Stories of the Occult

I own a physical copy of the book so my review is for the paperback of the book.
This book contains short excepts about various types of hauntings, including some occult related haunted locations and the spooky occurrences there.
The Crescent Hotel, is infamous now due to the celebrities that stayed at the Hotel but also due to the dark history of when the building was a hospital for patients that had cancer.
Dr. Baker was quite insidious and evil in my opinion, due to him giving false hope to people that had cancer, & would be willing to believe anything to cure their cancer, but there was no miraculous cure, he deceived the patients, experimented on them, which sadly lead to their deaths.
I believe the patients are now vengeful spirits, and rightfully so, they were lied to, deceived in the most treacherous manner.
There is a Ghost Adventures episode about the Hotel, jars that contained preserved organs in them were found, from the hospital ward.

I've never heard of a ship called HMS Arrogant before and I think it's a bit foolish to name a ship after a Greek Deity unless you have a strong connection/bond with them, otherwise their voyages were doomed from the start.
I've always been fascinated by ghost ships, pirates, smugglers.
Seeing a ghost ship would be creepy.
It reminds me of Bram Stoker's Dracula, the ship Dracula travelled on to Whitby & London was named after the Greek Goddess Demeter, the voyage was cursed so i've always wanted to know if Bram Stoker was interested in mythology, folklore and if he spoke to a Folklorist that inspired his imagination, when he wrote Dracula in 1897.

It sounds like Maria Charlotte Roux was a somewhat vengeful spirit, after she died and she was heartbroken that Giel seemed to more on quickly after her death & burial, by getting remarried a year later. Even in death spirits feel emotional pain, heartbreak, it's sad.
I like how unique, creepy & interesting Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish mythology & folklore is & their pantheons of Deities are really interesting as well.
The information in each except in the book is interesting but very basic information and a little bit vague, if you do your own in-depth research you can find out more information about anything mentioned in this book.

Some of my favourite hauntings mentioned in the book:
The Bell Witch
The Black-Eyed Children
The Strange & Unexplained Death of Elisa Lam
(it wasn't suicide)
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (Russia)
The Lost English Colony-(Roanoke)
Hoia Baciu-“The Shepard's Forest” (Romanian Forest)
The Villisca Axe Murder House
The Kasha (Japanese Yokai in Hawaii)
Will the Blacksmith
Ghouls (Islamic in origin)
Japanese Urban Legends-“Teke Teke”
Kitsune Tsukai
Wolpertinger
The Awful (a Griffin-like type of animal of unknown origin/species)
The Deer Woman (Native American/Indigenous)
Skinwalkers

The first chapter is about various hauntings but none of them so far are related to the occult which is why I purchased the book in the first place, due to being interested in places that have occult history.
The circumstances related to the entire family & two friends of the one of the Moore family children is disturbing, gruesome and very sad.
Some of the details related to the killer are strange- a slab of bacon that was left near the bloody axe that belonged to Josiah used to murder 6 people, cigarette butts that were found in the basement where the killer was waiting for the unsuspecting victims to fall asleep.
The fact that a known German serial killer that murdered 59 people in the same manner as the Villisca Axe murders wasn't more thoroughly investigated is suspicious.
I hope one day these murders will be conclusively solved.
I look forward to reading the other chapters about unexplained deaths, cryptozoology, witchcraft, and the occult.
The haunting in Hawaii that involves a shapeshifting Kasha, which in my opinion is a Yokai (a type of Japanese demon) has always been really interesting to me, it's one of my favourites.
I love Japanese mythology and folklore.
Shintoism & Buddhism is interesting & unique.

In my opinion I think the black-eyed children are Vampiric, demons that have to be invited in, then they cause chaos, misfortune, unexplained and serious illness of anyone that invites them in.
Their eyes are completely black, demons are known to appear as children to lure people into a false sense of security, they appear innocent to gain your trust.
Why did the cats disappear?
Did the black-eyed children drink the blood of the cats?
There are various stories about people that helped the black-eyed children, they felt sorry for them due to them appearing as children, but then they were diagnosed with cancer.
Form your own opinion about what you think they are, since they are not what they seem, they are evil.

Post mortem photography and photographs of ghosts/spirits in the 19th century has always been interesting to me, but it's sad that for some people the only photograph they had of their children or family members was taken with their corpse in the photograph. It's a little bit creepy.
I liked the short except about Will the blacksmith, he is a quite evil person and enjoyed luring his unsuspecting victims to their doom, to their deaths.
I liked reading about all the creepy variations of Will the blacksmith, the Will-O'-Wisp and similar frightening and creepy beings, spirits or entities are are as equally as evil and sinister in their intentions as Will the blacksmith.
Stingy Jack associated with Jack-O-Lantern's is interesting as well.
Raynham Hall & Hampton Court are infamous and quite haunted, there is a fascinating clip on YouTube of a well dressed spirit opening a door at Hampton Court they are wearing old fashioned clothing, but it's not known who the spirit is.

Ghouls that exist in cemeteries feasting on the dead and the mourners have always been creepy but fascinating to me. There isn't always a lot of information about ghouls though.
One of my favourite Japanese Urban Legends is “Teke Teke”
It's creepy how Kashima Reiko died & the fact that she crawls around on the ground with half of her body which makes the “Teke Teke” sound. The creepiest aspect of the “Teke Teke” legend though is the fact that Kashima Reiko carries a scythe so she can cut the legs off the bodies of her victims.
I know of a supernatural ritual to summon a spirit known as Hanako-San but she died in a bathtub, which is different to the girls school bathroom related legend.
Creepy Japanese Urban Legends are my favourite type of Urban Legends.
I don't think the unexplained mysterious murder of Jeanette DePalma has anything to do with the occult, some of the evidence is circumstantial, the murderer could have knowledge of the occult/witchcraft, but due to a lot over hyped speculation about possible links to the occult and her murder supposedly being a occult murder it just distracts people from the genuine truth.
Jeanette DePalma was sadly murdered for unknown reasons, her murder may or may not be connected or associated with the occult, but in my opinion it doesn't help that there is a lot of speculation, rumours, theories when no one really knows the truth.
I hope that one day her murder will be conclusively solved and Jeanette DePalma will finally receive the justice she deserves.
The Sigbin is the most evil, creepy and disturbing cryptid being that I have ever read about.

There is a book about the Villisca Axe Murder House & Dead Mountain which is about the Dyatlov Pass Incident that I recommend as further reading since both are interesting & unsolved.
I like a lot of the unexplained, unsolved & creepy excerpts about strange, creepy cryptids, other types of beings that are of unknown origin & species.
It's unknown where some of the cryptids came from and why they are where they were encountered & seen.
The Awful was creepy & interesting to read about, due to the menacing presence of the cryptids, the unknown origin of it and not knowing it's intentions or what it wanted must have been scary for the people that experienced encountering the cryptid.

A Skinwalkers is a shapeshifting witch that wears animal pelt, so they can shapeshift into the form of that animal and adopt the traits of the animal.
They mimic humans that they murdered, they mimic their last moments alive, when the victim was terrified and asking for help.
Shamans & medicine men & women are the healers of the tribes but the Skinwalkers practice dark magick and they are the complete opposite of the Shamans-(they astral project & help people with spiritual attachments, spiritual sickness in the astral realm), medicine men & women.
This is one of the creepy aspects of Skinwalkers, mimicking humans to lure you into helping them, but they are otherworldly, disturbing and creepy
It is a Navajo & Algonquin belief and they don't talk about them, because it brings the skin walker closer to them, since they practice dark magick & they are known to be harmful, and potentially kill animals and people, most Native people do whatever they can to stay away from Skinwalkers.
For clarification a Wendigo is different, this being is usually associated with famine, starvation and cannibalism.
If you consume the heart of your loved one, then you become a Wendigo, forever cursed to consume human flesh but never being satiated.
The term Wendigo psychosis was created to describe a mental illness related to Native American beliefs.
There is a infamous story about a man in a cabin with his family, he had enough supplies to feed himself & his family, but he murdered and cannibalized his whole family. He became a Wendigo.

The author seems to misunderstand how tarot cards are used or why they are used.
A tarot card reader, reads the energy of the people that asked a specific question that can be answered via the tarot cards, they read the energy of what happened in the past, the present-what is currently happening in their life & what could potentially happen in the future, but they can't change anyone's future, including their own.
They can only read the person's energy, and divine the answers the person seeks about the current outcome related to whatever they asked about or a potential outcome related to what was asked about that may or may not happen in the future, but it's not set in stone, it's one variable among many possibilities.
There are various types of divination and tarot cards are one of many methods of divination.
I liked reading this book, but there was a lot of information I already knew except a few exceptions about Finnish & Swedish mythology, folklore etc..
If you didn't already know about what the author has written about it might be interesting to you, however if you already know, it's just more of the same regurgitated information that probably exists in various books about the hauntings, the paranormal, the occult.