History & Haunting St Leonards Church , Walton-le-Dale, Lancashire, England. The church of St Leonard’s in Walton-le-Dale is said to be a hot spot of paranormal activity, and in the 18th century two ghost hunters gathered here on Christmas Eve. They used ancient spells to try and conjure up the spirits of all those who would die in the year ahead. Among the spirits they saw was one of themselves. He died later that year. From~Daniel Codd’s Paranormal Lancashire Necromancy is a form of magic involving communication with the deceased – either by summoning their spirit as an apparition or raising them bodily – for the purpose of divination, imparting the means to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge, or to use the deceased as a weapon, as the term may sometimes be used in a more general sense to refer to black magic or witchcraft The following account was taken from Lancashire Folk-lore by John Harland and T. T. Wilkinson, 1867 where they in turn quote Casaubon. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the year 1560, three judicial astrologers met in Preston, for the purpose of raising a corpse by incantations. They were Dr. Dee, Warden of Manchester (authors note: Dee did not become Warden of Manchester until 1595), Edward Kelly, his assistant, and seer, and Paul Wareing, of Dove Cotes, near Clayton Brook. Casaubon, in his True and faithful Account of what passed for many years between John Dee and some Spirits, (apparently quoting from Weevers Funeral Monuments) states that The aforesaid Master Edward Kelly, a person well skilled in judicial astrology, with one Paul Wareing (who acted with him in these incantations and all these conjurations) and Dr. Dee, went to the churchyard of St. Leonards, in Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, and entered the burial ground exactly at midnight, the moon shining brightly, for the purpose of raising the body of a person who had been interred there, and who had during his life hidden a quantity of money without disclosing the fact previous to his death. Having had the grave pointed out to them on the preceding day, they opened it, removed the coffin lid, and set to work by various exorcisms, until the body became animated, by the spirit entering it again. The body then rose out of the grave and stood upright before them. It not only satisfied their wicked desires, it is said, but delivered several strange predictions concerning persons in the neighbourhood, which were literally and exactly fulfilled. Sibley, in his Occult Sciences, relates a similar account of this transaction, and also gives an engraving representing the scene, which took place at the midnight hour in the church of Walton. Another account states that Dr. Dee was engaged with Kelly in this enterprise, August 12th, 1560, and that Paul Wareing, of Clayton Brook, was the other who gave assistance in endeavouring to obtain an intercourse with familiar spirits, mysteriousbritain.co.uk/ Legend has it that Edward Kelley visited Lancashire in the 16th Century to raise a corpse at St Leonards Church to discover the location of hidden treasure. A convicted criminal and self-declared spirit medium, Kelley died aged 42, after a life trying to contact angels and convincing influential people he could produce gold. Sibly got his story from John Weevers book on funeral monuments. Weever allegedly heard the story from Paul Waring himself. Photo 1 by Galatas geograph_org_uk_ Photo 2 by Alexander P Kapp geograph_org_uk_ Photo 3 Engraving of occultists John Dee and Edward Kelley in the act of invoking the spirit of a deceased person; from Astrology (1806) by Ebenezer Sibly.engraved by Ames of Bristol
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 17:48:39 +0000
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