved into the location were allegedly “driven” from the house by encounters with spirits that wandered the grounds and knocked on the walls. With tensions running high a solution was found. In May of 1867 the “haunted” house was rented to a deaf man. As reported in the newspapers the result would be “anxiously watched by believers in the marvelous”. Very little is reported of the house after its new tenant took residence. Saginaw Solved? Five years later, in August, and presumable…

  • 50000_ghost
    Ghosts and Hauntings,  Old Tyme News

    Fifty-Thousand Dollars for a Ghost

    Long before James Randi’s million-dollar psychic challenge, a wealthy South American mining tycoon offered $50,000 for any substantial “proof” of the afterlife. Buying a Ghost Remez de Romaldo was a well-to-do businessman in the early 1900’s and his wife was well-known among the spiritualist communities of that time. When his wife died of typhoid fever, in 1913, his grief exploded into action. Before returning to his homeland of Argentina he offered $50,000 to anyone, or group, who could supply him with satsifactory evidence of life after death. Keep in mind $50,000 in 1913 is equivalent to about 1.2 million dollars today so it’s nothing to sneeze at. Senor Romaldo’s wife…

  • Old Tyme Psychics
    Old Tyme News,  Psychic Phenomena

    Your Future, For Pennies! Old Tyme Psychic Ads

    Throughout history there have been those self-alleged wonder-workers who proclaim unto themselves the gifts of precognition, telepathy, clairvoyance, etc. The most well known of these are, of course, still spoken of but many of have fallen to the wayside of history either being exposed as frauds or simply vanishing into the ether from which they proclaimed their powers had been derived from. Can someone divine the future or unknown facts simply by reading an unseen energy stream which contains all information? Or are these strange messages brought by spirit beings who exist in some ethereal and timeless world? I don’t know. What I do know is that a great many…

  • Zombie Experiments
    Old Tyme News

    America’s First Zombie Experiments!

    As the general population’s love of zombies continues to grow I thought I’d post this interesting little article from out of my files for all those who are convinced that a zombie apocalypse is eminent. Not only does the article give a brief glimpse as to what the world of “science” was like at the turn of the century but it also provides some more weird clues as to how we may be truly headed for an undead disaster. Also, notice that when the creatures are brought back to life …they are angry …great. Doctor Discovers Secret of Life and Death The secret of life and the vital principle of…