The Black Rose

There is hardly a person under 50 who has not heard of the most famous sect of the ex-Yugoslavia (and beyond), the mythical Black Rose, an alleged Satanic secret organization that engages in a wide range of activities - from ritual suicides to desecration of cemeteries, from animal sacrifices to listening to Punk Rock and Death Metal, drug use and orgies - and all in the glory of the Evil One who is hungry for the fragile and innocent souls of teenagers.

Non-existent but omnipresent, when it comes to Black Rose, it is always about `knowing` about sectarian activities at first hand, a friend of the mother-in-law of the neighbor's wedding party told how a high school student got lost somewhere after a long-term experience in Black Rose...However, all roads to the beginnings of this cult-status Cult lead to Zagreb. There are several versions of the emergence of the elusive sect, and they are all fascinating in their own way.

One version is that the most distant trace of the term Crna Ruža (Black Rose) led to a café of the same name in Zagreb, sometime around the time Tito died, and at that time there was an infestation of metalheads, punks, and other sectarians who, dressed shockingly and scandalously, frequented the Crna Ruža café, a name that later became a symbol of blackness, cemeteries, listening to opaque vinyl records, and yellow candles. The moral citizenry was disturbed by such a place where their children gathered and sold their souls to the devil en masse. It was allegedly located in a basement room (logically, underground, closer to Hades)...The fate of the catering facility that bore that name is unknown; some claimed that it collapsed during the `Homeland War`, and some that the cult café was eaten up by the transition... at least that is one of the theories about the origin of the sect.

Another version talks about a heavy metal band called Crna Ruža, formed in the late seventies and early eighties in Zagreb and fronted by Nancy, a young female vocalist. The media at that time created an umbrella term for all new manifestations of anti-social behavior coming from the rotten West (Punk, Metal, New Wave, Post Punk, Hard Rock) at that time. That term was ``Darkers'', probably because of the black color that prevailed in the dress code of the fans of the aforementioned trends. The band and Nancy had limited success with gigs in second-rate clubs and allegedly later, under the burden of unfulfilled dreams, drugs, alcohol and sex - Nancy committed suicide by jumping from the eighth floor, which gave rise to the legend of the suicidal norm that the members of Crna Ruža had to fulfill. The Black Rose was promoted from a metal band into a sect through the media of the time and the rest is history...

A third version is that of the UDBA, a ubiquitous and unfortunately existing organization that, in an attempt to preserve the tradition of socialist self-government of the working class of Yugoslavia from the constant threats of Western influence, invented the story and through its media exponents placed it among the public. All this was helped by Nancy's suicide, which was used to create the suicide myth. A fourth variant tells of the famous adventurer and host of a dubious talk show, Željko Malnar, who was allegedly the founder of the Black Rose. Željko was the owner of a cafe (or pub!?) where alternative youth gathered, whom he recruited for membership in the Black Rose. One of the members was Nancy, who in this version was not a band singer but just a metalhead, the daughter of a high-ranking JNA officer who, in his socialist realist rigidity, forbade his daughter from associating with dubious characters and listening to bad music.

Since the teenager was stubborn, smoked, drank, had a bunch of aces on her head (and maybe lice) - the officer decided on a dramatic step - he locked Nancy in the apartment. After some time, Nancy, closed and isolated, went crazy, as they say, and threw herself from the eighth floor. Radio Rumor was the main news broadcaster at the time, so in the Zagreb area, the hysteria around Crna Ruža reached its peak after Nancy's suicide when a furious crowd of worried believers noticed a priest dressed in a black robe coming out of  a car. Who knows why, that situation seemed to them to be somehow `sectarian` and the people beat up the priest, thinking he was `Darker`...and he was neither guilty nor obliged, he was just wearing a black priest's uniform! This was not the only attack on an employee in the church ranks, and there were similar attacks on other people who wore black clothing...

The fifth clue leads to Zagreb Satanist and `Nepo baby` Aleksandar Miles, a red-bourgeois kid who is known for organizing the theft of thousands of rare books from the National University Library in Zagreb, worth millions of marks at the time, which were later smuggled and sold to private collections in Austria and Germany. It is said that the Black Rose was a criminal, not a religious, organization that Miles founded and developed as a network for the theft and smuggling of rare books, although over time the group reoriented itself to other lucrative fields, such as drug trafficking, for example. Miles was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to fifteen years in prison along with part of the group. After a failed escape attempt in which Miles even managed to take a cop hostage, the Satanist fell into depression and committed suicide in 1994. The group allegedly survived after the death of its leader and even developed into a significant factor in the criminal underworld in the Balkans, and the murders disguised as suicides during criminal encounters, together with the Satanism of the perpetrator, were the reason for the birth of the media story about a sect called the Black Rose...

The six hundred and sixty-sixth version accuses the church of being the organizer of the Black Rose myth. In an attempt to scare the flock and return the youth to the right path, a group of Catholic priests hired several godly journalists to publish stories about the presence of the devil on the streets of Zagreb and beyond, hoping that the youth would be horrified by the wave of alleged suicides caused by the unbridled lifestyle and general immorality, and their parents would have a new `Baba Roga` with which will scare their children. Later, these stories, following the principle of `broken telephone`, spread throughout all ex-Yu countries, where they are still present in the printed media and internet portals. That the road to hell is not paved with black roses but with good intentions is best evidenced by the fact that today almost every suicide of a person under 30 years of age in any of the ex-Yu countries must be associated with a Black Rose in at least one media outlet, a testament to the durability of mass hallucination, to the need for a hidden enemy lurking in the darkness and who, although diabolical - will take upon himself all the parental and systemic sins that led a young person to take his own life...

(Roger Mortis, 068)

Dream Holiday

What's wrong with a guy taking his girlfriend on a romantic Christmas vacation?

Nothing special, unless the guy suddenly starts showing signs of absent-mindedness, lost in the distance, and insisting on an undefined, fixed idea. Peter Gibbs, a musician and occasional pilot, landed his girlfriend in a rented Cessna-150 on the hotel runway (there was such a thing) in Glenforsa, on the island of Mull in northern Scotland. It would seem like the beginning of a dream vacation for the couple in love... and that's how it was until Christmas dinner on 24/25.12.1975. The two had a few glasses of wine and were probably about to head to the hotel room to indulge in carnal pleasures - when suddenly... Peter started saying that he had to take off right then and there, alone, right away, without delay!

His girlfriend, expectedly shocked and surprised by his insistence on flying, received no answer, Peter seemed a little confused and absent-minded and answered all her questions with vague phrases that boiled down to the fact that he had to take off immediately. The girl found herself in a dilemma but still decided to do what Peter asked of her, i.e. to help him take off. It was approaching midnight, it was pitch black outside and there was also fog. With a flashlight in her hands, the girl headed to the end of the runway to signal where it ended and how far her boyfriend had to separate from the runway with the plane. Perhaps the fact that Peter was an ex-RAF pilot and had quite a bit of experience with planes gave her some kind of security.

Peter successfully took off...aaaaaaaaaand was not seen again...at least not alive.

After takeoff - he completely disappeared. An alarm was raised, the police and the coast guard searched for him along with other citizens who joined the search...completely unsuccessfully.

And again, suddenly, in early April 1976, there was Peter! But unfortunately, only as a corpse, about three kilometers from the hotel where he was staying with his wife, with no signs of violence except for a minor injury to his leg. And the plane... The Cessna remained missing even though the corpse appeared in a place that had already been searched. The corpse was unusually fresh and without signs of decomposition consistent with three months of being outdoors.

The pathologists reported that death occurred due to frostbite and not as a result of a fall from a height.

Various theories have emerged around this case.

Naturally, the banal explanation of infidelity and an attempt to leave his wife was expected, but Peter did not receive a phone call nor was it ever established that he was cheating, on the other hand, such a dramatic `breakup` is borderline crazy and difficult to imagine and besides, it does not explain anything about the death and the disappearance of the plane. Another theory mentioned that Peter was a spy for MI-5 and was supposed to go on a mission to Northern Ireland where there was a civil war at the time, he was killed there and then the body was returned near the hotel (!?). Quite incredible if you take into account that there are a bunch of ways to deal with a corpse more easily. Besides... where is the Cessna?Eleven years later, in one of the bays of the island of Mal, a few kilometers from the runway but in the opposite direction from where the body was found, the remains of a small plane were discovered, which some assumed was a Cessna, although the plane had obviously hit the water at high speed, causing many of the remains to be scattered around, indicating that it was not a forced landing that would have left the plane to sink as a whole.

The cabin was found, and in it, comfortably nestled, stood a lobster... and legend has it that it was the couple's last dinner at the hotel on December 24, 1975...Later in 2004, the remains of a similar plane were spotted nearby, a Cessna but not a model 150, there was never a definitive answer...Anyway, a more original and exciting vacation that leaves lifelong impressions - the woman could not have imagined.

(Roger Mortis, 067)

The Troll

I don't know exactly when forums emerged as virtual platforms, probably in the mid-nineties since the web has existed since 1990 (www =/= internet) but what is certain is that the most famous troll in history created a username around 1998 and became famous in 2000-2001 by posing as a time traveler!

Today, virtual platforms are already a well-known thing, even the villagers of the Fire Zone and the Indians of Gran Chaco have their own profiles on various networks, the trolls are unsuccessful and obvious and the members are cynical and it is unlikely that anyone would raise an uproar like the one raised by the user TimeTravel_0, later known as John Titor, on several American forums. The user started threads and chats about an apocalypse that would follow in the year 2038 due to a computer bug that would not recognize 2038 after January 19th of that year and because of that all Unix-based systems would be reset back to 1901 and with that shit would follow on planet Earth.

John Titor's original time destination was 1975 and he personally existed in 2036 and had to go back to the time of afro-haircuts and bell-ringers to find an IBM-5100 computer because only such a machine could be used to fix the bug due to the use of the APL and BASIC programming languages ​​(!?).

For personal reasons, he took a short break in 2000 (for a time traveler, it's like stopping at Straža for a cigarette and some cookies, I guess) and decided to reorganize the world for the upcoming events. And they weren't fun, a new civil war in America, a breakthrough in quantum research that would lead to the development of time machines, a shitty American election, the collapse of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and of course the Third World War that would last a short time and start this year, 2015.

Today, it's easy to make fun of all of that, but in those innocent virtual times, John Titor was taken seriously by many, his outbursts became the subject of discussion in virtual spaces around the world, radio, television, and newspapers published stories about the `prophet`, later books appeared, and all of that made John one of the first internet celebrities in history, even before the existence of FB and YouTube. The type trolled, trolled and trolled but it was quality trolling, using a solid knowledge base about physics, history, politics and above all dystopian scenarios although it was probably inspired by movies, of course here is Terminator where we have a character returned from the future in order to protect the woman who is supposed to give birth to the leader of the resistance against the machines and of course Back to the Future because Titor claimed that the time machine is an adapted car from the 2030s, a homage to the immortal automotive flop DeLorean, the 1.21 Gigawatts and the 88 miles per hour...

But all that net-popularity brought him nothing because the `Curse of the Troll` came on the scene which means that the troll cannot overcome his troll identity and appear in public as a real person because that would eliminate everything he claimed in the form of a virtual character. Unlike later net-celebrities, Titor remained within the virtual and somewhere in March 2001 he stopped posting forever. (Or at least on the topic of `time travel`)...

It was never found out who was the character behind all this, IP, cookie and provider-based searches did not bear fruit, which testifies to the troll's fairly good IT skills. Later, an Italian TV station hired a private detective who was guided by the logic that the troll must be an IT specialist. The investigation showed the existence of a company named John Titor which appeared in 2003 in Florida but only as a registered entity without offices and employees and although without definitive evidence, the conclusion was that the troll was the brother of the company's founder, an IT specialist named John Haber who for unknown reasons started trolling the Internet.

There was no definitive evidence, but indications pointed to the identity of the troll, whose originality and creativity could not be denied. Today, there are no such trolls anymore, only retards who annoy the world and for whom it would be said that it would be better to be themselves, no matter how boring and imbecile they are, because their alter ego is idiotic and worthless, a phenomenon that not a single virtual platform that offers an incognito identity is deprived of.

(Roger Mortis, 066)

Seeking the Sun

In the bright annals of sectarianism, the name of the Order of the Solar Temple is written in pale gold letters, an international cult that became famous through ritual suicides, murders, connections with organized crime and providing refuge to escaped Nazis. What more could you want from a sect?

Based in the Francophone world and founded in the fifties, this sect preached teachings based on Catholic mysticism mixed with general Esotericism, believed that they were the heirs of the Knights Templar and awaited the second coming of Jesus. In addition, they were actively engaged in the search for the Antichrist and in the collection of suspicious characters with a Nazi past, such as ex-Gestapo man Max Heindl. Among other things, they were inspired by the teachings of the Thelemic duke Aleister Crowley, although they were not strangers to the belief in aliens.

And it is well known that any sect that cares about its reputation must have contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, simply it`s a must...so the Order would have existed as another fringe group of sectarians, if there had not been a change in the leadership of the sect. Certain Joseph di Mambro and Luc Jure appeared on the scene in the eighties and began radicalizing the belief structure. The escalation began in 1993 when it is believed that the first ``purges`` were carried out, murders of members but also of ``civilians``, culminating in the murder of a baby who was liquidated due to unfounded suspicions that it was the Antichrist himself, I assume that they probably watched the movie Omen and took it all too seriously.

The baby was killed on a specially prepared altar using a wooden stake through the heart. Although it is more of an anti-vampire than an anti-devil technology, according to the sect members it was also effective against newborn devils.

A few weeks after the murder of the baby, convinced that they must ascend to a new dimension, in 1994 at several locations in France, Switzerland and Canada, the sect members organized a `last supper` (it is not known what the menu of that culinary event was), dressed in the latest sect fashion (quasi-knight's robes), committed mass suicides and murders of those who were `weak` in order to take their own lives... and in all of this, at least 54 people suffered, including the aforementioned sect leaders. The media and the police entered the scene, but despite this, the sect members continued with sporadic suicides and homicides at least until 1999, when it is believed that a total of 79 victims had fallen, although some speculate that the figure was between 100 and 110 dead.

The new leader of the sect in its post-suicidal version was tried in France in the early 21st century but was acquitted due to lack of evidence. This sect did not receive the media coverage of the People's Temple or Aum Shinrikyo (Canada may not be as televised as the United States), but it was nevertheless one of the most violent cults of the twentieth century, at the turn of the millennium - which for some reason irritated sectarians from Tokyo to Krakow and from Geneva to Pretoria and represented a serious motive for sectarian violence directed at itself...and at the world.

(Roger Mortis, 065)

The Devil in Love

That dealing with devils and occultism is never a good idea, the best example was the French writer Jacques Cazotte, an unusual character for his time, probably the first science fiction writer in the world (he wrote about submarines sailing through the Mediterranean) and one of the early romantics, one could say something like a typical Trendsetter person of his time. His most famous novel was the romantic adventure `Le Diable Amoreux` (The Devil in Love) where the main character fell in love with a woman who was actually Lucifer...

As an original person, he was often invited to the parties of the aristocracy of the time, and one day in 1788 he was invited to the very cream of the French society of the time, including the king and queen (the one with the cakes). Since rumors often appeared that Cazotte had the ability to see the future, those present joked and told jokes about him, which after a while angered Jacques. And then he asked to address the audience with a few predictions...

First he announced that very soon (he did not specify an exact date) major riots, unprecedented in France, would begin. The audience was not impressed, as there had always been riots and rebellions...but then Cazotte announced that the king and queen would end up beheaded!

A tense and uncomfortable silence ensued, the classic conversational `bomb`, to put it into perspective, the same effect would have if a guy came to a big party, took off his clothes and shitted in the middle of the room/podium/bar/whatever. But that was just the beginning, as his fellow writer Nicolas Chamfort tried to downplay the impact of Jacques' statement...only to provoke him even more, with Jacques telling him that in a few years Chamfort would die in agony after 22 failed suicide attempts

That already seemed excessive, come on, the king and queen, but 22 suicide attempts!?

Next was the Marquis Condorcet, for whom the prediction was the same - that he would die by his own hand, but less dramatically (by poisoning) and shortly before he was to be tried...Finally, a certain Jean-François Delarpe, a hardened skeptic and atheist, joined the conversation, who tried to ridicule Cazotte, but in vain, and the final prediction followed - that Delarpe would become a fanatical Christian... Obviously upset and before answering the questions about his own future, Jacques Cazotte left the party.

No one knows whether the present cadres took it seriously, as they continued to joke about it after Cazotte's departure...but later in their lives, that evening must have come back to them vividly, purely to torment them in the last days of their stay in this world. The French Revolution began a year after the aforementioned party, just as Jacques had predicted. The king and queen ended up beheaded, Chamfort in an attempt to avoid arrest attempted suicide but discovered that the blade of the knife was quite dull and needed 22 cuts around the veins to finally 'succeed' (he died of blood loss a few days later), the Marquis Condorcet became a prominent figure in the revolution but after voting against the death penalty for the king - he fell out of favor with the Jacobins and was arrested and in the spirit of the situation, knowing that the guillotine was working 24/7 - in a fit of paranoia he poisoned himself to avoid trial.

Delarpe also participated in the revolution and witnessed the Reign of Terror and all the "beauty" that happened, only to repent a few years later and become a fanatical Christian. Jacques Cazotte did not mention his own future for a reason, because he himself ended up on the guillotine in the whirlwind of the revolution, leaving this sad reality before all his predictions came true.

(Roger Mortis, 064)

Lost Chinamen

At a time when Shuten Doji riding a Tengu was sweeping across the Chinese Mainland and the winds of Absolute Evil, manifesting as Japanese soldiers, were setting new standards of evil and destruction, culminating in the `Rape of Nanking`, the temporary Chinese capital - an event occurred that contained something more than evil. Or less...However, disappearances are everyday tragic events, kidnappings or unexplained cases have always existed. Most often, they are individual disappearances. However, in China, perhaps in accordance with the size of the population - it happened that thousands of people disappeared at once.

During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-45), the most mystical disappearance of as many as 2,900 soldiers, members of the Chinese Army, took place near the city of Nanjing. On December 9, 1939, a battalion of the Chinese army under the command of Colonel Li Fu Hsien arrived as reinforcements for the units trying to stop the Japanese aggressors. It should be noted that it was probably a regiment and not a battalion, since the figure of 3,000 soldiers is much closer to a regiment than to a battalion, which is part of a regiment...

The unit was deployed on a section of the front of about three kilometers, with an outpost of several dozen soldiers ahead. The soldiers arrived in the evening and were deployed in positions by 4 a.m. No clashes were expected during the night, and after sunrise... there was neither a trace nor a sound of the Chinese battalion!

Some officers woke the colonel up because they were worried that they could not get in touch with his soldiers. After several unsuccessful attempts, it was decided to go by vehicle to the scene and see for themselves what the problem was. They had something to see, the trenches, the tents, the warehouses - they were empty. At first they suspected desertion - but desertion of 100% of the soldiers and officers - together is impossible. Besides, they would have left some trace of movement, after all, it was almost 3,000 people. None of that, apart from a few places where a fire had been lit in the evening - there was nothing that would have hinted at the fate of the soldiers.

From the moment of the last communication with members of the battalion to the arrival at the scene by the colonel, only three hours had passed...The colonel and some officers made their way to the outpost where a small group of soldiers from the same battalion were keeping guard and remained the only ones from the battalion who had not disappeared. But they too had seen and heard nothing and were themselves shocked by the news. The surrounding villagers were questioned but they too saw nothing, no one heard any shooting or movement

Another theory was that the battalion surrendered to the Japanese but that turned out to be untrue, as it was determined after the war that the Japanese units on that part of the front did not capture anyone that night and not only that but were not in combat with anyone that night. There was a bridge that had to be crossed to reach the Japanese lines but the Japanese guards did not see anyone. The missing never appeared anywhere, neither in their places of residence nor with their families and friends, they were simply literally swallowed up by the night.

The only Chinese who were more lost than the aforementioned soldiers were the tourists who, in their blissful ignorance, emerged from nowhere at the beginning of the summer of 1992...just in time for the closing of the ring of the Chetnik hordes around Sarajevo...

(Roger Mortis, 063)

No Good deed goes unpunished

The diagnosis of mental illness has always been a fertile ground for abuse. We are not talking about laconic `diagnoses` of everyday laypeople, but about completely professional people, trained in dealing with mental illness, who put their reputation at the service of various regimes, corporations or simply undesirable heirs to a will. From the legendary Lobotomies of enemies of individuals or groups, through the massive diagnostic avalanche of diseases and `illnesses` that results in the use of legal drugs in the amount of tens of billions per year, to the placement of completely normal `mentally ill patients` in insane asylums as punishment for opposing a certain authority or paradigm...

About a year ago in the Canadian city of Halifax, an unknown person began to wander around the city and distribute cash and silver coins to completely unknown people.

The choice of people to whom the guy handed out money (mostly in 50 and 100 dollar denominations) was completely random - from some guy who worked at a gas station to housewives who opened their doors when he rang their bell. The guy had a beard, was of medium build and didn't seem unusual in any way, he wore patched jeans and a sweater. If asked where he was from, he would answer that he came "from the woods" and sometimes he would look up (sent by God!?) or mention something vague in the context that they need to be helped in heaven and their money returned...The reason for this outburst of altruism remains unknown, although the man later mentioned that he wanted to help those in need and humanity in general, but what is well known is the reaction of the system.

And it was expected and fierce.

Namely, the guy was detained and put in an insane asylum because he was handing out money. In the eyes of the state, giving money to strangers is a clear symptom of insanity. In the whole situation, there was no shortage of psychiatrists who would put a signature that leads directly to a room with soft walls...Is there a law that prohibits giving a gift to a stranger, I am not sure, I would say that there is no such thing even in Canada, but a suitable legal act can be found if necessary, because the law is dough in the hands of the government and can be kneaded as needed.

And so the man ended up in a straitjacket...

Some of the people to whom he gave money made a fuss in order to release him and draw attention to the case. The media also got involved and the identity of the character was discovered in a short time, it was a certain Richard Wright and many of his acquaintances, together with his daughter, claim that Richard had no mental illness and that the reaction of the authorities was shameful and frightening. Which brings us to the realization that the path that `undoubtedly` leads to a yellow van and a shirt with sewn-on sleeves is, among other things, through unprovoked good deeds.

(Roger Mortis, 062)