Friday, October 14, 2005

Curse of the Mummy - The Sinking of the Titanic

From Castle Of Spirits



Of all tales of the supernatural, this one is perhaps the best documented, the most disturbing and the most difficult to explain.

The Princess of Amen-Ra lived some 1,500 years before Christ. When she died, she was laid in an ornate wooden coffin and buried deep in a vault at Luxor, on the banks of the Nile. In the late 1890s, four rich, young, Englishmen visiting the excavations at Luxor were invited to buy an exquisitely fashioned mummy case containing the remains of Princess of Amen-Ra.

They drew lots. The man who won paid several thousand pounds and had the coffin taken to his hotel. A few hours later, he was seen walking out towards the desert. He never returned. The next day, one of the remaining three men was shot by an Egyptian servant accidentally. His arm was so severely wounded it had to be amputated. The third man in the foursome found on his return home that the bank holding his entire savings had failed. The fourth man suffered a severe illness, lost his job and was reduced to selling matches in the street.

Nevertheless, the coffin reached England (causing other misfortunes along the way), where it was bought by a London businessman . After three of his family members had been injured in a road accident and his house damaged by fire, the businessman donated it to the British Museum . As the coffin was being unloaded from a truck in the museum courtyard, the truck suddenly went into reverse and trapped a passer-by . Then as the casket was being lifted up the stairs by two workmen, one fell and broke his leg . The other, apparently in perfect health, died unaccountably two days later . Once the Princess was installed in the Egyptian Room, trouble really started . Museum's night watchmen frequently heard frantic hammering and sobbing from the coffin . Other exhibits in the room were also often hurled about at night . One watchman died on duty; causing the other watchmen wanting to quit. Cleaners refused to go near the Princess too . When a visitor derisively flicked a dust cloth at the face painted on the coffin, his child died of measles soon afterwards. Finally, the authorities had the mummy carried down to the basement . Figuring it could not do any harm down there. Within a week, one of the helpers was seriously ill, and the supervisor of the move was found dead on his desk.

By now, the papers had heard of it. A journalist photographer took a picture of the mummy case and when he developed it, the painting on the coffin was of a horrifying, human face. The photographer went home then, locked his bedroom door and shot himself.

Soon afterwards, the museum sold the mummy to a private collector. After continual misfortune (and deaths), the owner banished it to the attic. A well known authority on the occult, Madame Helena Blavatsky, visited the premises. Upon entry, she was seized with a shivering fit and searched the house for the source of "an evil influence of incredible intensity". She finally came to the attic and found the mummy case. "Can you exorcise this evil spirit ?" asked the owner . "There is no such thing as exorcism. Evil remains evil forever . Nothing can be done about it. I implore you to get rid of this evil as soon as possible". But no British museum would take the mummy; the fact that almost 20 people had met with misfortune, disaster or death from handling the casket, in barely 10 yrs, was now well known.

Eventually, a hard-headed American archaeologist (who dismissed the happenings as quirks of circumstance), paid a handsome price for the mummy and arranged for its removal to New York . In April of 1912, the new owner escorted its treasure aboard a sparkling, new White Star liner about to make its maiden voyage to New York.

On the night of April 14, amid scenes of unprecedented horror, the Princess of Amen-Ra accompanied 1,500 passengers to their deaths at the bottom of the Atlantic. The name of the ship was Titanic.

OTHER STRANGE STORIES ABOUT THE TITANIC

Newspaper Article
Would you believe this appeared in a 1993 newspaper??

* There was a story going round that the number on the hull of the Titanic was 390904 which, if you turned round (and maybe stood on your head?), spelled out the message "NO POPE". This of course is untrue - The real hull no. of the Titanic was 131,428.

* Two seamen said that they'd seen six men shot down like dogs.

* A second-class survivor "Emilio Portualuppi" told a story upon his return to New York of spending hours riding a large block of ice.

* A seaman on the Carpathia told of how a Newfoundland dog called "Rigel" had jumped from the sinking ship and somehow miraculously escorted a lifeboat to the Carpathia. The dog barked as it approached the Carpathia letting everyone know it was coming.

* Another weird story that appeared in the newspapers was about six Chinese survivors who had apparently hidden beneath the seats of one of the Titanic's lifeboats. No one knew they were there until the lifeboats had been take on board the Carpathia. It was also reported that two others who were hidden got crushed by some fat ladies who were sitting above them. The other 6 Chinese survived due to the fact that lighter ladies were sitting on top of them.

* Marie Young told of how she'd seen the iceberg and hour before the collision.

* A banker from Philadelphia was under the impression that he'd managed to take over the Carpathia's wireless during the trip back.

* One first class passenger "George Brayton" told a newspaper of his impression:

"The moon was shining and a number of us who were enjoying the crisp air were promenading about the deck. Captain Smith was on the bridge when the first cry from the lookout came that there was an iceberg ahead. It may have been 300 feet high when I saw it. The accident happened at about 10:30 p.m. About midnight I think came the first boiler explosion. Then for the first time, I think, Captain Smith began to get worried..."

Talk about Tall tales - this one is a BEAUTY! I keep getting this story submitted to me as a true ghost story. It's pretty obvious that it's a tall tale of the Titanic and never really happened - a dead giveaway is the fact that the Titanic hit a bloody big Iceberg which sank it, which had nothing to do with a Mummy in the cargo. There was no Princess of Amen-ra - and she definitely wasn't buried at Luxor. I have seen this story on the net everywhere - you can't really miss it.

From what I can tell this story was started by some newspaper in New York - they ran a story about the Titanic being sunk by the curse of a mummy (an Egyptian King) in the cargo hold. They stated that the mummy was being smuggled to America by an unscrupulous art dealer who wanted to sell the mummy to a museum in New York for $500,000.00. The money was to be split amongst himself and the thieves who ransacked the tomb of this Egyptian King.

Now it seems that Anubis (the Egyptian God of the dead) was apparently totally unhappy about having one of his Egyptian Kings sold off and smuggled to New York so he took it upon himself to sink the Titanic and see that the mummy went to the bottom of the sea along with the ship and most of it's passengers. Hence the Curse of the Mummy was born.

Other versions of this story tell of the mummy being placed in a lifeboat as the Titanic was sinking. It eventually reaches New York and causes all the usual havoc so it is sent back to Egypt on the "Empress of Ireland" which also sank with a great loss of life. The mummy also managed to survive this sinking by once again being placed in a life boat. It was then attempted to resend the mummy back to Egypt on the "Lusitania", but this time the ship sank and took the mummy along with it. The mummy supposedly now resides at the bottom of the ocean in the "Lusitania's" cargo hold.

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