The Devil’s Bible and Other Haunting Tales for Halloween
In honor of Halloween, I'm sharing some of the most chilling tales I've heard this year.
Have your own story to share? Contact us.
SOURCES
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyb17w
https://www.horsesoldier.com/products/artillery/36503
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xyb17w
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immurement
The Haunted House from Jackson County, Indiana - The official blog of Newspapers.com
TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore.
This is a community for those with a dark curiosity. Those of us that like to indulge in things that are, spooky, sometimes a little macabre.
This week in particular, the week of halloween, tends to be a time where I indulge,the most. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why things are scary, and why some things are terrifying to us, but we choose to learn about them anyways.
People sometimes ask me how I can sleep at night with all of the dark stuff that I consume, and to that I would say, i think you might be surprised at what makes me squirm. I can pretty easily read about the illegal selling of human remains at harvard, I’ll walk into buildings people say are haunted, the other day I even let two scientologists pitch me on classes for 20 minutes because while those things all do freak me out, my curiosity about them trumps my fear, and I have to learn more.
But I couldn’t watch the first episode of Dahmer. You know the show on netflix? The show about Jeffrey Dahmer that like 90 million people had watched. I’m clearly in the minority, but I got so scared watching the first episode I couldn’t keep going.
I think for some people, though, Dahmer scratched that same itch. It’s so scary to think about, it’s awful and obviously his crimes are unfogiveable. but our curiosity about things like the darkness that lies within people wins out, and we are pulled towards them. At least for me, it’s like a gravitational pull I can’t escape from.
Anyways, I could write a whole book on this, but that’s to say that this week in particular, I spend a lot of time thinking about why I find things scary, and why, even when I find them scary I’m so drawn to them.
Today, what I want to share with you are a few stories I found myself really drawn to this year. They’re all supernatural, and I couldn’t find an exactly perfect episode to put fit them into, but I could not stop thinking about these stories for weeks after I read them. I think some of you will find these ghost tales quite cozy for halloween, but others, like me, might get a legitimate chill.
Our first story is one of the oldest written ghost stories, our second is about what is perhaps considered the most cursed book in existence, and our last is a creepy tale about letting go. And as always, Listener discretion is advised
I’m often scared of ancient ghost stories, the ones that happened in a distant past, in a world that feels like it no longer exists. It’s scary to think that back then they experienced something that’s been lost to time. A lot of those stories died with the people who told them, and much of the writing from thousands of years ago has been destroyed.
However, when it comes to ancient Rome, some writing still exists, like letters that Pliny The Younger wrote. Pliny was a lawyer, among other things in Ancient rome around 60-100 AD, and he wrote hundreds of letters in his lifetime, of which around 247 still exist today.
Most of Pliny’s writing talks about life in ancient rome, like who was in charge and what he thought about them. One time he even described the eruption of mount vesuvius in great detail, which had happened 25 years prior.
And while Pliny’s letters are of great historical importance to us now, historians were surprised upon reading one letter which described something very peculiar. Something supernatural that had happened.
Pliny had written a letter to a senator, Lucius Licinius Sura, in a somewhat panicked tone. In the letter, he had written the senator to tell him about a haunted house in Rome. He starts the letter by asking the senator if he believes in ghosts, because Pliny had just heard a ghost story that was so chilling, even this hard pressed lawyer was inclined to believe. This is the story
in Athens there was a large, roomy house that had such a bad reputation that no one would move into it. It was well known that in the dead of night the sound of clanking chains could be heard throughout the house.
Some residents had reported seeing the sight of a pallid old man wandering the halls. It scared them so badly they had to move out. At least, that was the story surrounding the house.
So, one day a philosopher named Athenodorus came to town and was looking for a place to live. There weren’t many homes available in Athens at the time, so someone recommended the large, roomy house which had been empty for years at that point. When Athenodorus asked about the price he could not believe how cheap the home was being rented for. Really? This entire house at a discount, why? The man renting out the house got real serious, and told him the tale of the last tenants. He told him about the sound of the chains and the frightening old man.
But Athenodorus, being a philosopher, was unfazed by this story. He didn’t believe in ghosts, it didn’t make sense, logically, for them to exist. So he accepted the price and moved in with some of his pupils, figuring that this was just one of the many benefits of being far smarter than the average man.
That night, he asked one of his pupils to make him a bed on a couch and bring him some ink and a pen. He loved staying up late into the night putting his ideas down to paper. And so, after everyone else had retired to bed, Athenodorus stayed awake in his room vigorously writing. just the sound of his pen could be heard against the dead silence of the home.
Hours passed, and he thought to himself what a genius he was. None of the ghostly sights and sounds that supposedly haunted the estate had bothered him the entire evening.
But what was that?
Athenodorus put his pen down and looked behind him. The room was only lit by a small candle he kept by his paper, making the space outside of his open door on the opposite side of the room too dark to really see. He paused, wondering if he’d hear the sound again
But there was nothing. Of course there was nothing, he thought. There was no such thing as ghosts.
There it was again, the same sound. This time though, it was coming closer. On the other side of the dark doorframe, Athenodorus heard someone coming towards him. Walking, rattling, as if they were covered in chains.
But he kept writing. It’s nothing, he thought to himself over and over again. It’s nothing. But the sound said otherwise. The sound was distinctly that of someone walking down the hallway towards him.
Finally, with his back still turned, Athenodorus could hear that whatever was coming down the hall was at his door, standing behind him.
There was no use ignoring it now. So he slowly turned to meet whoever was there. And that’s when he saw that behind him, standing in the doorway, was a pallid, old man with sunken eyes, and a ghostly expression. The man looked exactly how he had been described to Athenodorus, except for his outstretched arm. An arm that was connected to the other by a thick, metal chain. At the end of the outstretched arm was a bony finger making a beckoning motion, calling the philosopher towards him.
Athenodorus wasn’t a believer, he was rational. But here, in front of him, which he was seeing with his own eyes, was a man telling him to follow. In that moment, he knew he couldn’t explain this away, so
He grabbed his small candle, and together, the two of them slowly started walking through the house.
Down the long hallways where his sleeping pupils lay. The old man walked slowly and with a limp, as if the chains were encumbering his movements.
Where was this man leading him, Athenodorus wondered as he was lead out of the house and into the backyard. It was there that the man seemed to dematerialize, as if let free from the houses confinement.
[darkly curious piano, slightly ominous]
Thinking quickly. Athenodorus took a stick and marked the area where the spirit left him, and the next morning he asked two of his pupils to dig up the spot. It must mean something, he thought, his philosophical mind still trying to make sense of what happened the night before.
It was there, in that very spot, that the pupils discovered the petrified body of a man bound in chains. There were no records of who the man was or how he got there, but it was apparent he had been in the ground for a considerable amount of time.
Athenodorus ordered the body to be exhumed and for a proper burial of the man to take place. After which, the spirit never appeared in the house again.
What I love about that story, and what freaks me out about it, is how even a 2,000 year old ghost story has the same elements as ghost stories today. Even last week I told the story of the stranger who heard a ghost walking down the hallway in his large, roomy house. The ghost noises behaved somewhat similarly.
If these experiences are so consistent, that even in the time of Pliny people were talking about experiencing hauntings in the exact same way, it really makes you think. Has there always been consistency in the way that ghosts have tried to make contact?
This next story I have for you is a real Halloween treat.
What I’m about to share with you, is maybe the scariest story I’ve heard this year. It’s the story of the devil, a pact, and one of the most cursed books on the planet. This is the story of The Codex Gigas, also known as The Devil’s bible.
After the break
Codex Gigas translates to “Giant book”, which if you didn’t know anything else about it, would pretty much sum it up. It’s maybe the biggest surviving book from the middle ages, the pages being 3 feet long and weighing in at around 165 pounds. For my international audience, that’s 75 Kilos, and a meter long.Yea, it’s huge
It’s believed to have been written, by hand, in 1230 in modern day Czech republic. And it contains a compilation of different resources.
An entire christian bible has been written by hand inside, and in between the passages of the old and new testament are lessons on math and astrology, a history of the people in the area, but also spells for demonic exorcisms.
The author of this book is unknown. Scholars at one point thought the book had been written by multiple people, which would have made more sense. to write out the books contents by hand would take an estimated 20 year.. But the hand writing is incredibly consistent and the ink is all made from the same material which suggests it was in fact one person who wrote it.
This brings me to what The Codex gigas is known for, and why it’s so terrifying to me. By far the most notable entry made by the Devil’s Bible author is on page 577 of the 629 page book. Remember the pages of this book are 3 feet long, they’re many times the size of a regular book today. So the author would have gotten to this page years, potentially decades after theystarted writing the book
on page 577 is a large drawing of the devil. One of the largest to come out of the middle ages, actually. It doesn’t look how you would picture the devil to look. It’s far scarier. So scary that I freaked myself out having it just open in a computer tab while I tried to write out the description. So i decided to record myself describing it, because i thought that would be faster.
This depiction of the devil is much different than other medieval depictions of him. For one, he’s by himself and walled up in a solitary cell. Most medieval depictions show him presiding over hell. He’s also wearing Ermine, a special fur that showcases royalty and status.
But who drew this picture? And why is the devil portrayed in this way? Well, ever since the book was written the legend of how it came to be followed.
The legend states that in Bohemia in 1230, there was a monk that was set to be put to death. But not just executed in the public square, walled alive.
To be walled alive, the subject would stand in place while a brick wall was constructed all around them. The subject would typically die of starvation or dehydration while trapped in the small, pitch black space, sometimes as tight as a coffin.
The monk was terrified of his fate, and in a moment of panic, tried to strike a deal with the judge. If you let me live, I’ll write a book that contains all human knowledge.
That will take you ages, the judge scoffed.
No. the monk pleaded. I’ll write it in one night.
The judge agreed to the monks impossible challenge. He knew that when the morning came the monk would have just a few pages written and would be put to death.
So that night, he was put in a solitary cell with some parchment, ink and a pen. As the cell was slammed shut the clock started.
All that night the monk wrote. And he wrote, and he wrote. He wrote until his hand cramped up and then he kept writing, until it was completely numb. Around three in the morning he looked at what he accomplished. Hardly anything. He had barely gotten through a portion of the new testament, how was he going to write the entirety of human knowledge by sunrise?
So he got on his knees and he started begging. First, to god, Please god, help me do this and I’ll do anything you wish. But as he sat alone in his cell, lit by just a few small candles, he received no response. God wouldn’t help him now.
He looked out the window at the moon, slowly marching towards the horizon. He had to figure out another way. And if God wasn’t going to help him, maybe someone else would.
In a moment of desperation, the monk got back on his knees.
Satan, I pledge to you anything you want if you help spare my life.
When the monk opened his eyes, sitting in the darkest corner of the cell, where just a few flickers of the candle could reach, was the devil. The devil we see in the codex Gigas. He told the monk he would help him finish the book, but in return, he must draw the devil as he actually is, he must show the world what evil truly looks like.
The next morning, the monk presented the judge with the the Devil’s bible, a comprehensive account of human knowledge at the time. His life was spared and the world now had a real image of the Devil to look at.
But that’s hardly where our story ends.
The next time we hear about the Codex Gigas is in Austria in 1565. Prince Rudolph the 2nd is a holy roman emperor obsessed with the occult. Historians believe that this obsession began after he had received an astrological reading from a soothsayer who told him his father would die and Rudolf would become Emperor. That soothsayer, by the way, was none other than Nostradamus.
After he developed his obsession, Rudolf became determined to collect the Devil’s bible. Word of it’s cursed origins had spread throughout the Roman Empire, and Rudolf needed to add it to his collection.
Eventually, he befriended the monastery that owned the book and they gifted it to him. Once it was in his possession, Rudolf would read it all day, and he especially was obsessed with observing the picture of the devil. He became a paranoid shut in, closing his room in his castle off from the rest of the world so he could read the Devil’s bible all day.
And as a result, he was banished from the throne by his own family. He died a penniless outcast with no heirs to take over his throne.
After Rudolf’s demise, The swedish army captured the book and took it to their Female King, Christina. Christina’s father king Gustaf the 2nd raised Christina as a boy as she was his only legitimate heir. Her official title when she was crowned, was King.
The devil’s bible became her favorite confiscated manuscript, but when she abdicated the throne and excommunicated herself years later, she left it behind.
50 years after that, the codex was in a massive fire. It’s believed it was thrown out of a window to escape the flames.
Today, the Devil's Bible still resides in Sweden. If you ever have the chance to see it in person, you may notice that the page containing the devil is much darker than other pages in the book. Some believe it’s because the smoke from the fire only damaged the page the devil lives in, flames from hell coming to reclaim their king.
But historians have another, equally creepy theory as to why that is. The pages are made from animal hides, a material that tans in sunlight. The devil’s page is darkest because throughout history, it was the page people looked at the most. King, queens, emperors, and monks a like could not take their eyes off the mysterious drawing on page 577.
It’s not just a spooky artifact we can’t make sense of today. For the last 800 years people have been trying to make sense of why the devil is in this book, and how he got there.
Our final story is a tale that almost doesn’t feel real. When I first read about it in old newspaper articles from the 1930’s, I thought that this was perhaps an Edgar Allen Poe short story.
If you were to be driving down United States Road 50 west of Medora Indiana in 1935, you’d find an old, crumbling brick wall. It would honestly be hard to tell it was brick, but through the thick ivy and overgrowth covering it, you’d be able to spot flecks of red. Next to it, you’d see a pile of wood and more brick, and a picture might start to form in your mind. Those are the materials used to build a house that once stood here in the 1800’s, now reduced to a pile of rubble and one brick wall that barely still stands.
This home used to be known as the most haunted house in the neighborhood, the locals would say. At night, it was believed you could hear disembodied wailing and groaning coming from the abandoned house, as well as occasionally catch a wraith like figure floating by an upstairs window. Neighbors would scurry by as quickly as possible, not wanting to linger near the home for too long.
But what is one thing we’ve learned about hauntings here at heart starts pounding? They usually come with a story. And this one is no exception.
The truth is that years before the house was declared haunted, in 1848, a woman named Sohpia Douglas wilson lived in the house with her husband, Dr Creed Taylor Wilson, and their children. The couple had moved into the home when their youngest was 5, after Dr. Taylor had retired from medicine. Being one of the only doctors in Lawrence, Jackson, AND Washington Counties in Indiana was a lucrative job. He chose to retire essentially as soon as he could so he could spend his time raising his youngest with Sophia.
You wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at the pile of brick in 1935, but almost a century earlier when the Wilson’s moved in, it was a home fit for a king. Dr. Wilson bought the land first and then built the house of his dreams on it. A two story brick home with quote “hardwood floors, fine woodwork, broad stairway and fancy glass design over and on each side of the door.”
Inside, the Wilsons had persian rugs imported, as well as furniture brought in from Kentucky and Ohio.
Outside The sloped yard was full of flowers, enclosed by an iron fence. It was the perfect place to raise a family.
Their youngest, that 5 year old, was a boy named Aesop, and he seemed to be his mothers favorite. The two just got each other, Sophia always felt like Aesop was the most similar to her. Kind, loving, but also stubborn
But all was not perfect in the Wilson household. By 1861, the civil war had broken out. And while their home was hardly near the battlefield, young Aesop felt a desire to go fight. He was 17 now, a full grown man, atleast in his eyes, and he wanted to enlist to fight against the confederates. But no matter how much he begged Sophia, she said no. He was too young and he was not to go fight.
Aesop, like many last born children, marched to the beat of his own drum. He had already made up his mind. So one night, under the cover of darkness, he and his neighbor ran away to enlist. They became drummer boys in Captain Tanner’s Company B, 22nd regiment.
Sophia was understandably devastated. Her son didn’t do so much as say goodbye before he ran off.
But he wrote her letters. Every week Sophia would receive letters from Aesop telling her about his life in the military. She heard about his thoughts on the war, how he was making friends, and eventually, that he was being transferred to Missouri.
After this transfer, Sophia received one last letter from her son. In it, he wrote:
“Mother- I will write you a few short lines to let you know that I am well, fat, ragged and sassy. We are now on the war eagle, one of uncle sam’s boats, on our way from Boonville to Jefferson City. This will probably be the last time i will wite to you, for the mail does not come up so far as our camp. We have been having a hell of a time lately. I have traveled near 600 miles now. Signed, Uncle Sam’s Aesop”
Aesop was right, that would be the last time he wrote to her. It seemed, at first, like the letters had stopped because of his location, but weeks and weeks went by with nothing, and Sophia started to worry. What if something had happened to him?
The next letter that arrived at her door was one telling her that Aesop had died from typhoid fever. But what happens to a young boy in the civil war who dies hundreds of miles from home?
He gets buried, fast. Before Sophia had even received word of Aesop’s fate, he had been buried somewhere in Missouri.
She never thought when she kissed his forehead and went to bed all those months ago that she would never see her boy again.
then, a few months later in the frozen throes of January, the Wilson’s got a letter from a Mr. Gray. He had located Aesop’s burial site in a Methodist Cemetery. So that April, as the ground began to thaw, Dr. Wilson had a metal casket shipped to the cemetery for Aesop to be exhumed and brought home.
Sophia had been skeptical of this Mr. Gray. How did she know that he wasn’t just some scam artist taking advantage of vulnerable families? When the body was brought home, she demanded that the casket be brought upstairs and placed in front of a window for her to gaze upon the body and be certain it was her son.
As they heaved the metal lid open, she knew at once that it was Aesop. And this caused a sort of change to occur inside of her. All of a sudden, sophia couldn’t stand the thought of reburying her son. He looked so peaceful in the beautiful light of the hallway. It was as if she stumbled in his room and found him sleeping.
So Sophia demanded that Aesop’s casket be packed with charcoal, the lid closed, and he was to be left inside the house. Every afternoon, she’d sit in a wicker chair she had placed by the casket to sew and talk to her dead son. She did this, every day, for the next 12 years.
Finally, in 1873, her husband had enough. He had been begging her for over a decade to let go and allow the boy to have a proper burial. But each time she rejected his request he felt an immense sorrow for her and stopped pushing.
It had been enough time, it was time for his family to move on. So he paid $50 to Mr. and Mrs. Kegwin, two spiritualists from Louisville, Kentucky, to come do a seance by the casket. The pair arrived on a glum and drizzly afternoon to a crowd of neighbors who gathered outside of the Wilson’s home.
That evening, the Wilson family and the Kegwins sat in a circle and conjured the ghost of Aesop.
“Would you like to have your remains buried?” asked Sophia
“Yes Mother” Mrs. Kegwin answered as if Aesop were speaking through her.
The next day, Aesop’s casket was taken to the cedar grove next to the house and he was buried. Two years later Dr. Wilson also passed away and was buried next to his son.
150 years later, each halloween, Children in Leesville, Indiana hear the story of the Wilson’s told to them at school. They even make replicas of the Wilson’s house in class. Students imagine what it used to look like before the house was rubble underneath thick ivy and moss. Before it was the haunted house the neighbors wouldn’t go near. Back when it looked like the home that the Wilson’s moved into with their little boy.
Each of these stories sticks with me for different reasons. The Pliny story because it’s just a really good modern ghost story that happens to be 2000 years old. The story of the The Devil’s Bible because of the centuries old mystery of it. It feels like it could be part of the davinci code or something. And the story of Sophia and Aesop because though it’s tragic, I think it taps into something supremely human. And those three things together, Classic Ghost tale, a hint of mystery and deeply human themes, make up just about all the best halloween stories.
Happy Halloween everyone, stay safe, and don’t go into any haunted buildings or have any seances without inviting me first.
This has been heart starts pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore. Sound design and Mix by Peachtree Sound. Thank you so much to all of our new patrons, you will be thanked by name in the monthly newsletter.
Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Greyson Jernigan, the team at WME and Ben Jaffe. And thank you to Audioboom. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out Heart Starts Pounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.