Haunted Island Up For Grabs

Poveglia Island by Jim Nolan

Italy, home to Dante Alighieri who famously wrote about his journey through hell in Inferno (first act in his Divine Comedy trilogy, shall we say), is also the home to what is known as "hell on Earth"--a tiny island in the lagoon just off the famed city of Venice.

Why is it haunted then?



Well, here are a few points from its interesting history:

Povaglia Asylum

• It was used as a refuge from barbarian invasions (starting around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire)--to little use as the island still saw many a battle.
• It was used as a quarantine place for thousands of people suffering from the plague during the Black Death sweep over Europe (1348-50).
• It became a quarantine location again in the late 1700s are more outbreaks of plague hit the region.
• A building on the island was redeveloped in 1922 into a mental asylum where people were supposedly a Hannibal-like psychiatrist tortured his patients before committing suicide.

Today, though the public isn't allowed to visit, thousands of human skeletons pave its grounds like some macabre death roads. But, if this doesn't deter anyone, the island is currently up for auction (May 2014). Anyone interested?

A mass tomb on Poveglia

Sources:

Planet Save article

Wikipedia

Daily News

If You're Going Through Hell, Keep Going.

Note: Quote by Churchill.

For There Is But Unity...

These last few days I've plunged back into my The Heritage of World Civilizations textbook, and am currently going over the section on the Islamic World from 1000 to 1500 C.E. (A truly vast world already by then!), and fell on this really interesting piece of poetry written by Jalaluddin Rumi.

Rumi, who died in 1273 C.E. was a very influential Muslim mystic, though at one point he appears to have stopped seeing himself seen as being one way vs. another, as he put aside duality:

Jalaluddin Rumi

What to do, Muslims? For I do not recognize myself; not

a Christian I nor Jew, Zoroastrian nor Muslim....

Not of India am I nor China, not Bulgar-land nor Turkistan;

not the Kingdom of Both Iraqs nor the Land of Khurasan.

Not of this World am I nor the next, not of heaven or hell;

not of Adam nor Eve, not of Paradise nor Ridwan.

My place is no place, my trace has no trace; not body

nor soul, for I belong to the soul of Love.

Duality have I put aside, I have seen both worlds as one.

One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

He is the first, He the last; He the Outward, He the inward.

~Diwan-i Shams-i Tabriz*

A truly inspirational piece that tells us to put our differences aside.

*Translated from Arabic by John Alden Williams, reprinted from The World of Islam, ed. by John Alden Williams (1994).