Omul Negru

I know the witchy season of Halloween gives us the opportunity to share with each other hair-raising urban legends and spooky encounters that have happened and believe me, there are plenty of stories that are told where average people from all walks of life have been haunted and terrified by some unexplained phenomena.

For many years, I have heard stories from people who are not at all afraid of sharing their experiences. In most cases, the more frightening stories have been held inside because those who have experienced these paranormal events are afraid that someone might think they are crazy or perhaps delusional.

The most horrifying of all is when innocence is in the balance and a young child, who once thought he had an imaginary friend, realizes the so-called friend is either poltergeist or a shadowy figure that torments him or her after the lights go out.

Ask anyone who has sat up in their beds in a dark room. There is something that startles them and they look around to see if the dog or the cat has somehow found its way on to the bed.

You may even have had this experience and you lean forward to check at the foot of the bed because there is something at your feet. You then feel your blood turn ice cold because in your blurry vision you see a shadowy figure and you suddenly realize that you are in the company of an unspeakable entity lurking in the darkness.

There is a nightmare that exists inside of all of us. It comes from the most primitive side of the brain. It is a horror that exists between dream time and consciousness. It is the feeling of an ominous sense of doom as you realize that you are not alone in an otherwise secure place – it is even more chilling when you hear a whisper from a shadowy figure that appears at your bedside and warns you of impending danger.

These denizens of the dark have leapt from bad dreams and into our reality. These shadowy archetypes have been known by many names, but their descriptions are eerily similar despite geographic and chronological distance.

The hooded visage of the dark man or devil man mythos often straddles the post of occultism, revelation, and fantasy. It pushes our limits of understanding and the advent of an appearance of the shadow archetype or the contemporary boogeyman has been reported for many centuries.

A perfect example of this is how I became aware of a very old legend from Romania. My friend Lucian is from Transylvania and tells me that all of the legends about this geographical area are true. Vampires are still feared in this region, as are old tales of werewolves and a dark ominous figure known as Omul Negru.

The descriptions of Omul Negru vary from the hooded figure of death, to a tall shadowy figure that wears a wide brimmed hat, or a shadowy figure that carries a huge bag.

Omul Negru translated is “Dark Man.” In Slovenia this faceless dark horror is known as Bav Bav. In Greece, he hides under the bed and in Egypt he hunts down children who don’t obey their parents.

In German speaking countries, Buhmann is an inhuman shadowy figure that has claws or hooks and hides underground in basements and sewers.

The African religion of Macumba has two spirits that equate with the Dark Man. Omulu dresses in a flowing black robe and gets his power by giving his support to devils. Exu is in charge of the Quimbanda or black forces and actually is the devil. He is depicted as wearing a top hat and a black suit.

The first European accounts of the Omul Negru are of course linked to Witchcraft and Satanic worship. “The Black man” was of course synonymous with the devil.

He would travel the countryside taking forms of black cats, or black dogs.

The cloaked Dark Man would be the High Priest in the Black Sabbat rituals.

He was known as an agent of Satan, a vampire, a foul friend, an Enemy of Salvation and the Prince of Darkness.

He would participate in black sacraments offering up Black Bread (made of rye) wine, and blood either human or from an animal.

The torches at the ceremony would burn blue. The officiator in black would wear a headdress of horns taken from a goat and he would ask the people to kneel before him as he would sprinkle wine on the congregation.

They would cry out “his blood be on us and our children.”

“Omul Negru Na Venit” is a European ritual where kids would summon a little black demon – or the Dark Man. The dark man “Omul” is a very terrifying figure. He appears as a hooded demon, or even a demon wearing a metal mask. One young person in the crowd calls out to Omul Negru and then when his name is repeated the spirit of the demon would appear and possess a chosen child. The child then says “Children Children come to dinner, do not be afraid of the black monster.” The children enter the room and ask the “medium” questions.

“Who are you?”

“Black Monster.”

“What do you eat?”

“Man’s flesh”

“What do you drink?”

“Man’s blood.”

“What is your Pillow?”

“Man’s skull.”

The children then wait for the Omul Negru to come out of the child so they can run to their mother’s for safety.

Ever since we talked about the dark figure dressed as a “Plague Doctor” outfit in a You Tube video making the rounds online, I noticed that there were hidden ciphers that when decoded talk about being dead, caught up in a virus, and the Spanish word for death which is “muerte.”

The hooded and shadowy plague doctor was a dark figure that was draped and hooded with a cowl, or he was suited up in dark clothing wearing a hat. The plague doctor was always associated with death and pestilence.

From 1906, there is an historical account which eerily describes the hooded phantom that we now call “death” and how it appears as a shadow archetype around the solstice which is why seeing this figure in the winter or in times of distress is no coincidence.

It is further that we read that Death picks up a lady in a white dress and carries her across the river. The woman in the white dress is the plague.

Sometimes, this figure took the form of a tall, thin man with long white hair and face shadowed by the broad felt hat of the country, sometimes of a skeleton, draped or undraped, whose skull turned on a pivot as though to signify that in a single glance it beheld the whole district over which it ruled.

Whether man or skeleton, it always held in its hand a scythe, the blade of which was turned forward, and it signified, L′Ankou.

Many are the beliefs and superstitions connected with L′Ankou, and though the representations of him have, as I have said, all but disappeared from the land. The people in many parts believe in and fear him as their ancestors did in the past.

There are many tales involving L’ Ankou, who appears as a man or skeleton wearing a cloak and wielding a scythe and in some stories, he is described as a shadow that looks and a scythe, often atop a cart for collecting the dead. He is said to wear a black robe with a large hat which conceals his face.

In early American history, Washington Irving, well-known for his story, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” spoke of nightmarish figures cloaked in black that stalked and appeared to people during bedtime.

In the Santa Lucia Mountains of California, there are many accounts of the mystifying “Dark Watchers.”

They are apparently giant human like phantoms that are only seen at twilight, standing silhouetted against the night sky along the ridges and peaks of the mountain range.

The Dark Watchers are described as black-robed and broad-rimmed hatted specters. They’re always in the distance, either staring at the visitors or off into nowhere in particular. If you approach them they vanish.

The “Hat Man” is a new name for an old demonic foe. It has been reported that this shadow man is capable of choking, scaring or instilling fear in those he visits, he is nonetheless a very unique take on the shadow archetype. Many shadow entities are seen in the corner of the eye and disappear. The Hat Man does not make a quick exit and terrorizes those he appears to.

If you check paranormal blogs and social media pages you will see that there have been numerous sightings of this entity.

Those who tell their harrowing accounts say that the Hat Man has appeared mysteriously in their homes, down hallways or in the corner of a room. Like a poltergeist, this tall shadow entity is attracted by hostile environments – or when the home is plagued with intense abusive behaviors.

The entity also appears to those who are sick, or who are using dangerous drugs.

Those who see him are often witness to domestic disturbances and family breakdown, noting a tangibly negative atmosphere, sense of dread or hopelessness.

He is the monster under the bed, the monster in the closet and the being that you can hear breathing down your neck in your dark room.

As Charles Fort once observed, we live in a “damned world” – we would like to think that we are too sophisticated to believe in entities and boogeymen. With bright lights and big cities, we think that there are no places for these beings to hide.

Are we really safe from those entities that appear without explanation?

It is always difficult to sleep when there are demons under your bed.

Text – Check out Ground Zero Radio with Clyde Lewis Live Nightly @ http://www.groundzeromedia.org