Histórias de um Portugal assombrado (Portuguese) (stories of a haunted Portugal)

By Vanessa Fidalgo:

A book that travels around Portugal and its history. I think it is worth reading the book, at least, by the historical and geographical information that it makes available. The author has compiled stories of haunted houses, the appearance of spirits and, in the end, tales told from north to south and islands. We get to know some mysteries that took place in Portugal.
Some quotes to think about:

• «"A call to pay attention and learn from everything that surrounds us materially and can be observed by the sensuousness." (...) "Ghosts, visions and the whole series of fantastic figures explored in literature, film and the arts in general, are attempts to materialize something that is in our minds and emotional experiences." (...) "extrasensorial stimuli (...) include integration of sensory data with not consciously or automatic perception dimensions, and that are also in the enlargement of sensory perception zones, ie the perception of sound or light frequencies below or above the normal sensory perception area." (...) "The nervous system has a normal operating state or excitement and differentiated states. These altered states (internal or external excitation of the person) can create conditions for changing states of consciousness." (...) our mind is prepared to work in cooperation or interaction with other minds (...). "(...) it is not acceptable for those who are not the same psychological 'wave'." (...) "A person only dies truly when the last who met them in life, died." (...) ghostly buildings (...) a role in the evolution of society: "they stimulate the minds and society for paths that are not known yet or are poorly explained and they lack of exploitation. (...) we can overcome us in building scenarios and unlimited spectra where we can give vent to emotions and desires that are close to the territories of our alter egos." (...) a mysterious and unknown world, which (...) attracts and seduces the man», by José Carlos Garrucho.
• «"(...) supernatural entities do not have a defined silhouette, often not even a form. They are almost always shadows of a translucent white, or black" (...)», by Joaquim Coelho.
• «(...) breaking barriers was never an easy task, and it is easy to guess that through the halls of the Faculdade de Belas-Artes [Fine Arts School] have spent many rebellious, avant-garde, revolutionary minds and not always understood by the rest of society.»
• «Even António de Oliveira Salazar has suffered from tuberculosis, having been isolated in a sanatorium at all equal to the Mon'Alto sanatorium, in the neighboring Caramulo mountains. (...) Winston Churchill, ranked Portugal with an unpleasant but illustrative epithet: "a country of tuberculosis, governed by a tuberculous".»
• «The hostel from Valongo (...). On April 25, 1974, it was plundered, occupied and vandalized and little else was remained to tell his story than its skeleton.»
• «"The memory effect is to take us to the missing people, so that we are with them, and bring them to us, to be with us."», by Father Antonio Vieira.
• «The places where we lived and grew up, where we loved and lost, (...). By way of memories, the mind easily gives them emotions, depending on the nature, positive or negative, of the experiences that experienced.»
• «(...) such myths arise from a 'creeping' of the susceptible human memory. "The crimes, especially the passion crimes, stir with our fundamental fears." (...) "we are fundamentally social beings, (...). When the supernatural intervenes, in particular, these reports become unusual, exciting, arouse our curiosity to learn more and awaken our imagination, reasons why are spread more widely in space and time".», by Maria Francisca Rebocho.
• «Errancy appears as a form of penitentiary for those who were not conspicuous by their virtue in life.»
• «"(...) only people who believe or who wish to have paranormal experiences to have them in fact because their energies attract certain types of sensory perception".», by João Pedro F.
• «(...): love is really blind and sometimes can lead to committing the worst atrocities...»
• «(...) man can not control himself when passion dominates him!»
• «"The study of world folklore - which reflects the activity, the thought of a time and of a people - is as the study of humanity. (...) the evocation of local values, private and human conceptions." (...) "the historical legend is based on real facts, but the narrator changes the truth in order to prove it.», by Jean-Pierre Bayard.
• «"The legends (...) are true mirrors of the mentality that created them." (...). "(...) myths that may possibly respond or explain their anxieties, their worries..."», by Manuela Mendonça.
• «The legends (...) are stories about (...) nobility of character (...).»
• «(...) the enchanted Moorish women (...), only in Portugal do not have the baleful feature attributed to them in other cultures. (...), some argue that they are the riches that the Arabs left behind in their flight.»
• «In general, the apparitions happen more often at 'midnight', at 'midday' or at the 'St. John evenings' - Solstice - which have a very old meaning and linked to pagan cults of ancestors. (...) St. John evening, that in which conventional wisdom said to be the evening that 'all spirits are let loose on earth' (...).»
• «In medieval times, as well as functioning as barracks, lookout post and residence of the lords of the nobility, castles were also true centers of promotion of village life, and so it was not by chance that most cities grew from these points (...). (...) cultural exchange circuit (...).»
• «In the old Quinta da Lagoa [farm of the pond], in Faia (...), (...) king Chiquito (...) loved sow discord and intrigue and had fun with the hassles of others, (...) he kept causing disparate disorders among friends, neighbors and even families with no guilty conscience.», by Fernanda Frazão.