PSYCHIC DETECTIVE How did Paradise Island turn into hell?
Dore heard a scream and then silence...
In 1929 German doctor Friedrich Ritter left his wife for a former patient named Dore Strauch, 15 years his junior. The couple set sail for Floreana, an uninhabited island, which forms part of the Galapagos in the Pacific Ocean.
Friedrich strongly believed that hard work and a vegetarian diet was the key to a long life. Before leaving Berlin he’d removed all his teeth, predicting his gums would toughen under island life (they didn’t!). He also insisted that poor Dore could conquer her multiple sclerosis through willpower alone...
The heat on the island was blistering and Friedrich and Dore took to walking around naked, but for knee-high boots to protect them from the thorny vegetation and volcanic rocks, as they cleared the land and built a house. Their unusual lifestyle might have remained private, but their letters to family and friends, sent via passing ships, got leaked to the newspapers. The tale of the doctor and his lover, living alone in the wilderness, caught the attention of the masses and, before long, others arrived on the island. Most left quickly as the realities of going ‘back to nature’ hit. But one family decided to tough it out. Pregnant Margret Wittmer and her husband Heinz, a former World War One officer with heart problems, arrived in 1930, with their teenage son Harry.
The two families largely avoided one another, living an hour’s walk apart, though Friedrich did help deliver Margret’s new baby, Rolf, in the cave in which the Wittmers first set up home.
An uneasy peace settled on the island. Until another new arrival shook things up…
Wealthy young Austrian Eloise Wehrborn de WagnerBosquet arrived on Floreana with three men in tow: an architect and an engineer (Germans Robert Phillipson and Rudolph Lorenz) and an Ecuadorian manservant, Manuel Valdivieso.
Eloise immediately declared herself the ‘Baroness’ and ‘Empress’ of Floreana and, to the existing islanders’ horror, announced plans to build a massive hotel. Strutting around in skimpy outfits and soon a fast favourite with passing sailors, Eloise ruffled feathers.
The Wittmers, Dora and Friedrich hated their new neighbour. They believed Eloise was going through their post and telling mocking stories about them to visiting sailors.
Meanwhile, Eloise’s apparent love triangle was growing more complex. Robert was said to regularly beat Rudolph, forcing him to seek refuge with the Wittmers.
On 27th March 1934 Eloise and Robert disappeared, apparently without trace.
Valdivieso, Eloise’s servant, boarded the very next boat that visited Floreana and returned to mainland Ecuador.
Rudolph Lorenz also fled with a Norwegian fisherman, but months later both he and the fisherman were found mummified on another island.
In another twist Friedrich Ritter died eight months later, apparently from food poisoning.
Before his passing his relationship with Dore had been strained. As she’d begun using a cane to walk due to her MS, he’d apparently been disdainful, refusing to speak to her for days on end.
After Friedrich’s death Dore returned to Germany, where she died in 1943.
Harry Wittmer lost his life in a drowning accident a few years later, but his younger brother, Rolf, remained on Floreana.
Margret also stayed on the island until she died in 2000, almost 40 years after Heinz.
But what had happened to Eloise and Robert?
Both Dore and Margret wrote books about their lives on the
island, but their accounts of the disappearance differed.
Margret claimed the couple had announced they were going to Tahiti on a friend’s yacht and had asked her family to watch their home and belongings.
Dore said no yacht had ever come – and on the day of the disappearance she had heard a single drawn-out scream, followed by silence…
Eloise and Robert were never seen again.
The two accounts of Friedrich’s death differed too.
Dore claimed a drought had led to a dearth of vegetables, so she and Friedrich had boiled some dead chickens they had found, despite being vegetarians.
Margret apparently found it suspicious that the chicken had killed Friedrich, while Dore was fine… also pointing out that Dore had seemingly waited until Friedrich was beyond saving to seek help.
Dore reported a touching deathbed scene in Friedrich’s last moments, while Margret claimed he had scrawled a note cursing Dora with his last breath...
Margret Wittmer never changed her story about the yacht to Tahiti, though she apparently loved dropping hints that she knew more than she was letting on.
Dora, meanwhile, claimed she and Friedrich had been certain Lorenz had murdered Eloise and Robert – and the Wittmers had helped cover it up.
No one knows how Lorenz and the Norwegian fisherman ended up on the island of Marchena, far from their destination of San Cristobal.
Can my guides shed any light on this twisted and sorry story?
Theory 1
Whenever Lorenz stayed with the Wittmers he would fire them up with talk of the Baroness ruining the island with her hotel plans. I sense Eloise was a selfish person, with little respect for the land and animals on Floreana. Lorenz also had a huge grievance with Robert, who constantly goaded Lorenz about having won Eloise’s heart and attention. With the situation worsening, Lorenz started to make plans.
Theory 2
Friedrich and Dore’s relationship was strained. Friedrich had become bitter since the Wittmer’s arrival, and he took his anger out on Dore. The addition of Eloise to the island provoked him to new levels of anger and resentment. Dore, who was struggling with her mental as well as physical health, had fallen out of love with Friedrich and was desperate to leave the island, but was prevented from doing so by him. I sense they knew what had happened to Eloise and Robert. And Dore wasn’t exactly devastated by Friedrich’s demise.
Theory 3
Island life was treacherous and the harsh exposed environment was conducive to tragic deaths, such as Harry drowning a few years after Eloise and Robert’s disappearance. But while some of the deaths on the island were natural, others were caused by another’s murderous hand.
If you take a look at any survey about spiritual beliefs, chances are it says that more women than men believe in spirits.
One survey by YouGov in 2019, showed that of the 43% of American adults who believed loved ones can come back to Earth after death, 51% were women and just 35% men.
Among Brits, it’s a similar picture. A YouGov survey showed that British women were 10% more likely to believe in ghosts than men, and 17% more likely to believe in the afterlife.
One academic who has tried to find out why this might be is Sarah Ward, author of a recent study published in the Journal of Research in Personality. She concluded there were several reasons, including whether someone feels in control.
‘Feeling in control makes people less likely to believe in magic,’ she told psychology website PsyPost. ‘Men tend to feel a higher sense of control than women, which might explain why they are less likely to believe in magical phenomena.’
However, Sarah says another reason women are more likely to believe in spirits is that they listen to their intuition more than men.
‘People who trust their intuition and rely on their gut feelings and hunches are more likely to believe in magic and superstitions,’ she says. ‘Women trust their intuition more strongly than men do, which helps account for why they express higher beliefs in phenomena like ghosts, fate and karma.’
Traditionally, it has been acceptable for females to act on their feelings. It’s so widespread, it has a name – women’s intuition. Males, however, have generally been encouraged to rely on facts and logic.
Experts believe the reason men are less likely to trust their intuition is down to these outdated gender stereotypes.
That’s certainly the case according to American psychic medium Joe Perreta.
He told Gwyneth Paltrow’s goop website: ‘I think intuition is a human thing. But if men start shutting down their feelings or deflecting their emotions, it can end up shutting down their intuition.’
Figures appear to show that the cultural and social expectations that reportedly make men more likely to shut down their intuition in turn make them less likely to sense the presence of spirit in the first place.
In the 2019 YouGov US poll, 41% of women compared to 31% of men claim to have sensed the presence of a spirit or ghost.
But does that mean women are more psychic than men?
ALL THINGS EQUAL
While women appear more likely to recognise and use their psychic senses, experts agree that men and women are actually born with the same level of natural psychic ability.
Simon Curwood, director of the Spiritual Workers Association, says: ‘Women and men have equal inherent psychic abilities. Intuition is part of being human. Everyone has had that feeling when the phone rings and they know who is calling. It’s just some people develop it more than others.
‘Intuition is like a muscle. If you use and train it, it becomes stronger. Everyone has a psychic instinct that can be developed.’
But according to psychic medium Andrew James, another social factor also comes into play.
‘Women are just more likely than men to admit to being spiritual,’ he says. ‘There’s still a stigma around men admitting they believe in the spirit world. There’s an old-fashioned mentality that spirituality is an emotional, feminine thing, not a masculine thing, but that’s simply not the case.’
That stigma also appears to be reflected in the number of women compared to men who go to psychics and mediums for readings. Andrew, who offers readings in person and online, estimates that a whopping 85% of his clients are female.
‘For women, it’s seen as acceptable to go for a reading. Sadly, many men fear eyebrows will be raised or they’d be laughed at,’ says Andrew.
SHIFTING TIMES
Like Andrew, the majority of psychic medium Anne Scholes’ clients are female. However, she says that’s something that is slowly starting to change.
‘I certainly have more male clients now than I used to,’ she says. ‘When I started out working on psychic phone lines 17 years ago, most men wouldn’t dream of having a reading and it was very rare that a man called.
‘Now, however, I’d say around 30% of my clients are men. Often, they come for a reading because a woman – their wife or a friend or relative – has advised them to because there is an area of their life they need help with. It can be their work, love life or because they are struggling to come to terms with the death of a loved one. When they’ve been once, they often return because the first reading really helped them.
‘And women sometimes bring their husbands for a reading. Afterwards, the wife will ring me and say: “That was just what he needed!”
‘Men are beginning to learn what women have known for years – that having a spiritual reading is deeply healing.’
One area that has more of a balance is the number of men now working as psychics and mediums. That’s certainly something Simon Curwood has noticed.
‘Traditionally, men’s and women’s roles were different and women were far more likely to work as mediums and psychics,’ he says. ‘As recently as 20 years or so ago there were more women than men working as psychics and mediums.
‘But since then it has balanced out and I would say now an equal number of men and women work in the spiritual field. It’s a reflection of a real social shift and that can only be a good thing.’
Andrew James agrees that men are now more likely to feel they are able to follow a spiritual path. He says: ‘There are a lot of brilliant male mediums. So many are starting to stand up and say: “This is who I am”.
‘I’d advise any man who is thinking about developing as a medium to go for it. They’ll be providing a valuable service that helps countless people, both women and men.’
Whenever you move into a new place, you want to put your own stamp on it, don’t you? To really make it feel like home.
It was January 2015 and I’d just moved into a 1940s house with my kids Maysie, then eight and Mikey, five. So when I spotted a series of three abstract paintings of human figures in the charity shop at the end of the road for just a few quid, I snapped them up.
Brown and beige, they went perfectly with my living room curtains and they’d soon taken pride of place on the wall, either side of my fireplace.
Before long we’d settled in and all was quiet in the house, except for the fact that I kept having strange electrical problems.
The lights would often flicker for no reason and the LED ceiling spots, which were supposed to last for years and years, kept on popping until every single one had needed to be replaced.
I vaguely wondered if there might be a supernatural explanation. After all, I knew for a fact Spirit was real...
My earliest memory, aged around two, was seeing a mysterious white figure in my nan’s bedroom. Then when
I was 12 I saw my granddad standing on the landing, two months after he’d died... Around the same time, I’d seen my dad, who’d died when I was a baby, standing by the front gate.
As a teenager I learnt that my mum was psychic, and thought that might be why
I was able to see Spirit, too.
Now, whenever the lights flickered or yet another light blew, I did wonder if there might be something spooky going on.
If so, I figured it wasn’t causing me any other trouble, so I largely ignored it.
Until one night when I’d been in the house around two years. Lying in bed, I suddenly felt something odd. It was like a powerful fan had been switched on behind my head, only instead of blowing, it was sucking, hard. I was too scared to turn and look as I felt an odd feeling inside, like something was trying to drain all my energy.
Finally, after what must have been around 30 seconds, whatever it was stopped and I lay, exhausted, wondering what on earth had happened. Had a vortex opened up in my bedroom!? And if so, who did you call to fix that?
To my relief the next few months passed quietly.
Then one night I couldn’t settle and got up to go to the loo. It was the height of Summer and still light outside when I stepped back into my bedroom and found I couldn’t catch my breath.
I’d just been diagnosed with asthma, although I’d never had an attack. Was this my first, I wondered?
I managed to lie down on the bed and tried to reach for my inhaler on the bedside table, but it was as though someone was restraining my arms. Panic rose as I felt the same strange vortex-y feeling I’d experienced before, except this time it seemed to be on top of me, pinning me down.
When I looked, two giant red demonic eyes, shaped like cat’s eyes and very far apart, were looking down at me. And what looked like coloured light was coming out of me and tapering to a point above.
I felt paralysed, whether by fear or something holding me down I didn’t know. I tried to fight, a terrible highpitched ringing, making my eardrums feel like they were about to burst.
It felt like a real battle of wills as, despite not being religious, I managed to make the sign of the cross on my forehead and began to pray.
Thankfully, it seemed to break whatever spell I was under. The ringing noise stopped, my arms felt free and
I felt the same vortex-y feeling
I was able to breathe again, in between terrified sobs.
This time I knew I had to do something, but what?
In desperation I saw the doctor, but although he listened sympathetically there wasn’t much he could do.
Then I remembered a psychic who I’d used once before for a card reading, after a friend had recommended her.
Her name was Maria and she agreed to come to my house to take a look.
She arrived armed with a candle and a cross and as soon as she walked in she pointed at my set of pictures from the charity shop.
‘Why have you got these?’ she asked, stepping towards the paintings. As she got close to them, the flame on her candle shot up!
‘Something is attached to these pictures,’ she said, sounding serious. ‘You’ve brought something into your home with them .... and it’s not happy!’
Maria reckoned that she could clear whatever it was so
I left her to it.
Afterwards she reassured me she’d cleared the paintings, but I wasn’t prepared to take any chances.
I got rid of all three, leaving them out on bin night. It felt a bit of a waste, but I didn’t want to take them back to the charity shop and risk inflicting whatever I’d unleashed in my home on anybody else! For 18 months all was quiet again and I was so relieved. But then, six months ago I woke with mysterious scratches all over my hand. And whenever I recorded a video in the house I would always capture loads of orbs.
Finally, in November last year I’d had enough and I moved out of the house.
So far, all is quiet in our new place and I bought a brand new picture of an angel – hopefully that will give me some protection!
I’ll never know for sure if it was the paintings, the house or me causing my mysterious and frightening episodes. But for now I’ve given up bargain hunting, at least where home decor is concerned!
Demonic eyes were looking at me