Beyond the Veil Magazine

Articles

Explore our collection of articles about the mysterious and unexplained.

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  The Scholar of Spirits: Cecil Hawthorne

  Issue #56: August 1983

  The Victorian medium who walked the line between science and the supernatural

  In the dimly lit salons of Victorian London, where parlours doubled as portals to the unknown, one name stood above the rest: Cecil Hawthorne. A spiritualist medium of rare intellect, Hawthorne’s séances drew the elite of British society, not for mere parlour tricks, but for what some described as “a communion with the beyond, imbued with scholarly rigour.”

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  The Shadowlands: A Night at Knighton House

  Issue #27: March 1981

  Editor’s Note: The Shadowlands is our monthly collection of reader-submitted encounters with the unexplained. This month’s feature comes from Margaret T. from Reading, Berkshire, who visited the abandoned Knighton House with a group of amateur photographers in October 1980.

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  I should preface this by saying I’m not the sort to believe in ghosts. I’m a secondary school chemistry teacher. I deal in facts, formulae, and empirical evidence. When my photography club proposed an overnight shoot at Knighton House, I saw it as an opportunity to capture some interesting architectural shots of a historic building, nothing more.

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  The Vanishing of Tommy Hensley: A Game Gone Awry?

  Issue #26: February 1981

  On Halloween night, 1973, eight-year-old Tommy Hensley of Dayton, Ohio, vanished without a trace. His bedroom was left in eerie disarray: a strange board game called Ritual sat on the floor, its candle burned to a nub, and the game’s alphabet cards were scattered across the surface. Some claimed the cards spelled out a cryptic message, though interpretations varied. The official investigation yielded no leads, and Tommy’s disappearance remains unsolved. But could the game itself hold clues to his fate?

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  Spectral Insights: The Bell Witch of Tennessee

  Issue #8: August 1979

  In the annals of American paranormal phenomena, few cases are as thoroughly documented, or as disturbing, as the Bell Witch haunting of Adams, Tennessee. From 1817 to 1821, the Bell family endured a relentless assault by an entity that defied explanation, combining the characteristics of a poltergeist, a possessing spirit, and something far more malevolent.

  The Beginning of the Terror

  It began innocuously enough. John Bell, a prosperous farmer, spotted an unusual animal in his maize field, something he described as having the body of a dog but the head of a rabbit. When he shot at it, the creature vanished. That same evening, the Bell home erupted in chaos: knocking sounds, scratching at doors, and invisible forces pulling blankets from beds.

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