Occult Murders by John Dunning

[Mike Covell]

aka Mystical Murders
Just saw this book and I am already hooked!

The book features 20 cases on occult murder and is quite an interesting read, and thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in real occult murders. Ranging from an amateur exorcist in Essen to killer hypnotists and black magicians!

Written by John Dunning, the paperback comes in at 262 pages with illustrations.
ISBN 1859584969
Published 1989/ this edition 1997
RRP £1.99 (I got mine for 25p!)

[Chris G.]

aka Mystical Murders
Just saw this book and I am already hooked!

The book features 20 cases on occult murder and is quite an interesting read, and thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in real occult murders. Ranging from an amateur exorcist in Essen to killer hypnotists and black magicians!

Written by John Dunning, the paperback comes in at 262 pages with illustrations.
ISBN 1859584969
Published 1989/ this edition 1997
RRP £1.99 (I got mine for 25p!)


Hi Mike

Thanks for this reference. I have a question for you:

Recently it has been alleged by Ivor Edwards in his book, Jack the Ripper's Black Magic Rituals, and before him Melvin Harris in The True Face of Jack the Ripper, both of them advancing Robert Donston Stephenson (Roslyn D'Onston) as the Whitechapel murderer, and earlier by D'Onston himself and his contemporary Sir Arthur Diosy, that the Ripper murders were done for occult motives. However, any actual clear evidence that the Ripper murders were black magic killings appears to be lacking.

So, Mike, in your view, from your reading of Dunning's book and other sources, what distinguishes the Ripper series from real honest-to-goodness occult murders ?

Chris

[Mike Covell]

The fact that all of the murders in the book had elements of the occult within the murders.

For eg,
Victims were killed as part of a ritual,
Victims were killed by artifacts assoaciated with the occult or religion,
Victoms were killed near locations associated with the occult/religion,
The murderer claimed that the occult was behind the killings,
The murderer claimed to be a higher power doing good,
The murderer left clues to the occult at the murder scenes,
The murderer was found to have either great knowledge of the occult,
The murderer or victim was found to have a shrine and was known to practice the occult,

The only one I can see that has any common ground with Stephenson, is the Occult Knowledge, but as it was the Victorian period, most people had this type of knowledge.

I cannot really see anything in common with the Whitechapel murders.

[Nemo]

Hi Mike/Chris

I would add significant dates to that list and possibly the body parts removal that could indicate occult links

The book "Ultimate Evil" by Maury Terry about the "Son of Sam " murders contains a lot of occult references to things such as the birth-dates and names of the victims and the dates of the murders

Occult murders are also more likely to involve multiple killers/participants

"Trophy's" are often collected from the victim for ritual use later

There may be "odd" behaviour extant such as blood-drinking or cannibilism

So there may be some tenuous connections with the Ripper murders but in my opinion the Ripper murders are not overtly occult or ritualised

[Chris G.]

Hi Mike and Nemo

That's what I would think as well, that the Ripper murders are not obviously occult murders and that based on what is seen in acknowledged occult killings, the symbology, etc., is much more overt and obvious. When you think about it, in five canonical murders and possibly more, there is room for interpretation that there was some type of black magic association but nothing that clearly says the murders were done for such a reason.

All the best

Chris

[How Brown]

I think it was (as in my particular case in the past...) or is a matter of our interpretation and imagination. In some cases,even an attempt to make a buck or two off of the cash cow community of aficinados of ritualism and ritual crime

It also requires the observer to be aware of previously alleged and/or real ritual killings to be able to compare the WM to them. Without the inferences to occult links which began around the time of the Double Event ( Chris George wrote an article in Ripperologist about Diosy several years ago in which Diosy asserted that burnt matches were found at Chapman's murder site ) these murders would be as "occult-less" as say Ted Bundy's or most other serial killers where no links to the occult are ever even mentioned, yet could and do contain similar elements and parallel "signs" which were alleged to have been endemic to the Whitechapel Murders.

One famous ritualistic -crimes specialist...who used to be a member briefly on the old Forums UK site... is called upon by the police to examine crimes in Philadelphia to determine ritual links. The outstanding feature about this work is that despite links possibly being in evidence in some circumstances, these links are also found in cases where no ritual acts were considered of an occult nature.

[Nemo]

It should be said that "occult" has been interpreted as Western magic or Hermetic magic which would express itself as probably satanic with the pentagrams and magical circles etc

However, if the miscreant was following even something as tame as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's magical practices, then they could just as well have temporarily experimented with other magical systems such as Chaldaean or Greek

Within the Greek and Roman mythos and ritual for example, are the Vestal Virgins and temple harlots

Some temple women offered sex as a penance for their sins, Any woman from the temple who refused to submit to sex was killed, often immediately and horribly

So you can surmise that a ritualist or occult murder would not necessarily show the trappings of what is loosely termed "satanism"