Aradale


Book Description

First built in 1867, the remarkable Gothic structure of the former Ararat Lunatic Asylum, colloquially known as Aradale, has overlooked the regional town of Ararat for over 150 years. Throughout its history it has seen remarkable transformations in the history of Australian psychiatry and western society's treatment of the mentally ill, and it has participated in some of their darkest scandals. Today in popular press, the labyrinthine complex is commonly acclaimed as 'Australia's most haunted building' and is home to a flourishing dark tourism industry boasting tens of thousands of visitors a year. This book explores the history of the former asylum, and examines what is it that makes a place 'haunted' in the popular imagination, and what it is about hauntings that so invariably connects them with problematic histories.




The World's Most Haunted Hospitals


Book Description

A paramedic and paranormal investigator takes readers on a terrifying tour of haunted hospitals, asylums, and medical facilities across the globe. Hospitals are the nexus point between life and death, the place into which people enter this world, but also exit it. When we consider what has taken place behind the closed doors of hospitals since the inception of the medical profession, it should come as no surprise to discover that so many of them are haunted. In The World's Most Haunted Hospitals, paramedic and paranormal investigator Richard Estep recounts some of the most fascinating—and chilling—stories of hospital hauntings from across the globe, including: The apparitions at an old Utah hospital, now a nursing home, whose appearances are said to predict a patient's death. The Italian island referred to by locals as "the gateway to Hell," where the spirits of thousands of plague victims prowl the streets. The terrifying phenomena that keep visitors away from an abandoned airbase hospital in the Philippines. The ghostly nurse who has haunted the corridors of a London hospital for generations.




Abandoned Hospitals


Book Description

It seems peculiar that hospitals—places where people’s lives are saved—can be downright creepy once they’re abandoned. Leftover medical instruments, stained walls, and mysterious sounds all contribute to the unsettling feeling one gets once inside. Luckily, readers won’t have to travel to deserted hospitals around the world. They can tour them in the pages of this hair-raising volume. They’ll visit the Taunton State Hospital in Massachusetts, Old Changi Hospital in Singapore, and others. Plenty of history is mixed in with the odd anecdotes connected with each, and a chilling design and images add to the eerie ambience.




Institutions in Turbulent Environments


Book Description

Published in 1999. Contemporary organizations are faced with increasingly rapid and dramatic change within their political, cultural and technological environments. Institutions in Turbulent Environments critically examines the way organizations respond to these changes,with a particular focus upon the institutional disability sector. The book examines available theory concerning organizational contingency, adaptation and population ecology. It utilizes a framework developed from this theory to examine the ways in which a major institution for the intellectually disabled responded to the turbulence within its environment. It uses this data to re-examine theory and to propose changes to the way organization/environment relationships are understood.




History of the Criminal Justice System in Victoria


Book Description

This is an authoritative, comprehensive account of Victoria’s justice system, starting with a tour of the historic justice precinct which is located on the corner of La Trobe Street and Russell Street, Melbourne. The author takes us back to the earliest days of Victoria’s settlement and introduces the politicians, police, magistrates, and even the criminals who played their parts in Melbourne and Victoria’s development. We are shown how the prison hulks developed into stockades on land, and uncover the philosophy behind the construction of the prisons – many no longer occupied – and the building of courts which were built for conducting trials, both civil and criminal. The book is, in many ways, an insight into an aspect of Victoria’s social history about which little has been written elsewhere. It is a valuable addition to the justice bibliography and even exposes a mystery or two. It took seven years to research and fact check, and includes many photos. All of the author’s proceeds of this book after costs will be donated to Victoria Police Legacy, which looks after families of deceased police officers who have died in the course of their duties.




The Palgrave Handbook of Incarceration in Popular Culture


Book Description

The Handbook of Incarceration in Popular Culture will be an essential reference point, providing international coverage and thematic richness. The chapters examine the real and imagined spaces of the prison and, perhaps more importantly, dwell in the uncertain space between them. The modern fixation with ‘seeing inside’ prison from the outside has prompted a proliferation of media visions of incarceration, from high-minded and worthy to voyeuristic and unrealistic. In this handbook, the editors bring together a huge breadth of disparate issues including women in prison, the view from ‘inside’, prisons as a source of entertainment, the real worlds of prison, and issues of race and gender. The handbook will inform students and lecturers of media, film, popular culture, gender, and cultural studies, as well as scholars of criminology and justice.




Dark Folklore


Book Description

How did our ancestors use the concept of demons to explain sleep paralysis? Is that carving in the porch of your local church really what you think it is? And what's that tapping noise on the roof of your car..? The fields of folklore have never been more popular – a recent resurgence of interest in traditional beliefs and customs, coupled with morbid curiosities in folk horror, historic witchcraft cases and our superstitious past, have led to an intersection of ideas that is driving people to seek out more information. Tracey Norman (author of the acclaimed play WITCH) and Mark Norman (creator of The Folklore Podcast) lead you on an exploration of those more salubrious facets of our past, highlighting those aspects of our cultural beliefs and social history that are less 'wicker basket' and more 'Wicker Man'.




The Maddest Place on Earth


Book Description

Gold-fuelled Melbourne was booming, but dwelling in the fault lines of the proud young colony was an alarming fact – Victoria had the highest rate of insanity in the world. Was it the antipodean sun, gold mania, excessive masturbation, the heady pace of modern life? The true story of colonial Victoria’s quest to cure insanity unfolds through the lives of three English newcomers – a gifted artist, exiled from his homeland for his madness; an ambitious doctor, bringing enlightened treatment ideals to his post in charge of the overflowing asylum; and a mysterious undercover journalist, who sensationally exposed the lunatics’ plight in Melbourne’s press. Amid the clamour of fraught endeavours and maddened minds, the story reveals unexpected hope, creativity and ennobling humanity – and surprising contemporary relevance as we continue to grapple with this ancient human malady. Jill Giese is a clinical psychologist and writer, whose extensive career in mental health encompasses many years of clinical practice and executive roles in policy and advocacy.




Ghosts Of Aradale Asylum


Book Description

If you like a good ghost story from an absolutely haunted location but love them even better if they are based on real experiences, then this book is for you.Aradale Asylum was the biggest mental institution in the southern hemisphere and was made up of over 65 buildings with approx 13,000 deaths within it's walls. Standing on the top of a hill Aradale is truly an imposing structure looking over the landscape below.As with many asylums from the past patients were not always treated well, used to test out new methods of helping those considered mentally challenged or just for medical experimentations, by medical doctors and staff that may not have had the best intentions, we can imaging he psychological and physical torture many patient's endured and this may be the reason for the intense paranormal activity that is found throughout the building.With over thirty-five years of experience in the paranormal field William "Bill" Tabone has spent a great deal of time in this amazing and haunted location. The amount of experiences people have had in Aradale Asylum are extraordinary and it is this reason that Aradale is considered Australia's most haunted location.




Neither Bad Nor Mad


Book Description

This book looks at what happened when the government of Victoria, Australia enacted special legislation to detain one person with a severe antisocial personality disorder on the grounds of his presumed dangerousness, despite the fact that he did not fit within the ordinary criteria of mental illness or criminality.