Researching other realms

My research for the final Overdown book has taken me into places I really didn't want to go.
I always research everything I write, whether it's history or fiction. It has to have it's feet planted firmly in the truth.

The last woman imprisoned for witchcraft was as late as 1951 before the 16th Century Witchcraft Act was repealed. 

Another woman was imprisoned by MI5 during the war as she was a medium receiving messages from sailors who had died. They were on a British ship that had been sunk in the Atlantic, and the Government had not released the fact it had sunk, because it wanted the enemy to believe it was still in action as a deterrent.  She was put in prison for the duration of the war so that she could not release any other secrets from the spiritual realm.

Then my research led me on to human sacrifice. Yes it still happens today.  Usually it's African tribal lore that defines a child as a witch, they are then tortured and killed for the good of their relatives.

The last recorded white sacrifices were in the 1930s. There were several groups who wanted to use their powers to affect changes in their own lives, to explore other realms, one idea put forward was that at the point of death of the sacrificed person a door would open to the beyond, and living people would follow the soul through the door to see what was there.

Notable Warlocks included the notorious Aleistair Crowley (who still has followers to this day) and famous people like W.B.Yeats the writer and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, famed for his logical Sherlock Holmes stories.

So the time has come to close the book so to speak on the people of Overdown - at least for the moment, so that I can write the history that needs to be told.

Oh by the way - does anyone remember my piece on Pigeons during the war?  BBC History Magazine has again picked up on one of my ideas and this month has a big article on them.

Perhaps it's the zeitgheist, or perhaps someone is cribbing ideas from my blogs, either way it's really annoying, so please stop, so I can get paid for my work.

Thank you.   Have a good day.