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Category: Forest

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Is The Forest Dark The Real Forest Behind The Trees?

An outstanding novel as a model

Fiona Barnett’s excellent novel “The Dark Between the Trees” presents a fascinating idea within a compelling modern story of Forest Horror.

A doomed expedition gets caught in a mysterious, otherworldly forest that is superimposed over the normal forest they enter at the beginning of the story. A huge oak tree disappears overnight, and another realm breaks into the ordinary reality with flickering and shimmering perceptions that appear like hallucinations in the first place and then become a brutal reality.

It’s a fascinating concept since it gives the well-known ideas of the power of places and the zones of the supernatural a new dimension.

The book, which stands in the best tradition of Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen, shows convincingly how a hidden dimension breaks through the fabric of normal reality: 

“There were two forests, and one of them kept flickering into sight – not even on the edge of her vision now – but sometimes right in the middle of it.” (From Fiona Barnett’s book)

Even though it is fiction, it provides a promising premise for real investigations into the unknown.

The zones of the paranormal

The otherworld as an (normally) invisible landscape behind the ordinary makes sense: If we go through the different phenomena of the supernatural, from mysterious light orbs, UFOs, to ghostly apparitions, the lowest common denominator is location:

Again and again, it is certain hotspots: notorious haunted forests, zones where Ufos are seen, bewitched fields – landscapes where things happen.

Local legends and witness accounts “draw” maps over time: There are clusters of mysterious disappearances or places where “lights” are seen more often: Hessdalen in Norway is a prominent place, or the Brown Mountain Lights in the US. Somehow, the otherworldly “landscape” is connected to our landscape. Or is it vice versa? Are our landscapes the “normal”, “visible” part of a larger unknown dimension?

These unknown dimensions might manifest in many ways, and it is the dark forest behind the visible world.  It is the layer between the trees.  A layer where orbs, beasts, and ghostly apparitions can occur. At night. Mostly. And it is indeed, like in the novel, the impression that something gets superimposed over the normal reality. A layer that is active under certain circumstances.

Another interesting concept in the book is the overlapping of different times, which allows one to go missing and still be alive after centuries (no more info here to avoid spoilers). 

It is interesting because we see a common thread that runs through fiction, folklore, and eyewitness accounts of real experiences: It’s always certain places where the veil between ordinary reality and an unknown dimension is thin. Time seems to run different and the motive of getting lost and trapped in a realm where time is different pops up again and again. We see typical motives from the fairy lore here, which then appear again in UFO-stories of close encounters and abductions.

But does it have some real relevance?

Our media is full of replicated content or even KI-created stories. We need to look out for the real stuff: Original field research, original interviews with witnesses, and verified stories. Then it would be interesting to see how much real events reflect this common thread. 

A great discovery is researcher Paul Sinclair, who made the documentary WOLF LANDS, wrote books (Night People and the Truth Proof), and is the creator of a YouTube channel. His channel TRUTH PROOF and work are pure gold in the flood of “automated content”. His expeditions and talks with witnesses often lead to the fascinating forests and landscapes of Yorkshire, which has a reputation for the paranormal. He and his friends and family do what everybody should do who has a serious interest in phenomena: Talk to the people, visit the locations, and – important – analyse. Its a pleasure to have someone who combines open-mindedness and critical thinking, and it is interesting to hear the conclusions of such an experienced researcher. Things shouldn’t be taken too literally.

In one of his best videos, “Something haunts the woods,” he concludes: “Do certain locations guard secret knowledge? Is Danes Dyke ( a forest in Yorkshire) one of those rare places where reality frays at the edges? Here, ancient earthworks stand watch over centuries of whispered tales… To some, Danes Dyke is just a relic of a forgotten age. but to those who know its secrets…it’s a gateway to something far stranger” (Taken from the video description). 

What we see again and again is that there is a convergence here. Fiction and researchers paint a similar picture, and also that researchers, authors, and scientists coming from different perspectives and different backgrounds often present similar conclusions after years of thinking and working on these themes.

Many insights from Paul’s videos find confirmation in the writings of Patrick Harpur and Jacques Vallée. Again, the common denominator is the power of place; it is location. The best of fiction, such as Fiona Barnett’s “The Dark Between The Trees” or the classics from Algernon Blackwood (The Willows, The Wendigo), takes these insights further and is also a way to deepen our understanding of an otherworld which might be right next door. Another world, which indeed is a Forest Dark.

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Local Folk Horror Stories – Intrinsic Part Of Topography and Heritage

Peter Engelmann, October 22, 2024

Today’s creepypasta researchers and YouTube presenters might search for local legends, supernatural stories, and the mysterious in the first place.

But it gets interesting if researchers and authors who are not after the uncanny in the first place discover ghost stories and unexplainable events in certain regions as a constant. They make us aware of something that seems obvious to the fans of folk horror but isn’t so much on our minds as we think.

These stories about witches, mountain lights, disappearances, ghosts, and supernatural encounters are like a layer that belongs to the landscape. Today this layer might be less accessible as people are less isolated and there are fewer families with close ties where different generations live under one roof: A while ago these stories were passed on from generation to generation and were part of the cultural heritage.

An Explorer Of The Supernatural Stories From The Bavarian Forest

When Karl-Heinz Reimeier, a local historian from Grafenau in the haunted Bavarian Forest began to visit families to learn more about traditions and life conditions in the remote region in Europe he wasn’t after ghost stories. But soon he learned that nearly in every family a ghost story or a mysterious supernatural story exists that plays an important role. Typical cases are the “announcement stories” where somebody announces his death even if he isn’t there. A picture falls from the wall or even voices occur the moment a close relative dies. And of course, there are endless supernatural stories from the dark forest (the Bavarian Forest certainly is one). Some of the typical themes of horror in the forest are similar present as those in haunted places in America or elsewhere. Mysterious lights for example play an important role, the witches in the forest and encounters with otherworldly creatures. Sometimes it is the devil itself.

Stories with a special quality

Nevertheless, there is always a special quality in these stories that makes them unique and ties them to the place and a specific landscape. The supernatural events are often connected to a very specific location. Reimeier says in a short report by local broadcaster Bavaria television that even though there is often a natural explanation there a 5-10% of stories that will never be explained. What’s important to him is the deep meaning of these stories for the people and the people who narrate them. Even if it is often a sad or uncanny story the narrators are alive, enriched, and fully focused when they speak about otherworldly experiences or old legends.

Folk Tales are soul, there aren’t just scary stories or cautionary tales. Often a “morale” is introduced later in the story. But again and again, they occur to be part of the connection of the land, they are a way of experiencing the landscape. In the Bavarian Forest, there is even a specific name for the lore, an old German word, “Weihrazt”. It indicates a special quality that these tales are not just creepy or scary. The word suggests more of a special kind of experience and a special reality that is there. Reimaier wrote a popular book “Wenn’s Weihrazt” – Stories from the Intermediate World. An excellent subtitle that describes the nature of the old legends and ghost stories.

The Intermediate Realm is bound to places

When it comes to the other world there is often a distinction between an (abstract) higher realm that is so different from our ordinary world that it creates an ontological shock if somebody enters these higher realms and an intermediate realm which is not so different from ours but exist on another plane of reality. It is the otherworld of the celts and there are similar conceptions known from the indigenous people in Northern America. The folk tales seem to happen at points where the intermediate realm and the ordinary world overlap at certain places or at certain times for example Samhain or winter solstice.

What Do We Learn From That?

There is another thing here which is obvious but easily overlooked. The author of the book “Wenn’s Weihrazt” visited families or single-living people and did long interviews with them. They stem both from a situation and a milieu where the internet wasn’t present as it is now and he got the “raw material”. In our digital era now there is endless replication and reproduction. So, often when you hear a story it might be that the story is already contaminated with all the stuff that hangs around on social media and elsewhere. We can’t turn back to the old times, but for everybody interested in the stories from the intermediate realm, the original folk horror we should always look for the original.

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SHAPESHIFTING REALITIES

Peter Engelmann, August 11, 2024

A fundamental quality of the otherworld is its shapeshifting quality. This is the common denominator between myth, folklore, fiction, and “true story witness accounts”. Nothing is what it seems in the otherworldly forest. Small and big can change within a second. A nearby place can be suddenly far away. Nothing is what it looks like. The otherworld is a zone where our laws of nature do not apply—UFOs, as modern daemons perfectly represent this shapeshifting quality.

This shape-shifting is a common experience in dreams. Usually, the shapeshifting otherworld is seen as the counterpart of ordinary reality, the otherworld as a mirror world, often with the distorting mirrors in a mirror cabinet. These uncertainties of reality apply not only to the objects, space, or the inhabitants of the otherworld. Time is different too: “On the other hand, a short period of clock time can seem like an age in the Otherworld” (Patrick Harpur, Daimonic Reality).

Apparitions are the most common feature of shapeshifting phenomena. The fairies are shapeshifters par excellence as their modern counterparts, the aliens. But also beasts, “giant-black cats” bigfoot, or other denizens of the forest have a shape-shifting quality. They are known – of course – for shapeshifting: a dwarf becomes a cat or even something inanimate can become a living creature. Or appearing as a living creature. Fairies can make small things big and big things small.

The most intriguing quality of apparitions is their contradictory nature: they are both real and not real in the same moment, both material and immaterial at the same time. This is a concept even hard to grasp for those who spent years studying these themes. It demands us to abandon our common idea about reality. A step nearly impossible to take for the ordinary man. Even scholars, initiates or shamans struggle with these fundamental fissures in our understanding of the world.

Nevertheless, this is where we are. Did somebody figure out what Ufos are? Science explained phenomena like a color-shifting lake where bacteria turns blue or green water into purple. But many mysteries remain a mystery. A missing person is found at an impossible distance. In science, we are puzzled by the mysterious ambivalence of quantum particles, the unknown nature of dark matter, or the impenetrable dark holes. Excellent writer Patrick Harpur found the definition for this special kind of reality: He called it Daimonic Reality and titled his legendary book Daimonic Reality too.

The world is full of encounters with daimonic reality. A key takeaway from the idea of daimonic reality is that we often see only the surface of something but the whole reality is veiled and is hiding in another dimension. A deer is not what it seems. Harpur describes Even the celestial bodies, the stars, and the objects in the skies can be windows into another dimension.

Often so-called abduction cases or encounters of the third kind are much more puzzling than they seem at first sight: Patrick Harpur recalls in Daimonic Reality the case of Virginia Horton who experienced a couple of supernatural experiences. On one occasion in France not far from the river Rhine she got lost in the woods and returned later with a bloody blouse. She talked about an encounter with a deer which seemed like a magical being. Simple “supernatural explanations” such as an alien encounter with the alien disguising as a deer don’t work here. Harpur writes, that under “Hypnosis, Virginia talked more about the deer: ‘ I had a sense of personality inside this deer.’ The sense that there is someone behind phenomena is the sense of the daemonic, the divine even, in all things”.

The Forest As Shapeshifter

Nature itself can be daimonic. Folk Horror tales describe this power of place and the hidden quality of nature around us. The field is more than just a field, the tree is more than a tree and of course, the forest itself has both transforming and shapeshifting qualities. What happens inside the observer and what happens on the outside we often don’t know.

We learned from the great writer Algernon Blackwood the idea that nature is a sentiment being: William P. Simmons writes in the preface of his anthology “Wildwood”: “Sky, soil, trees, grass, air, water – everything that man defines in scientific or organic means, Blackwood imbued with a personality, a soul. In ‘The Willows”, ‘The South Wind’ and others, Nature is not only a symbol of life but a self-aware entity that might be only a part of a vast, fragmented host of powers. The forest, the wildwood, is beyond science and rationality. Blackwood’s conception of nature is both beautiful and horrifying, beyond good or evil, immeasurable and undefinable” (Wildwood, Shadow House Library of Weird Fiction).

The mysterious island in the river Danube in “The Willows” is a good example of what William P. Simmons describes in the preface of Wildwood. The island seems to be constantly changing. An island in the wilderness of a river is a place of change. But when the story’s two protagonists stop and spend the night much more is going on. An uncanny presence plays tricks with the mind and nothing is any longer what it seems.

But is the forest as a shapeshifter only a concept in literature and myth?

Traditionally shapeshifting is the ability to physically transform oneself through unnatural means and not only in the perception of others. We need to get back to this to understand how common this feature is in many forms: Many Gods are shapeshifters: Think of Zeus or Proteus who could change his shape at will. In Norse mythology it is Loki. You find them anywhere in any religion or mythology. Sometimes the transformations into animals or monsters are not voluntary as in the case of Medusa or Arachne. It can be a punishment.

Creatures and supernatural beings are often shapeshifters by nature like vampires or werewolves. The skin-walkers of the Navajo are shapeshifters who roam the woods and the fields like some other tricksters. Then we have fairies, witches, and wizards. Fairies are among the most prominent shapeshifters. They can be humanlike or even appear as humans but quickly shift into a different form. Perhaps the mysterious lights in the forest are a fairy.

So far we are talking about entities. Living beings, agencies, Gods, and demons who can perform metamorphosis. What about the place, the forest itself? The first thought which comes to mind is of course, that any forest challenges our perception. The change of light, the darkness, not seeing the forest for the trees. If we have that feeling of getting lost, if we feel Sylvan dread, our surroundings change. But is it all in the mind? Or is metamorphosis possible? Can a path disappear, the landscape takes a different shape, a different mood?

Well, there are alleged true stories. They are often related to cases where people got lost in the woods or the unsolved missing 401 cases. Here comes an example from “Only In Your State”:

“A few visitors have reported encountering bridges made of birch branches and twigs that span small creeks. According to the visitors’ reports, once they cross a bridge and move away from the area, they are unable to relocate the bridge. It doesn’t matter if the hiker carefully marks her path, or even retraces his footsteps exactly – the bridge (and in some cases, the stream) will simply disappear. This phenomenon has been reported most frequently in the area surrounding Berry Pond.” (Spend The Night At Massachusetts’ Most Haunted State Park For A Truly Terrifying Experience)

This is a very typical example: A path that suddenly isn’t any longer there or even the dimensions in the forest feel somehow “wrong”. Is it possible? It depends on our worldview: If it is true what philosophers say, that our visible, everyday world is only part of a larger invisible world any kind of transformation, distortion or shape-shifting isn’t so absurd.

Or as William P. Simmons said:

“By entering the Wildwood, we are inviting metamorphosis, a terrifying breakdown of how we attempt to define existence. A world that lives, breathes, and feels as dramatically as the humans who stumble along its paths.”

This is the common thread, a reoccurring motive: In movies from IN THE EARTH by Ben Wheatley to the classic “STALKER”, in great literature as in “THE WHITE PEOPLE” by Arthur Machen to Algernon Blackwood but also in countless witness accounts from the Bridgewater triangle, from haunted forests all over the world and even in smaller woods which hold secrets and are always trapdoors to a deeper, different reality.


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THE DAMNED FORESTS

by Peter Engelmann, August 27, 2022

Folk horror is often about a cursed landscape. Somehow the place where the story takes place is bewitched. We don’t see the ghost, the witch, the demon. The Folk horror genre is much about landscape shaping our minds. It’s about the elder gods which are still here, somewhere. Playing tricks with our mind. Demand a human sacrifice. In a remote town a secret cult is still worshipping the old deities. The most notorious places are the woods, these damned forests. Movies such as In The Earth or Midsommar pick up these traditions. However, some contemporary folk horror seems more like a revival of genre movies as The Stone Tape and books from the last century, instead of taking primarily inspiration from the real world.

It would be very interesting to know when we started to rely more on previous writings and creative products rather than taking the inspiration from the “original” ( a place we visited, an experience we had). Or is it a mix of inspiration from the real world and former movies and novels?

True Stories

Horror movies or forest horror movies sometimes claim to be based on a true story. Or they are mockumentaries as Blairwitch. However, as N.E. Genre pointed out in Beyond Blair Witch, the story of the Blair Witch benefits from a rich cultural heritage. An example is the stickmen, a well-established motive long before Blairwitch. Most of the stories we experience in books or films are more rooted in previous works or collective consciousness rather than any actual existing rituals or events. That doesn’t mean that magic belief, folk traditions, and even the idea of a landscape as a magical spiritual character isn’t pretty much alive. Thanksgiving is a good example. Many pagan Earth-God rites had been absorbed by Christianity. Christian practices are sometimes the same thing under a different label. But this is not the primary marketplace where most fiction takes inspiration from and starts off.

Movies like Wicker Man or The Stone Tape are from the 60ties and 70ties. It was a time of changes in society. There is often some subtext about undercurrents in society. But even then, at that time there was a strong tradition of literature. The ideas were not new. So, where are the real roots of folk horror and today’s stories in the woods?

Landscape And Imagination

The landscape was always a factor: The folk tales connected shapes in the landscape to mythical stories. For example, the devil created a block of boulders in a mountain forest. Or he created a canyon which spurred a new local legend. A mountain top with frequent wild weather is the witches’ dance place. We still find the remnants of ancient rituals in the fields and the forests. There are monuments. Neolithic stones, druid stones, and hill graves are reminders of a mysterious past. The remarkable works of modern fiction came much later.

Another background is tradition, folklore, practices in rural regions, symbols, and the rumors and remnants about pagans and their sacrifices. And to be clear: If it seems that modern folk horror in movies such as Wicker Man is connected to earlier works in literature, this is about the premise, the basic models for stories, and not the world of the film. The writers and moviemakers did a lot of research. They used “original” motives such as the Green Man or that “wicker man” sacrifice, which is rooted back in Julius Caesar’s descriptions of the Gallic War.

But again, our modern movies and folk horror stories usually don’t refer to this ancient connection between men and landscape or the “local legend“. The most influential stories were written at a time, when the connection between men and nature was already lost. These works, often novellas, were written in the late 19th/early 20th century. It is the period H.P. Lovecraft describes as the modern era of horror in his essay Supernatural horror in literature. Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, and M.R. James are among the most prominent writers of the weird fiction genre. Algernon Blackwood established modern forest horror with supernatural stories such as The Wendigo and The Willows. John Buchan, a Scottish writer, wrote Witch Wood (1927) about the existence of a witch sabbath in the Caledonian forest. The Place called Dagon from the same time period deals with a secret cult. Fiction writers in turn were in some cases inspired by anthropological research, for example, The Witch Cult In Western Europe by Margaret Murray. These stories attribute a lot to the modern idea of the damned forests and the world of folk horror stories. I can fairly admit that my Forest Dark Movie project is also inspired by the weird tales.

Lovecraft writes that ” Serious weird stories are either made realistically intense by close consistency and perfect fidelity to Nature except in the one supernatural direction which the author allows himself or else cast altogether in the realm of phantasy, with atmosphere cunningly adapted to the visualization of a delicately exotic world of unreality beyond space and time, in which almost anything may happen if it but happen in true accord with certain types of imagination and illusion normal to the sensitive human brain”. This may not so much about the later so-called sub-genre “folk horror” but he describes the modern conception of a genre which emancipated itself from romanticism and the patterns of gothic literature.

Of course, Lovecraft adds a lot to the genesis of the modern weird tales with his writings. Strange rituals in the woods and cosmic fear are a constant theme in H.P. Lovecraft’s writings. And we find many traces of this early 20th tradition in modern literature, as in “The Ritual” by Adam Nevill, which became a successful movie. “The Ritual” is one of the most convincing examples of a book and a movie, which explore both genre traditions but is also rich in a unique first-hand experience of the wilderness.

It is interesting that the modern weird tale, which is in some ways a foundation of folk horror and forest horror stories, emerges in the times of modern industrialization. Usually we wouldn’t associate the fin de siecle with a “back to the roots” or “a back to nature” (even though movements existed). But isn’t it, that there was a disenfranchisement from nature in modern times? Maybe this is the reason for the rise of haunted landscapes and damned forests in fiction in the first place. That kind of precursor of the folk horror weird tale and movie was less popular after the war. Science fiction was popular, and this was less about Lovecraft’s cosmic fear of alien visitors or invaders.

However, the landscape is a crucial element in Stephen King’s writings. Perhaps, “The Children Of The Corn” could be seen as folk horror. And most prominently, there is “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. These stories also center around a central premise in folk horror: The remote town with a secret (pagan) cult and human sacrifice. There is a continuous tradition here, even if it wasn’t labeled as a subgenre.

Researchers have spent a lot of time exploring the roots of folk horror and the dynamic in the genre’s development. An excellent source for further information is the Eldritch Archives on YT. There is a hint, for example, about the role of the Salem Witch Trials in the genesis and development of American folk horror. 

There are times when curiosity arises about the mysteries of the landscapes and the forests. Janet and Colin Bord are writers and researchers and published books such as “Ancient Mysteries Of Britain” in the Eighties and Nineties. Everywhere that old heritage became popular again. Meanwhile, there are endless books about monuments, secret old places, old rites, ritual sites, and mysterious places. There is a new interest in the land.

Future Damned Forests

What are the best strategies for folk horror and forest horror? We should be aware of an obvious question. Do we still take the ideas of haunted landscapes, cursed places, and the influence of the landscape seriously? Do we believe that landscape, the dark forest, or the holy mountains are more than a shape, a mass of stone, or an arrangement of trees? What about psycho-geography? Does that mean that places have psychological influence, or is there more to it? Are the elder gods still here?

We don’t need to believe in dragons, but the mere stability of the genre suggests there is more to its central motives than we think. The most convincing stories and movies will sell “the idea of an unreal world constantly pressing upon ours” (H.P. Lovecraft) in a fresh manner, and will tap deep into realities which haven’t been told yet. 

It is also clear that if the folk horror genre and forest horror want to succeed continuously in the future, they will become less revival and more fresh and original. “The Ritual” or “The Reddening” are some excellent examples.

They represent a curiosity about the eerie landscapes and mysterious monuments surrounding in our everyday world.